The Experience of Adolescents Who Have Lost a Parent as Expressed Through the Metaphoric Art Processes

The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of individuals who have lost a parent in their adolescence as expressed through metaphoric art processes. This study used phenomenological methodology as a means of collecting and analyzing the data. A review of the literature included information on the process of bereavement and outcomes of bereavement, the developmental goals of normal adolescence, the effect of general bereavement and parental bereavement on adolescent development, psychological interventions with bereaved adolescents, art therapy theory, and the use of art therapy and metaphor with this population.Three healthy participants, two female and one male, of different ethnicities participated in this study. They were asked to respond to a demographic questionnaire, create four pieces of artwork, and participate in an open-ended responsive interview in order to capture an in-depth description of their experience of losing a parent in their adolescence as expressed through the metaphoric art process.A phenomenological data analysis process yielded composite essential structures that seem to suggest that that all three participants have similar experiences in six key areas. All three participants indicated that they felt a pervasive sense of loss and a sense of missing something in their lives. They also reported having difficulty communicating their experience at the time of their respective parent’s death, describing this experience as feeling jumbled, mixed, and chaotic. Similarly, they had difficulty choosing images inthe art making process that represented the complexity of their feelings at the time of the death. Each of the participants also reported efforts to move past the feelings and thoughts they had at the time of the death, as well as the influence that time has on their ability to express these thoughts and feelings. Finally, the data for all three participants seems to suggest that the process of creating the artwork about the death recreated the cognitive and emotional experience of their parent’s death. In this way, the artwork can be used to help individuals process their bereavement, thus lending itself to application in the clinical art therapy field.M.A., Creative Arts in Therapy -- Drexel University, 200

Pilot study outcomes from a resource‐limited setting for a low‐cost training program for laparoscopic surgical skills

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135455/1/ijgo186.pd

Vasoactivity and Vasoconstriction Changes in Cattle Related to Time Off Toxic Endophyte-Infected Tall Fescue

Previous research has indicated that serotonergic and α-adrenergic receptors in peripheral vasculature are affected by exposure of cattle grazing toxic endophyte-infected (E+; Epichlöe coenophialia) tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum). The objective of this experiment was to determine the period of time necessary for the vascular effects of ergot alkaloids to subside. Two experiments were conducted to investigate changes in vascular contractile response and vasoconstriction over time relative to removal from an ergot alkaloid-containing E+ tall fescue pasture. In Experiment 1, lateral saphenous vein biopsies were conducted on 21 predominantly Angus steers (357 ± 3 kg body weight) at 0 (n = 6), 7 (n = 6), 14 (n = 5), or 28 days (n = 4) after removal from grazing pasture (3.0 ha; endpoint ergovaline + ergovalinine = 1.35 mg/kg DM) for 126 days. In Experiment 2, lateral saphenous veins were biopsied from 24 Angus-cross steers (361 ± 4 kg body weight) at 0, 21, 42, and 63 days (n = 6 per time point) following removal from grazing tall fescue pastures (3.0 ha; first 88 days endpoint ergovaline + ergovalinine = 0.15 mg/kg DM; last 18 days endpoint ergovaline + ergovalinine = 0.57 mg/kg DM) for 106 total days. Six steers (370 ± 18 kg body weight) off of bermudagrass pasture for the same time interval were also biopsied on Day 0 and Day 63 (n = 3 per time point). Additionally, in Experiment 2, cross-sectional ultrasound scans of caudal artery at the fourth coccygeal vertebra were taken on Days 0, 8, 15, 21, 29, 36, 42, and 45 to determine mean artery luminal area to evaluate vasoconstriction. In both experiments, steers were removed from pasture and housed in a dry lot and fed a corn silage diet for the duration of biopsies and ultrasound scans. Biopsied vessels used to evaluate vasoactivity were cleaned, incubated in a multimyograph, and exposed to increasing concentrations of 4-Bromo-3,6-dimethoxybenzocyclobuten-1-yl) methylamine hydrobromide (TCB2; 5HT2A agonist), guanfacine (GF; α2A-adrenergic agonist), and (R)-(+)-m-nitrobiphenyline oxalate (NBP; α2C-adrenergic agonist) in both experiments and ergovaline (ERV) and ergotamine (ERT) in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. In Experiment 1, days off pasture × agonist concentration was not significant (p \u3e 0.1) for all four compounds tested. In Experiment 2, GF, NBP, TCB2 and ERT were significant for days off pasture × agonist concentration interaction (p \u3c 0.02) and vasoactivity increased over time. Vasoactivity to agonists was reduced (p \u3c 0.05) when steers were initially removed from E+ tall fescue pasture compared to bermudagrass, but did not differ by Day 63 for any variable. Luminal areas of caudal arteries in steers grazed on E+ tall fescue relaxed and were similar to steers that had grazed bermudagrass for 36 days on non-toxic diet (p = 0.15). These data demonstrate changes in peripheral vasoactivity and recovery from vasoconstriction occur beyond five weeks off toxic pasture and 5HT2A receptors appear to be more dramatically affected in the lateral saphenous vein by grazing E+ tall fescue pasture than adrenergic receptors

The Genome of Deep-Sea Vent Chemolithoautotroph Thiomicrospira crunogena XCL-2

Presented here is the complete genome sequence of Thiomicrospira crunogena XCL-2, representative of ubiquitous chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents. This gammaproteobacterium has a single chromosome (2,427,734 base pairs), and its genome illustrates many of the adaptations that have enabled it to thrive at vents globally. It has 14 methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein genes, including four that may assist in positioning it in the redoxcline. A relative abundance of coding sequences (CDSs) encoding regulatory proteins likely control the expression of genes encoding carboxysomes, multiple dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate transporters, as well as a phosphonate operon, which provide this species with a variety of options for acquiring these substrates from the environment. Thiom. crunogena XCL-2 is unusual among obligate sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in relying on the Sox system for the oxidation of reduced sulfur compounds. The genome has characteristics consistent with an obligately chemolithoautotrophic lifestyle, including few transporters predicted to have organic allocrits, and Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle CDSs scattered throughout the genome

Habitat properties are key drivers of Borrelia burgdorferi (s.l.) prevalence in Ixodes ricinus populations of deciduous forest fragments

Background: The tick Ixodes ricinus has considerable impact on the health of humans and other terrestrial animals because it transmits several tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) such as B. burgdorferi (sensu lato), which causes Lyme borreliosis (LB). Small forest patches of agricultural landscapes provide many ecosystem services and also the disservice of LB risk. Biotic interactions and environmental filtering shape tick host communities distinctively between specific regions of Europe, which makes evaluating the dilution effect hypothesis and its influence across various scales challenging. Latitude, macroclimate, landscape and habitat properties drive both hosts and ticks and are comparable metrics across Europe. Therefore, we instead assess these environmental drivers as indicators and determine their respective roles for the prevalence of B. burgdorferi in I. ricinus. Methods: We sampled I. ricinus and measured environmental properties of macroclimate, landscape and habitat quality of forest patches in agricultural landscapes along a European macroclimatic gradient. We used linear mixed models to determine significant drivers and their relative importance for nymphal and adult B. burgdorferi prevalence. We suggest a new prevalence index, which is pool-size independent. Results: During summer months, our prevalence index varied between 0 and 0.4 per forest patch, indicating a low to moderate disservice. Habitat properties exerted a fourfold larger influence on B. burgdorferi prevalence than macroclimate and landscape properties combined. Increasingly available ecotone habitat of focal forest patches diluted and edge density at landscape scale amplified B. burgdorferi prevalence. Indicators of habitat attractiveness for tick hosts (food resources and shelter) were the most important predictors within habitat patches. More diverse and abundant macro- and microhabitat had a diluting effect, as it presumably diversifies the niches for tick-hosts and decreases the probability of contact between ticks and their hosts and hence the transmission likelihood.[br/] Conclusions: Diluting effects of more diverse habitat patches would pose another reason to maintain or restore high biodiversity in forest patches of rural landscapes. We suggest classifying habitat patches by their regulating services as dilution and amplification habitat, which predominantly either decrease or increase B. burgdorferi prevalence at local and landscape scale and hence LB risk. Particular emphasis on promoting LB-diluting properties should be put on the management of those habitats that are frequently used by humans. In the light of these findings, climate change may be of little concern for LB risk at local scales, but this should be evaluated further

Accessible Design of Online Instructional Brochure

Informative Brochure for Accessible Online Instructio

Accessible Design of Online Instructional Materials

Presented at the Online Lifeline Conference, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, February 16-18, 2011

Accessible Design of Online Instructional Poster

Presented at the Online Lifeline Conference, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia, February 16-18, 2011

The Influence of Demonstration Sites and Field Days on Adoption of Conservation Practices

For more than 100 years, demonstrations have been used by university extension programs and other conservation professionals to increase knowledge, awareness, and adoption of agricultural practices and technologies. However, there has been no systematic, empirical examination of the effect demonstrations have on adoption of agricultural innovations nor conservation practices. We examined the relationship between producer attendance at demonstration sites and field days of four conservation practices and the subsequent adoption of these practices using a mail survey (n = 513) and in-person interviews (n = 24) with agricultural producers in three regions of Indiana. Results show that there is a significant, moderate relationship between attendance and adoption of cover crops, nutrient management, and filter strips and a significant, weak relationship for two-stage ditches. Interviews with agricultural producers suggest that cover crop demonstration sites and field days allow for learning about practices from persons outside their regular social and professional network and provide tailored advice that allow producers to understand what to consider when making a decision to adopt a conservation practice. Results indicate that demonstration sites and field days do influence adoption of conservation practices; however, data do not control for the probability that those who attend are more likely to adopt regardless of attendance

Feeding Tall Fescue Seed during Mid and Late Gestation Influences Subsequent Postnatal Growth, Puberty, and Carcass Quality of Offspring

Weaned lambs (n = 82), born to ewes fed endophyte-free (E−) or endophyte-infected (E+; 1.77 mg hd−1 d−1 ergovaline + ergovalinine) tall fescue seed from d 35 to 85 of gestation (MID) and/or d 86 of gestation to parturition (LATE), were used to examine how ergot alkaloid exposure during fetal development altered subsequent puberty attainment or carcass quality. Lambs were weaned at 75 d of age and separated by sex to assess puberty in ewe lambs (n = 39) and to evaluate growth, carcass and meat quality in wethers (n = 43). Data were analyzed with maternal fescue treatment, stage of gestation, and two-way interaction in the model. Age at puberty tended (P = 0.06) to be longer for ewe lambs born to dams fed E+ fescue during LATE gestation versus those fed E−. Post-weaning average daily gain tended to be higher (P = 0.07) for wether lambs born to dams fed E+ fescue seed during MID gestation compared to E−. Exposure to ergot alkaloids during fetal growth altered (P < 0.10) longissimus muscle weight and color, lipid deposition, fatty acid composition, and shear force values of semimembranosus muscle in wether lambs. These results indicate that exposure to ergot alkaloids in utero does alter subsequent post-weaning puberty attainment and body composition in offspring