A Comparative Assessment of knowledge management education across the United States department of defense Summer Bartczak (University of Central Arkansas)

The National Military Strategy (2004), the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (2005), and the Quadrennial Defense Review (2006) specifically highlight a new focus by the Department of Defense (DoD) on knowledge in operations as opposed to traditional weapons platforms. As such, each of the military services have put into place KM programs to varying degrees. According to Stankosky’s (2005) four pillars of KM framework, managing an organization’s knowledge assets can be most effectively accomplished by addressing four key elements--leadership, organization, technology, and learning—the “learning” pillar including KM education. Given that research on KM education is sparse (Ruth et al, 2000) and that organizations that do not address KM education are more likely to fail with KM efforts (Koenig, 2004), this multiple-case study provides a first look at KM education across the DoD. The preliminary results indicate that nature and importance of programs vary across the services, and, despite some leadership support, the resources needed to execute them are not always available

Multi-objective engineering shape optimization using differential evolution interfaced to the Nimrod/O tool

This paper presents an enhancement of the Nimrod/O optimization tool by interfacing DEMO, an external multiobjective optimization algorithm. DEMO is a variant of differential evolution – an algorithm that has attained much popularity in the research community, and this work represents the first time that true multiobjective optimizations have been performed with Nimrod/O. A modification to the DEMO code enables multiple objectives to be evaluated concurrently. With Nimrod/O’s support for parallelism, this can reduce the wall-clock time significantly for compute intensive objective function evaluations. We describe the usage and implementation of the interface and present two optimizations. The first is a two objective mathematical function in which the Pareto front is successfully found after only 30 generations. The second test case is the three-objective shape optimization of a rib-reinforced wall bracket using the Finite Element software, Code_Aster. The interfacing of the already successful packages of Nimrod/O and DEMO yields a solution that we believe can benefit a wide community, both industrial and academic

Promoting Health Literacy through Leading Edge Occupational Therapy Education

Synopsis: Health literacy has become a vital focus of U.S. healthcare. By incorporating health literacy knowledge, attitudes, and skills into entry-­‐level education, occupational therapy professionals can enact a leading role in health and human services teams to address our national healthcare goals. Poster presentation at the American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, April 2013

The Influence of Neighborhood Poverty on Blood Glucose Levels: Findings from the Community Initiative to Eliminate Stroke (CITIES) program

Objectives:  To examine the relationship between both individual and neighborhood level characteristics and non-fasting blood glucose levels.Study design: This study used a cross sectional design using data from the Community Initiative to Eliminate Stroke Program in NC (2004-2008).  A total of 12,809 adults nested within 550 census block groups from two adjacent urban counties were included in the analysis.Methods:   Participants completed a cardiovascular risk factor assessment with self-reported demographics, stroke-risk behaviors, and biometric measurements.  Neighborhood level characteristics were based upon census data.  Three multilevel models were constructed for data analysis.Results:  Mean blood glucose level of this sample population was 103.61mg/dL.  The unconditional model 1 suggested a variation in mean blood glucose levels among the neighborhoods (τ00 = 13.39; P < .001).  Both models 2 and 3 suggested that the neighborhood composite deprivation index had a significant prediction on each neighborhood’s mean blood glucose level (¡01= .69; P < 0.001,¡01= .36; P = .004).  Model 3 also suggested that across all the neighborhoods, on average, after controlling for individual level risk factors, deprivation remained a significant predictor of blood glucose levels.Conclusions:  The findings provide evidence that neighborhood disadvantage is a significant predictor of neighborhood and individual level blood glucose levels.  One approach to diabetes prevention could be for policymakers to address the problems associated with environmental determinants of health

Dysbiosis associated with acute helminth infections in herbivorous youngstock – observations and implications

Abstract: A plethora of data points towards a role of the gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota of neonatal and young vertebrates in supporting the development and regulation of the host immune system. However, knowledge of the impact that infections by GI helminths exert on the developing microbiota of juvenile hosts is, thus far, limited. This study investigates, for the first time, the associations between acute infections by GI helminths and the faecal microbial and metabolic profiles of a cohort of equine youngstock, prior to and following treatment with parasiticides (ivermectin). We observed that high versus low parasite burdens (measured via parasite egg counts in faecal samples) were associated with specific compositional alterations of the developing microbiome; in particular, the faecal microbiota of animals with heavy worm infection burdens was characterised by lower microbial richness, and alterations to the relative abundances of bacterial taxa with immune-modulatory functions. Amino acids and glucose were increased in faecal samples from the same cohort, which indicated the likely occurrence of intestinal malabsorption. These data support the hypothesis that GI helminth infections in young livestock are associated with significant alterations to the GI microbiota, which may impact on both metabolism and development of acquired immunity. This knowledge will direct future studies aimed to identify the long-term impact of infection-induced alterations of the GI microbiota in young livestock