The Missoula Senior Center, Fifty Years of History 1970-2020, A Narrative

This is the story of the Missoula Senior Center over fifty years. It began, struggled, and remains a center for gathering and sharing experiences. It started before its christening in 1969. The history presented in these pages has been compiled from interviews, newspaper articles, Blazing Trails, The Board of Directors records, member contributions, and The First Thirty Years of History Missoula Senior Citizen’s Center by past member June Gordon Phythian

An Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice: Promoting Teacher Retention and Preventing Burnout among Elementary and Middle School Educators

This study aims to increase retention by providing teachers with strategies to decrease teacher burnout. Specifically, it sought to provide Tier I trauma-informed and restorative practice classroom management strategies through coaching cycles to reduce classroom disruptions and provide education on better managing challenging student behaviors. Based upon an intervention driven by weekly professional learning communities (PLC) sessions with the SEL coaching team and classroom-based coaching opportunities, this mixed-methods convergent design study utilized the improvement science framework. Quantitative data showed that although there were average decreases, there was no statistically significant difference in occupational exhaustion (EE) depersonalization (DP). Similarly, although there was a moderate increase in personal accomplishment (PA), there was no significant difference. Additionally, quantitative data showed an average increase in the strategies\u27 utilization. The qualitative data indicated teachers felt the coaching cycles were highly beneficial. Participants felt their understanding of the strategies improved over the 6 weeks, and having a coach helped validate how they implemented the strategies. Participants also felt the strategies positively impacted their students because their students were making better choices and expressing how they felt. Finally, participants felt these strategies helped with strengthening relationships with their students

Effect of a by-product of solid state fermentation (Synergen™) on broiler performance

The trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of a by-product of solid state fermentation (Synergen™ (SGN), Alltech Inc, Nicholasville KY, USA) on broiler performance and health. One thousand two hundred and eighty male Ross 308 broilers were used in a 42 day pen trial. The trial was designed as a 2×2 factorial, with two diet specifications (standard and reformulated) plus or minus SGN (0 and 200g/t, SGN replaced with commercial enzyme Ronozyme™ at 150g/t) to give four dietary treatments in total in a corn-soy based diet formulated to commercial standards. Birds fed the reduced energy diets had significantly lower cumulative feed intakes at 42 d (P<0.01) compared to those on the full specification standard diet. There were no significant differences in broiler body weight due to treatments at any age. Significant improvements (P<0.05) in FCR, primarily due to SGN inclusion in the feed, were observed for all weekly reported data. There were no significant differences in either mortality or EPEF for any of the treatment diets. The present study indicates that SGN, a by-product of solid state fermentation (SSF) can improve feed conversion of broilers fed a corn-soy die

Modeling Gadolinium Self Powered Neutron Detectors in a Transient Reactor

Contributions to the electron current from the three components of a gadolinium SPND, emitter, insulator, and sheath, are identified, characterized, and quantified to provide information on how the SPND interacts within the transient neutron and photon flux of the TREAT to create a measurable current. These contributions are measured by defining the SPND interactions as a dose response function used within a Monte Carlo simulation of a TREAT experiment. The data obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations are then used to compare against two analytic models, developed by Jaschik and Warren, as well as the experimental results. It was found that the methodology used produced sufficiently accurate results, that the sheath has the highest total contribution to the current, and that while the analytic models sufficiently predict the emitter contribution, they have a very limited use due to not accounting for the sheath

Scaling of load in communications networks

We show that the load at each node in a preferential attachment network scales as a power of the degree of the node. For a network whose degree distribution is p(k) ~ k^(-gamma), we show that the load is l(k) ~ k^eta with eta = gamma - 1, implying that the probability distribution for the load is p(l) ~ 1/l^2 independent of gamma. The results are obtained through scaling arguments supported by finite size scaling studies. They contradict earlier claims, but are in agreement with the exact solution for the special case of tree graphs. Results are also presented for real communications networks at the IP layer, using the latest available data. Our analysis of the data shows relatively poor power-law degree distributions as compared to the scaling of the load versus degree. This emphasizes the importance of the load in network analysis.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Effect of 3 dietary phytogenic products on production performance and coccidiosis in challenged broiler chickens

A pen trial using 1,080 male Ross 308 broiler chicks (6 treatments with 6 replicates each) was conducted to examine the effects of 3 dietary phytogenic products on avian coccidiosis. The dietary treatments included (1) a negative control (NC), (2) a positive control (PC) without feed additive, (3) Narasin at 0.7 kg/t (COCC), (4) PHYT1 (oregano) at 2.0 kg/t, (5) PHYT2 (combination of Curcuma, saponins, and inulin) at 1.0 kg/t, and (6) PHYT3 (Quillaja) at 1.0 kg/t. Treatments 2 through 6 were challenged with a mixture of Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima, and Eimeria tenella at d 15 via feed. Standard performance parameters and coccidial lesion scoring (d 22) were conducted. One week after coccidial challenge, chicks BW of the COCC treatment and the NC were higher than all other treatments. Body weights on d 39 were 2.47 (NC), 2.34 (PC), 2.51 (COCC), 2.35 (PHYT1), 2.39 (PHYT2), and 2.41 kg (PHYT3) with an SEM of 0.033. For the entire trial period, Narasin yielded a significantly better FCR in comparison with the PC and PHYT3. Overall mean lesion score was 0.54 (NC), 0.91 (PC), 0.50 (COCC), 0.81 (PHYT 1), 1.02 (PHYT 2), and 1.13 (PHYT 3) with an SEM of 0.122. It was concluded that all 3 phytogenic products were not effective at the used dosage in alleviating the negative effects observed in coccidiosis-challenged bird

State Legislative Update

Effective July 1, 1995, as part of the nursing facility enforcement regulations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services required states to provide nursing facilities with the opportunity for informal dispute reolution reviews. This dispute resolution system was set up in order to avoid the potentially prolonged resolution process associated with more formal appeals. These regulations do not prevent a nursing facility from pursuing a former appeal of the disputed deficiency, but the regulations do give an expedited alternative to the formal process

State Legislative Update

Effective July 1, 1995, as part of the nursing facility enforcement regulations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services required states to provide nursing facilities with the opportunity for informal dispute reolution reviews. This dispute resolution system was set up in order to avoid the potentially prolonged resolution process associated with more formal appeals. These regulations do not prevent a nursing facility from pursuing a former appeal of the disputed deficiency, but the regulations do give an expedited alternative to the formal process