The experience and meaning of caring for urban family caregivers of persons with strokes

This ethnographic study examined the experience and meaning of caring as it influences urban family caregivers\u27 (UFCs) capacity to care for persons with stroke within African American family systems. This study was executed within and supported the Framework of Systemic Organization (Friedemann, 1995), according to which families as open systems strive for congruence, a dynamic state of equilibrium, evidenced as health. In trying to achieve this state, each family\u27s style of function is different, depending on the family\u27s emphasis on Friedemann\u27s process dimensions: system maintenance, system change, coherence, and individuation. The major research questions were the following: (a) What is the experience of caring?—at are the perceived and observed caring actions related to Friedemann\u27s process dimensions? (b) What is the meaning of caring? —what are the perceived and observed personal and family congruence related to caring? and (c) What expressed caring actions and what expressions of congruence are universal or cultural bound? A purposive sample of 8 UFC key informants and 16 UFC general informants from a community in northwestern Ohio participated in interview and observation-participation field techniques. Domains of caring revealed that the experience of caring involved eight caring actions (i.e., caring is physical work, sacrifice, taught and shared, structured, communication, accommodation, mutuality, and learned) and four caring family functions (i.e., adaptation in families, in caregivers\u27 enforcement of old values, in caregivers\u27 watchfulness, and in differences in filial function). The meaning of caring concerned 13 affective caring expressions (i.e. emotional burden; evasion of conflicts; motivations concerned with love and a sense of duty, care recipients\u27 approval, and philosophical introspection; self-development; fairness; filial ethereal value; self-contemplation; filial and Christian piety; living in the moment and hoping for the future; and purpose). Cultural patterns were maintained and transformed within the domains of caring actions, family functions, and expressions for these UFCs in African American settings. The findings aid in understanding the concept of caring as an interpersonal process, place the concept of caring in a family system context and examine cultural patterns and diversity as well as common trends, and test the propositions underlying the Framework of Systemic Organization

Extension Master Gardeners: Helping the Homeless to Heal

Families with children are the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population. Loss of one\u27s home, the conditions of shelter life, and the physical and sexual abuse that often precipitates homelessness result in psychological trauma and a diminished sense of self-efficacy and self-worth. This article describes the effects of participation in gardening activities led by Extension Master Gardeners on homeless women with children. Results show Master Gardeners can play an important role in helping homeless families mitigate the psychological trauma associated with homelessness and help homeless individuals develop a restored sense of dignity

Accountants\u27 index. Thirty-second supplement, January-December 1983, volume 2: M-Z

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_accind/1042/thumbnail.jp

Accountants\u27 index. Thirtieth supplement, January-December 1981, volume 1: A-L

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_accind/1037/thumbnail.jp

Accountants\u27 index. Thirty-second supplement, January-December 1983, volume 1: A-L

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_accind/1041/thumbnail.jp

Caregivers’ Incongruence: Emotional Strain in Caring For Persons With Stroke

Purpose:Guided by Friedemann\u27s framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions of new family caregivers’ emotional strain in caring for persons with stroke. Method: Seventy-three caregivers who were new to that role participated in an interview every 2 weeks for a year as part of a NIH project. Of these caregivers, 36 participants were randomly assigned and had access to a Web-based intervention and its e-mail discussion. In this secondary data analysis, 2,148 e-mail discussion messages plus 2,455 narrative interview entries were used to examine dimensions of caregivers’ emotional strain. Rigorous content analysis was applied to these data. Results: The majority of these caregivers were white women with an average of 55 years who cared for spouses. Three themes emerged from these data: (1) being worried, (2) running on empty, and (3) losing self. Discussion: Caregivers worried about themselves and their care recipient, sharing feelings of being just “plain tired.” The caregivers felt that their lives were lost to giving care. They described in detail the emotional strain that they felt, as they took on new roles in caring for the person with stroke. Conclusion: This study informs nurses about new family caregivers’ emotional strain, or incongruence in Friedemann\u27s terms, from their viewpoint and provides direction for supportive education interactions

An MPA-IO interface to HPSS

This paper describes an implementation of the proposed MPI-IO (Message Passing Interface - Input/Output) standard for parallel I/O. Our system uses third-party transfer to move data over an external network between the processors where it is used and the I/O devices where it resides. Data travels directly from source to destination, without the need for shuffling it among processors or funneling it through a central node. Our distributed server model lets multiple compute nodes share the burden of coordinating data transfers. The system is built on the High Performance Storage System (HPSS), and a prototype version runs on a Meiko CS-2 parallel computer

Science Gateways: The Long Road to the Birth of an Institute

Nowadays, research in various disciplines is enhanced via computational methods, cutting-edge technologies and diverse resources including computational infrastructures and instruments. Such infrastructures are often complex and researchers need means to conduct their research in an efficient way without getting distracted with information technology nuances. Science gateways address such demands and offer user interfaces tailored to a specific community. Creators of science gateways face a breadth of topics and manifold challenges, which necessitate close collaboration with the domain specialists but also calling in experts for diverse aspects of a science gateway such as project management, licensing, team composition, sustainability, HPC, visualization, and usability specialists. The Science Gateway Community Institute tackles the challenges around science gateways to support domain specialists and developers via connecting them to diverse experts, offering consultancy as well as providing a software collaborative, which contains ready-to-use science gateway frameworks and science gateway components