Ethical Considerations in Treating the Horse with Laminitis

The nature of laminitis - its unpredictable course, the severe pain and disability it causes, the lengthy convalescence it requires even when cured - poses challenging ethical quandaries for the clinicians who treat it and the owners whose horses suffer from it. Unique among equine ailments, this disease places owners and clinicians in the untenable position of trying to balance considerations that are very difficult to weigh against each other: the animal\u27s pain, the unknown disease trajectory, the questionable possibility of full recovery, the limited usefulness of the animal post-laminitis, the financial drain of treatment, the financial loss of a formerly productive horse, the expense of maintaining a pasture potato, the animal\u27s frustration or distress during convalescence, etc. The pressing question in every case of laminitis is: where should we draw the line? The answer to this question will not only be different in every individual case of laminitis, but different owners and clinicians will often have divergent views even regarding the same case. In an ethical terrain that is so clearly gray, absolutes are unlikely to be found. Instead, our essay hopes to clarify the ethical considerations involved in treating a horse with laminitis to facilitate the decision-making process regarding the specific cases encountered by clinicians in the field

Parental Multi-Meanings of School Choice: A Narrative, Phenomenological Case Study

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on June 5, 2015Dissertation advisor: Jennifer FriendVitaIncludes bibliographic references (pages 187-202)Thesis (Ed.D.)--School of Education. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2014The purpose of this narrative, phenomenological, case study was to develop a thick, rich description of the deeper meanings of school choice for parents at a Midwestern, midsize suburban public middle school. Parental school choice was defined as the untold, multifaceted understanding of values, beliefs, and the underlying personal preference regarding schools to discover meaning. The traditions of narratology, phenomenology, and case study were utilized to capture the voices of parents to understand the meaning of the phenomenon. The goal of this research was to share this information with school district leaders as it could, (a) help identify why parents are making school choice decisions, (b) identify resources parents utilized to make choice decisions, and (c) to understand the attributes parents were looking for in a school and why they specifically chose this particular district/school. In knowing this information school district leaders could use this knowledge to market their district and use the data to inform policy and practices. For the survey and narratives, data were analyzed using the process of a generic coding process that constituted identifying themes and subthemes. Transcendental phenomenology and cross-case analysis were used to analyze interviews. Findings from the surveys, narratives, and interviews themes suggested that the districts will want to gather their own data on what choice means, keep a focus on continuous student achievement, disseminate current school information to the public, and in particular develop positive partnerships with real estate agents to ensure new parents are provided accurate information about the school district. These findings revealed a real need for educational leaders to manage district growth and keep a small town feel, while maintaining low teacher-student ratios. The need to keep district and building-level websites current with data parents were looking for, as well as for districts to consider inter-district and intra-district student transfer opportunities also came to light. The experiences of the participants were from a privileged background, but equity for all students is something for which we continue to strive.Introduction -- Literature review -- Research and design methodology -- Results: the story behind the data -- Implications and recommendations -- Appendix A. Consent to participate in a resaerch study -- Appendix B. Participant survey -- Appendix C. Narrative prompt -- Appendix D. Semi-structured, open-ended interview guide -- Appendix E. Consent form for narratives and interview

Report on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

This report, prepared for the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, examines the state of available data for the study of international trade and foreign direct investment. Data on values of imports and exports of goods are of high quality and coverage, but price data suffer from insufficient detail. It would be desirable to have more data measuring value-added in trade as well as prices of comparable domestic and imported inputs. Value data for imports and exports of services are too aggregated and valuations are questionable, while price data for service exports and imports are almost non-existent. Foreign direct investment data are of high quality but quality has suffered from budget cuts. Data on trade in intellectual property are fragmentary. The intangibility of the trade makes measurement difficult, but budget cuts have added to the difficulties. Modest funding increases would result in data more useful for research and policy analysis.

Practitioner\u27s Guide to Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK): Rich Media Cases of Teacher Knowledge

The goal of the TPACK Practitioners Guide is simple--to offer exemplary cases of technology integration efforts that result in curriculum-based student learning in each of the following nine content areas and grade level contexts: Elementary Science, Elementary Math, Elementary Social Studies, Elementary Reading, Middle School Language Arts, Secondary Science, Secondary Math, Secondary Social Studies, and, Secondary English.https://scholarworks.wm.edu/book/1000/thumbnail.jp

Development of Prenatal Event History Calendar for Black Women

Objectives : To identify psychosocial factors that Black women think should be addressed in prenatal care assessment and develop a Prenatal Event History Calendar to assess these factors. Design : A qualitative descriptive study. Setting : Two inner city hospital prenatal care clinics in Southeastern Michigan. Participants : Twenty-two Black women who had attended at least 2 prenatal care visits. Method : Three focus groups were conducted using a semistructured interview guide. Main Outcome Measure : Using the constant comparative method of analysis ( Glaser, 1978, 1992 ) themes were identified that were relevant to Black women during prenatal care visits. Results : The women in this study wanted to talk with their providers about psychosocial factors and not just the physical aspects of pregnancy. To “go off the pregnancy” represents pregnant women's desire to discuss psychosocial factors that were important to them during prenatal care. Five themes emerged from the data and were used to develop categories for the Prenatal Event History Calendar: relationships, stress, routines, health history perceptions, and beliefs. Conclusion : One vital component of prenatal care assessment is assessing for psychosocial risk factors. Prenatal Event History Calendar was specifically developed to provide a comprehensive and contextually linked psychosocial risk assessment for use with pregnant Black women.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73627/1/j.1552-6909.2008.00255.x.pd

Towards a New Paradigm of Non-Captive Research on Cetacean Cognition

Contemporary knowledge of impressive neurophysiology and behavior in cetaceans, combined with increasing opportunities for studying free-ranging cetaceans who initiate sociable interaction with humans, are converging to highlight serious ethical considerations and emerging opportunities for a new era of progressive and less-invasive cetacean research. Most research on cetacean cognition has taken place in controlled captive settings, e.g., research labs, marine parks. While these environments afford a certain amount of experimental rigor and logistical control they are fraught with limitations in external validity, impose tremendous stress on the part of the captive animals, and place burdens on populations from which they are often captured. Alternatively, over the past three decades, some researchers have sought to focus their attention on the presence of free-ranging cetacean individuals and groups who have initiated, or chosen to participate in, sociable interactions with humans in the wild. This new approach, defined as Interspecies Collaborative Research between cetacean and human, involves developing novel ways to address research questions under natural conditions and respecting the individual cetacean's autonomy. It also offers a range of potential direct benefits to the cetaceans studied, as well as allowing for unprecedented cognitive and psychological research on sociable mysticetes. Yet stringent precautions are warranted so as to not increase their vulnerability to human activities or pathogens. When conducted in its best and most responsible form, collaborative research with free-ranging cetaceans can deliver methodological innovation and invaluable new insights while not necessitating the ethical and scientific compromises that characterize research in captivity. Further, it is representative of a new epoch in science in which research is designed so that the participating cetaceans are the direct recipients of the benefits

Exact Hybrid Particle/Population Simulation of Rule-Based Models of Biochemical Systems

Detailed modeling and simulation of biochemical systems is complicated by the problem of combinatorial complexity, an explosion in the number of species and reactions due to myriad protein-protein interactions and post-translational modifications. Rule-based modeling overcomes this problem by representing molecules as structured objects and encoding their interactions as pattern-based rules. This greatly simplifies the process of model specification, avoiding the tedious and error prone task of manually enumerating all species and reactions that can potentially exist in a system. From a simulation perspective, rule-based models can be expanded algorithmically into fully-enumerated reaction networks and simulated using a variety of network-based simulation methods, such as ordinary differential equations or Gillespie's algorithm, provided that the network is not exceedingly large. Alternatively, rule-based models can be simulated directly using particle-based kinetic Monte Carlo methods. This "network-free" approach produces exact stochastic trajectories with a computational cost that is independent of network size. However, memory and run time costs increase with the number of particles, limiting the size of system that can be feasibly simulated. Here, we present a hybrid particle/population simulation method that combines the best attributes of both the network-based and network-free approaches. The method takes as input a rule-based model and a user-specified subset of species to treat as population variables rather than as particles. The model is then transformed by a process of "partial network expansion" into a dynamically equivalent form that can be simulated using a population-adapted network-free simulator. The transformation method has been implemented within the open-source rule-based modeling platform BioNetGen, and resulting hybrid models can be simulated using the particle-based simulator NFsim. Performance tests show that significant memory savings can be achieved using the new approach and a monetary cost analysis provides a practical measure of its utility. © 2014 Hogg et al

Suicide risk in schizophrenia: learning from the past to change the future

Suicide is a major cause of death among patients with schizophrenia. Research indicates that at least 5–13% of schizophrenic patients die by suicide, and it is likely that the higher end of range is the most accurate estimate. There is almost total agreement that the schizophrenic patient who is more likely to commit suicide is young, male, white and never married, with good premorbid function, post-psychotic depression and a history of substance abuse and suicide attempts. Hopelessness, social isolation, hospitalization, deteriorating health after a high level of premorbid functioning, recent loss or rejection, limited external support, and family stress or instability are risk factors for suicide in patients with schizophrenia. Suicidal schizophrenics usually fear further mental deterioration, and they experience either excessive treatment dependence or loss of faith in treatment. Awareness of illness has been reported as a major issue among suicidal schizophrenic patients, yet some researchers argue that insight into the illness does not increase suicide risk. Protective factors play also an important role in assessing suicide risk and should also be carefully evaluated. The neurobiological perspective offers a new approach for understanding self-destructive behavior among patients with schizophrenia and may improve the accuracy of screening schizophrenics for suicide. Although, there is general consensus on the risk factors, accurate knowledge as well as early recognition of patients at risk is still lacking in everyday clinical practice. Better knowledge may help clinicians and caretakers to implement preventive measures. This review paper is the results of a joint effort between researchers in the field of suicide in schizophrenia. Each expert provided a brief essay on one specific aspect of the problem. This is the first attempt to present a consensus report as well as the development of a set of guidelines for reducing suicide risk among schizophenia patients