Health Literacy: An overview of an emerging field

According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, nearly 90 million American adults test below a high school level for literacy skills (Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins & Kolstad, 1993).Because most health materials are written at least at the high school level, this finding has major implications in terms of health care provision in this country (Helitzer, Hollis, Cotner & Oestreicher, 2009). This paper attempts to give an overview of the field of health literacy and includes: a brief background with current definitions; a description of screening and measurement tools; a discussion of aspects of limited literacy; the implications for quality health care; what role libraries might play; and areas of future research

Democracy : from theory to dictatorial dyspraxia to anarchist eupraxia

In theory: Democracy is the “rule of the people by the people and for the people” (Lincoln, 1863). In practice: “Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few” (Shaw, 1903). This paper addresses the gap between democratic theory and practice by attempting to analyse “democracy’s crisis of meaning” (Trend, 1996:7). It examines the processes through which the theoretical ideal of rule by the people is despoiled to dictatorial practices, typified by regimes of democratic dictatorship arising from the authoritarian rule of representative forms of democracy resulting in the tyranny of the powerful, to regimes of dictatorial democracy arising from the totalitarian rule of global neo-liberal capitalism. These contradictions indeed suggest “more than a simple gap between theory and practice” (Trend, 1996:9) and demand a new praxis for democracy. Despite the hegemonic dyspraxia of these kleptocratic and corporatocratic regimes on both a local and global level, the eupraxia of anarchism through co-operative forms of self-governance offers a glimpse of hope for democratising democracy by closing the gap between theory and practice.peer-reviewe

Performance analysis of local area networks

A simulation of the TCP/IP protocol running on a CSMA/CD data link layer was described. The simulation was implemented using the simula language, and object oriented discrete event language. It allows the user to set the number of stations at run time, as well as some station parameters. Those parameters are the interrupt time and the dma transfer rate for each station. In addition, the user may configure the network at run time with stations of differing characteristics. Two types are available, and the parameters of both types are read from input files at run time. The parameters include the dma transfer rate, interrupt time, data rate, average message size, maximum frame size and the average interarrival time of messages per station. The information collected for the network is the throughput and the mean delay per packet. For each station, the number of messages attempted as well as the number of messages successfully transmitted is collected in addition to the throughput and mean packet delay per station

Community - Based Participatory Research with Hispanic/Latino Leaders and Members

Hispanic/Latinos (H/L) are being studied for healthcare disparities research utilizing community - based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR’s active participation of community members and researchers suggests improvement in community health. Yet there are no known studies that inductively investigated the lived experience of H/L community leaders and members with CBPR using interpretive phenomenology. Data were obtained from observations, field notes, biographical interviews, individual interviews and focus groups. The findings supported that community members wanted to collaborate with researchers utilizing the C BPR approach so that culturally sensitive interventions can be created to encourage health - seeking behaviors in their communit

Constructive Thinking

The student of today is not allowed to think for himself. Instead he is told what to think and criticised if he does not do so. As a result he goes through grade school, high school, and even college without using his mind to its fullest capacity. Classes are usually too large for much individual attention, and time is often considered too important a factor. To take advantage of every minute, the teacher does not let each person express his views but deals out facts that the student must accept

Building the Beginnings of a Beautiful Partnership

The authors describe the process leading to, and the outcome of, their partnership to build and operate a 76,000 square foot public/ community college joint use library. Located in Westminster, Colorado, the College Hill Library serves a population of approximately 70,000 Westminster residents and 6,000 Front Range Community College faculty and staff. The partnership began in 1994 to investigate the feasibility of building the facility, which opened in April 1998 and continues to be successful today. The authors provide information on the main points of the Intergovernmental Agreement to build and operate the facility and relate their experiences during the planning, construction, and initial year of operation of the library. They discuss issues relating to combining staff, automation systems, and collections as well as special challenges in publicizing the library to the community. An update on the current state of the partnership is provided by the current co-directors of the library.published or submitted for publicatio

Comparison of Peat-Based Planting Media to Sustainably Produced Planting Medias: Watering and Other Considerations

Researchers are actively addressing the questions that haunts all agriculturalists: Will we be able to feed the projected population of 9.8 billion people in 2050? Newly developed soil mixes might be the key to solving this daunting question. Research is proving that this sustainable media is a way to add nutrients back into our existing soil