An assessment of the potential contributions to oceanography from Skylab visual observations and hand-held photography

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Data requirements in support of the marine weather service program

Data support activities for the Marine Weather Service Program are outlined. Forecasts, cover anomolous water levels, including sea and swell, surface and breakers, and storm surge. Advisories are also provided for sea ice on the Great Lake and Cook inlet in winter, and in the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas in summer. Attempts were made to deal with ocean currents in the Gulf Stream, areas of upwelling, and thermal structure at least down through the mixed layer

Stormwater Infrastructure and the threat of Climate Change

The purpose of this report is to analyze the modernization of stormwater infrastructure systems and the growing impact of climate change on said systems. Growing population rates and increasing urban settlement are leading to the water demand approaching the water supply capacity. Climate change is the root of several potentially severe issues affecting water resources as well as the rapidly increasing coastal and urban populations including but not limited to rising sea levels and the increasing severity and frequency of storms. Many cities, especially older or low income ones, also may not have adequate systems in place to handle the increased volume of water. As the environment changes at the pace that it is, cities and municipalities must work to adapt new policies and methods to keep their infrastructure up to date and improved if necessary

Wardman Library Update to Faculty, Summer 2019

This update document was shared with all Whittier College faculty and staff. It communicated updates for the summer on hours and spaces as well as updates to the upcoming fall semester related to new databases, library course, and printing allowance

DART: A Public Services Transaction Study

Space on campuses comes at a premium and libraries cannot easily expand their footprint to accommodate for more collections or study spaces for students. Pressed for additional study spaces, libraries are faced with the dilemma of creating it through the removal of print collections or the consolidation or elimination of public service desks. In addition, due to the recession in 2008, universities and their libraries have had to make tough decisions with respect to staff size either through layoffs or leaving positions unfilled. Libraries have been left doing more with less staff and that can be exacerbated if libraries are staffing multiple public service points throughout a library. Finally, assessment has traditionally been a tool to judge how a service or policy is received or used by a patron base but it has become increasingly important to rationalize collection decisions, justify staffing points, and spending. This study analyzes the public service layout and interactions between the Caltech community and Caltech Library staff

Welcome Back! Mid-Year Check-In, Spring 2021 (Student)

This document was sent to all Whittier College students to provide an update for the Spring 2021 semester. It reminds students of current services and resources available to them during the remote learning period

Standardizing Naturalistic Teaching Opportunities for Problem-based Learning in Diabetes Education: A Quality Improvement Project

Significance and Background: Poor diabetes management is linked to serious long and short-term health complications. Despite this, medication adherence is a significant problem in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Management is further complicated by low socioeconomic status, even when mitigated by free healthcare, highlighting health literacy as a culprit of disparities. Evidence shows that a common barrier for adolescents is proficiency in dose determination. Carbohydrate counting is an integral skill, necessary for attaining glycemic control. At a homecare agency serving adolescents with poorly controlled diabetes by providing oversight of medication administration and education, it was noted that patients continued to struggle with carbohydrate counting and appropriate coverage of food relative to other aspects of dose determination due to infrequently eating at nursing visits. However, patients who benefited from agency-provided food through initiatives addressing food insecurity experienced the opportunity for increased education relating to carbohydrate counting and anecdotally demonstrated improvements in proficiency and subsequent gains in diabetes control. Purpose: A quality improvement team within the homecare agency met with a goal of improving diabetes education using the Model for Healthcare Improvement framework. Relevant evidence was synthesized and showed that education which utilized multiple, short education sessions and problem-based learning improves diabetes education in this population. Intervention: It was determined that formalizing food-provision and problem-based learning as a diabetes educational approach, already informally occurring at this agency, into three of the patient’s normal nursing visits would allow for improved equity and quality of the education and allow for more formal assessment of the benefits of the change. Evaluation: Patient satisfaction data was taken as a primary outcome measure and showed that all patients found this was a helpful educational approach and would recommend it to other patients with type one diabetes. Process measures of glycosylated hemoglobin and pre- and post- diabetes self-efficacy scales were also tracked showing changes in line with the literature. Discussion: The findings of this PDSA cycle demonstrate that this intervention is an evidence-based improvement on current diabetes education in homecare and can be used to help address health disparities in diabetes outcomes

History of Roundup Ready Alfalfa

In late 1997 Forage Genetics International (FGI) and Monsanto began a joint project to develop Roundup Ready alfalfa. FGI collaborated with Montana State University to produce the first transgenic Roundup Ready alfalfa plants. The same CP4 glyphosate tolerance gene that has been effectively used in developing multiple other Roundup Ready crops, was successfully inserted into an elite FGI alfalfa plant in early 1998

Getting ahead of the curve: an investigation into how the Caltech Library succeeds in resource sharing (paper presented to the IFLA Interlending and Document Supply Conference (Paris, 2017)

This paper will address the challenges faced by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Library, its history in supplying research materials to its community, and the significant shift in its collections strategy in 2015 that directly affected how the Library would continue to provide information resources to its students, faculty, and staff through resource sharing. Prior to 2015, the Caltech Library had approached procuring information resources for its campus community in a hybrid model that married together the typical academic library process of interlibrary loan with a business or special library practice of purchasing material and charging users for the service. Based on a number of factors in 2015, this process shifted to a multi-faceted approach that utilized an increased use of consortia, mediated article purchasing, and an unmediated article acquisition process where our users can decide whether to use the normal interlibrary loan process or a “rush” alternative. This included embedding the unmediated rush option within search engines such as Web of Science and Ebsco Discovery Service (EDS). This paper will share the findings of this strategic change and the outcomes based on the data