Collaborative Complexities: Co-Authorship, Voice, and African American Rhetoric in Oral History Community Literacy Projects

This co-authored article describes a community literacy oral history project involving 14 undergraduate students. It is intellectually situated at the intersection of writing studies, oral history, and African American rhetoric and distinguished by two features: 1) we were a combined team of 20 collaborators, and 2) our narrator, Frank Gilyard, the founder and former director of the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum (CPAAM), was deceased. Because oral history is narrator-driven, Gilyard’s death required us to remain especially attentive to the epistemic value of his voice

A pilot study of performance among hospitalised elderly patients on a novel test of visuospatial cognition: the letter and shape drawing (LSD) test.

peer-reviewedObjectives. Conventional bedside tests of visuospatial function such as the clock drawing (CDT) and intersecting pentagons tests (IPT) are subject to considerable inconsistency in their delivery and interpretation. We compared performance on a novel test – the letter and shape drawing (LSD) test –with these conventional tests in hospitalised elderly patients. Methods. The LSD, IPT, CDT and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were performed in 40 acute elderly medical inpatients at University Hospital Limerick The correlation between these tests was examined as well as the accuracy of the visuospatial tests to identify significant cognitive impairment on the MoCA. Results. The patients (mean age 81.0±7.71; 21 female) had a median MoCA score of 15.5 (range = 1–29). There was a strong, positive correlation between the LSD and both the CDT (r = 0.56) and IPT (r = 0.71). The correlation between the LSD and MoCA (r = 0.91) was greater than for the CDT and IPT (both 0.67). The LSD correlated highly with all MoCA domains (ranging from 0.54 to 0.86) and especially for the domains of orientation (r = 0.86), attention (0.81) and visuospatial function (r = 0.73). Two or more errors on the LSD identified 90% (26/29) of those patients with MoCA scores of ⩽20, which was substantially higher than for the CDT (59%) and IPT (55%). Conclusion. The LSD is a novel test of visuospatial function that is brief, readily administered and easily interpreted. Performance correlates strongly with other tests of visuospatial ability, with favourable ability to identify patients with significant impairment of general cognition.PUBLISHEDpeer-reviewe

Impact by design: evaluating knowledge exchange as a lens for evaluating the wider impacts of a design-led business support programme.

This paper reports on the evaluation of knowledge exchange and impact generated through Design in Action (DIA), a design-led business support approach to answering the Arts and Humanities Research Council's call for knowledge exchange hubs. Can evaluation approaches to knowledge exchange reveal the complexity of impacts from design-led business support? Does design have a particular set of methods and processes relevant to knowledge exchange? To address these questions the paper draws on both interview and Survey material, and uses Nutley/Meagher Prism to analyse the emergent data. Nutley/Meagher Prism enables us to see different aspects of something in process which is otherwise indistinguishable, just as a prism enables us to see different wave lengths of light manifest as the colour spectrum. The paper addresses the interests of multiple stakeholders including economic development agencies, research councils, arts and cultural development bodies as well as design researchers and knowledge exchange intermediaries through demonstrating the multi-faceted value of design-led business support approaches to knowledge exchange programmes

Dynamic Blood-Brain Barrier Regulation in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Whereas the diagnosis of moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is readily visible on current medical imaging paradigms (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and computed tomography [CT] scanning), a far greater challenge is associated with the diagnosis and subsequent management of mild TBI (mTBI), especially concussion which, by definition, is characterized by a normal CT. To investigate whether the integrity of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is altered in a high-risk population for concussions, we studied professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters and adolescent rugby players. Additionally, we performed the linear regression between the BBB disruption defined by increased gadolinium contrast extravasation on dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) on MRI and multiple biomechanical parameters indicating the severity of impacts recorded using instrumented mouthguards in professional MMA fighters. MMA fighters were examined pre-fight for a baseline and again within 120 h post-competitive fight, whereas rugby players were examined pre-season and again post-season or post-match in a subset of cases. DCE-MRI, serological analysis of BBB biomarkers, and an analysis of instrumented mouthguard data, was performed. Here, we provide pilot data that demonstrate disruption of the BBB in both professional MMA fighters and rugby players, dependent on the level of exposure. Our data suggest that biomechanical forces in professional MMA and adolescent rugby can lead to BBB disruption. These changes on imaging may serve as a biomarker of exposure of the brain to repetitive subconcussive forces and mTBI

Predicting Bison Migration out of Yellowstone National Park Using Bayesian Models

Long distance migrations by ungulate species often surpass the boundaries of preservation areas where conflicts with various publics lead to management actions that can threaten populations. We chose the partially migratory bison (Bison bison) population in Yellowstone National Park as an example of integrating science into management policies to better conserve migratory ungulates. Approximately 60% of these bison have been exposed to bovine brucellosis and thousands of migrants exiting the park boundary have been culled during the past two decades to reduce the risk of disease transmission to cattle. Data were assimilated using models representing competing hypotheses of bison migration during 1990–2009 in a hierarchal Bayesian framework. Migration differed at the scale of herds, but a single unifying logistic model was useful for predicting migrations by both herds. Migration beyond the northern park boundary was affected by herd size, accumulated snow water equivalent, and aboveground dried biomass. Migration beyond the western park boundary was less influenced by these predictors and process model performance suggested an important control on recent migrations was excluded. Simulations of migrations over the next decade suggest that allowing increased numbers of bison beyond park boundaries during severe climate conditions may be the only means of avoiding episodic, large-scale reductions to the Yellowstone bison population in the foreseeable future. This research is an example of how long distance migration dynamics can be incorporated into improved management policies

Conference of Microelectronics Research 2002

https://scholarworks.rit.edu/meec_archive/1011/thumbnail.jp