Social Work and the Reagan Era: Challenges to the Profession

A priority item on the Reagan administration’s social policy agenda was the creation of a charity model of welfare, in which well-meaning volunteers provide services to the deserving poor and for-profit enterprises cater to the middle and upper class. This model was implemented because human service budgets of public agencies were slashed and subsidies for the not-for-profit sector. This reduction resulted in substantial unmet needs for social services, which have not been adequately addressed. The authors contend that the profession of social work was not as directly affected by these changes as may be surmised since professional social workers did not constitute a large part of the public social service labor force. Increased advocacy is recommended as part of the solution

Mind the gulfs: An analysis of medication-related cognitive artifacts used by older adults with heart failure

Medication management is a patient health-related activity characterized by poor performance in older adults with chronic disease. Interventions focus on educating and motivating the patient with limited long-term effects. Cognitive artifacts facilitate cognitive tasks by making them easier, faster, and more effective and can potentially improve medication management performance. This study examined how older adult patients with heart failure use cognitive artifacts and how representational structure and physical properties facilitated or impeded medication-related tasks and processes. Interview, observation, medical record, and photographic data of and about older patients with heart failure (N = 30) and their informal caregivers (N=14) were content analyzed for cross-cutting themes about patient goals, representations, and actions. Results illustrated patient artifacts designed from a clinical rather than patient perspective, disparate internal and external representations threatening safety, and incomplete information exchange between patients and clinicians. Implications for design were the need for bridging artifacts, automatic information transfer, and cognitive artifacts designed from the perspective of the patient

Tillage and Herbicide Incorporation Effects on Runoff Losses

The 1995 Food Security Act required producers with highly erodible land to develop erosion control plans to be eligible for farm program benefits. Conservation tillage was a part of many of those plans; however, mechanical incorporation of herbicides to reduce runoff losses can be a problem while trying to maintain crop residue. Soil, water, and herbicide losses (with water and sediment) were measured from continuous com runoff plots (1.7 x 12.0 m) in 1993 and 1994 under natural rainfall conditions. Four tillage/herbicide application treatments were studied: notill/herbicide broadcast sprayed (NT); fall chisel plow-spring disk/herbicide broadcast sprayed after disking (DS); fall chisel plow-spring disk/herbicide broadcast sprayed before disking (SD); and fall chisel plow-spring mulch master /herbicide applied with John Deere\u27s Mulch Master (MM). Residue measurements after tillage and planting generally showed NT with the greatest percent residue cover, MM second, and SD together with DS the least. By storm event, NT generally had the least erosion and the lowest runoff volumes. For the herbicides studied, atrazine, metolachlor, and cyanazine, concentrations in sediment and runoff water were generally in the order NT\u3eDS\u3eMM\u3eSD. Lack of incorporation and/or application to more crop residue with NT was believed responsible for the higher concentrations with that system. Total losses for all three herbicides each year were generally less than 2% of that applied. Because the herbicides used are not strongly adsorbed and have similar adsorption coefficients, over 95% of the runoff loss in each case was associated with runoff water. Depending primarily on runoff volumes, which in turn were dependent on the storm and the time of year, relative losses for notill were variable, sometimes being the greatest, sometimes the least; however, for the other three treatments, losses were usually in the order DS\u3eMM\u3eSD

Medication-related cognitive artifacts used by older adults with heart failure

OBJECTIVE: To use a human factors perspective to examine how older adult patients with heart failure use cognitive artifacts for medication management. METHODS: We performed a secondary analysis of data collected from 30 patients and 14 informal caregivers enrolled in a larger study of heart failure self-care. Data included photographs, observation notes, interviews, video recordings, medical record data, and surveys. These data were analyzed using an iterative content analysis. RESULTS: Findings revealed that medication management was complex, inseparable from other patient activities, distributed across people, time, and place, and complicated by knowledge gaps. We identified fifteen types of cognitive artifacts including medical devices, pillboxes, medication lists, and electronic personal health records used for: 1) measurement/evaluation; 2) tracking/communication; 3) organization/administration; and 4) information/sensemaking. These artifacts were characterized by fit and misfit with the patient's sociotechnical system and demonstrated both advantages and disadvantages. We found that patients often modified or "finished the design" of existing artifacts and relied on "assemblages" of artifacts, routines, and actors to accomplish their self-care goals. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive artifacts are useful but sometimes are poorly designed or are not used optimally. If appropriately designed for usability and acceptance, paper-based and computer-based information technologies can improve medication management for individuals living with chronic illness. These technologies can be designed for use by patients, caregivers, and clinicians; should support collaboration and communication between these individuals; can be coupled with home-based and wearable sensor technology; and must fit their users' needs, limitations, abilities, tasks, routines, and contexts of use

Effects of Grazing Management on Sediment and Phosphorus Losses in Run-off (A Progress Report)

In 2001 and 2002, pastures at the ISU Rhodes Research and Demonstration Farm were grazed to determine the effects of stocking treatment on nutrient and sediment loss from pastureland. Treatments included an ungrazed control (UG), summer hay harvest with winter stockpiled grazing (HS), continuous stocking to a residual height of 2 inches (2C), rotational stocking to a residual height of 2 inches (2R), and rotational stocking to a residual height of 4 inches (4R). At three times in 2001 (late spring, mid-summer, and fall) and four times in 2002 (early spring, late spring, mid-summer, and fall), rainfall simulations were conducted at 6 sites within each paddock and 6 sites in a buffer zone down slope from each paddock. Run-off was collected and analyzed for total sediment, total phosphorus, and dissolved phosphorus. Simultaneous to each rainfall simulation, ground cover, penetration resistance, surface roughness, slope, contents of phosphorus and moisture of the soil, and the sward height and mass of forage were measured. In years 1 (late spring 2001 through early spring 2002) and 2 (late spring 2002 through fall 2002), mean concentrations of sediment in runoff did not differ between ungrazed or grazed paddocks. Mean concentrations of total P in the run-off were greater (P \u3c .05) in paddocks grazed to 2 inches by continuous or rotational stocking than in paddocks that were ungrazed, grazed to 4 inches by rotational stocking or harvested as hay and grazed as stockpiled forage. In year 1, mean losses of sediment, total P, and soluble P were greater (P \u3c .1) from paddocks grazed to 2 inches by continuous or rotational stocking than other treatments. In year 2, mean losses of sediment and total P in paddocks grazed to 2 inches by continuous stocking and mean losses of soluble P from paddocks grazed to 2 inches by rotational stocking were greater (P \u3c .05) than the other treatments

Three-dimensional light-matter interface for collective spin squeezing in atomic ensembles

We study the three-dimensional nature of the quantum interface between an ensemble of cold, trapped atomic spins and a paraxial laser beam, coupled through a dispersive interaction. To achieve strong entanglement between the collective atomic spin and the photons, one must match the spatial mode of the collective radiation of the ensemble with the mode of the laser beam while minimizing the effects of decoherence due to optical pumping. For ensembles coupling to a probe field that varies over the extent of the cloud, the set of atoms that indistinguishably radiates into a desired mode of the field defines an inhomogeneous spin wave. Strong coupling of a spin wave to the probe mode is not characterized by a single parameter, the optical density, but by a collection of different effective atom numbers that characterize the coherence and decoherence of the system. To model the dynamics of the system, we develop a full stochastic master equation, including coherent collective scattering into paraxial modes, decoherence by local inhomogeneous diffuse scattering, and backaction due to continuous measurement of the light entangled with the spin waves. This formalism is used to study the squeezing of a spin wave via continuous quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement. We find that the greatest squeezing occurs in parameter regimes where spatial inhomogeneities are significant, far from the limit in which the interface is well approximated by a one-dimensional, homogeneous model.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Medication Management: The Macrocognitive Workflow of Older Adults With Heart Failure

BACKGROUND: Older adults with chronic disease struggle to manage complex medication regimens. Health information technology has the potential to improve medication management, but only if it is based on a thorough understanding of the complexity of medication management workflow as it occurs in natural settings. Prior research reveals that patient work related to medication management is complex, cognitive, and collaborative. Macrocognitive processes are theorized as how people individually and collaboratively think in complex, adaptive, and messy nonlaboratory settings supported by artifacts. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research was to describe and analyze the work of medication management by older adults with heart failure, using a macrocognitive workflow framework. METHODS: We interviewed and observed 61 older patients along with 30 informal caregivers about self-care practices including medication management. Descriptive qualitative content analysis methods were used to develop categories, subcategories, and themes about macrocognitive processes used in medication management workflow. RESULTS: We identified 5 high-level macrocognitive processes affecting medication management-sensemaking, planning, coordination, monitoring, and decision making-and 15 subprocesses. Data revealed workflow as occurring in a highly collaborative, fragile system of interacting people, artifacts, time, and space. Process breakdowns were common and patients had little support for macrocognitive workflow from current tools. CONCLUSIONS: Macrocognitive processes affected medication management performance. Describing and analyzing this performance produced recommendations for technology supporting collaboration and sensemaking, decision making and problem detection, and planning and implementation

Inelastic and elastic collision rates for triplet states of ultracold strontium

We report measurement of the inelastic and elastic collision rates for ^{88}Sr atoms in the (5s5p)^3P_0 state in a crossed-beam optical dipole trap. This is the first measurement of ultracold collision properties of a ^3P_0 level in an alkaline-earth atom or atom with similar electronic structure. Since the (5s5p)^3P_0 state is the lowest level of the triplet manifold, large loss rates indicate the importance of principle-quantum-number-changing collisions at short range. We also provide an estimate of the collisional loss rates for the (5s5p){^3P_2} state.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

Photoassociative spectroscopy at long range in ultracold strontium

We report photoassociative spectroscopy of $^{88}$Sr$_2$ in a magneto-optical trap operating on the ${^1S_0}\to{^3P_1}$ intercombination line at 689 nm. Photoassociative transitions are driven with a laser red-detuned by 600-2400 MHz from the ${^1S_0}\to{^1P_1}$ atomic resonance at 461 nm. Photoassociation takes place at extremely large internuclear separation, and the photoassociative spectrum is strongly affected by relativistic retardation. A fit of the transition frequencies determines the ${^1P_1}$ atomic lifetime ($\tau=5.22 \pm 0.03$ ns) and resolves a discrepancy between experiment and recent theoretical calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitte

Using Absorption Imaging to Study Ion Dynamics in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma

We report optical absorption imaging of ultracold neutral plasmas.Images are used to measure the ion absorption spectrum, which is Doppler-broadened. Through the spectral width, we monitor ion equilibration in the first 250ns after plasma formation. The equilibration leaves ions on the border between the weakly coupled gaseous and strongly coupled liquid states. On a longer timescale of microseconds, we observe radial acceleration of ions resulting from pressure exerted by the trapped electron gas.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure