43 research outputs found

    Mobility Strategies and Academic Success within Military Families

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    Title from PDF of title page, viewed on June 1, 2016Dissertation advisor: Loyce CaruthersVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 147-159)Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Education. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2016The purpose of this narratalogical case study was to investigate the strategies military families utilize to contribute to the academic performance of highly mobile military connected students. The unit of analysis was the strategies parents describe. These strategies included what is available for active duty military parents of 6th grade students that have moved three or more times. The problem addressed with this limited group of mobile military families was whether the previous duty station moves impacted the dependent child’s academic performance. The limited research on the academic performance as related to military student mobility is in dire need of being addressed. In an attempt to discover if there were successful strategies having a positive impact on academic performance as related to these transient military families the questions I answered are: (1) How do military parents describe their experiences related to family mobility? (2) What strategies do highly mobile military parents identify that assist with student academics in a variety of educational settings? (3) What support mechanisms for education do military parents receive to assist with mobility? and (4) What concerns would mobile military families like to see addressed for additional support in transition? Through the process of “themeing the data”, four themes central to the study of mobile military families were apprehended: (1) Strategies (2) Identity (3) School/School Choice and (4) Moving/Mobility. The findings discovered from gathering the data centered around the successful strategies of use of technology for research, communication, parental involvement, and maintaining a positive attitude. Future research should expand on this study by gathering data from more military installations and including those families with a parent or parents that hold one of the enlisted ranks.Introduction -- Review of the Literature -- Methodology -- Making sense of their stories -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. Narrative story prompt (written reflection) -- Appendix B. parent interviews on transition from school to schoo

    Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in Victorian Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluents

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    The project involved the study of 12 Victorian municipal wastewater treatment plant discharges. These included lagoon-based plants and those with activated sludge based processes. Permission was obtained from all the relevant water authorities to collect samples of final effluent at point of discharge to the environment, whether that was to a creek, a river, the ocean, or the land. Samples were collected in November 2003, and then again in April and June 2004, and subjected to a number of biological and chemical analyses, including toxicity tests, measurement of hormonal (estrogenic) activity using yeast-based bioassays, and the measurement of specific hormonal concentrations (17-estradiol) using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Almost all of the effluents examined showed estrogenic activity, to a greater or lesser extent (no response to 55 ng/L 17β-estradiol equivalents). On the whole, the levels of estrogenic activity observed were to the lower end of the range observed overseas in the northern hemisphere, and comparable with that recently reported in Australia and New Zealand using similar, human-estrogen receptor based assays (no response to ~ 10 ng/L 17β-estradiol equivalents). The reassuring low/no assay response is bolstered by the chemical assessment of estradiol concentrations by ELISA, which returned concentrations of these compounds for the most part in the range 2-5 ng/L. From an aquatic environmental perspective, it is difficult to say with any certainty what the potential risk to aquatic organisms in waters receiving these effluents will be. Typically, in environmental risk assessment one first looks to agreed national or international guideline or trigger values for the type of waters being assessed. In this case, there are as yet no guideline values. Without guideline values to drive the assessment, then one compares a chemical’s concentration in a sample (in this case a WWTP effluent) with data obtained from toxicological experiments in which the concentration known to elicit a specific effect has been determined. In this case, levels of 17β-estradiol were typically between the lowest reported level to induce the production of Female-indicative proteins in male fish (plasma vitellogen; 1 ng/L), and the lowest concentration of known to induce intersex in fish (8 ng/L). Consequently, such levels in a WWTP discharge are likely to be an environmental risk if there is little or no dilution of the discharge by the receiving water, i.e. discharge represents major component of stream flow. In short, to truly assess the risk (hormonal impact) of these WWTP effluents, in vivo testing needs to be undertaken, ideally with a representative native species but failing that with a ‘standard’ species such as the fathead minnow. When this programme began, the ‘watching brief’, being held in Australia on the topic of endocrine disrupting chemicals and their potential effects on aquatic wildlife was considered too passive by many. It still is, by some. Despite the assurance the results may provide (of minimal impact in most cases if there is significant dilution), there is still a need for further extensive on-ground, reassurance research to provide data for higher-level risk assessment by industry and government agencies
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