Life History of Catherine (Catie) Sondrol, MOT, OTR/L

The participant was one of 31 participants interviewed as part of a larger study, Life Histories of Individuals Who Have Been Influential in Developing Occupational Therapy (OT) with ties to North Dakota and Wyoming. The purpose of this project is to gather information about the history and evolution of occupational therapy practice in North Dakota and Wyoming through life histories of individuals who have been influential in developing OT in these two states.https://commons.und.edu/ot-oral-histories-posters/1041/thumbnail.jp

Evolution of Occupational Therapy Practice: Life History of Catherine (Catie) Sondrol, MOT, OTR/L

This is a qualitative research study using a life history approach. It was one of 31 life histories conducted as part of a larger study. Objective: To learn about the impact that an Arizona-based occupational therapist with ties to North Dakota has had on the profession. Method: A video conference call was conducted to interview Catie Sondrol. Additional information was found in her curriculum vitae, which was shared by the participant. Results: After transcribing and analyzing the data gathered during the interview, the researchers were able to place an emphasis on the following key aspects of Catie’s professional career: resiliency, giving back, professional issues and practice trends, and core values and beliefs

Particle physics in the sky and astrophysics underground : connecting the universe's largest and smallest scales

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-169).Particles have tremendous potential as astronomical messengers, and conversely, studying the universe as a whole also teaches us about particle physics. This thesis encompasses both of these research directions. Many models predict a diffuse flux of high energy neutrinos from active galactic nuclei and other astrophysical sources. The "Astrophysics Underground" portion of this thesis describes a search for this neutrino flux performed by looking for extremely high energy upward-going muons using the Super-Kamiokande detector, and comparing the observed flux to the expected background. We use our results to to set an upper limit on the diffuse neutrino flux from astrophysical sources. In addition to using particles to do astronomy, we can also use the universe itself as a particle physics lab. Cosmology provides new insights that could never be observed in terrestrial laboratories. The "Particle Physics in the Sky" portion of this thesis focuses on extracting cosmological information from galaxy surveys. To overcome technical challenges faced by the latest galaxy surveys, we produced a comprehensive upgrade to mangle, a software package that processes the angular masks defining the survey area on the sky. We added dramatically faster algorithms and new useful features to this software that are necessary for managing complex masks of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and will be invaluable for future surveys as well. With this software in hand, we utilized galaxy clustering data from SDSS to investigate the relation between galaxies and dark matter by studying relative bias, i.e., the relation between different types of galaxies. If all galaxies were perfect tracers of dark matter, different subpopulations would trace each other perfectly as well. However, separating galaxies by their luminosities and colors reveals a complicated picture: red galaxies are clustered more strongly than blue galaxies, with both the brightest and the faintest red galaxies showing the strongest clustering. Furthermore, red and blue galaxies tend to occupy different regions of space, effectively introducing an element of stochasticity (randomness) when modeling their relative distributions. In order to make precise measurements from the next generation of galaxy surveys, it will be essential to account for this complexity.by Molly E.C. Swanson.Ph.D

Occupational Therapy Interventions to Optimize Functional Use of the Upper Extremity After Peripheral Nerve Injury: A Systematic Review

PURPOSE: Peripheral nerve injuries are a distinct group of injuries that are commonly caused by motor vehicle accidents, falls, industrial accidents, household accidents, and penetrating trauma (Kamble et al., 2019). A peripheral nerve injury can affect an individual’s daily occupations and routines due to unrelenting pain, loss of sensation, and/or burning sensations. Peripheral nerve injuries can result in motor loss and subsequent muscle imbalance which can create functional loss (Chae et al., 2020). The purpose of this systematic review was to provide occupational therapists with evidence supporting the use of interventions to increase the functional use of the upper extremity after peripheral nerve injury. DESIGN: We conducted a systematic review and included studies relevant to peripheral nerve injury, functional use of the upper extremity, and interventions within the scope of occupational therapy. All articles included were published within the last decade. METHOD: We reviewed 31 titles and abstracts from MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, and Scopus databases and retrieved 11 full-text articles. Six met inclusion criteria. To determine the strength of evidence, we used the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force levels of certainty and grade definitions. RESULTS: Three themes emerged: mirror therapy, sensory re-education, and the use of an orthosis. Three level I studies, and one level II study reported on the effectiveness of mirror therapy interventions. These studies provide moderate strength of evidence supporting the use of mirror therapy for improving upper limb function after peripheral nerve injury. One level II study reported on the effectiveness of sensory re-education interventions. Based on this study, sensory re-education is another supported intervention for improving functional outcomes of the upper limb after a peripheral nerve injury. However, this is based on low strength of evidence. One level IV study reported on the effectiveness of orthosis interventions. Using a volar wrist orthosis to enhance upper limb functional use is supported for treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome but is found to be disadvised for ulnar nerve injuries, based on low strength of evidence provided by this study. More evidence is needed to determine the effectiveness of this intervention. CONCLUSION: Based on moderate level of evidence, mirror therapy is a recommended intervention for improving functional outcomes of the upper limb after a peripheral nerve injury. These findings suggest that occupational therapists should be well-educated and trained in mirror therapy procedures and protocols in order to provide best practice to increase functional use of the upper limb after peripheral nerve injury. Sensory re-education is another recommended intervention to improve functional outcomes of the upper limb after a peripheral nerve injury that can be considered on a case-by-case basis. Due to limited literature, future research in the area of peripheral neuropathy interventions within the scope of occupational therapy should focus on increasing sample size using high quality study designs and developing a more standardized mirror therapy protocol.https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/cahp_ot_sysrev/1003/thumbnail.jp

The High-Mass End of the Red Sequence at z~0.55 from SDSS-III/BOSS: completeness, bimodality and luminosity function

We have developed an analytical method based on forward-modeling techniques to characterize the high-mass end of the red sequence (RS) galaxy population at redshift $z\sim0.55$, from the DR10 BOSS CMASS spectroscopic sample, which comprises $\sim600,000$ galaxies. The method, which follows an unbinned maximum likelihood approach, allows the deconvolution of the intrinsic CMASS colour-colour-magnitude distributions from photometric errors and selection effects. This procedure requires modeling the covariance matrix for the i-band magnitude, g-r colour and r-i colour using Stripe 82 multi-epoch data. Our results indicate that the error-deconvolved intrinsic RS distribution is consistent, within the photometric uncertainties, with a single point ($<0.05~{\rm{mag}}$) in the colour-colour plane at fixed magnitude, for a narrow redshift slice. We have computed the high-mass end ($^{0.55}M_i \lesssim -22$) of the $^{0.55}i$-band RS Luminosity Function (RS LF) in several redshift slices within the redshift range $0.52<z<0.63$. In this narrow redshift range, the evolution of the RS LF is consistent, within the uncertainties in the modeling, with a passively-evolving model with $\Phi_* = (7.248 \pm 0.204) \times10^{-4}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ mag$^{-1}$, fading at a rate of $1.5\pm0.4$ mag per unit redshift. We report RS completeness as a function of magnitude and redshift in the CMASS sample, which will facilitate a variety of galaxy-evolution and clustering studies using BOSS. Our forward-modeling method lays the foundations for future studies using other dark-energy surveys like eBOSS or DESI, which are affected by the same type of photometric blurring/selection effects.Comment: 27 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Neutrino masses from clustering of red and blue galaxies: a test of astrophysical uncertainties

Combining measurements of the galaxy power spectrum and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is a powerful means of constraining the summed mass of neutrino species sum(m_nu), but is subject to systematic uncertainties due to non-linear structure formation, redshift-space distortions and galaxy bias. We empirically test the robustness of neutrino mass results to these effects by separately analyzing power spectra of red and blue galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) Data Release 7 (DR7), combined with the CMB five-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP5) data. We consider fitting for a range of maximum wavenumber k using twelve different galaxy bias models. For example, using a new model based on perturbation theory and including redshift space distortions (Saito et al. 2009), the all-galaxy power spectrum combined with WMAP5 for a wavenumber range of k<0.2 Mpc/h yields 95% CL sum(m_nu)<0.46 eV. The red and blue galaxy power spectra give 0.41 and 0.63 eV respectively for this model. Using mock catalogues, we find the expected difference in these limits assuming a true neutrino mass of zero is 0.10 + or - 0.14 eV. Thus the difference of 0.22 eV between upper limits on neutrino mass for red and blue galaxies is approximately 1 sigma from the expected value. We find similar results for the other models and k ranges tested. This indicates good agreement for current data but hints at possible issues for next-generation surveys. Being able to perform such systematic tests is advantageous, and future surveys would benefit by including broad galaxy populations and luminosities that enable such a decomposition.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, matches version published in MNRA

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Analysis of potential systematics

We analyze the density field of galaxies observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) included in the SDSS Data Release Nine (DR9). DR9 includes spectroscopic redshifts for over 400,000 galaxies spread over a footprint of 3,275 deg^2. We identify, characterize, and mitigate the impact of sources of systematic uncertainty on large-scale clustering measurements, both for angular moments of the redshift-space correlation function and the spherically averaged power spectrum, P(k), in order to ensure that robust cosmological constraints will be obtained from these data. A correlation between the projected density of stars and the higher redshift (0.43 < z < 0.7) galaxy sample (the `CMASS' sample) due to imaging systematics imparts a systematic error that is larger than the statistical error of the clustering measurements at scales s > 120h^-1Mpc or k < 0.01hMpc^-1. We find that these errors can be ameliorated by weighting galaxies based on their surface brightness and the local stellar density. We use mock galaxy catalogs that simulate the CMASS selection function to determine that randomly selecting galaxy redshifts in order to simulate the radial selection function of a random sample imparts the least systematic error on correlation function measurements and that this systematic error is negligible for the spherically averaged correlation function. The methods we recommend for the calculation of clustering measurements using the CMASS sample are adopted in companion papers that locate the position of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature (Anderson et al. 2012), constrain cosmological models using the full shape of the correlation function (Sanchez et al. 2012), and measure the rate of structure growth (Reid et al. 2012). (abridged)Comment: Matches version accepted by MNRAS. Clarifications and references have been added. See companion papers that share the "The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey:" titl