COVID-19 Impact and the Association between Sociodemographic, Social Support, Depression, and Anxiety in the Mindful Moms Program

Background: The Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown resulted in lessened social support and a higher incidence of depressive symptoms in the United States. Low-income families were more likely to have experienced negative impacts on income, access to mental health treatment, stress, and discord within the family, and higher anxiety scores during the pandemic. Minority groups had higher COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates. More than 1 in 5 pregnant women in the United States experience clinically significant depressive symptoms, with marginalized populations carrying a greater burden. Maternal depression is linked to poor maternal and child health outcomes. Depression scores of pregnant individuals during the pandemic were higher than those who were pregnant before the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this it is important to understand the association between the impact of COVID-19 and social support, sociodemographic, and mental health among marginalized pregnant women. Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the association between the impact of COVID-19 sociodemographic (race, age, children, and socioeconomic status), social support, depression, and anxiety. Methods: Inclusion criteria includes current depressive symptoms (≥7 EPDS); being 12-16 weeks’ gestation at baseline; marginalized status: minorized (Black/Latinx/Native American and other); WIC eligible, and/or low educational attainment (≤high school); ≥18; English language speaking; and absence of suicidal ideation with a plan, psychosis or mania (measured with the MINI). Eligible pregnant women were randomly assigned to treatment or active control groups. Univariate and bivariate analysis were done to assess the differences between participants with high COVID-19 impact and low COVID-19 impact. Results: The study and my analysis are currently enrolling; the first participant was enrolled mid-September. Currently, the study has enrolled 30 participants. Of the 12 participants with high COVID impact, two-thirds have children and one-third did not and two thirds were between 27 and 35, while one-third was above. Discussion: COVID-19 and similar disruptors in family life should be studied to understand the impact on women with children.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1422/thumbnail.jp

North 14th Street Corridor Improvements Project

The following project report was a study of the North 14th Street corridor ranging from Adams Street to Virginia Street conducted by University of Nebraska-Lincoln students for a senior design capstone project. Main focuses of the project were the intersection of Adams and 14th Street and the 14th Street bridges over Cornhusker Highway and Oak Creek. Study of this area included work in transportation, traffic, structural, geotechnical, water resources, and environmental engineering. However, this report done by students should not take the place of work done by licensed professional engineers. This project was done in collaboration with engineers for the City of Lincoln, who acted as clients looking for engineering consulting. Research was conducted to find the applicable design requirements for each of the civil engineering subdisciplines. These requirements were obtained through GIS data, maps, and certified design manuals. After obtaining the proper data and design requirements, it was concluded that the signalized intersection of Adams and 14th Street would be left alone, the bridge over Cornhusker Highway would be removed and designed as an at-grade roundabout, and the bridge over Oak Creek would be removed and completely replaced. The multi-phase project came to a total cost of about $30,759,090

Evaluating the Efficacy of Vertebral Axial Decompression Therapy in Treatment of Patients with Chronic Lower Back Pain: A Systematic Review

The primary objective of the study was to explore the effectiveness of Vertebral Axial Decompression (VAX-D) in treating patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) as a safe and competent therapeutic method. Also, to determine the quality of life in alleviating chronic lumbar pain using mechanical Lumbar traction force applied to the lumbar spine. A systematic review and meta-analysis involving detailed literature survey on Vertebral Axial Decompression (VAX-D) therapy for patients with chronic low back pain were conducted in three databases namely MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Library from (January 1994 to February 2019). Studies supporting the outcomes with qualitative statistical analysis on chronic low back pain and Lumbar traction were retrieved. We retrieved sixteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for systematic review, and 6 studies were found to be eligible for inclusion in meta-analysis with a sample size of 486 patients receiving Lumbar traction. Among them, one study was found to be high quality that detailed the positive relationship between reduction of pain intensity after VAX-D therapy. However, most of the studies are unsuccessful in demonstrating an improvement towards the patient\u27s mobility or quality of life. There is no reliable indication of the efficacy of VAX-D therapy for chronic low back pain patients. Studies on VAX-D had methodological errors and inadequate data for profound statistical analysis. Further, there was no evidence to show the dosage requirement, patient position, and settings on the VAX-D table that led to observed outcomes. Any prospect of research focusing on LBP morbidity should enable to distinguish between symptom duration and pattern with accurate standard methods. Therefore, more studies validating the effective treatment strategies in the management of patients with chronic low back pain are warranted

Administrators Matter in NGSS Implementation (2019): Updated Findings on How School and District Leaders Are Making Science Happen

Administrators need learning opportunities if they are to adequately understand the substantial shifts of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and support teachers in implementing them. Accordingly, the K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative has consistently expanded the professional learning it provides for administrators, particularly for site administrators, who generally have the most contact with teachers. This tenth evaluation report in the series, intended for site and district administrators and state leaders, highlights:- The professional learning strategies used by the Initiative to engage and empower administrators to support NGSS implementation (includes two district vignettes)- The impact of the professional learning on administrator understanding and actions- The challenges experienced by the Initiative in trying to involve administrators- Recommendations for increasing administrator help with science implementatio

Highly-mass-loaded hot galactic winds are unstable to cool filament formation

When cool clouds are ram-pressure accelerated by a hot supersonic galactic wind, some of the clouds may be shredded by hydrodynamical instabilities and incorporated into the hot flow. Recent one-dimensional steady-state calculations show how cool cloud entrainment directly affects the bulk thermodynamics, kinematics, and observational characteristics of the hot gas. In particular, mass-loading decelerates the hot flow and changes its entropy. Here, we investigate the stability of planar and spherical mass-loaded hot supersonic flows using both perturbation analysis and three-dimensional time-dependent radiative hydrodynamical simulations. We show that mass-loading is stable over a broad range of parameters and that the 1D time-steady analytic solutions exactly reproduce the 3D time-dependent calculations, provided that the flow does not decelerate sufficiently to become subsonic. For higher values of the mass-loading, the flow develops a sonic point and becomes thermally unstable, rapidly cooling and forming elongated dense cometary filaments. We explore the mass-loading parameters required to reach a sonic point and the radiative formation of these filaments. For certain approximations, we can derive simple analytic criteria. In general a mass-loading rate similar to the initial mass outflow rate is required. In this sense, the destruction of small cool clouds by a hot flow may ultimately spontaneously generate fast cool filaments, as observed in starburst superwinds. Lastly, we find that the kinematics of filaments is sensitive to the slope of the mass-loading function. Filaments move faster than the surrounding wind if mass-loading is over long distances whereas filaments move slower than their surroundings if mass-loading is abrupt.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, submitted to MNRAS (21 July 2023

The Synergy of Science and English Language Arts: Means and Mutual Benefits of Integration

The California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative (known in short as the Early Implementers Initiative) is equipping teachers to richly integrate science and English language arts (ELA). In fact, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) clearly call for such integration.The nature of the NGSS and their recommended instructional approaches readily enable powerful ELA learning for all students. In a dramatic departure from science instruction that emphasizes scientific information and facts, NGSS science has students working as scientists to make sense of phenomena in the natural world. The NGSS approach requires a lot of lively discussion, critical reading, and thoughtful writing and drawing. Initiative teachers have clearly demonstrated that integrated science instruction is accessible to English learners and that these learners get strong ELA benefits from science instruction.While the Initiative equips teachers to integrate science and ELA, it does not call for all science instruction to be a concerted blending of science and ELA. Indeed, teachers reported that half of their science instructional time was stand-alone science.As a member of the State Board of Education commented during an advisory board meeting for the Initiative's evaluation: "Everyone is saying you should integrate science and ELA, but what does that actually look like in the classroom?" This report -- intended for state and district leaders, including principals -- addresses that question and several others highlighted below. To get answers, the evaluation team observed all key professional development sessions and 20 classroom lessons, surveyed over 500 teachers, interviewed Initiative leaders, and more

Evaluating Success in PPP Road Projects in Europe: A Comparison of Performance Measurement Approaches

This research aims to identify how to measure the level of success of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects using case studies along Europe. The analysis is based on a Performance Measurement System (PMS) using a step-by-step approach. Altogether 13 PPP road projects in the EU have been chosen to test the PMS. Two measurement approaches have been used to analyse the performance of these case studies. Herein, altogether 29 performance measures (PMs) and 9 key performance indicators (KPIs) that have been developed systematically have been considered. The first approach used has evaluated the number of successful and failure performance measures in order to show different level of success in projects. In this approach, the weighting used for the performance measures are considered equal. The second approach has been then used to weight the PMs using a Delphi analysis first, and then to evaluate overall performance. The comparison of the results reveal that there are dominant PMs and KPIs that determine the success of a project. The results illustrate how PPP projects may be evaluated to extract conclusions about the success/failure of a project from a global view, showing the areas and elements that need to be considered along this process