The Role of Community College Faculty in Encouraging Student Enrollment Following Dual Enrollment Participation

Dual enrollment participation promotes college attendance following high school, and college administrators view the program as a valuable student recruitment opportunity. Yet, less than one-third of participants choose to matriculate with the host institution, especially at a community college. The literature contains minimal information regarding how dual enrollment participation serves as a context in college choice. Using Perna’s college choice model, this qualitative study explored how dual enrollment participation shaped students’ choice to attend the host institution the semester after high school graduation. Through semi-structured interviews, field notes, and a document review, I answered the following question: How does participation in technical and transfer dual enrollment programs shape students’ choice to enroll as degree-seeking with the host institution? Participants included 14 former dual enrollment students in both technical and transfer dual enrollment programs from Appalachia Community College (ACC), who opted to enroll as degree-seeking with ACC the semester after high school graduation. I used descriptive and pattern coding to identify themes. The findings suggest that the technical and transfer dual enrollment participants held similar reasons for enrolling as degree-seeking with ACC. The dual enrollment experience exposed the students to ACC characteristics that they ultimately found appealing. Students particularly appreciated the supportive faculty. Additionally, the participants selected ACC because of the environment, ability to save money, location, the gained momentum towards a degree, and the available programs and transfer opportunities. The study’s findings add to the dual enrollment literature and provide insight for community college administrators seeking to recruit former dual enrollment participants

Effects of Nonylphenol on Orientation by the Crayfish \u3ci\u3eOrconectes propinquus\u3c/i\u3e

Nonylphenol is a widely used surfactant subject to ethoxylation and subsists in the environment for significant amounts of time. It has industrial, agricultural, and domestic uses, and makes its way into the aquatic ecosystem despite treatment of wastewater. Detrimental effects of nonylphenol are varied, but most notably endocrine disruption has been examined. Crayfish are a crucial invertebrate in freshwater ecosystems. They are omnivorous, and occupy a key position in the trophic web as both predator and prey. To determine if nonylphenol exposure has any effect on the orientation abilities of crayfish, I acutely (1 day) and chronically (4 days) exposed crayfish to a sublethal amount of nonylphenol. The crayfish then attempted to locate a food odor in a modified Y-maze. Both acutely and chronically exposed crayfish were significantly less successful at choosing the food odor arm than controls, and acutely exposed crayfish also spent significantly less time in the food odor arm. These differences indicate sublethal nonylphenol exposure impairs the orientation ability of crayfish to a food source

Suicide among male road and rail drivers in Australia: a retrospective mortality study

Objectives: This paper aims to describe the epidemiology of suicide among males employed in driving occupations (road and rail) compared to other male occupations in Australia. Methods: Suicide cases among road and rail drivers were extracted from a national dataset of occupationally coded suicide cases for the period 2001 to 2010. Suicide rates per 100 000 were calculated and standardised using the Australian standard population (2001). Incidence rate ratios (IRR) with 95% confidence intervals were calculated using Mantell Haenszel rates and compared to all employed suicide cases. Results: The majority of suicides in this occupational category occurred in truck drivers, followed by road and rail drivers. 98% of these suicides were among males; hence only males were included in further analyses. The age-standardised rate of male suicide among Road and Rail drivers over the period 2001 to 2010 was 22.6 per 100 000 (95% CI 19.2 to 25.9). The IRR of suicide in this occupational group compared to other male occupations was 1.42 (95% CI 1.26 to1.60). Conclusions: Suicide among Road and Rail drivers is higher than in the other male occupations. Suicide prevention initiatives addressing these risk factors, while also providing access to treatment for those at risk, are clearly needed

Student perception of academic grading: personality, academic orientation, and effort

Factors influencing student perceptions of academic grading were examined, with an emphasis on furthering understanding of the relevance of effort to students’ conceptualization of grading. Students demonstrated a conceptualization of grading where effort should be weighted comparably to actual performance in importance to the composition of a grade, with the expectation that grade allocation should reflect this perception. Students suggested a compensatory effect of effort in grade assignment, where a subjectively perceived high level of effort was expected to supplement low performance on a task. Furthermore, students perceived professors as less fair and less competent when they were perceived to not be able to adequately account for students’ subjective perception of effort. In addition, student perceptions of grading were examined in relation to student-possessed learning orientation (LO), grade orientation (GO), and aspects of personality. Prototypically, individuals high in LO tend to be motivated by the acquisition of knowledge, while those high in GO tend to be driven by the acquisition of high grades. Conscientiousness, openness and age contributed significantly to and positively predicted LO. Inversely, conscientiousness, openness and age contributed significantly to and negatively predicted GO while neuroticism positively predicted this orientation. Students appear to place a heavy amount of importance on professor consideration of effort, despite recognizing the realistic difficulties in determining effort. The potential for an emerging student mentality is discussed, where students’ perception of grading is distorted by a subjective appraisal of their own effort

Extreme star formation events in quasar hosts over 0.5<z<4{\bf0.5<\textit{z}<4}

We explore the relationship between active galactic nuclei and star formation in a sample of 513 optically luminous type 1 quasars up to redshifts of $\sim$4 hosting extremely high star formation rates (SFRs). The quasars are selected to be individually detected by the \textit{Herschel} SPIRE instrument at $>$3$\sigma$ at 250 $\mu$m, leading to typical SFRs of order of 1000 M$_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$. We find the average SFRs to increase by almost a factor 10 from $z\sim0.5$ to $z\sim3$, mirroring the rise in the comoving SFR density over the same epoch. However, we find that the SFRs remain approximately constant with increasing accretion luminosity for accretion luminosities above 10$^{12}$ L$_{\odot}$. We also find that the SFRs do not correlate with black hole mass. Both of these results are most plausibly explained by the existence of a self-regulation process by the starburst at high SFRs, which controls SFRs on time-scales comparable to or shorter than the AGN or starburst duty cycles. We additionally find that SFRs do not depend on Eddington ratio at any redshift, consistent with no relation between SFR and black hole growth rate per unit black hole mass. Finally, we find that high-ionisation broad absorption line (HiBAL) quasars have indistinguishable far-infrared properties to those of classical quasars, consistent with HiBAL quasars being normal quasars observed along a particular line of sight, with the outflows in HiBAL quasars not having any measurable effect on the star formation in their hosts.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Hot summers in the Western United States during the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic

Understanding how seasonal temperatures on land respond to global greenhouse climate conditions is important for predicting effects of climate change on ecosystem structure, agriculture and distributions of natural resources. Fossil floral and faunal assemblages suggest winter temperatures in middle and high latitude continental interiors during the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic were at or above freezing, whereas terrestrial summer temperature estimates are uncertain. Carbonate clumped isotope (Δ_(47)) temperature estimates from lacustrine and paleosol carbonates appear to be generally biased toward summer temperatures in middle and high latitudes. Though problematic for reconstructing mean annual temperature (MAT), this bias presents an opportunity to reconstruct terrestrial summer temperatures and, through comparison with paleobotanical data, estimate past terrestrial seasonality

Workplace mental health: developing an integrated intervention approach

BACKGROUND: Mental health problems are prevalent and costly in working populations. Workplace interventions to address common mental health problems have evolved relatively independently along three main threads or disciplinary traditions: medicine, public health, and psychology. In this Debate piece, we argue that these three threads need to be integrated to optimise the prevention of mental health problems in working populations. DISCUSSION: To realise the greatest population mental health benefits, workplace mental health intervention needs to comprehensively 1) protect mental health by reducing work-related risk factors for mental health problems; 2) promote mental health by developing the positive aspects of work as well as worker strengths and positive capacities; and 3) address mental health problems among working people regardless of cause. We outline the evidence supporting such an integrated intervention approach and consider the research agenda and policy developments needed to move towards this goal, and propose the notion of integrated workplace mental health literacy. SUMMARY: An integrated approach to workplace mental health combines the strengths of medicine, public health, and psychology, and has the potential to optimise both the prevention and management of mental health problems in the workplace

Geographic Distribution and Mortality Risk Factors during the Cholera Outbreak in a Rural Region of Haiti, 2010-2011

In 2010 and 2011, Haiti was heavily affected by a large cholera outbreak that spread throughout the country. Although national health structure-based cholera surveillance was rapidly initiated, a substantial number of community cases might have been missed, particularly in remote areas. We conducted a community-based survey in a large rural, mountainous area across four districts of the Nord department including areas with good versus poor accessibility by road, and rapid versus delayed response to the outbreak to document the true cholera burden and assess geographic distribution and risk factors for cholera mortality

Health Assessment and Seroepidemiologic Survey of Potential Pathogens in Wild Antillean Manatees (Trichechus manatus manatus)

The Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus), a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, inhabits fresh, brackish, and warm coastal waters distributed along the eastern border of Central America, the northern coast of South America, and throughout the Wider Caribbean Region. Threatened primarily by human encroachment, poaching, and habitat degradation, Antillean manatees are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The impact of disease on population viability remains unknown in spite of concerns surrounding the species' ability to rebound from a population crash should an epizootic occur. To gain insight on the baseline health of this subspecies, a total of 191 blood samples were collected opportunistically from wild Antillean manatees in Belize between 1997 and 2009. Hematologic and biochemical reference intervals were established, and antibody prevalence to eight pathogens with zoonotic potential was determined. Age was found to be a significant factor of variation in mean blood values, whereas sex, capture site, and season contributed less to overall differences in parameter values. Negative antibody titers were reported for all pathogens surveyed except for Leptospira bratislava, L. canicola, and L. icterohemorrhagiae, Toxoplasma gondii, and morbillivirus. As part of comprehensive health assessment in manatees from Belize, this study will serve as a benchmark aiding in early disease detection and in the discernment of important epidemiologic patterns in the manatees of this region. Additionally, it will provide some of the initial tools to explore the broader application of manatees as sentinel species of nearshore ecosystem health