Pre- and Post-matriculation Correlates of Student Retention Within a Community College Setting

In the 1990s, due in part to declining enrollment numbers and prolonged budget constraints, student retention became a primary focus in higher education. Aligned with the nationwide interest, this longitudinal, archival study focused on the correlates of student retention at Walters State Community College, located in Morristown, Tennessee. The population involved 17,497 students enrolled from the fall semester of 1992 through the fall semester of 1997. Four sets of variables were investigated--demographic variables, pre-matriculation variables, post-matriculation variables related to grades, and post-matriculation variables related to enrollment. The data were collected through the use of a computer program written to access the Tennessee Board of Regents\u27 Student Information System database, and the data obtained were analyzed through the application of two univariate approaches--the chi-square and the t test for independent samples. The major findings of the study were: (1) Younger, White, females persisted at higher rates than did other students at Walters State; (2) students who: had higher high school GPAs, had higher admission test scores, attended public high schools, had pre-college residences that were located within the college\u27s service area, and made applications for college less than two months prior to the first day of classes persisted at higher rates than did other students at Walters State; (3) students who: had higher college GPAs, were required to take one or two remedial and developmental courses, had not received any F grades, and had greater than zero reported absences persisted at higher rates than did other students at Walters State; and (4) students who: attended on a full-time basis, were enrolled in programs designed for transfer to four-year institutions, changed their major programs of study more than one time, and received financial assistance persisted at higher rates than did other students at Walters State. These findings should be communicated with all college personnel in an effort to increase their sensitivity to the special needs of these at-risk constituencies. Furthermore, the findings should be used in developing a retention plan that incorporates programs and services designed to address the needs of targeted audiences as identified in this study

Pmp27 Promotes Peroxisomal Proliferation

Peroxisomes perform many essential functions in eukaryotic cells. The weight of evidence indicates that these organelles divide by budding from preexisting peroxisomes. This process is not understood at the molecular level. Peroxisomal proliferation can be induced in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by oleate. This growth substrate is metabolized by peroxisomal enzymes. We have identified a protein, Pmp27, that promotes peroxisomal proliferation. This protein, previously termed Pmp24, was purified from peroxisomal membranes, and the corresponding gene, PMP27, was isolated and sequenced. Prop27 shares sequence similarity with the Pmp30 family in Candida boidinii. Pmp27 is a hydrophobic peroxisomal membrane protein but it can be extracted by high pH, suggesting that it does not fully span the bilayer. Its expression is regulated by oleate. The function of Pmp27 was probed by observing the phenotype of strains in which the protein was eliminated by gene disruption or overproduced by expression from a multicopy plasmid. The strain containing the disruption (3B) was able to grow on all carbon sources tested, including oleate, although growth on oleate, glycerol, and acetate was slower than wild type. Strain 3B contained peroxisomes with all of the enzymes of β-oxidation. However, in addition to the presence of a few modestly sized peroxisomes seen in a typical thin section of a cell growing on oleate-containing medium, cells of strain 3B also contained one or two very large peroxisomes. In contrast, cells in a strain in which Pmp27 was overexpressed contained an increased number of normal-sized peroxisomes. We suggest that Pmp27 promotes peroxisomal proliferation by participating in peroxisomal elongation or fission.

Improving Capstone Papers for Baccalaureate Nursing Students: With an Evidence-Based Partnership Between a Health Sciences Librarian and a Nurse Educator

This presentation will describe a partnership between a nursing faculty member and a health sciences librarian to improve capstone papers submitted by Baccalaureate Nursing students in the last semester of their program. Academic health sciences librarians will find the description of partnering and applying evidence-based librarianship in the classroom informative, specifically for academic librarians who struggle with the question of, should librarians teach APA? This project involved: an instruction intervention, developing a rubric, scoring capstone papers and developing supplementary materials to support the capstone assignment. The nursing faculty member noticed that the APA errors in capstone papers were egregious. To improve this, the health sciences librarian taught an active learning library instruction intervention session that all students attended. Capstone papers were collected (N=90) over the course of six semesters from Fall 2012 to Summer 2014. Of those papers, 54 were pre-intervention and 36 were post-intervention. To evaluate the intervention, the research team evaluated the students’ capstone papers using a rubric developed by the authors to examine adherence to APA (title page, in text citation and reference page) and quality of sources selected. Final results showed some improvement in post-intervention papers. An additional result was the development of supplemental materials by the research team, including: a chart of common credible sources such as, QSEN, TJC and other standards students might commonly use when writing an evidenced based capstone paper, a list of most commonly seen citation errors and a list of the most frequently cited peer reviewed journals for capstone papers

Academic Service-Learning Experience Embraces the Vincentian Mission in Physician Assistant Education

Motivated by the belief that health care is a basic human right and driven by a Vincentian mission, St. John’s University Physician Assistant Program incorporates service minded educational experiences created to expose students to the necessity to reach those most in need—“the poor, alienated and the aged.” In Spring 2018, in conjunction with the SJU Academic Service-Learning program, a geriatric service assignment was integrated into the geriatric course curriculum. Working with Selfhelp Virtual Senior Center, local senior centers and nursing homes, students participated in an outreach project to serve senior citizens. Students shared their experiences through reflection and pre- and post-experience surveys. The reflections included open-ended questions to encourage students to examine and explore ideas regarding older patient’s unique needs to promote empathy and understanding. Conscious and subconscious prejudices and assumptions regarding “old people” were challenged. Students found that participants were more knowledgeable and willing to try new things than they thought. They also discovered that seniors were able to utilize technology and were much more informed than the students anticipated. Together with the teachings of St. Vincent, this AS-L program not only provided an opportunity for senior citizen participants to socialize with the community, but helped our students grow personally and professionally. The results and student reflections collected favor providing service opportunities to enhance the learning objectives of the geriatric course, as well as instill or reinforce compassion and service to aged underserved communities

Hypercalcemia Associated with a Malignant Brenner Tumor Arising from a Mature Cystic Teratoma

A 60-year-old woman presented with abdominal pain and weight loss and was found to have serum calcium of 15.0 mg/dl. Serum parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) returned elevated. Imaging suggested bilateral mature cystic teratomas. Her hypercalcemia was treated initially with intravenous saline, as well as intramuscular and subcutaneous calcitonin. She underwent total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and final pathology revealed malignant Brenner tumor in association with a mature cystic teratoma. Her postoperative PTHrP returned less than assay, and her total and ionized calcium fell below normal, requiring supplemental calcium and vitamin D. At follow-up one month after discharge, her calcium had normalized. We present the first reported case of hypercalcemia occurring in association with a malignant Brenner tumor. Malignancy-associated hypercalcemia occurs via four principal mechanisms: (1) tumor production of PTHrP; (2) osteolytic bone involvement by primary tumor or metastasis; (3) ectopic activation of vitamin D to $1,25-(OH)_2$ vitamin D, and (4) ectopic production of parathyroid hormone. PTHrP-mediated hypercalcemia is the most common mechanism and was responsible in this case. In patients with paraneoplastic hypercalcemia who undergo surgical treatment, close monitoring and management of serum calcium is necessary both pre- and postoperatively

Increased Risk of Cervical Dysplasia in Long-Term Survivors of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation—Implications for Screening and HPV Vaccination

AbstractAs more women survive allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT), the development of genital human papilloma virus (HPV)-related squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) warrants study. Thirty-five of 38 females followed prospectively long-term after SCT for hematological malignancies (median: 7 years posttransplant) were adults and had cervical cytology testing. Acute graft-versus-host-disease (aGVHD) occurred in 9 and chronic (cGVHD) in 34 patients. Six (17%) continued receiving systemic immunosuppressive therapy (IST) for cGVHD >3 years after SCT. Of 15 (43%) with abnormal cytology, 12 (34%) patients had HPV-related SIL (median time to SIL 51 months, range: 22-108) including high-grade SIL in 7 (20%). Patients requiring continued IST had the highest risk (odds ratio [OR] 4.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1-16.4; P = .019). This high incidence of SIL in long-term SCT survivors underscores the importance of gynecologic assessment after transplantation, especially in those requiring IST. This may portend an increased risk of genital or other HPV-related malignancies

Supporting Parents: How Six Decades of Parenting Research Can Inform Policy and Best Practice

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145365/1/sop200090.pd

Session 2A: \u3cem\u3ePanel Discussion: Developing Post-Incident Risk Communication Guidelines for Intentional Water Contamination Events\u3c/em\u3e

This panel will discuss emerging findings from a US EPA-funded research project intended to improve risk communication for post-incident decontamination and clearance activities associated with intentional contamination of a water system. The session will center around Phase II of the study, which focuses on extending the Phase I case study findings that were presented at last year’s KWRRI Symposium, to identify ways in which disparate stakeholder groups in metropolitan areas differentially perceive risk and subsequent risk communication efforts

A Comparison Of Teachers' Perception Between Communicatively Impaired Children And Their Peers

The purpose of this study was to determine if public school teachers perceive communicatively impaired children differently when compared with non-communicatively impaired peers in the same classrooms

Internal and contextual factors, knowledge processes and performance: From the Chinese provider's perspective

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Expert Systems with Applications. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper explores the influences of two internal factors, i.e. supplier team’s IT-based skills and communication with client’s team, and two contextual factors, i.e. supplier team’s understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team, on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services from the Chinese provider’s perspective. Knowledge processes are characterized by knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management, and performance is measured by product success and personal satisfaction. Data have been collected in 13 companies in Xi’an Software Park, with 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with top and middle managers, and 200 structured questionnaires distributed to knowledge workers who are involved in global sourcing projects. The results indicate that supplier team’s IT-based skills, communication with client’s team, cultural understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team are positively associated with knowledge process and performance. Also, knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management are found to be crucial for those influential factors to function positively and contribute to the performance. The findings of this study suggest that the effects of key factors on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services appear to transcend the social and cultural differences; however, contextual factors seem to have more significant influences on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services.National Natural Science Foundation of Chin