SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19

The emergence of COVID-19 has stunned the world and challenged the medical field in ways not seen in almost a century. COVID-19 has proven to be unpredictable and can have effects ranging from mild to life threatening, including pneumonia, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, multi-system organ failure and death. This presentation discusses the presentation, pathophysiology, current treatments and implications on nursing for COVID-19. Research is ongoing to determine just how and why this virus attacks the way it does, how to best treat the virus and how to develop a vaccine to prevent future outbreaks

Getting the message: The adaptive potential of interpersonal judgments

According to the Social Message Model, interpersonal judgments are transactions in which judges convey important social messages to the individuals they evaluate (the targets); targets can then respond to the judgments in more or less adaptive ways. We argue that judges’ opinions emerge from their current concerns, be it to promote their own well-being, or to foster group cohesion. Targets of judgments can best interpret the meaning of a judgment they receive by understanding the judge’s concerns, competence of the judge, and other qualities of the transaction. We suggest that judges and targets who are better able to reason about the judgment process are likely to change their behaviors more adaptively than people less able to reason in this area

Book Review of The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed

In my review of The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed by Boal, J., Howe, K., and Soerio, J., eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), I compare the book’s call for Theatre of the Oppressed to embrace a nuanced investigation of social problems with its response: the international movements detailed in its chapters. While demonstrating that the first-hand accounts provide a measured answer to contradictions inherent in a system which Augusto Boal developed in response to a specific political climate, I emphasize the beauty of theory and practice sitting side by side, in paradox, and encourage scholar and practitioner alike to revel in the multiplication and trajectory of the thirteen years marked since the last Companion. The Routledge Companion is an intensely personal, rigorous investigation of the history and complex dimensions of a changing system born of struggle and Boal’s deep concern for people; above all, as my review suggests, the book is a worthy reminder of the dialogue that must stay center stage during this rehearsal for the revolution

Constructing Hepatitis C in Philadelphia

This research explores how the CDC Hepatitis Epidemiology Investigation Team at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) constructs Hepatitis C (HCV) in the public and medical discourse through their monitoring and education activities. Data in the form of field notes and ethnographic observation was collected during 16 months of participant observations at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. This research provides evidence that the team’s actions give voice to a silent epidemic by being responsible for the construction of the conversations happening around HCV in Philadelphia. Their actions in the domains of risk factors, support systems, public health and prevention, stigmatized behaviors and safe practices, bodily proof and silent epidemics, health insurance, and medical hierarchy will ultimately determine the future climate of hepatitis in Philadelphia. This research can serve as insight into the functioning of public health teams and how more positive and proactive conversations surrounding diseases can be instigated

Estrus Activity After Prostaglandin Injection using Heatime Activity Monitoring Collars used at Cal Poly Dairy

The objective of the study was to determine activity using an activity monitoring system, Heatime. Data was collected from cows at the Cal Poly dairy from December 30, 2011 to January 6, 2012 whose results are from the previous program. This program involved prostaglandin in the form of Lutalyse given on Friday and cows were time bred the following Monday, 72 hours after the prostaglandin injection. Data collected from January 13, 2012 to current shows the new trial program which involved an injection of 5cc Lutalyse Monday and Tuesday, a vet check on Wednesday, time bred on Thursday, and a possible injection of Gonadotrophin- releasing Hormone (GnRH). Cows that have been checked by the veterinarian and are not showing signs of ovulation are given the additional GnRH injection. The results of both were compared to see if the additional injection caused immediate estrus cycling and showed signs of peak activity on the Heatime system more consistently than the previous program. Results showed that while not all cows came into estrus before or on the day of insemination, there were some consistencies in peak detection. The data showed that methods in which the two injections of Lutalyse were given on consecutive days, followed by time breeding on the fourth day had more instances where estrus was not demonstrated as peaking within the expected period. Although the results from those cows also given an injection of GnRH were shown to have higher instances of cows demonstrating peak estrus activity, it did not demonstrate enough to show that it is the best method. Limited results show that the new 4 day program without the incorporation of GnRH are not effective in creating peak activity and that the previous method of a single injection of Lutalyse may be the most beneficial. Factors that are possibilities for this outcome include time as a constraint, as well as inconsistent weather conditions over the duration of the new protocol. To see if results will change, data needs to be observed using more cows and a longer period of time as well as including more cows from the previous protocol

Maintaining developmentally appropriate practice in an increasingly academic kindergarten

The purpose of this paper was to conduct a review of research to determine whether a developmental or an academic curriculum is most appropriate for kindergarten classrooms. The research outlined the benefits of developmentally appropriate practice, including increased academic performance and better social skills. The research also showed the detriments of developmentally inappropriate practice, including increased stress levels, a stifling of enthusiasm for learning and less advanced academic and social skills. However, in spite of the research, many early childhood professionals are not fully implementing developmentally appropriate practice. Three main obstacles to full implementation were the following: (a) increased accountability from state and local authorities, (b) the downward shift of curriculum expectations from the next grade level, and (c) increased expectations from parents. Detailed conclusions from the research were drawn and recommendations for developmentally appropriate classrooms were made

Healthcare Cost of Hepatitis C-infected Members in a Managed Care Organization (MCO)

No abstract available

Private Reader, Public Redactor: Narrative Strategies of the Nineteenth-Century Female Revisionist

This dissertation investigates the vital role of the private female reading experience in the creation of the mid-Victorian British woman writer\u27s authorial persona. In particular, I examine the role of the female redactor, a woman writer who revises a particular text, genre, or convention within a patriarchal literary tradition. The public and private contexts of the female redactor become imperative to the text that she creates, for the final narrative product is not only a public revision but also a series of private, gendered negotiations that define the woman writer and determine her contribution to female authorship. With a specific focus on Geraldine Jewsbury, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, I closely examine the ways in which these female redactors invoke and challenge male-authored texts within an established patriarchal literary tradition in order to create for themselves a distinctly female literary identity. Chapter One centers on Geraldine Jewsbury\u27s feminist revision of Thomas Carlyle\u27s gospel of work in her novel The Half Sisters (1848), in which Jewsbury emphasizes the importance of women\u27s work in Victorian England. Chapter Two explores the manner in which Elizabeth Barrett Browning--inspired by John Donne\u27s Songs and Sonets (1633) in her own Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)--engages in a gendered revision of the Petrarchan sonnet, both in content and form, in order to represent realistically the complex poetic place of woman as desiring subject, desired object, and empowered female poet. Chapter Three examines Mary Elizabeth Braddon\u27s The Doctor\u27s Wife (1864), in which Braddon aims to subvert critical understandings of high and low literary culture that dismiss the value of both the female consumer and the sensation genre. I conclude with a brief epilogue, which focuses on two contemporary revisions of nineteenth-century female-authored texts: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Jane Slayre. These co-authored revisions of classic nineteenth-century texts, which simultaneously lampoon and pay homage to nineteenth-century female authorship, highlight the importance not only of revision as a narrative strategy for constructing authorial identity but also of a nineteenth-century female literary tradition that mid-Victorian female redactors aimed to establish

Intercultural Knowledge and Skills in Social Service Work with Refugees: Perspetives from Providers and Recipients of Service

This qualitative research study examined how social service providers and refugee recipients of public social services in a small city in an upper mid-western state described the intercultural knowledge and skills they felt were necessary for effective provision of services to refugees. The study sought to add to a body of knowledge related to the concept of “cultural competence,” a concept that has received increasing attention in human service fields over the past twenty years. Lum (1999) describes cultural competence as an outcome goal “related to the master of cultural awareness, knowledge acquisition, skill development, and inductive learning” (p. 12). Fong (2004) has added to the cultural competence literature by emphasizing the importance of migration context in work with refugees. Culturally competent human services are seen as necessary to combat ethnocentrism and to ensure culturally relevant services (Weaver, 2005). While human service fields such as social work, counseling psychology, and nursing have extensively examined cultural competence in relation to their practitioners, very little has been written about the intercultural interactions of eligibility, or economic assistance, workers in the public social services. These individuals are frequently the gatekeepers for programs on which refugees heavily rely in their first months, or years, of resettlement. This study used grounded theory methodology to gather, analyze, and compare data from semi-structured interviews with county eligibility workers, county social workers, former refugees, and providers from other human service fields (called “stakeholders” in the study). The study found that county providers, both eligibility and social workers, relied on program policies and rules, their personal value systems, and a generic set of helping attitudes to guide their work with refugees. In contrast, stakeholders discussed an interplay of self awareness and relationship-building as primary skills in their intercultural work and refugee interviewees articulated a need for “human connection” in interactions with county workers. The findings indicated that county providers relied minimally on the professionally-defined knowledge and skills of cultural competence and that, in the absence of these skills, county programs and workers serve primarily to indoctrinate refugees into dominant American cultural norms and practices