Computers in Social Work: A Review of the United Way\u27s First Call for Help System

This stud,y was a formative evaluation of the Uni ted Ways of Minneapolis and Saint Paul Minnesota\u27s First Call for HeIp referral program specifically the quality control of information concerning social service agencies and programs. This analysis includes how this service receives information, how information is recall ed from the computer and how information is dispensed to the clients and professionals who are seeking information concerning social services. In addition, this analysis reviews the training the operators of this service are required to complete. The final chapter of this analysis explores how computers may be able to be used as tools to provide information to clients and professionals

The Effects of Group-Based Context Personalization on Learning Outcomes and Motivation

The rise of online course enrollments in higher education has highlighted the need to establish and validate effective online instructional strategies focused on improving learning outcomes and affective responses towards instruction. One such strategy, group-based context personalization, frames instructional materials within contexts relevant to shared interests among groups of students. This study sought to investigate the effects of group-based context personalization on learning outcomes and motivation towards the instruction when materials were contextualized based on a learner’s academic major. This study employed a true experimental design to explore the effects of group-based context personalization on learning outcomes and motivation for 20 undergraduate fashion merchandising majors enrolled in a four-year institution in the East Central Region of the U.S. Participants were randomly assigned to either the personalization or non-personalization group. The personalization group received an online unit on fair use and copyright contextualized with fashion merchandising examples, while the non-personalization group received the same instructional materials but with general, education-related examples. Both groups completed Keller’s (2010) Instructional Materials Motivation Survey and a posttest that consisted of recall, general transfer, and fashion merchandising-related transfer questions. This study found no significant between-groups differences on learning outcomes or motivation towards the instruction, though the within-groups posttest performance on general education questions did approach significance over performance on fashion merchandising transfer questions. Suggestions for future research and implementation of group-based context personalization instructional strategies are provided

On the Use of Benthic Foraminifera as Sediment Tracers in a Hawaiian Bay

Populations of foraminifera were investigated in regard to the suitability of the various species as indicators of sand transport. Of 53 species recorded in the sediments of Kahana Bay, Oahu, 16 showed distribution patterns that give evidence of the direction of sand transport within the littoral cell

The Utilization of Instructional Technologies to Augment Traditional Instructional Strategies Within Online Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Programs

Researchers have categorized the methods used to teach entrepreneurship in a face-to-face delivery mode. However, little research has examined methods used for teaching entrepreneurship online. Accordingly, this paper surveys faculty and program chairs at universities that offer online entrepreneurship courses in order to establish a baseline of instructional strategies used within online entrepreneurial education. Since extant literature on effective entrepreneurial teaching methods emphasize the inclusion of entrepreneurship exercises to be experiential and creative, the authors build upon their survey baseline by suggesting five typical activities from the online canon and re-purpose them to increase the experiential nature of such exercises

FluentDNA: Nucleotide Visualization of Whole Genomes, Annotations, and Alignments

Researchers seldom look at naked genome assemblies: instead the attributes of DNA sequences are mediated through statistics, annotations and high level summaries. Here we present software that visualizes the bare sequences of whole genome assemblies in a zoomable interface. This can assist in detection of chromosome architecture and contamination by the naked eye through changes in color patterns, in the absence of any other annotation. When available, annotations can be visualized alongside or on top of the naked sequence. Genome alignments can also be visualized, laying two genomes side by side in an alignment and highlighting their differences at nucleotide resolution. FluentDNA gives researchers direct visualization of whole genome assemblies, annotations and alignments, for quality control, hypothesis generation, and communicating results

Sieve Plates and Habitat Adaptation in the Foraminifer Planulina ornata

Planulina ornata (d'Orbigny), a coarsely perforate species of foraminifera having a low trochospiral test, was recovered attached to phosphatic hardgrounds from the lower oxygen-minimum zone off Peru. Above the base of individual pores are calcified, perforate sieve plates, the largest so far described. Structure of the pores suggests a possible association with mitochondria and respiratory function. These large pores may facilitate extraction of the severely limited amount of oxygen from the ambient bottom waters at that locale

Foraminiferal Ecology, Ala Wai Canal, Hawai'i

The foraminiferal fauna of the Ala Wai Canal, described for the first time here, is controlled principally by the canal's shallow coastal location, normal marine salinity range, sedimentation from a major point source, and phytoplankton productivity. Various pollutants may have produced up to 7% abnormalities in test growth, but low oxygen conditions in the back basin are counterbalanced by food availability there to produce the largest surface foraminiferal abundance of 140 tests per gram of sediment. For at least the past 50 yr, the Ala Wai Canal has harbored a foraminiferal assemblage dominated by five species that compose from 53 to 92% of the foraminifera. These dominant species, Ammonia beccarii (Linne) vars., Bolivinellina striatula (Cushman), Cribroelphidium vadescens Cushman & Bronnimann, Quinqueloculina poeyana d'Orbigny, and Quinqueloculina seminula (Linne), are widespread geographically, but are generally found together in lagoons or embayments where salinities are normal marine to hypersaline rather than in estuaries. The maximum number of species per sample (31) was found near the entrance and the diversity decreased into the canal