Breaking the Ice: Using Non-traditional Methods of Student Involvement to Effect a Welcoming College Library Environment

The Daniel Library at The Citadel hosts library events throughout the year with the expectations that engaging with students will reduce library anxiety and will create a connection between the student and the library. This article seeks to examine whether or not these purposeful efforts to interact with college students in the library are successful. A survey was administered in order to measure the impact these events have on the students’ perception of the library and the librarians

Advancing Methods for In Vivo Neurochemical Monitoring

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in both normal and pathological brain function. Modeling dopamine responses measured with fast scan cyclic voltammetry can provide insight into dopamine’s function. Dopamine responses are broadly categorized as fast and slow, based on the amount of time between when the stimulus starts and when dopamine is detected. By changing the amount of time between a stimulus pulse and a dopamine-detecting waveform, we determined that slow-responding sites are due to differences in kinetics between fast and slow sites, not a gap between the recording electrode and dopamine terminals. Additionally, with the use of the D2 antagonist raclopride and advances in the restricted diffusion model for dopamine dynamics, we show that slow sites are caused by an underlying autoinhibitory tone that fast sites do not have. In addition, this work explores metabolic changes after traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury is divided into a primary insult and a secondary injury, like spreading depolarization, that causes further damage over time. Spreading depolarizations – waves of uncontrolled depolarization followed by energy-consuming repolarization – can cause the injury lesion core to spread into the comparatively healthy surrounding tissue. Monitoring glucose and potassium as markers of spreading depolarization waves can be accomplished by microdialysis; however, immune response to the injury caused by implantation greatly diminishes the temporal sampling window. Previous work has established that five days of retrodialysis with dexamethasone mitigates this immune response and greatly increases the probe lifetime. Traumatic brain injury model rats and rapid sampling microdialysis were employed to monitor glucose and potassium levels continuously for ten days after injury. Short term metabolic crises, like spreading depolarization, were observed in injured animals. Additionally, in almost every case, glucose concentrations declined slowly over several days to undetectable levels and did not recover during the timespan of the experiment, despite histology confirming that there is living tissue around the probe ten days after implantation

Enhancing Lay Counselor Capacity to Improve Patient Outcomes with Multimedia Technology

Multimedia technologies offer powerful tools to increase capacity of health workers to deliver standardized, effective, and engaging antiretroviral medication adherence counseling. Masivukeni—is an innovative multimedia-based, computer-driven, lay counselor-delivered intervention designed to help people living with HIV in resource-limited settings achieve optimal adherence. This pilot study examined medication adherence and key psychosocial outcomes among 55 non-adherent South African HIV+ patients, on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for at least 6 months, who were randomized to receive either Masivukeni or standard of care (SOC) counseling for ART non-adherence. At baseline, there were no significant differences between the SOC and Masivukeni groups on any outcome variables. At post-intervention (approximately 5–6 weeks after baseline), -clinic-based pill count adherence data available for 20 participants (10 per intervention arm) showed a 10 % improvement for—participants and a decrease of 8 % for SOC participants. Masivukeni participants reported significantly more positive attitudes towards disclosure and medication social support, less social rejection, and better clinic–patient relationships than did SOC participants. Masivukeni shows promise to promote optimal adherence and provides preliminary evidence that multimedia, computer-based technology can help lay counselors offer better adherence counseling than standard approaches

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas

Texas Parks & Wildlife

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas