Assessing Our Judgement: Comparing Librarian and Allied Health Professionals’ Evaluation of Relevance of Search Results

Objectives: Information needs, literature searching, librarian’s and requestor’s perception

How Various Exercise Modalities Impact Quality of Life, Physical Activity, and Program Adherence in Patients with COPD

How Various Exercise Modalities Impact Quality of Life, Physical Activity, and Program Adherence in Patients with COPD Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of diseases that causes breathing difficulty due to airway obstruction. Adherence to physical activity recommendations for those with COPD is often problematic and leads to worsening dyspnea and quality of life. Due to the prevalence of COPD, it is important to understand how different exercise modalities impact quality of life and adherence to physical activity. Objective: The purpose of this systematic review was to determine if patients with COPD have a better quality of life and adherence to physical activity recommendations if they follow exercise modalities. Method: Research was conducted using the databases PubMed and CINAHL. Search terms included “exercise interventions”, “COPD”, “quality of life”, and “physical activity”. 169 studies were systematically retrieved and reviewed. After full analysis and appraisal, eight studies were included in the final review. Results: Several different exercise modalities were used in the studies and results were collected using different research instruments. St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire, 6-Minute Walk Test, CAT scores, daily step counts, and other pulmonary function tests were used to collect data before, during, and after the exercise programs were conducted. The results demonstrated that different exercise modalities improve quality of life and adherence to physical activity recommendations in patients with COPD. Conclusion: The systematic review demonstrates that patients with COPD who are physically active and regularly adhere to exercise regimens have a healthier and improved life. Research supports that exercise has a direct effect on quality of life for patients with COPD. Keywords: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Quality of Life; Physical Activit

NASA Ground and Launch Systems Processing Technology Area Roadmap

In 2010, NASA developed a set of 14 draft roadmaps to guide the development of space technologies under the leadership of the NASA Office of the Chief Technologist. Each of these roadmaps focused on a particular technology area. The roadmaps are intended to foster the development of advanced technologies and concepts that address NASA’s needs and contribute to other aerospace and national needs. NASA contracted with the National Research Council (NRC) to perform an independent critique of the draft roadmaps. NASA assessed the NRC’s prioritizations and recommendations and developed the Strategic Space Technology Investment Plan (SSTIP) to outline the future investment strategy. The Ground and Launch Systems Processing (GLSP) Technology Area Roadmap was developed to identify ground, launch and mission technologies that would dramatically transform future space operations, with significant improvement in life-cycle costs and the quality of life on earth, increasing reliability and mission availability, and enhancing methods to assess safety and mission risk posture. Since operations costs can constitute roughly 40% of the total mission costs, by realizing savings in this technology area, NASA could redirect significant investments toward supporting a broader customer base with robust exploration missions

How to Use Common Technologies to Minimize Perceptual Biases When Grading Essays: A Five-Step Process

Evaluation of student performance is an important component of higher education course work and a major dimension of Ignatian pedagogy. However, the process of grading essay exams (a popular assessment method in both the liberal arts and technical programs) naturally brings the threat of several perceptual biases that harm grading validity and consistency. Thus, we sought a method to collect and organize essay tests to minimize identification bias (make student authors anonymous to the grader) and randomize grading order to minimize systematic error (related to always grading the same students first or last). Specifically, in this paper, we describe a step-by-step innovative approach that uses multiple common computer technologies (NetSupport School, Word, DOS, and Excel) to prepare, administer, and grade essay examinations submitted by students. Within the Appendix, we describe the steps and how to use these common tools, but within the paper, we offer general guidelines to apply our methods using whatever software or technologies schools are currently using. The discussion section presents limitations to our described method, offers ideas of modifications that may meet the same goals, and recommends future research directions

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Foraging Behavior

We studied Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (Picoides borealis) to examine the effect of status and gender on foraging behavior. Foraging behavior of breeding pairs extended beyond separation by foraging height to include zones (bole, trunk in crown, primary limb, secondary limb) of the tree used and foraging methods (scaling, probing, excavating). Helper males and juvenile females maintained partial spatial separation from breeding adults. Helper males maintained spatial separation from breeding adults by exploiting limbs within tree crowns in both longleaf (Pinus palustris) and loblolly-shortleaf (P. taeda, P. echinata) pine forests, but also increased use of boles in loblolly-shortleaf pine in concert with reduced use of boles by adult females. Breeding males tended to forage less by scaling, probably due to the reduced proportion of foraging on boles of trees where scaling tends to predominat

Habitat Selection by Anolis carolinensis (Green Anole) in Open Pine Forests in Eastern Texas

We initiated a mark-recapture study to determine the effects of shrub density on Anolis carolinensis (Green Anole) populations. Green Anole perch site, shrub species, and shrub volume preferences were also examined. We established two study plots of different shrub densities in open pine forests on the Angelina National Forest in eastern Texas. In late spring, the Green Anole population at the higher shrub-density plot was estimated to be 16 times greater than the population at the lower shrub-density plot. Green Anoles most commonly perched on live shrubs, but exhibited very little preference or avoidance of any particular species of live shrub or shrub-level vine. However, shrubs used by Green Anoles were 4–6 times greater in volume than plot averages