To honor and glorify God\u27: The role of religion in one intercollegiate athletic culture

Numerous events have provided evidence that the cultural values and assumptions of intercollegiate athletic departments are often incongruent with those of their host institutions. This discrepancy has even been evident in Christian institutions which seek to integrate faith into the learning experience. Using the organizational culture perspective, this study sought to determine how religion influenced the culture of one intercollegiate athletics department. The study took place at a highly selective evangelical Christian college with a nationally competitive athletic department. Data were collected through interviews with 19 campus leaders, observation of cultural events and document analysis. Analysis occurred qualitatively through a process of theorizing. The results indicate that evangelical Christianity played a significant role in the athletic department\u27s culture by constraining its membership, influencing its pedagogy and guiding department decisions. As a result, its values and assumptions were consistent with those of the overall campus culture. The reasons underlying this cultural integration offer coaches and administrators of all institutional affiliations the possibility that the organizational culture perspective can be used to create athletic programs that are more consistent with institutional values

Stellate Ganglion Block for refractory Raynaud’s Phenomenon- A Case Report

Introduction: Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) is predominately a sympathetically mediated ischemic vasospastic disease involving the distal limbs and is associated with sharp pains, numbness, and dermatological color changes. The symptoms are commonly induced by cold weather, stress, and trauma and it is known to affect 4.85% of the population. There are few well-defined treatments for patients with RP that are refractory to 1st-line therapies. We present a case of intractable RP with corresponding response to stellate ganglion block (SGB) which demonstrates the efficacy profile and safety of SNS blocks in treatment of resistant RP. Methods: Per Bon Secours Mercy Health IRB policy, this case report does not qualify for Mercy Health North IRB, and a formal statement from them has been attainted. Results: By week 1, our patient had a reduction in pain (71.4%), duration of symptoms (75%), and frequency (75%), with a simultaneous 66% improvement in severity/dexterity. Our patient showed therapeutic improvement from baseline in duration/frequency until week 6 and pain/severity until week 7. Conclusion: With minimal significant prospective data on comparative efficacy of various RP intervention options, and a high disease burden in the general population, we highlight the importance of this paper’s findings and the need for further research on this topic. Methods: Per Bon Secours Mercy Health IRB policy, this case report does not qualify for Mercy Health North IRB, and a formal statement from them has been attainted. Results: By week 1, our patient had a reduction in pain (71.4%), duration (75%), and frequency (75%), with a simultaneous 66% improvement in severity/dexterity. Our patient showed therapeutic improvement from baseline in Duration/Frequency until Week 6 and Pain/Severity until Week 7. Conclusion: With minimal significant prospective data on comparative efficacy of various RP intervention options, and a high disease burden in the general population, we highlight the importance of this paper’s findings and the need for further research on this topic

Parentage and sibship inference from markers in polyploids

Many plants and some animal species are polyploids. Nondisomically inherited markers (e.g. microsatellites) in such species cannot be analysed directly by standard population genetics methods developed for diploid species. One solution is to transform the polyploid codominant genotypes to pseudodiploid‐dominant genotypes, which can then be analysed by standard methods for various purposes such as spatial genetic structure, individual relatedness and relationship. Although this data transformation approach has been used repeatedly in the literature, no systematic study has been conducted to investigate how efficient it is, how much marker information is lost and thus how much analysis accuracy is reduced. More specifically, it is unknown whether or not the transformed data can be used to infer parentage and sibship jointly, and how different sampling schemes (number and polymorphism of markers, number of individuals) and ploidy level affect the inference accuracy. This study analyses both simulated and empirical data to examine the effects of polyploid levels, actual pedigree structures and marker number and polymorphism on the accuracy of joint parentage and sibship assignments in polyploid species. We show that sibship, parentage and selfing rates in polyploids can be inferred accurately from a typical set of microsatellite loci. We also show that inferences can be substantially improved by allowing for a small genotyping error rate to accommodate the distortion in assumed Mendelian inheritance of the converted markers when large sibship groups are involved. The results are discussed in the context of polyploid data analysis in molecular ecology

Ecosystem Modeling of College Drinking: Parameter Estimation and Comparing Models to Data

Recently we developed a model composed of five impulsive differential equations that describes the changes in drinking patterns (that persist at epidemic level) amongst college students. Many of the model parameters cannot be measured directly from data; thus, an inverse problem approach, which chooses the set of parameters that results in the “best” model to data fit, is crucial for using this model as a predictive tool. The purpose of this paper is to present the procedure and results of an unconventional approach to parameter estimation that we developed after more common approaches were unsuccessful for our specific problem. The results show that our model provides a good fit to survey data for 32 campuses. Using these parameter estimates, we examined the effect of two hypothetical intervention policies: 1) reducing environmental wetness, and 2) penalizing students who are caught drinking. The results suggest that reducing campus wetness may be a very effective way of reducing heavy episodic (binge) drinking on a college campus, while a policy that penalizes students who drink is not nearly as effective