THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A PATIENT\u27S STRESS LEVEL DURING HOSPITALIZATION AND HIS PERCEPTION OF HIS SIGNIFICANT FAMILY MEMBER\u27S ROLE IN PROVIDING SUPPORT

A descriptive study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between a patient\u27s stress level during hospitalization and his perception of his significant family member\u27s role providing support. The following subproblems were also addressed: (1) What types of activities, presently or potentially performed by a significant family member, does the patient perceive as supportive? (2) What types of nursing activities, as perceived by the patient, are being done to encourage/discourage performance of family support activities? (3) What other factors does the patient perceive as encouraging/discouraging performance of these family role-related activities? The Hospital Stress Rating Scale (Volicer and Bohannon, 1975) was administered to 30 adult surgical patients on the third postoperative day to determine stress levels associated with hospitalization. An investigator developed semi-structured interview was also administered to these subjects to determine the patient\u27s perception of his significant family member\u27s role in providing support. The data obtained from the subjects were analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics and the Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient. Application of the Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient revealed the finding that there was no statistically significant association between a patient\u27s stress level and his perception of his family\u27s role in providing support. Resuits of this study suggested, however, that the family does play an important supportive role during the hospitalization phase of illness

Bootstrapping & the Origin of Concepts

No abstract provided.Psycholog

Economic analysis of an integrated anthropogenic carbon dioxide network for capture and enhanced oil recovery along the Texas Gulf Coast

This paper explains the system economics of an example integrated network that uses anthropogenic CO2 from Texas Gulf Coast fossil power plants for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). These CO2 sources and sinks are connected via a pipeline network. A discounted cash flow model indicates that for all candidate oil fields that require less than an estimated $10/BBL in EOR capital expenditure, all three entities (CO2 capture, pipelines, and EOR operators) can have 20$55 per tonne of CO2 and $56 per barrel of oil. These results include no existing or future tax incentives, and there are some costs not yet included. However, a Monte Carlo analysis shows insight by indicating that the total system rate of return is most sensitive to oil production parameters. Oil price and estimated amount of recoverable oil are the most positively influential factors while the EOR capital cost is the most negatively sensitive factor. The capital costs of capture and CO2 price are less sensitive, both negatively affecting rate of return.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Science and Core Knowledge

While endorsing Gopnik's proposal that studies of the emergence and modification of scientific theories and studies of cognitive development in children are mutually illuminating, we offer a different picture of the beginning points of cognitive development from Gopnik's picture of "theories all the way down." Human infants are endowed with several distinct core systems of knowledge which are theory-like in some, but not all, important ways. The existence of these core systems of knowledge has implications for the joint research program between philosophers and psychologists that Gopnik advocates and we endorse. A few lessons already gained from this program of research are sketched.Psycholog

The Road to the Cliff Edge: Understanding Financial Gaps in Public Assistance Programs Available to Massachusetts Families

To better understand the interaction between public supports and earned income and its impact on overall economic well-being, we conducted research on public support program eligibility criteria, regulations, and administration. We use the concept of “financial gaps” to outline specific problems created by the complex system of public supports built around an inadequate assessment of households’ ability to meet basic needs. The typology we provide is intended to be a tool for advocates, service providers, researchers, and policy makers that will help them hone in on the precise problem and develop appropriate policy interventions

Why Theories of Concepts Should Not Ignore the Problem of Acquisition

A theory of conceptual development must provide an account of the innate representational repertoire, must characterize how these initial representations differ from the adult state, and must provide an account of the processes that transform the initial into mature representations. In The Origin of Concepts (Carey 2009), I defend three theses: (1) the initial state includes rich conceptual representations, (2) nonetheless, there are radical discontinuities between early and later developing conceptual systems, (3) Quinean bootstrapping is one learning mechanism that underlies the creation of new representational resources, enabling such discontinuity. Here I argue that the theory of conceptual development developed in The Origin of Concepts constrains our theories of concepts themselves, and addresses two of Fodor’s challenges to cognitive science; namely, to show how learning could possibly lead to an increase in expressive power and to defeat Mad Dog Nativism, the thesis that all concepts lexicalized as mono-morphemic words are innate. In response to Fodor, I show that, and how, new primitives in a language of thought can be learned, that there are easy routes and hard ones to doing so, and that characterizing the learning mechanisms in each illuminates how conceptual role partially determines conceptual content

First-Person Action Experience Reveals Sensitivity to Action Efficiency in Prereaching Infants

Do infants learn to interpret others’ actions through their own experience producing goal-directed action, or does some knowledge of others’ actions precede first-person experience? Several studies report that motor experience enhances action understanding, but the nature of this effect is not well understood. The present research investigates what is learned during early motoric production, and it tests whether knowledge of goal-directed actions, including an assumption that actors maximize efficiency given environmental constraints, exists before experience producing such actions. Three-month-old infants (who cannot yet effectively reach for and grasp objects) were given novel experience retrieving objects that rested on a surface with no barriers. They were then shown an actor reaching for an object over a barrier and tested for sensitivity to the efficiency of the action. These infants showed heightened attention when the agent reached inefficiently for a goal object; in contrast, infants who lacked successful reaching experience did not differentiate between direct and indirect reaches. Given that the infants could reach directly for objects during training and were given no opportunity to update their actions based on environmental constraints, the training experience itself is unlikely to have provided a basis for learning about action efficiency. We suggest that infants apply a general assumption of efficient action as soon as they have sufficient information (possibly derived from their own action experience) to identify an agent’s goal in a given instance.Psycholog

The continued value of disk diffusion for assessing antimicrobial susceptibility in clinical laboratories: Report from the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute Methods Development and Standardization Working Group

Expedited pathways to antimicrobial agent approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have led to increased delays between drug approval and the availability of FDA-cleared antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) devices.</jats:p

Transnational Ikat: An Asian Textile on the Move

Ikat is a ‘textile on the move’ today: moving across borders from Southeast Asia to different parts of the world, moving from ritual use to American fashion wear and other marketplace forms, moving from Asian villages to international museum and art collecting circuits. Over 40 of these remarkable textiles, both in their deeply ceremonial forms and in their vibrantly commercialized versions, were displayed for exhibition in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross. The exhibition focuses on ikats from eastern Indonesia, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Malaysia’s Sarawak state. Curator Susan Rodgers (anthropology, Holy Cross) and three Holy Cross student docents (Hana Carey, Tricia Giglio, Martha Walters) did fieldwork in summer 2012 to explore the exhibition’s “transnational ikat” themes in Bali, Indonesia and Kuching, Sarawak; their research was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon program at Holy Cross. This catalog is reproduced from a website authored by the researchers to report their findings about this rapidly, exuberantly commercializing Asian cloth. It also provides introductory background information about ikat.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/art_catalogs/1001/thumbnail.jp