Issues for Professionals Working with Cerebral Palsied Individuals

This practicum is the result of our participation with a grant of national significance from the Developmental Disabilities Office. The project\u27s inquiry is to describe the aging and aged developmentally disabled and to develop professional curricula based upon the findings. There are three major objectives for the grant: 1) to conduct a comprehensive survey of the aging and the aged population, 2) to develop curricula for the training of health-care professional and 3) to consult at the supervisory level with national, state and community agencies. The developmentally disabled population studied by the grant includes cerebral palsied individuals over twenty-one years of age and mentally retarded individuals over forty years of age

Department Head Perceptions of the Need for Distance Education In the Agricultural Sciences

The assessment was requested by AG*SAT, a consortium of land-grant universities created to plan, coordinate, and deliver distance education in the agricultural sciences

Rebuilding the Plane While Flying: Library/Vendor Strategies for Approval Plan Revision (in a DDA World)

Library approval plans remain a major means of both codifying a library’s collection development program and providing an operational and procedural tool for acquisitions of library materials. This paper summarizes the arduous but ultimately worthwhile and satisfying project that Loyola Marymount University and YBP Library Services undertook in a yearlong approval profile review project. It describes how the library and the approval plan vendor strategized and collaborated to involve over 20 subject liaisons with varying levels of collection development experience and the support infrastructure needed to get liaisons up to speed on their roles in the project. It also explains the communications and collaboration tools we used to document a process with myriad details to track. Both the library and vendor perspectives on how to effectively structure and implement approval plan revisions for print and electronic books are included. Underlying this whole project was the belief that the approval plan (and intentional collection building) still has an important place in libraries

Application of the PEN-3 Model in a Diabetes Prevention Intervention

More effective strategies for addressing health issues in African American communities are needed. As part of a three year NIH funded Project Export grant, this community campus partnership used community-based participatory research principles and thePEN-3 Cultural Framework to develop a culturally specific, locally relevant intervention to prevent Diabetes among African-Americans. A comprehensive needs assessment which included 13 elicitation interviews, 3 focus groups, and 217 surveys resulted in identifying major themes including overall lack of knowledge regarding Diabetes,issues of denial and stigma, sense of inevitability, influence of family on perceptionsand behaviors, communication issues with health care providers, and lack of culturally sensitive materials. Community partners provided input into the assessment strategies,materials and intervention development, as well as recruitment and information dissemination strategies which in conjunction with the Pen-3 framework, allowed us to develop a culturally relevant strategy for reducing Diabetes related health disparities in our community

Removal of Organic Matter by Classical Biofiltration: Mechanistic Insights Regarding "Biodegradation"

Pilot-scale biofiltration experiments were conducted at the Region of Waterloo’s Mannheim Drinking Water Treatment Plant to inform the scientific and operational understanding of drinking water treatment by biologically-active GAC/sand filtration processes. Three dual-media granular activated carbon (GAC)/sand biofilters and one multi-media GAC-capped anthracite/sand biofilter media configuration were investigated. Both new GAC and GAC that had been biologically active for five years were used. The performance differences between a new, highly adsorptive GAC filter that is undergoing biological acclimation, and a biofilter that is stacked with older, biologically-active GAC media were investigated to increase the mechanistic understanding of natural organic matter (NOM) removal by biofiltration. The performance of a cost-effective, new GAC-capped anthracite/sand biofilter compared to a GAC/sand biofilter also was investigated. Performance was assessed using adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) concentration associated with attached biomass in the filter media, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), UVabsorbance, and characterization by liquid chromatography-organic carbon detection (LC-OCD) fractionation. The filters were monitored for their performance in headloss accumulation and turbidity removal. Water from the full-scale water treatment plant was coagulated, flocculated, clarified by settling, and then ozonated. It was then directed to the pilot plant filters, which contained the same depth of media, but were operated separately from the full-scale plant. The experiments were conducted from June to September 2018, during warm water conditions (18–27°C). As expected, the new GAC/sand filter removed substantially more DOC, UV-absorbing compounds, and humic substances than did the biologically-active GAC. There was also a typical pattern of biological acclimation in this filter, as there was high DOC removal, followed by a decline, and then a steady-state period. DOC removal during the steady-state period in the new filter was 25 to 30% on average, which was significantly higher than that in the filter containing media that had been biologically active for five years (13% on average), suggesting that DOC removal might decline over years of service. Interestingly, the new GAC/sand filter did not out-perform the biologically-active GAC/sand filter in biopolymer removal, possibly due to the size (>20 kDa) and shape of these compounds. This observation also suggests that biodegradation of biopolymers (in contrast to other compounds) occurs directly in biologically-active GAC filters, and not necessarily by bioregeneration (freeing up of adsorptive sites). Further, compared to biologically-active GAC/sand, there was no outright disadvantage to running a GACcapped anthracite/sand biofilter. One month into the experiment, the backwashing procedure was altered to improve filter run times. The increased vigorousness caused the biofilm in the GAC-capped anthracite/sand filter to decrease temporarily, and it also caused a brief decrease in the DOC removal, whereas the GAC/sand biofilter was not affected by the backwashing change. Overall, it was found that (1) the new GAC filter demonstrated a trend in DOC removal that was expected, with the added finding that the biodegradation or adsorptive capacity declines over a period of several years after acclimation (2) adsorption did not enhance the removal of biopolymers, though they were removed by biofiltration, indicating that biodegradation may occur directly and not necessarily by bioregeneration (adsorption and desorption by biodegradation), and (3) as configured, the GAC/sand biofilter was more effective in removing DOC than the GAC-capped anthracite biofilter

In what ways does policy on academic integrity, copyright and privacy need to respond in order to accommodate assessment with Web 2.0 tools?

Increasingly social web technologies, such as blogging and micro-blogging, audio and video podcasting, photo/video, social bookmarking, social networking, wiki writing or virtual worlds are being used as forms of authoring or content creation to support students&rsquo; learning in higher education. As Web 2.0 teaching practice is characterised by open access to information and collaborative networks there are both familiar and novel challenges for policy-makers in higher education institutions. The Government 2.0 Taskforce heralded legislative and practice changes necessary because of Web 2.0. We reflect on the qualitative feedback received from innovative higher education practitioners using Web 2.0 to assess student work. This indicates a need for information policy review to accommodate the cultural shift towards information exchange and communication across traditional institutional boundaries. Issues involved when implementing Web 2.0 assessments are identified to highlight requisite areas for policy improvement in higher education, in particular for academic integrity, copyright and privacy policies<br /

Perceived and objectively measured physical activity and sedentary time among South Asian women in the UK

Introduction: Limited self-report data suggest that South Asian (SA) women fail to meet physical activity (PA) recommendations. Recent research using objective measures reveals SA women living in the UK have higher PA levels than previously reported, and a pattern of under-reporting PA and sedentary time (ST). There is limited research on SA women’s understanding and experiences of PA/ST, and the cultural contexts and conditions within which they occur. Therefore the aims of this mixed-methods study were to compare perceived PA and ST to objectively measured data and explore PA- and ST-specific contexts, experiences, and sources of PA and ST amongst SA women in the UK. Methods: 24 women were purposively sampled to participate in a semi-structured interview from a larger study of 140 women who wore an accelerometer for 7 days. Demographic and anthropometric data were also collected. Results: Notable qualitative themes on contextualisation were of adequate PA as “keeping busy” or “being healthy”, and of ST as “lazy” or “resting in old age”. Few participants reported being sedentary, and most believed they were sufficiently physically active. Objectively measured PA/ST indicated that 66% women were less active than perceived (with regard to duration and intensity), with none able to estimate duration of ST. Discussion: Findings suggest that overall, SA women have contextualisations of PA/ST that may not coincide with those of researchers, health professionals and policy makers, and lack awareness of the intensity of PA in which they engage and the health risks of high levels of ST. These findings highlight the need for objective measures of PA and ST in this population combined with in-depth qualitative assessments to provide more accurate assessments of these behaviours. This information can subsequently be used to develop health promotion messages and interventions focusing on increasing duration and/or intensity levels of daily activities (e.g., walking, housework) and reducing ST in this population

In what ways does policy on academic integrity, copyright and privacy need to respond in order to accommodate assessment with Web 2.0 tools?

Increasingly social web technologies, such as blogging and micro-blogging, audio and video podcasting, photo/video, social bookmarking, social networking, wiki writing or virtual worlds are being used as forms of authoring or content creation to support students’ learning in higher education. As Web 2.0 teaching practice is characterised by open access to information and collaborative networks there are both familiar and novel challenges for policy-makers in higher education institutions. The Government 2.0 Taskforce heralded legislative and practice changes necessary because of Web 2.0. We reflect on the qualitative feedback received from innovative higher education practitioners using Web 2.0 to assess student work. This indicates a need for information policy review to accommodate the cultural shift towards information exchange and communication across traditional institutional boundaries. Issues involved when implementing Web 2.0 assessments are identified to highlight requisite areas for policy improvement in higher education, in particular for academic integrity, copyright and privacy policie