Mink of the Rochester Embayment of Lake Ontario: Population Monitoring; Age, Size, and Stable Isotope Analysis; and a Predictive Model for Bioaccumulation of Chemicals of Concern

My studies were part of a project to determine whether mink populations are negatively impacted by pollution in Lake Ontario, especially in the Rochester Embayment Area of Concern (AOC). My first study used video traps to monitor mink activity as a surrogate for mink abundance, with video traps placed in four regions: AOC: In/Inland, AOC: In/Lakeshore, AOC: Out/Inland, and AOC: Out/Lakeshore. My MustelaVision data tentatively suggest that there may be differences in abundances in mink populations inside and outside the AOC, and between the lakeshore and inland areas, but my analysis was unable to assign significance to those differences. The statistical power of my tests was low due to small sample sizes and large variability in the data, and the test was further confounded by the fact that landscape-scale features (wetland complexes) and microhabitat factors (tunnels) are key predictors of mink presence or absence at a sampling site. I also showed that mink are reproducing in the AOC, and that mink are not chiefly nocturnal. My second study used age and stable isotope data taken from mink carcasses to compare populations among the four regions, and to create a model to predict exposure levels of mink to bioaccumulative chemicals of concern (BCCs ). The Regional Descriptors (AOC: In vs. Out, Lakeshore vs. Inland, Wetland vs. Mixed habitat) had no significant effect on the ages of mink trapped, but mean ages were depressed in areas previously trapped. Mink less than one year old were trapped in each area, suggesting reproduction in all areas. δ15N values indicated that mink in the study area feed on prey at trophic level 2.5 (slightly higher along the lakeshore and in the AOC than elsewhere), with the highest level (2.8) in the Braddock Bay Wildlife Management Area. Using known concentrations of selected BCCs in Lake Ontario and trophic level calculations based on stable isotope analyses, I created a food web bioaccumulation model to predict the exposure of mink in the AOC to those BCCs

The Effects of Arts Integration on Literacy Comprehension Achievement

This study focused on the effects of arts-based instruction on student literacy achievement. The study sought to identify how incorporating arts into the reading classroom through arts-based interventions affected the literacy achievement of fifth-grade students who attended a school for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) located in South Carolina. One group of fifth-grade student-participants, consisting of 10 students, received arts-based interventions, focusing on literacy skills. Students met with the researcher three times a week to receive arts-based literacy interventions. Data collection included a pre assessment and post assessment of literacy skills, along with surveys of student-participants’ attitudes about the reading and literacy curriculum. Findings included an overall increase in assessment scores among 80% of the student participants who received arts-based interventions. From the study’s findings, the participant-researcher, along with the administration and teaching team, designed an action plan and shared reflections regarding arts-based curricular integration. The action plan focused on implementing arts based literacy interventions to all 5th grade students with the goal of increase student’s literacy achievement

A Randomized Field Study of a Leadership WalkRoundsTM-Based Intervention

Background: Leadership WalkRoundsTM have been widely adopted as a technique for improving patient safety and safety climate. WalkRoundsTM involve senior managers directly observing frontline work and soliciting employees’ ideas about improvement opportunities. However, the hypothesized link between WalkRoundsTM-based programs and performance has not been rigorously examined in a set of randomly selected hospitals. Objective: To fill this research gap, we conducted a randomized field study of a WalkRoundsTM-based program. Research Design: Fifty-six work areas from 19 randomly selected hospitals agreed to implement an 18-month long WalkRoundsTM-based program to improve safety. We compared their results to 138 work areas in 48 randomly selected control hospitals. Participants: We conducted the program in four types of clinical work areas: operating rooms/post-anesthesia care units; emergency departments, intensive care units, and medical/surgical units. We collected survey data from nurses in those work areas. Measures: To measure the program’s impact, we collected pre and post survey data on perceptions of improvement in performance (PIP)—a proxy for quality and an important organizational climate antecedent for positive, discretionary behaviors of frontline staff. We compare change in PIP in the treatment work areas to the same type of work areas in control hospitals. Results: On average, compared to control work areas, our WalkRoundsTM-based program was associated with a statistically significant decrease in PIP of .17 on a 5-point scale (4.5%). Conclusions: Our study calls into question the general effectiveness of WalkRoundsTM on employees' perceptions, which had been assumed in prior literature

Key Drivers of Successful Implementation of an Employee Suggestion-Driven Improvement Program

Service organizations frequently implement improvement programs to increase quality. These programs often rely on employees’ suggestions about improvement opportunities. Organizations face a trade-off with such suggestion-driven improvement programs. On one hand, the improvement literature recommends that managers focus organizational resources on surfacing a large number of problems, prioritizing these, and selecting a small set of high priority ones for solution efforts. The theory is that soliciting a large number of ideas from employees will surface a set of higher priority problems than would have been identified with a less extensive search. Scarce organizational resources can be allocated to resolving the set of problems that provide the greatest improvement in performance. We call this an “analysis-oriented” approach. On the other hand, managers can allocate improvement resources to addressing problems raised by frontline staff, regardless of priority ranking. This “action-oriented” approach enables more resources to be spent on resolving problems because prioritization receives less attention. To our knowledge, this tradeoff between analysis and action in process improvement programs has not been empirically examined. To fill this gap, we randomly selected 20 hospitals to implement an 18-month long employee suggestion-driven improvement program; 58 work areas participated. Our study finds that an action-oriented approach was associated with higher perceived improvement in performance, while an analysis-oriented approach was not. Our study suggests that the analysis-oriented approach negatively impacted employees’ perceptions of improvement because it solicited, but not act on, employees' ideas. We discuss the conditions under which this might be the case

The Effectiveness of Management-By-Walking-Around: A Randomized Field Study

Management-By-Walking-Around (MBWA) is a widely adopted technique in hospitals that involves senior managers directly observing frontline work. However, few studies have rigorously examined its impact on organizational outcomes. This paper examines an improvement program based on MBWA in which senior managers observe frontline employees, solicit ideas about improvement opportunities, and work with staff to resolve the issues. We randomly selected 19 hospitals to implement the 18-month long MBWA-based improvement program; 56 work areas participated. We find that the program, on average, had a negative impact on performance. To explain this surprising finding, we use mixed methods to examine the impact of the work area's problem-solving approach. Results suggest that prioritizing easy-to-solve problems was associated with improved performance. We believe this was because it resulted in greater action taking. A different approach was characterized by prioritizing high-value problems, which was not successful in our study. We also find that assigning to senior managers responsibility for ensuring that identified problems get resolved resulted in better performance. Overall, our study suggests that senior managers' physical presence on their organizations' frontlines was not helpful unless it enabled active problem solving

Diel Activity Patterns of Mink, Neovison vison, Change with Habitat

Using video traps, we tested the commonly held view that Mink, Neovison vison, are mostly nocturnal. We compared Mink passages during daylight and darkness in two habitats. Mink were significantly more nocturnal in uplands with streams and significantly more diurnal in wetlands. Assuming that uplands have a higher proportion of terrestrial prey active at night and wetlands have a higher proportion of aquatic prey, the observed difference in activity periods may be related to the difficulty of seeing aquatic prey at night and suggests a dynamic interaction between food visibility and diel activity in Mink

Total PCBs, Dioxin-Furan TEQs and Total Mercury Concentrations in Mink In and Out of the Rochester Embayment Area of Concern Near and Inland from the Shore of Lake Ontario

In terms of reproductive and other adverse outcomes after exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and furans, the mink (Mustela vison) is one of the most sensitive mammals. Our objective was to determine if there are differences in the concentrations of total mercury (Hg), total PCBs, and dioxin-furan toxic equivalents (TEQs) between mink living in and out of the Rochester Embayment of Lake Ontario (RELO) Area of Concern (AOC) and between mink living near the shore of Lake Ontario and inland. Concentrations of total Hg in brain, total PCB and dioxin-furan TEQ in adipose, and total PCB in liver were significantly higher for mink living near the shore of Lake Ontario than inland. For mink living in and out of the AOC, differences in total PCB and dioxin-furan TEQ in adipose and liver were substantial but not significant. Correlations between concentrations of total Hg, total PCB, and dioxin-furan TEQ in mink were high. Our results suggest that contamination of mink living near the southern shore of Lake Ontario primarily comes from contact with the Lake Ontario food web, not from sources in the RELO AOC