Occupational Cumulative Trauma Disorders: Prevention and Treatment

Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) consist of a group of musculoskeletal injuries caused by overuse or repetitive strain. The purpose of this Independent Study was to review the literature concerning occupational CTDs, the methods of prevention, and treatment as it related to physical therapy. The most beneficial means of controlling CTDs appear to be taking preventative measures with jobsite analysis and employee education. Treatment is varied and dependent upon the actual diagnosis and causative factor. Therapists may attempt heat or cold modalities, work hardening programs, or manual therapy such as strain-counterstrain. An important aspect to treatment is early intervention. Due to the high prevalence of CTDs, it is important for therapists to become aware of its presence, learn to effectively determine the mode of injury, and appropriately treat the injured patient

Tourism in Peru: Economic Benefits at the Cost of Cultural Loss (2018)

This thesis attempts to evaluate and understand what makes tourism unsustainable within the Sacred Valley of Peru. It challenges the traditional way of measuring the impacts of tourism through its economic benefits and instead measures the impacts of tourism through its contributions to cultural loss. This thesis starts with an understanding of the impacts of tourism in a global context, followed by a case study focusing specifically on tourism in the Sacred Valley of Peru. The critical evaluation of tourism leads to the conclusion that tourism needs to be monitored and evaluated through processes that take cultural loss into consideration while centering the voices of the communities that are being negatively impacted by tourism

An Empirical Analysis of Company Culture: Using Glassdoor Data to Measure the Impact of Culture and Employee Satisfaction on Performance

This paper examines the impact of culture and employee satisfaction on company performance; it considers which elements of culture are most important in specific industries: manufacturing, technology, and finance. Additionally, it explores whether these elements of productive cultures are also associated with employee satisfaction. It uses data from the MIT Sloan Management Review/Glassdoor Culture 500 database, which applied machine learning to analyze 1.2 million Glassdoor reviews. This data quantitatively measures nine dimensions of culture: agility, collaboration, customer focus, diversity, execution, innovation, integrity performance, and respect—assigning each company a score for every cultural dimension. Two depende­­­nt variables are used to measure company performance, stock growth and ROA. The Glassdoor Company Employee Company Satisfaction Rating was used to as the dependent variable for employee satisfaction rating was used as a dependent variable for satisfaction. When industries are combined, it is concluded that customer focus, innovation, performance rewards, and integrity all increase company stock performance, whereas collaboration decreases stock performance. However, when regressions are run individually for individual industries, culture has different marginal effects. Collaboration was found to be positively linked to performance in the manufacturing industry, but was associated with lower performance outcomes in the technology industry. For both technology and manufacturing, customer focus and respect were most positively associated with performance. Additionally, employee satisfaction is highly correlated with company performance. Specifically, similar cultural variables (innovation, respect, customer focus, and performance rewards) that are significant for company performance are also positively associated with overall employee satisfaction. The paper concludes that further research should be conducted on a larger, more diverse dataset. This data set should include more observations for every industry and control for job titles to see if these findings hold when controlling more accurately for industry-related effects

Late Pleistocene Fishes of the Clear Creek and Ben Franklin Local Faunas of Texas

Fossil fishes of the Clear Creek local fauna, assigned to the Sangamon interglacial stage, and of the Ben Franklin local fauna, which is of Late Wisconsin glacial age, are here described. All of the species that were found live today in the same area, and are more or less widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains in North America. As compared with the changes that have occurred in the mammalian fauna, the fish fauna in this area seems to have been rather stable during the Late Pleistocene and Recent

Does concussion history affect softball pitch recognition, swing timing, and swing decision making in collegiate softball players?

Concussions can affect an athlete’s cognitive and physical performance. The negative effects of concussion can linger beyond symptom resolution and can result in reduced sport performance and increased risk of injury upon return to play. The effect of concussion history, including time since concussion and number of concussions, on sport performance is not well understood. The purposes of this study were to examine the effects of concussion history on softball batting measures, such as pitch recognition, swing timing, and swing decision making, and to compare a computerized reaction time (RT) test to a sport-specific RT test. A cross-sectional study design was used to evaluate softball batting measures among collegiate softball players. Eighteen collegiate softball players from across Ontario were recruited to participate. Participants were divided into two groups: those with previous concussion (n = 7; mean age, 20.7 years; mean time since last concussion, 3.9 years) and those without (n = 11; mean age, 20.4 years). Pitch recognition, swing timing, and swing decision making were based on participants responses to pre-recorded pitching videos. Pitch recognition, swing timing, and swing decision making were similar between groups. There was not a significant correlation between the computerized RT and swing RT. These results suggest that collegiate softball players with less than three concussions perform similarly to those without concussion for softball cognition and swing timing when tested an average of 3.9 years post-concussion

Changes in mouse gastrointestinal microbial ecology with ingestion of kale

Kale, a cultivar of Brassica oleracea, has attracted a great deal of attention because of its health-promoting effects, which are thought to be exerted through modulation of the intestinal microbiota. The present study was performed to investigate the effects of kale ingestion on the gastrointestinal microbial ecology of mice. 21 male C57BL/6J mice were divided into three groups and housed in a specific pathogen-free facility. The animals were fed either a control diet or experimental diets supplemented with different commercial kale products for 12 weeks. Contents of the caecum and colon of the mice were processed for the determination of active bacterial populations by a bacterial rRNA-based quantification method and short-chain fatty acids by HPLC. rRNAs of Bacteroides-Prevotella, the Clostridium coccoides-Eubacterium rectale group, and Clostridium leptum subgroup constituted the major fraction of microbiota regardless of the composition of the diet. The ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes was higher in the colon samples of one of the kale diet groups than in the control. The colonic butyrate level was also higher with the kale-supplemented diet. Overall, the ingestion of kale tended to either increase or decrease the activity of specific bacterial groups in the mouse gastrointestinal tract, however, the effect might vary depending on the nutritional composition.ArticleBENEFICIAL MICROBES. 5(3):345-349 (2014)journal articl

Highway 17 Wildlife Crossing

Highway 17 is an essential corridor for people to commute between the Bay Area and the Santa Cruz regions, but this highway also creates a barrier between wildlife territories, fragmenting their habitats and stranding animal populations on either side. The lack of crossing infrastructure along Highway 17 forces wildlife to attempt to cross the highway into oncoming traffic, causing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) which endangers the lives of motorists and animals alike. In order to address this problem, the team designed a precast, concrete culvert crossing underneath Highway 17 to provide a safer passageway to increase habitat connectivity as well as safety for both motorists and wildlife. The design included the general layout of the culvert and retaining structures, construction planning with temporary transportation design, the design of the retaining structures, the foundation selection, and environmental considerations. The team delivered the design package in Spring 2023 along with AutoCAD drawings for the structural and geotechnical aspects of the culvert design, analysis for the environmental impact, and cost estimate of the proposed wildlife crossing

Effect of Probiotics/Prebiotics on Cattle Health and Productivity

Probiotics/prebiotics have the ability to modulate the balance and activities of the gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota, and are, thus, considered beneficial to the host animal and have been used as functional foods. Numerous factors, such as dietary and management constraints, have been shown to markedly affect the structure and activities of gut microbial communities in livestock animals. Previous studies reported the potential of probiotics and prebiotics in animal nutrition; however, their efficacies often vary and are inconsistent, possibly, in part, because the dynamics of the GI community have not been taken into consideration. Under stressed conditions, direct-fed microbials may be used to reduce the risk or severity of scours caused by disruption of the normal intestinal environment. The observable benefits of prebiotics may also be minimal in generally healthy calves, in which the microbial community is relatively stable. However, probiotic yeast strains have been administered with the aim of improving rumen fermentation efficiency by modulating microbial fermentation pathways. This review mainly focused on the benefits of probiotics/prebiotics on the GI microbial ecosystem in ruminants, which is deeply involved in nutrition and health for the animal.ArticleMICROBES AND ENVIRONMENTS. 30(2):126-132 (2015)journal articl

Über den Zucker-, Fettstoffwechsel und die passive Anapbylaxie bei experimenteller Kaninchenclonorchiasis sinensis (2. Mitteilung.) Experimentelle Untersuchung über den Fettstoffwechsel bei der Kaninchenclonorchiasis

Verfasser, der den Zuckerstoffwechsel bei der experimentellen Kaninchenclonorchiasis untersucht hatte (diese Zeitschrift Nr. 542, 1935.), studierte diesmal den Fettstoffwechsel bei Kaninchenclonorchiasis. Er stellte Tributyrinspaltungsversuche mit dem Leberbrei aus kranken und normalen Kaninchen an und weiter ebensolche Versuche mit Glyzerinauszug des Pankreaspulvers vom Rinde unter Zusatz von Leberextrakt aus normalen oder kranken Kaninchen. Die Resultate der Versuche sind folgende: 1) Die tributyrinspaltende Wirkung des Leberbreies von kranken Kaninchen wurde bei pH 8.043 und 38°C stark gebemmt. 2) Die Wirkung der Rinderpankreaslipase wurde durch Zusatz von Leberextrakt aus kranken Kaninchen auch hemmend beeinflusst, während bei Zusatz von Leberextrakt aus normalen Kaninchen fast kein Einfluss bemerkbar war. 3) Nach den obigen Versuchsresultaten nimmt Verfasser an, dass der Fettstoffwechsel bei Kaninchenclonorchiasis wesentlich gestört werden müsste