Supporting the Success of Female Asian American College Students

This essay outlines important research on female Asian American college students as they weave through the shared experiences of college campus life, and through the multidimensional complexities of identity development. In it, I suggest that colleges should develop programs outside of so-called traditional developmental models and celebrate the history, traditions, and contributions of all student groups through relevant programs and support. In particular, a more formalized theory of development needs to be developed in regard to female Asian American students. The aforementioned point of view is supported in the research literature.https://repository.usfca.edu/listening_to_the_voices/1004/thumbnail.jp

Critical Reflections of College Sophomores About Preparation and Persistence During Their Freshman Year

The purpose of this study was to explore the needs and experiences of college freshman with the hope of informing universities how to improve freshman preparation and persistence. Focusing on students at a public "metro-commuter" university, this qualitative study extends previous research on the topic. Using participatory research methodology, this study utilized dialogues to explore the critical reflections of students who have successfully completed their freshman year. This study found that during the preenrollment phase, it is critical that students and their families experience programs and services that educate students about the transition to college, increase students' commitment to the institution, and help students develop realistic expectations for college. Several factors were found to contribute to college freshman persistence including support for social and academic integration, academic engagement, fostering student development, and promoting internal locus of control. The author argues that preenrollment programs must be viewed as critical to student success, and should be mandatory and carried out utilizing current students who are trained in issues of transition. He concludes that more programs are needed throughout the first year to help students develop social support networks

Becoming a Champion of Orientation

New student orientation programs are one of the most important high impact practices for student success. These introductory programs not only empower students to be able to selfidentify how their academic support needs can be met, they also provide the critically important introduction to building social support networks. College presidents must embrace the critical role of new student orientation programs, understand their complexities, and find ways to illustrate the role of these programs to faculty, staff, and students

Digital Advising

Digital advising requires that the diversity of people and departments in a college or university share a unified approach to advising. This shared vision of advising necessitates university-wide support from top-level administrators as well as faculty/staff involvement in advising delivery. This article describes the process of adopting digital advising as a practice that helped transform the institution

Evaluation of the bacterial diversity of Pressure ulcers using bTEFAP pyrosequencing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Decubitus ulcers, also known as bedsores or pressure ulcers, affect millions of hospitalized patients each year. The microflora of chronic wounds such as ulcers most commonly exist in the biofilm phenotype and have been known to significantly impair normal healing trajectories.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Bacterial tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing (bTEFAP), a universal bacterial identification method, was used to identify bacterial populations in 49 decubitus ulcers. Diversity estimators were utilized and wound community compositions analyzed in relation to metadata such as Age, race, gender, and comorbidities.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Decubitus ulcers are shown to be polymicrobial in nature with no single bacterium exclusively colonizing the wounds. The microbial community among such ulcers is highly variable. While there are between 3 and 10 primary populations in each wound there can be hundreds of different species present many of which are in trace amounts. There is no clearly significant differences in the microbial ecology of decubitus ulcer in relation to metadata except when considering diabetes. The microbial populations and composition in the decubitus ulcers of diabetics may be significantly different from the communities in non-diabetics.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based upon the continued elucidation of chronic wound bioburdens as polymicrobial infections, it is recommended that, in addition to traditional biofilm-based wound care strategies, an antimicrobial/antibiofilm treatment program can be tailored to each patient's respective wound microflora.</p

Being a quantitative interviewer: qualitatively exploring interviewers' experiences in a longitudinal cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many studies of health outcomes rely on data collected by interviewers administering highly-structured (quantitative) questionnaires to participants. Little appears to be known about the experiences of such interviewers. This paper explores interviewer experiences of working on a longitudinal study in New Zealand (the Prospective Outcomes of injury Study - POIS). Interviewers administer highly-structured questionnaires to participants, usually by telephone, and enter data into a secure computer program. The research team had expectations of interviewers including: consistent questionnaire administration, timeliness, proportions of potential participants recruited and an empathetic communication style. This paper presents results of a focus group to qualitatively explore with the team of interviewers their experiences, problems encountered, strategies, support systems used and training.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A focus group with interviewers involved in the POIS interviews was held; it was audio-recorded and transcribed. The analytical method was thematic, with output intended to be descriptive and interpretive.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Nine interviewers participated in the focus group (average time in interviewer role was 31 months). Key themes were: 1) the positive aspects of the quantitative interviewer role (i.e. relationships and resilience, insights gained, and participants' feedback), 2) difficulties interviewers encountered and solutions identified (i.e. stories lost or incomplete, forgotten appointments, telling the stories, acknowledging distress, stories reflected and debriefing and support), and 3) meeting POIS researcher expectations (i.e. performance standards, time-keeping, dealing exclusively with the participant and maintaining privacy).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Interviewers demonstrated great skill in the way they negotiated research team expectations whilst managing the relationships with participants. Interviewers found it helpful to have a research protocol in place in the event of sensitive situations - this appeared to alleviate the pressure on interviewers to carry the burden of responsibility. Interviewers are employed to scientifically gather quantitative data, yet their effectiveness relies largely on their humanity. We propose that the personal connection generated between the interviewers and participants was important, and enabled successful follow-up rates for the study. The enjoyment of these relationships was crucial to interviewers and helped balance the negative aspects of their role. Our results suggest that experienced quantitative interviewers endeavour, as do many qualitative researchers, to carefully and respectfully negotiate the requirements of the interview within a relationship they form with participants: being sensitive to the needs of participants and respectful of their wishes - and establishing an ethical relationship.</p

The MINERν\nuA Data Acquisition System and Infrastructure

MINER$\nu$A (Main INjector ExpeRiment $\nu$-A) is a new few-GeV neutrino cross section experiment that began taking data in the FNAL NuMI (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam-line in March of 2010. MINER$\nu$A employs a fine-grained scintillator detector capable of complete kinematic characterization of neutrino interactions. This paper describes the MINER$\nu$A data acquisition system (DAQ) including the read-out electronics, software, and computing architecture.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figure

Tied to the worldly work of writing: parent as ethnographer

Parent narratives have contributed to ethnographic accounts of the lives of autistic children (Kelly, 2005) but there are fewer examples of parents producing their own autoethnographies. This paper explores the affordances of an online blog for enabling a parent of an autistic child to produce a written record of practice which may be considered 'autoethnographic'. Richardson’s (2005) framework for ethnography as Creative Analytic Process is applied to extracts from a blog post in order to consider its contribution; reflexivity; aesthetic merit; and impact. The paper addresses the methodological and ethical implications of reconceptualising parents as researchers and the potential contribution of new writing platforms to the development of auto/ethnography. Key words: Autism, Auto/ethnography, Blog, Disability, Mothe