CHOICES Florida\u27s Version of Obamacare

CHOICES Florida\u27s version of ObamaCare was a unique case voted in by the public in Alachua County Florida. A mixed methods research design was utilized and provided context in which policy entrepreneurs operated, as well as an explanatory model of internal determinants. Social, economic and political factors were examined to determine the predictor variable in the adoption of the CHOICES health services program. The results revealed that voters 51 years of age and older had a greater probability of voting for the Alachua Referendum. CHOICES legality has not been under contention but its effectiveness has. This study found that CHOICES has been effective at providing comprehensive primary preventative care in a disjointed incremental system of healthcare by purposefully collaborating with all stakeholders involved. A model for purposeful collaboration is presented and is titled the policy adoption wheel of collaboration

AN EXAMINATION OF SINGLE-SEX SECONDARY AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS: THE EFFECTS OF TEACHER EXPECTANCY

The effectiveness of single-sex classrooms in the United States remains unclear. To address this issue, the purpose of this quasi-experiment was to examine single-sex classrooms in secondary agricultural education classrooms in Kentucky. Data were collected through quantitative pretests and posttests from student participants (n = 168) and teacher participants (n = 8). The findings indicated that student participants in single-sex classrooms had higher academic performance, better attendance, and an increased gain in interest in the agriculture, food, and natural resources career pathway. Students participants in coeducational classrooms had less discipline referrals. Teacher participants’ expectation were related to student performance. Recommendations are made for further research and changes in teacher preparation practice

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationWireless communications pervade all avenues of modern life. The rapid expansion of wireless services has increased the need for transmission schemes that are more spectrally efficient. Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) systems attempt to address this need by building a network where the spectrum is used opportunistically by all users based on local and regional measurements of its availability. One of the principal requirements in DSA systems is to initialize and maintain a control channel to link the nodes together. This should be done even before a complete spectral usage map is available. Additionally, with more users accessing the spectrum, it is important to maintain a stable link in the presence of significant interference in emergency first-responders, rescue, and defense applications. In this thesis, a new multicarrier spread spectrum (MC-SS) technique based on filter banks is presented. The new technique is called filter bank multicarrier spread spectrum (FB-MC-SS). A detailed theory of the underlying properties of this signal are given, with emphasis on the properties that lend themselves to synchronization at the receiver. Proposed algorithms for synchronization, channel estimation, and detection are implemented on a software-defined radio platform to complete an FB-MC-SS transceiver and to prove the practicality of the technique. FB-MC-SS is shown through physical experimentation to be significantly more robust to partial band interference compared to direct sequence spread spectrum. With a higher power interfering signal occupying 90% of its band, FB-MC-SS maintains a low bit error rate. Under the same interference conditions, DS-SS fails completely. This experimentation leads to a theoretical analysis that shows in a frequency selective channel with additive white noise, the FB-MC-SS system has performance that equals that obtained by a DS-SS system employing an optimal rake receiver. This thesis contains a detailed chapter on implementation and design, including lessons learned while prototyping the system. This is to assist future system designers to quickly gain proficiency in further development of this technology

Lipomatosis of Nerve

Lipomatosis of nerve is a benign lesion with increased fibrofatty tissue infiltrating and surrounding nerves, usually occurring in children and young adults as a slowly progressive swelling or mass, which can clinically mimic a tumor or malignancy. Here we report a 59-year-old man who presented with pain in his right foot and a mass that has been mostly stable for years, but which seems to have grown slightly of late, and is clinically suspicious for ganglion cyst. The MRI revealed a fatty mass concerning for lipoma or atypical lipomatous tumor. Consequently, the patient underwent excisional biopsy. The H&E sections showed mature adipose and fibrous tissue infiltrating the nerve, consistent with lipomatosis of nerve. Lipomatosis of the nerve, though most common in upper extremities, can occur in a variety of locations, and providers should be aware of potentially rare presentations like this one to prevent unnecessary surgery and prevent potential nerve damage

Preparing Principals: New Directions

The time for traditional, mechanical administrator training programs has long since run its course. (New Curriculum and Training Techniques.

Optimizing sperm collection procedures in zebrafish

Zebrafish are a highly-valued model organism used for developmental biology research. Zebrafish can be used for genetic manipulation and hence, many mutant and transgenic lines exist. It is impractical to maintain lines of adult zebrafish, due to resource constraints and the need to continuously produce new generations. Therefore, a practical way to preserve zebrafish lines is to freeze sperm and retrieve lines using in vitro fertilization of fresh eggs. Most existing in vitro protocols used by research labs have a wide variety of fertilization rates (ranging from 0% to \u3e90%). Due to this variability, lines may be at risk of not being regenerated, and may be permanently lost. For this project, aspects of existing published sperm collection protocols were tested and modified, with the goal of improving the proportion of males giving quality ejaculate. Males were tested for production of ejaculate by housing fish either in groups or in separate, individual tanks the night before sperm collection. The effect of age of male zebrafish and genetic background (5D and AB lines) on production of quality ejaculate was also tested. Isolating males before sperm collection significantly increased the proportion of individuals producing quality ejaculate. The proportion of fish that gave quality ejaculate samples did not co-vary with age between 17-68 weeks. Overall, AB fish were significantly more likely to give quality ejaculate samples compared to 5D fish. Based on this study, we strongly recommend separating male fish before sperm collection to improve the likelihood of obtaining samples. Our results indicate that AB fish give proportionately better samples than 5D fish, and this does not vary with age between 17-68 weeks

Program evaluation of help Las Vegas Genesis Apartments

Our group conducted a program evaluation of HELP Las Vegas Genesis Apartments (HELP Genesis). We began the evaluation on November of 2008 and concluded May 2009. HELP Genesis is a permanent supportive housing facility for veterans and homeless with disabilities. It was a concern that they may be a transitional housing facility because of their turnover rate. We concluded that this was not the case. We have identified the following limitations in our analysis. There was a lack of accessibility to the budget and accounting documents, limited access to key contacts for necessary information, and time constraints which prohibited us from investigating the claim that there was a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) iolation in providing supporting documents. We have identified two recommendations, (1) Include more transparency in the budgeting and accounting processes, (2) HELP Genesis is a permanent supportive housing facility and should continue to receive funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Nanoparticle T-cell engagers as a modular platform for cancer immunotherapy

T-cell-based immunotherapy, such as CAR-T cells and bispecific T-cell engagers (BiTEs), has shown promising clinical outcomes in many cancers; however, these therapies have significant limitations, such as poor pharmacokinetics and the ability to target only one antigen on the cancer cells. In multiclonal diseases, these therapies confer the development of antigen-less clones, causing tumor escape and relapse. In this study, we developed nanoparticle-based bispecific T-cell engagers (nanoBiTEs), which are liposomes decorated with anti-CD3 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting T cells, and mAbs targeting the cancer antigen. We also developed a nanoparticle that targets multiple cancer antigens by conjugating multiple mAbs against multiple cancer antigens for T-cell engagement (nanoMuTEs). NanoBiTEs and nanoMuTEs have a long half-life of about 60 h, which enables once-a-week administration instead of continuous infusion, while maintaining efficacy in vitro and in vivo. NanoMuTEs targeting multiple cancer antigens showed greater efficacy in myeloma cells in vitro and in vivo, compared to nanoBiTEs targeting only one cancer antigen. Unlike nanoBiTEs, treatment with nanoMuTEs did not cause downregulation (or loss) of a single antigen, and prevented the development of antigen-less tumor escape. Our nanoparticle-based immuno-engaging technology provides a solution for the major limitations of current immunotherapy technologies

Targeting CD47 as a novel immunotherapy for multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) remains to be incurable despite recent therapeutic advances. CD47, an immune checkpoint known as the don\u27t eat me signal, is highly expressed on the surface of various cancers, allowing cancer cells to send inhibitory signals to macrophages and impede phagocytosis and immune response. In this study, we hypothesized that blocking the don\u27t eat me signaling using an anti-CD47 monoclonal antibody will induce killing of MM cells. We report that CD47 expression was directly correlated with stage of the disease, from normal to MGUS to MM. Moreover, MM cells had remarkably higher CD47 expression than other cell populations in the bone marrow. These findings indicate that CD47 is specifically expressed on MM and can be used as a potential therapeutic target. Further, blocking of CD47 using an anti-CD47 antibody induced immediate activation of macrophages, which resulted in induction of phagocytosis and killing of MM cells in the 3D-tissue engineered bone marrow model, as early as 4 hours. These results suggest that macrophage checkpoint immunotherapy by blocking the CD47 don\u27t eat me signal is a novel and promising strategy for the treatment of MM, providing a basis for additional studies to validate these effects in vivo and in patients