A Review of State Investment in Higher Education Affordability and Access During the 86th Legislature

Postsecondary student demographics are dramatically shifting in the state of Texas, resulting in an increased need for state government resources to ensure college access affordability in the state. It is critical that lawmakers prioritize higher education to allow Texans from all backgrounds access to afford higher education. This editorial is an overview of the Texas 86th Legislature’s increased investment in need-based financial aid, disparate state funding to public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), proposals of state College Promise programs, and legislation aimed at serving nontraditional students. Together, these investments and programs demonstrate that the Texas Legislature has taken positive steps to improving higher education access and affordability but must increase focus on and investment in higher education in the future to ensure the economic prosperity of Texas.Educatio

Metropolitan Contexts for Community Initiatives: Contrasts in a Turbulent Decade

Analyzes demographic, social, and poverty data and 2000-10 changes in the economies and housing markets of fourteen metropolitan areas to inform Casey's strategies for reinvesting in initiatives including rehabilitation and minimizing vacancies

THE UTILIZATION OF MENTAL HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS FOR PREVENTION NOT JUST INTERVENTION

The prevalence of mental illness in adolescents is more extensive than in previous years. In schools, social workers have been utilized to address mental health episodes in students, however, they generally do not get involved until the adolescent’s mental health episode is critical and unmanageable without social support. This needs to change. The purpose of this research study is to assess for adolescent’s knowledge of mental illness and mental wellness. The targeted population is school-aged children in grades K through 12, however the respondents of the study were student educators due to the protected status of school-aged children. This study utilized a non-probability chain sample of current and former student educators. Participants were solicited via an online platform to adhere to current state-mandated social distance policies resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated three areas of positive statistical significance between mental health education and mental health knowledge. The results also signified in six areas a positive statistical significance between mental health education and mental health service utilization. The findings from this project address the deficit in knowledge surrounding adolescent mental health and aid in the reduction of the social stigma surrounding mental illness in our society. Keywords: adolescent, mental health, prevention

A comparison of the performance and scalability of relational and document-based web-systems for large scale applications in a rehabilitation context

Background: The Virtual Rehabilitation Environment (VRE) provides patients of long term neurological conditions with a platform to review their previous physiotherapy sessions, as well as see their goals and any treatments or exercises that their clinician has set for them to practice before their next session. Objective: The initial application implemented 21 of the 27 core features using the Microsoft ASP.NET MVC stack. However, the two core, non-functional requirements were negated from the project due to lack of experience and strict time constraints. This project aimed to investigate whether the application would be more suited to a non-relational solution. Method: The application was re-written using the MEAN stack (MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, NodeJS), an open source, fully JavaScript stack and then performance tests were carried out to compare the two applications. A scalability review was also conducted to assess the benefits and drawbacks of each technology in this aspect. Results: The investigation proved that the non-relational solution was much more efficient and performed faster. However, the choice of database was only a small part of the increase in efficiency and it was an all-round better design that gave the new application its performance upper hand. Conclusion: A proposal for a new application design is given that follows the microservice architecture used by companies such as Amazon and Netflix. The application is to be split up into four parts; database, client application, server application and content delivery network. These four, independently scalable and manageable services offer the greatest flexibility for future development at the low costs necessary for a start-up.Comment: Unpublished MSc thesi

Novel Rubidium Poly-Nitrogen Materials at High Pressure

First-principles crystal structure search is performed to predict novel rubidium poly-nitrogen materials at high pressure by varying the stoichiometry, i. e. relative quantities of the constituent rubidium and nitrogen atoms. Three compounds of high nitrogen content, RbN_{5}, RbN_{2}, and Rb_{4}N_{6}, are discovered. Rubidium pentazolate (RbN5) becomes thermodynamically stable at pressures above \unit[30]{GPa}. The charge transfer from Rb to N atoms enables aromaticity in cyclo-N_{^{_{5}}}^{-} while increasing the ionic bonding in the crystal. Rubidium pentazolate can be synthesized by compressing rubidium azide (RbN3) and nitrogen (N2) precursors above \unit[9.42]{GPa}, and its experimental discovery is aided by calculating the Raman spectrum and identifying the features attributed to N_{^{_{5}}}^{-} modes. The two other interesting compounds, RbN2 containing infinitely-long single-bonded nitrogen chains, and Rb_{4}N_{6} consisting of single-bonded N_{6} hexazine rings, become thermodynamically stable at pressures exceeding \unit[60]{GPa}. In addition to the compounds with high nitrogen content, Rb_{3}N_{3}, a new compound with 1:1 RbN stoichiometry containing bent N_{3} azides is found to exist at high pressures

WATER QUALITY AND WATERBORNE DISEASE ALONG THE NIGER RIVER, MALI: A STUDY OF LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND RESPONSE

This paper presents the findings of a study to assess patterns in local knowledge of and response to water quality and waterborne diseases in relation to seasonal changes in the Niger River Inland Delta. The study draws on field data collected in four villages along the Niger River in the Mopti district of Mali during September 2008. The major findings suggest: (1) water use behaviors and diarrheal disease management are influenced by the tremendous seasonal fluctuations in the riverine environment; (2) local awareness of the relationship between poor water quality, oral-fecal disease transmission, and waterborne disease is low; (3) interventions to mitigate the high incidence of childhood diarrhea and degraded water quality are limited by ongoing socio-economic, cultural, and institutional factors; and (4) women’s level of health knowledge is socially and culturally dependent

Applying Duchscher\u27s Role Transition Theory to Reduce Novice Nurse Turnover

The identified gap in practice was teaching graduate nurses about the phases and barriers outlined in Duchscher’s role transition theory. The practice-focused question that guided the project addressed whether a staff education program applying Duchscher’s role transition theory would provide the needed knowledge in preparing the graduate nurse for transition to novice nurse. The project included identical pre- and post surveys and a staff education program. Twenty participants selected a Likert response to each of the four questions: I feel prepared for the transition from graduate nurse to novice nurse, I feel knowledgeable about the developmental barriers I can expect to navigate during my transition from graduate nurse to novice nurse, I understand the importance of maintaining a healthy self-care routine, and I feel comfortable asking for feedback. For each question, score range, improvement in response scores, score frequency, totals, standard deviation, and z scores were calculated. An overall increase in score total after the program was noted for each question. For the first question, the total increased from 70 to 81. For the second question, the total increased from 73 to 85. For the third question, the total increased from 89 to 95. For the fourth question, the total increased from 85 to 91. These results indicate that the education program was effective in helping graduate nurses feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about their transition to novice nurses