SOCW 320 Field of Welfare Services

Course syllabus for SOCW 320 Field of Welfare Services Course description: This course is designed for the student interested in human services and social welfare. The course familiarizes the student with the broad fields of social welfare and the major techniques used in the practice setting. The course is the initial one for social work major students and other students associated with the health and human services who are interested in learning about welfare services to people in families, organizations, and communities

Fidel Castro\u27s Grand Strategy in the Cuban Revolution: 1959-1968

Grand strategy is the purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in both war and peacetime, and how it should go about doing so. In this paper, I analyze the grand strategy of Fidel Castro during the formative years of the Cuban Revolution (1959-1968), as he sought to carve out a place for Cuba at the vanguard of the International Communist Movement (ICM). Castro had four grand strategic aims: breaking Cuba’s historical ties with the United States, ensuring the stability of the Cuban Revolution domestically, maintaining Cuba’s ability to act independently of a great power patron in foreign affairs, and spreading Communism to the rest of the Third World. He succeeded in accomplishing the first two, as evidenced by his family’s continued hold on power fifty-five years later. He was, however, unable to achieve independence in the foreign policy arena, and settled back into a subordinate relationship with the Soviet Union in 1968. While he provided support to revolutions across the third world, it was largely ineffective, and his contribution was insufficient to garner recognition within the ICM. Ultimately, Castro failed to meaningfully influence events beyond Cuba’s shores because he did not understand the limitations of the Cuban economy, and as such, he set unrealistic goals for the exportation of the Cuban Revolution

SOCW 320 Field of Welfare Services

Course syllabus for SOCW 320 Field of Welfare Services Course description: This course is designed for the student interested in human services and social welfare. The course familiarizes the student with the broad fields of social welfare and the major techniques used in the practice setting. The course is the initial one for social work major students and other students associated with the health and human services who are interested in learning about welfare services to people in families, organizations, and communities

Modular chassis simplifies packaging and interconnecting of circuit boards

A system of modular chassis structures has simplified the design for mounting a number of printed circuit boards. This design is structurally adaptable to computer and industrial control system applications

Digital Atlases as a Framework for Data Sharing

Digital brain atlases are useful as references, analytical tools, and as a data integration framework. As a result, they and their supporting tools are being recognized as potentially useful resources in the movement toward data sharing. Several projects are connecting infrastructure to these tools which facilitate sharing, managing, and retrieving data of different types, scale, and even location. With these in place, we have the ability to combine, analyze, and interpret these data in a manner not previously possible, opening the door to examine issues in new and exciting ways, and potentially leading to speedier discovery of answers as well as new questions about the brain. Here we discuss recent efforts in the use of digital mouse atlases for data sharing

A High-Resolution Anatomical Framework of the Neonatal Mouse Brain for Managing Gene Expression Data

This study aims to provide a high-resolution atlas and use it as an anatomical framework to localize the gene expression data for mouse brain on postnatal day 0 (P0). A color Nissl-stained volume with a resolution of 13.3 × 50 × 13.3 μ3 was constructed and co-registered to a standard anatomical space defined by an averaged geometry of C57BL/6J P0 mouse brains. A 145 anatomical structures were delineated based on the histological images. Anatomical relationships of delineated structures were established based on the hierarchical relations defined in the atlas of adult mouse brain (MacKenzie-Graham et al., 2004) so the P0 atlas can be related to the database associated with the adult atlas. The co-registered multimodal atlas as well as the original anatomical delineations is available for download at http://www.loni.ucla.edu/Atlases/. The region-specific anatomical framework based on the neonatal atlas allows for the analysis of gene activity within a high-resolution anatomical space at an early developmental stage. We demonstrated the potential application of this framework by incorporating gene expression data generated using in situ hybridization to the atlas space. By normalizing the gene expression patterns revealed by different images, experimental results from separate studies can be compared and summarized in an anatomical context. Co-displaying multiple registered datasets in the atlas space allows for 3D reconstruction of the co-expression patterns of the different genes in the atlas space, hence providing better insight into the relationship between the differentiated distribution pattern of gene products and specific anatomical systems

The INCF Digital Atlasing Program: Report on Digital Atlasing Standards in the Rodent Brain

The goal of the INCF Digital Atlasing Program is to provide the vision and direction necessary to make the rapidly growing collection of multidimensional data of the rodent brain (images, gene expression, etc.) widely accessible and usable to the international research community. This Digital Brain Atlasing Standards Task Force was formed in May 2008 to investigate the state of rodent brain digital atlasing, and formulate standards, guidelines, and policy recommendations.

Our first objective has been the preparation of a detailed document that includes the vision and specific description of an infrastructure, systems and methods capable of serving the scientific goals of the community, as well as practical issues for achieving
the goals. This report builds on the 1st INCF Workshop on Mouse and Rat Brain Digital Atlasing Systems (Boline et al., 2007, _Nature Preceedings_, doi:10.1038/npre.2007.1046.1) and includes a more detailed analysis of both the current state and desired state of digital atlasing along with specific recommendations for achieving these goals

Essays on Beef Calf Management Practices and the Market Value of Seller Reputation

This thesis summarizes results from two recent surveys. The first essay discusses beef management and marketing practice adoption by Oklahoma cow-calf producers. Adoption rates for beef calf management and marketing practices as well as constraints and incentives to practice adoption are summarized. Increased reputation with buyers is a commonly cited incentive for producers to adopt certain practices. The second essay expands on this aspect of reputation with an additional survey. This survey uses a stated preference approach to elicit bids from feeder cattle buyers based upon varying levels of preconditioning and reputation. Results from both surveys contribute to the knowledge base in agricultural economics and also have valuable extension programming implications.The value of seller reputation in cattle markets is discussed anecdotally as an important component of the price paid by the buyer, but has not been observable with standard market data. A positive reputation may be built over time by marketing cattle that perform well for buyers� needs. That performance is linked to a host of things, including calf management practices and cattle genetics. Likewise, a negative reputation is possible as well. When sellers do not have an established reputation, it is possible that third-party certification of management practices partially substitutes for an established reputation regarding market value. This study will use an electronic survey administered to cattle buyers at live cattle auctions across Oklahoma to assess the contribution of seller reputation to market price for feeder cattle. The results will benefit cattle producers as the relative value of establishing a reputation or substituting third-party verification for reputation determines the incentives for adopting and/or certifying recommended management and marketing practices. This knowledge can be used to enhance the profitability of cattle producers through better decision making regarding management and marketing practices.Agricultural Economic

COMPARISON OF THE COMPLETENESS AND TIMELINESS OF FOODBORNE ILLNESS OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED BY STATE VERSUS COUNTY LEVEL AGENCIES

Master of Public HealthPublic Health Interdepartmental ProgramAbbey L. NutschThis field experience report summarizes my experience as a student intern at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), Topeka, Kansas. This field experience was in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Public Health Program at Kansas State University. During the Summer of 2016, I shadowed epidemiologists, participated in day-to-day operations, and assisted with various duties. During the internship, I conducted a capstone research project under the direction of Sheri Tubach, Director of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Response in the Bureau of Epidemiology and Public Health Informatics at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The objective of this project was to compare the completeness and timeliness of foodborne illness outbreak investigation interviews conducted at the state versus county level. Completeness refers to the number of questions completed on the outbreak investigation interviews. Timeliness refers to how many days after being lab-confirmed it took to contact the case, start the outbreak investigation interview, and complete the outbreak investigation interview. This project used information from lab-confirmed Salmonella and STEC cases in Kansas that were interviewed between January and June of 2016. The state of Kansas adopted a centralized outbreak investigation interview system in January 2016. Each county in Kansas had the opportunity to pass the responsibility of conducting outbreak investigation interviews to KDHE or continue to perform outbreak investigation interviews at the county level. Four counties opted to continue conducting interviews at the county level. The results of this study show that KDHE and the county jurisdiction had similar completeness of outbreak investigation interview questions. The results also show that KDHE completed interviews in a more timely manner than did the counties. The goal of KDHE is to contact a lab-confirmed case within 24 hours of being lab-confirmed, start the outbreak investigation interview in less than three days of being a lab-confirmed case, and complete the outbreak investigation interview within five days of being a lab-confirmed case. KDHE started outbreak investigation interviews for Salmonella cases an average of 2.6 days after a case was lab-confirmed and the county took an average of 9.2 days after the case was lab-confirmed. KDHE completed the interviews at an average of 2.7 days after being lab-confirmed while it took the county jurisdiction an average of 9.8 days to complete. When comparing STEC cases, it took KDHE an average of 3.0 days to start the interview after the case was lab-confirmed while it took the county jurisdiction an average of 9.3 days to complete the outbreak investigation interview. KDHE completed their outbreak investigation interviews for STEC in an average of 3.8 days after being a lab-confirmed case and it took an average of 9.9 days for the county jurisdiction to complete the outbreak investigation interviews. KDHE performed outbreak investigation interviews in a more timely manner than county jurisdiction. Based on the results of this study, a centralized outbreak investigation interview process conducted centrally by KDHE would be beneficial to meeting the KDHE goal of 100 percent completeness of outbreak investigation interviews as well as meeting the goal of conducting interviews within three days and completing the interview within five days of a lab-confirmed case. With a centralized outbreak investigation interview system in place, the same employees would be responsible for all outbreak investigation interviews and consistency among the interviews would help reach the KDHE goal of 100 percent completeness as well as contact a case within 24 hours of being lab-confirmed, set up an interview within three days of being lab-confirmed, and complete the outbreak investigation interview within five days of being a lab-confirmed case