Insuring the Uninsured: Outreach Training for Community Health Workers

Nearly one million individuals do not have health insurance in Washington State. King County alone has over 200,000 residents living without health care coverage. Without it, many people are forgoing preventative care that could be potentially lifesaving. For this reason, the public, particularly low-income individuals and families, need an increased awareness of health care reform policies and how it will impact them in order to reduce the uninsured rates and improve health outcomes. This intervention, a door-to-door outreach training for community health workers, is an opportunity to address disparities in health care coverage. The three-hour course targets communities with high uninsured populations. It is designed to teach community leaders about health care reform and how to enroll their fellow community members in health insurance plans. These culturally-competent leaders, who are also often linguistically-competent too, will be able to seek out and help those that are not being caught by other outreach programs through clinics or health care related agencies. Overall, the goal of this intervention is to increase the number of insured individuals and families in Washington State, particularly in regions that are low-income with high uninsured rates

GENOMIC PERSPECTIVES ON AMPHIBIAN EVOLUTION ACROSS MULTIPLE PHYLOGENETIC SCALES

Genomes provide windows into the evolutionary histories of species. The recent accessibility of genome-scale data in non-model organisms and the proliferation of powerful statistical models are now providing unprecedented opportunities to uncover evolutionary relationships and to test hypotheses about the processes that generate and maintain biodiversity. This dissertation work reveals shallow-scale species boundaries and population genetic structure in two imperiled groups of salamanders and demonstrates that the number and information content of genomic regions used in species delimitation exert strong effects on the resulting inferences. Genome scans are employed to test hypotheses about the mechanisms of genetic sex determination in cryptobranchid salamanders, suggesting a conserved system of female heterogamety in this group. At much deeper scales, phylogenetic analyses of hundreds of protein-coding genes across all major amphibian lineages are employed to reveal the backbone topology and evolutionary timescales of the amphibian tree of life, suggesting a new set of hypotheses for relationships among extant amphibians. Yet, genomic data on their own are no panacea for the thorniest questions in evolutionary biology, and this work also demonstrates the power of a model testing framework to dissect support for different phylogenetic and population genetic hypotheses across different regions of the genome

A Radon Progeny Deposition Model

The next generation low-background detectors operating underground aim for unprecedented low levels of radioactive backgrounds. Although the radioactive decays of airborne radon (particularly Rn-222) and its subsequent progeny present in an experiment are potential backgrounds, also problematic is the deposition of radon progeny on detector materials. Exposure to radon at any stage of assembly of an experiment can result in surface contamination by progeny supported by the long half life (22 y) of Pb-210 on sensitive locations of a detector. An understanding of the potential surface contamination from deposition will enable requirements of radon-reduced air and clean room environments for the assembly of low background experiments. It is known that there are a number of environmental factors that govern the deposition of progeny onto surfaces. However, existing models have not explored the impact of some environmental factors important for low background experiments. A test stand has been constructed to deposit radon progeny on various surfaces under a controlled environment in order to develop a deposition model. Results from this test stand and the resulting deposition model are presented.Comment: Proceedings of the Topical Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques, (Sudbury, Canada) August 28-29, 201

Spermatids do it differently! : Paip2a-the essential regulator of spermiogenesis?

The mechanisms underpinning the latter stages of spermiogenesis are poorly understood and male germ cells have been presumed to extensively employ post-transcriptional regulatory machinery, in order to produce the highly differentiated spermatozoa, in the absence of newly synthesized gene transcripts. Excitingly, in a recently published paper in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two groups at McGill University, using null mouse models, have identified a crucial role of the poly(A)-binding protein-interacting protein 2 (Paip2a), in translational activation and protein homeostasis in the transcriptionally quiescent and terminally differentiating elongating spermatids

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

A report is given on the status of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, presently under construction in the Creighton nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario in Canada. Focus is upon the technical factors involving a measurement of the charged-current and neutral-current interactions of solar neutrinos on deuterium

THE IMPACT OF THE INEQUITY OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT REVENUE ON THE EQUITY OF CURRENT EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURES IN OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT The purpose for conducting this study was to examine the extent to which students in districts that have moderate or significant levels of capital funding through building and bond funds are placed at a relative resource advantage compared to students in districts with fewer funds from these two sources. Additionally, the study examines the extent to which crossover funding impacts the equity of current education fiscal support. To accomplish this purpose three research questions were considered: The first research question asked, were there statistically significant differences in resources among Oklahoma school districts with low, moderate, or high levels of capital revenues derived from building fund and bond yields during fiscal year 2016? An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to answer research question 1. The conclusions from question 1 include: • the ability to support capital expenditures appears to have a meaningful effect on current expenditure levels and • districts that are able to support relatively higher levels of capital expenditures are able to support significantly higher levels of average teacher salaries. The second research question asked, what were the effects of crossover funding on the resource accessibility of the Oklahoma education finance system during fiscal years 2012-2016? The conclusions for research question 2 include: • current expenditures maintained a relatively high level of resource accessibility among districts and • capital expenditures demonstrated a relatively low level of resource accessibility throughout the distribution. Research question 3 asked, what were the effects of crossover funding on the wealth neutrality of the Oklahoma education finance system during fiscal years 2012-2016? The Gini Coefficient, McLoone Index, and Coefficient of Determination were used to ascertain the level of wealth neutrality of the indicated data. The conclusions for research question 3 include: • Current expenditures were highly wealth neutral, again indicating that the state funding formula is functioning accordingly and • capital expenditures were not wealth neutral, across the distribution of school districts