It's still life

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the locked Download file link and fill out the appropriate web form.This is the Master's thesis of Jessica Suzanne Stokes. This collection of poems addresses disability, eugenics, and life.2031-01-0

Students\u27 Understanding Of Quadratic Functions: Learning From Students\u27 Voices

The objective of this multiple case study was to examine how three pairs of high school students from a northern Vermont high school approached quadratic functions through traditional and multiple representation tasks. Four research questions were examined: 1) How do students think about the quadratic function as they work on a series of tasks? 2) What mathematical strategies do students employ when they work on a series of tasks related to the quadratic function? 3) How does the type of task, traditional versus multiple representation, impact students\u27 understanding of the quadratic function? 4) What kinds of knowledge (procedural or conceptual) do students utilize when completing a series of tasks about the quadratic function? Qualitative research methods that utilized think-aloud protocols while students were engaged in four tasks pertaining to the quadratic function were employed in this study. Results suggested that students tend to think about isolated parts of the problem when solving quadratic problems. Early on in their learning about quadratics, students primarily relied on procedural strategies such as think-alouds, gestures, algebraic formulas, converting equation forms, process of elimination, dissecting problems, backtracking, and drawing pictures. In addition, students preferred the standard form to the vertex form when solving quadratics and often confused the y-intercept of the standard form with the y-coordinate of the vertex when the function was in vertex form. Results also indicated that students preferred to algebraically solve a problem versus tabular or graphical strategies. By exploring how students approach the quadratic function through their own voices, this study offers some insight into the conceptions and strategies that students use for solving problems that involve the quadratic function as well as possibilities for how quadratics may be taught in high school

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING SOFTWARE COST ESTIMATION IN DOD ACQUISITION

Acquisition initiatives within the Department of Defense (DOD) are becoming increasingly reliant on software. While the DOD has ample experience in estimating costs of hardware acquisition, expertise in estimating software acquisition costs is lacking. The objective of this capstone project is to summarize the current software cost estimating methods, analyze existing software cost estimating models, and suggest areas and methods for improvement. To accomplish this, surveys were conducted to gather program cost data, which was run through existing cost estimating models. From here, the outputs were compared to actual program costs. This established a baseline for the effectiveness of existing methods and guided suggestions for areas of improvement. The Software Resource Data Reports (SRDR) data used seemed to have spurious data reporting from at least one source, and the base cost estimation models were not found to be sufficiently accurate in our study. The capstone finds that calibrating the cost models to the data available improved those models dramatically. In all, the capstone recommends performing data realism checks upon SRDR submissions to ensure data accuracy and calibrating cost models for each contractor with the available data before using them to estimate DOD Acquisition costs.Civilian, Department of the ArmyCivilian, Department of the ArmyCivilian, Department of the ArmyCivilian, Department of the ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Arlene Raven's Legacy

Art critic Arlene Raven's life and work are the subject of seventeen visual and narrative essays and a chronology in this special issue of the journal Critical Matrix: The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture

Variations in achievement of evidence-based, high-impact quality indicators in general practice: an observational study

Background: There are widely recognised variations in the delivery and outcomes of healthcare but an incomplete understanding of their causes. There is a growing interest in using routinely collected ‘big data’ in the evaluation of healthcare. We developed a set of evidence-based ‘high impact’ quality indicators (QIs) for primary care and examined variations in achievement of these indicators using routinely collected data in the United Kingdom (UK). Methods: Cross-sectional analysis of routinely collected, electronic primary care data from a sample of general practices in West Yorkshire, UK (n = 89). The QIs covered aspects of care (including processes and intermediate clinical outcomes) in relation to diabetes, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, chronic kidney disease (CKD) and ‘risky’ prescribing combinations. Regression models explored the impact of practice and patient characteristics. Clustering within practice was accounted for by including a random intercept for practice. Results: Median practice achievement of the QIs ranged from 43.2% (diabetes control) to 72.2% (blood pressure control in CKD). Considerable between-practice variation existed for all indicators: the difference between the highest and lowest performing practices was 26.3 percentage points for risky prescribing and 100 percentage points for anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation. Odds ratios associated with the random effects for practices emphasised this; there was a greater than ten-fold difference in the likelihood of achieving the hypertension indicator between the lowest and highest performing practices. Patient characteristics, in particular age, gender and comorbidity, were consistently but modestly associated with indicator achievement. Statistically significant practice characteristics were identified less frequently in adjusted models. Conclusions: Despite various policy and improvement initiatives, there are enduring inappropriate variations in the delivery of evidence-based care. Much of this variation is not explained by routinely collected patient or practice variables, and is likely to be attributable to differences in clinical and organisational behaviour

Longitudinal observation and decline of neutralizing antibody responses in the three months following SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans

Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in most infected individuals 10–15 d after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. However, due to the recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the human population, it is not known how long antibody responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from reinfection. Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 d post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 individuals with real-time quantitative PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, we show seroconversion (immunoglobulin (Ig)M, IgA, IgG) in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody responses when sampled beyond 8 d POS. We show that the kinetics of the neutralizing antibody response is typical of an acute viral infection, with declining neutralizing antibody titres observed after an initial peak, and that the magnitude of this peak is dependent on disease severity. Although some individuals with high peak infective dose (ID50 > 10,000) maintained neutralizing antibody titres >1,000 at >60 d POS, some with lower peak ID50 had neutralizing antibody titres approaching baseline within the follow-up period. A similar decline in neutralizing antibody titres was observed in a cohort of 31 seropositive healthcare workers. The present study has important implications when considering widespread serological testing and antibody protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, and may suggest that vaccine boosters are required to provide long-lasting protection

The burden of unintentional drowning : global, regional and national estimates of mortality from the Global Burden of Disease 2017 Study

Background Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study's objective is to describe unintentional drowning using GBD estimates from 1990 to 2017. Methods Unintentional drowning from GBD 2017 was estimated for cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs), age, sex, country, region, Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile, and trends from 1990 to 2017. GBD 2017 used standard GBD methods for estimating mortality from drowning. Results Globally, unintentional drowning mortality decreased by 44.5% between 1990 and 2017, from 531 956 (uncertainty interval (UI): 484 107 to 572 854) to 295 210 (284 493 to 306 187) deaths. Global age-standardised mortality rates decreased 57.4%, from 9.3 (8.5 to 10.0) in 1990 to 4.0 (3.8 to 4.1) per 100 000 per annum in 2017. Unintentional drowning-associated mortality was generally higher in children, males and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. China, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh accounted for 51.2% of all drowning deaths in 2017. Oceania was the region with the highest rate of age-standardised YLLs in 2017, with 45 434 (40 850 to 50 539) YLLs per 100 000 across both sexes. Conclusions There has been a decline in global drowning rates. This study shows that the decline was not consistent across countries. The results reinforce the need for continued and improved policy, prevention and research efforts, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries.Peer reviewe