ALL IN THE FAMILY: THE DECISION TO TAKE UP FARMING

Farm Management,

MARKET ORGANIZATION AND FUNCTIONAL EFFICIENCY

Industrial Organization,

Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll—1997 Summary Report

Results of the 1997 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll regarding risk, health issues, perceptions of well-being, job and work satisfaction, perceived financial situation, new technologies, and off-farm employment.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_communities_pubs/1000/thumbnail.jp

An Examination of Gaming Environments in Dungeons and Dragons Groups

Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TRPG) like Dungeons & Dragons are unique phenomena within the topics of game-based learning and gamification of leadership development. Games in general are used for both game-based learning (learning from playing games) and as sources of inspiration for gamification: the application of game design elements in non-game contexts like business or education. Many potential benefits of playing TRPGs have been observed including transformative experiences linked to collective creativity. Knowing more about the transformative potential of TRPGs can inform facilitation of creative learning environments and guide the use of TRPGs for leadership development. The concept of a holding environment frames play and creativity as activities that promote personal growth embedded in a psychological or group environment. Drawing from a developmental environment framework, a gaming environment can be considered as the psychological group environment present while playing a TRPG. Applying this developmental environment framework to TRPG groups builds on previous research that reports transformative growth in TRPG experiences by providing a group level of analysis. This research explored gaming environments in TRPGs, specifically Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5e). This qualitative study employed content analysis, group observations, and interviews for data collection and analysis. A group of participants was solicited to play D&D 5e specifically for this research. Thematic analysis was used to identify group interaction patterns by observing the group playing D&D 5e over the course of several sessions. Then, semi-structured interviews with the participants were conducted to investigate individual perspectives of specific observations from the group sessions. Interview topics included descriptions of the group of players, defining events in the group, and factors influencing the play experience. Recordings of gaming sessions and transcripts of individual interviews were subjected to continued analysis. Findings indicated that the gaming environment was a psychologically layered container which depended on the use of authority in leader-member relationships and utilized framing and storytelling processes for containing emotions. These findings can be used to inform the design of TRPGs for leadership development and expand how we construct knowledge about group environments in creative contexts

Evaluating Urban Growth in Greenville County, South Carolina

Development within Greenville County has been steadily growing since the 1990’s and is expected to expand even further in the coming years. Keeping up with the growth allows for better urban planning of the city. The goal of this project is to locate areas of urban growth within the county and determine the amount of change that has occurred within ten years

Early Detection of Sepsis in Direct Admit Hospitalized Patients: Implementing a New Sepsis Screening Checklist

Background: Early detection of sepsis in hospitalized patients in small rural hospitals can save lives. Subtle changes in patients can go undetected by nurses and doctors, leading to septic shock, increasing the length of stay in the hospital or death. In a small Alabama hospital, nurses were missing the early signs and symptoms of developing sepsis due to a lack of a monitoring system and proper education regarding sepsis. Objective: The development of a sepsis screening checklist to place on each direct admitted patient’s chart to collect vital signs every four-hours each 12-hour shift to alert nurses of early signs of sepsis. Methods: The sepsis checklist was used in a six-week period and then compared to six- weeks without the checklist. The number of sepsis cases data was collected by measuring the quantity of patients with sepsis diagnosis and the reporting of cases to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Results: The first six-weeks resulted in four cases of sepsis out of 100 direct admit patients without the use of the sepsis checklist. The length of stay varied with each patient. The second six-weeks the sepsis checklist resulted no diagnosis of sepsis out of 80 direct admit patients. Conclusion: It is unsure if the sepsis checklist prevented sepsis or would have decreased the length of stay in direct admit patients in the second six-week period. The sepsis checklist did provide a means to fill a gap in patient monitoring

Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll—1998 Summary Report

Results of the 1998 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll; highlights include information technology on Iowa farms, opinions on economic development, ranking of state and national issues, precision farming, quality of life, and issues surrounding the livestock industry.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_communities_pubs/1001/thumbnail.jp