HeartMind of Alzheimer's disease

Using Scheper-Hughes and Locke's "Mindful Body" (1987) as a theoretical framework, this thesis seeks to examine how Alzheimer's disease (1) impacts Chinese and Taiwanese American elders and their caregivers, (2) is felt through the relationships and social interactions of the Chinese and Taiwanese American individuals interviewed, and (3) is experienced through the complex overlapping of culture, politics, and institutions in Boston and beyond. In order to understand the impact of Alzheimer's disease on Chinese and Taiwanese American families living in Boston, qualitative interviews of health care professionals, community members, Chinese and Taiwanese American elderly, and Alzheimer's disease caregivers were conducted and analyzed. Furthermore, participant observation at a Chinese American adult day health center, dementia review meetings, and various public lectures on Alzheimer's disease and the Chinese and Taiwanese American communities were attended. This case study demonstrates that for the Chinese and Taiwanese American communities, Alzheimer's disease is a social disease. It exists within family relationships of elder and caregiver, and for families, it is the gradual degeneration of these relationships that is at the heart of meaning of this illness' lived-experience

Checks And Balances: 2015 Update

Checking accounts are a vital financial tool, utilized by 9 in 10 American households. This report provides the third annual evaluation of disclosure, overdraft, and dispute resolution policies and practices of 45 of the nation's 50 largest retail banks, totaling 66 percent of all domestic deposit volume. Pew's Model Summary Disclosure Box for Checking Accounts served as the template for rating each bank's disclosure documents to determine best or good practices for overdraft and dispute resolution. Additionally, this report identified trends among the 32 institutions examined in all three Checks and Balances reports to date. To ensure that all checking accounts are safe and transparent, Pew has also developed a set of policy recommendations and urges the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to incorporate these policies in new rules on overdraft practices and arbitration clauses

Economic analysis of an integrated anthropogenic carbon dioxide network for capture and enhanced oil recovery along the Texas Gulf Coast

This paper explains the system economics of an example integrated network that uses anthropogenic CO2 from Texas Gulf Coast fossil power plants for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). These CO2 sources and sinks are connected via a pipeline network. A discounted cash flow model indicates that for all candidate oil fields that require less than an estimated $10/BBL in EOR capital expenditure, all three entities (CO2 capture, pipelines, and EOR operators) can have 20$55 per tonne of CO2 and $56 per barrel of oil. These results include no existing or future tax incentives, and there are some costs not yet included. However, a Monte Carlo analysis shows insight by indicating that the total system rate of return is most sensitive to oil production parameters. Oil price and estimated amount of recoverable oil are the most positively influential factors while the EOR capital cost is the most negatively sensitive factor. The capital costs of capture and CO2 price are less sensitive, both negatively affecting rate of return.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Four-Toed Salamander (hemidactylium Scutatum) Nest Site Characteristics In Natural And Constructed Wetlands In Eastern Kentucky

Forested freshwater wetlands have undergone loss and alteration more than other types of wetlands. Wetland creation has slowed wetland losses, but many created wetlands do not functionally replace natural wetlands. Plant and animal communities and wetland drying cycles often differ between natural and constructed wetlands. It is important to understand what specific habitat characteristics differ between natural and constructed wetlands and what impact these differences might have on the animal assemblages. Having restrictive habitat requirements makes the four-toed salamander a good candidate for study. The objectives of this study were to understand four-toed salamander (Hemidactylium scutatum) nesting ecology and nest-site characteristics and to determine if these differ between natural and constructed wetlands. Another objective was to add to our knowledge of the natural history of the species in Kentucky. Six natural and six constructed wetlands were studied in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky during 2011. Several nest- and wetland-level variables were measured in each wetland and at each nest site. Data were collected at 207 nests (133 nests in natural wetlands, and 74 nests in constructed wetlands). Multiple regression analyses indicated that four-toed salamander eggs were more abundant in natural wetlands (P = 0.03), although there were more eggs per nest in constructed wetlands (P \u3c 0.001). There were more nests in wetlands with more moss (P \u3c 0.001), and amount of moss available for nesting was more limited in constructed wetlands. Constructed wetlands were similar in many measured characteristics to those in natural wetlands, and the results underscore the importance of abundant moss and moisture for nesting substrate. However, this study was unable to address embryonic and larval survival in natural and constructed wetlands. In the absence of such data, long-term population monitoring with nest surveys is recommended to determine if this species is impacted by greater predation in constructed wetlands

An Exploratory Descriptive Study of the Bridge Scholars Program at a Private, Faith-Based University

An exploratory descriptive study was completed regarding the Bridge Scholars program in a private, faith-based university setting. The program was described as bridge because it was created to be a flexible consideration in the student admissions process, as the required metrics for admittance were modified for students that would not have otherwise been admitted to the university. Admitted provisionally, these students had to earn a 2.5 GPA or above before they were considered fully assimilated students. This admissions exception has been in place since 2016, when the program was initiated. Three student cohorts were analyzed with particular emphasis on academic achievement, as evidenced by GPA and university persistence, which was measured by semesters completed and/or degree completion. Independent variables sough in the archived de-identified data collected by the university office of institutional effectiveness (OIE), included gender, race/ethnicity, high school cumulative GPA, final college GPA, number of semesters completed by students, and degree completion. A data set that included these variables was statistically analyzed in a pre-experimental descriptive design format with a population of N = 110

Reading the City, Walking the Book: Mapping Sydney's Fictional Topographies.

This thesis locates itself on the double ground of Sydney’s fictional and material topographies. My purpose is to read and write the city’s spatio-temporal dimensions through four novels: Christina Stead’s Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934), M. Barnard Eldershaw’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1947), Patrick White’s The Vivisector (1970) and David Ireland’s City of Women (1981). Deploying a hybrid methodology informed by critical and creative approaches to the city in literature and modernity, the thesis investigates the manifold ways in which the novels draw on Sydney’s topographies to shape and structure their narratives spatially, not only in an abstract and symbolic sense but through the materiality of urban places. Each novel I argue, offers new perspectives on the relationships between text, place and writer. My approach and methodologies draw on J. Hillis Miller’s work on literary topographies, particularly novelistic creations of figurative maps. This textual approach is complemented by Walter Benjamin’s conceptualisation of the modern city as a landscape to be read critically with a ‘topographical consciousness’ which I interpret as a set of modes for reading the city as text and the text as city. Intertwined with these literary and material approaches is an ‘on the ground’ methodology for ‘walking the book’. Influenced by Benjamin’s ‘art of straying’, the Surrealists and the Situationists, I reconceptualise the dérive or urban drift as a critical and creative practice for literally and figuratively walking fictional and material Sydney. Through reading the city and walking the book I conclude, familiar urban spaces are imaginatively and critically opened up as past, present and future, the fictional and the material, collide and re-assemble into new configurations: alternative cartographies