Nebraska Child Care Market Rate Survey Report 2019

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 was reauthorized with renewed emphasis placed on the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program, which seeks to provide equal access to quality child care for families. The CCDF program is necessary to ensure children from low-income families have the opportunity to experience stable, high-quality early experiences while their parents experience a pathway to economic stability. A primary goal of the CCDF program is to ensure that low-income families receive CCDF funds to help them access quality child care in the same manner as families that pay the full rate for child care services (Davis et al., 2017). The CCDBG Act requires Lead Agencies to engage in a number of activities designed to inform families receiving CCDF assistance, the general public, and child care providers of various aspects of the new law. This includes a requirement for Lead Agencies to conduct a market rate survey or alternative methodology to establish provider payment rates. Various factors should be considered when provider payment rates are established to ensure children from low-income families have equal access to highquality child care. Federal regulations indicate that the 75th percentile payment rate is a benchmark for gauging equal access for families receiving subsidy. However, States/ Territories are given the freedom to determine their own rates and eligibility requirements for families and programs. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) is the CCDF Lead Agency in Nebraska. While the reauthorized CCDBG allows states to conduct a market rate survey every three years, state legislation requires that NDHHS adjust the reimbursement rate for child care every odd numbered year. For 2019, NDHHS contracted with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute (referred to as Institute throughout the remainder of this manuscript) at the University of Nebraska to conduct a market rate survey (MRS) for child care in the state of Nebraska. The 2019 MRS was designed to meet the following federal benchmarks: (a) includes the priced child care market; (b) provides complete and current data; (c) represents geographic variations; (d) uses rigorous data collection procedures; and (e) analyzes data in a manner that captures market differences as a function of age group, provider type, and geographic location (45 CFR § 98.4)

Getting ahead of Flash Drought: From Early Warning to Early Action

Flash droughts, characterized by their unusually rapid intensification, have garnered increasing attention within the weather, climate, agriculture, and ecological communities in recent years due to their large environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Because flash droughts intensify quickly, they require different early warning capabilities and management approaches than are typically used for slower-developing “conventional” droughts. In this essay, we describe an integrated research-and-applications agenda that emphasizes the need to reconceptualize our understanding of flash drought within existing drought early warning systems by focusing on opportunities to improve monitoring and prediction. We illustrate the need for engagement among physical scientists, social scientists, operational monitoring and forecast centers, practitioners, and policy-makers to inform how they view, monitor, predict, plan for, and respond to flash drought. We discuss five related topics that together constitute the pillars of a robust flash drought early warning system, including the development of 1) a physically based identification framework, 2) comprehensive drought monitoring capabilities, and 3) improved prediction over various time scales that together 4) aid impact assessments and 5) guide decision-making and policy. We provide specific recommendations to illustrate how this fivefold approach could be used to enhance decision-making capabilities of practitioners, develop new areas of research, and provide guidance to policy-makers attempting to account for flash drought in drought preparedness and response plans

Worms, Genetics and Healthy Kidneys : the Candidate PKD-2 Localization Factor, papl, May Play a Role in Polycystic Kidney Disease

Color poster with text, images, charts, and diagrams.Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) causes cysts to form within the kidneys, leading ultimately to renal failure. Prior research in our lab demonstrated that expression of the papl gene is downregulated in a zebrafish model of cystic kidney disease. We asked whether the papl gene has a direct effect on proper localization of PKD2, one of the proteins known to be involved in cyst formation, and whether the papl gene influences cilia structure. Neither the human ortholog (ACP7) nor the zebrafish ortholog (acp7/papl-1) has been associated with a specific function or organelle. papl encodes an acid phosphatase with putative hydrolase activity and a metal ion binding domain. Acid phosphatases have been associated with several human disorders, including prostate cancer. Zebrafish papl ESTs have been identified in the kidney, olfactory rosettes, and reproductive system.University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program

The Effect of Social Media on Women’s Body Satisfaction

Color poster with text, images, and graphs.Instagram is a form of social media that allows users to engage in and share photos to the world, and today Instagram has over one billion users worldwide. Past research by Sherlock and Wagstaff (2018) suggests that Instagram use may add to negative psychological outcomes such as worse self-perception and increased self-objectification. The goal of this research is to better understand how Instagram affects young women’s (age 18-26) body image and satisfaction using the “fitspiration” hashtag. Many people—young people in --are heavily influenced by social media, and users should be made more aware of social media’s potentially negative influence.University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program

Laying the Groundwork for Investigating the Link Between Genes and Polycystic Kidney Disease

Color poster with text, images, charts, photographs and graphs.Our lab studies human polycystic kidney disease using zebrafish and C. elegans as models. Patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) suffer from disrupted kidney function due to large, fluid-filled cysts that form in the collecting ducts and kidney tubules. Current treatments for the disease manage cyst growth but do not prevent cyst formation. Although the specific mutations that underlie polycystic kidney disease have been identified, the intervening steps between the altered gene and the disease symptoms remain unclear. We are particularly interested in the link between primary cilia and kidney cysts. This year, we worked to amplify target zebrafish genes, maintain healthy zebrafish and nematode populations, and study the effects in C. elegans of downregulating cilia-related genes through RNA interference (RNAi).University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program