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NPGREAT: Hybrid Assembly of Human Subtelomeres with the Use of Nanopore and Linked-Read Datasets
2020Eleni Adam, Desh Ranjan, and Harold Riethman
The telomeres are vitally important regions that are located at the tips of the chromosomes. Their dysfunction, caused by length shortening can lead to senescent cells, which in turn cause age-related diseases, including cancer. The subtelomeres, located next to the telomeres, possess the critical role of regulating the adjacent telomere lengths. Even after many years of research, human subtelomeres have proven to be very hard to assemble due to their morphology. In order to overcome these problems, the hybrid assembly method we develop utilizes two of the latest available types of data, which complement each other: Linked-Reads and ultralong Nanopore reads. Our strategy has been to use initially the adjacent single-copy region of a telomere to search for the linked-read and nanopore read datasets that correspond to the subtelomere region in question. As a next step, we use the REXTAL (Regional Extension of Assemblies Using Linked-Reads) method to create the set of short-read assemblies derived from the selected linked-reads. We develop the NanoPore Guided Regional Assembly Tool (NPGREAT), which assembles the short-read REXTAL assemblies and the selected ultralong reads. In the NPGREAT, the ultralong Nanopore reads are used as scaffolds upon which the REXTAL contigs can be placed and corrected, replacing the low-quality Nanopore sequence with high-quality REXTAL sequence for matching regions. In the regions that lack REXTAL coverage, we retain the Nanopore sequence, stated as “connectors”, useful for spacing, orienting and ordering multiple REXTAL contigs. Its output is a single sequence. We tested NPGREAT on the NA12878 human subtelomeric regions. The output assemblies are of high percent identity with the hg38 reference, with differences only in the variable tandem-repeat regions of the sequence. The hybrid NPGREAT method provides for the first time the high quality continuous assembly of human subtelomeric regions.
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Loading Orientation Dependence on the Compressive Response of Ice-Templated Ceramic-Polymer Composites
2020Sashanka Akurati, Justine Marin, and Dipankar Ghosh
Natural materials are made from weak constituents, yet exhibit an excellent synergy of high stiffness, strength, and damage-tolerance. They consist of alternate layers of the hard and soft phases with a complex hierarchical structural organization. The ice-templating technique provides an approach to fabricate multilayered architectures for engineering applications. In this technique, an aqueous ceramic suspension is solidified unidirectionally leading to phase separation into alternating layers of ice-crystals and ceramic particles. Ice-crystals are sublimated by freeze-drying process and resultant ceramic foams are sintered to impart strength. The fabricated sintered ceramic foams contain alternate layers of oriented ceramic lamella walls and pores. By infiltrating the ceramic foams with a polymer phase, ice-templated ceramic-polymer multilayered composites are developed. These ice-templated composites with alternate layers of ceramic and polymer have the potential to exhibit an unusual combination of both improved strength and toughness. This presentation discusses the on-going work on processing and uniaxial axial compressive behavior of ice-templated alumina-epoxy composites quasistatic loading regime. Further presents the influence of ceramic composition on the compressive strength, and the effect of loading orientation on the mechanical response. Additionally, we characterized the compressive strength of porous scaffolds as a function of ceramic composition and loading orientation. To this end, we performed a Weibull analysis study to quantify the variability of compressive strength in ice-templated porous scaffolds and alumina-epoxy composites to understand the role of the ceramic phase in the compressive mechanical response. To visualize and better understand the underlying differences between the deformation characteristics as a function of loading orientation we performed X-ray tomography (XRT) on partially deformed alumina-epoxy composites. This study will enable in understanding the effects of ceramic layer thickness, layer connectivity, and layer orientation with respect to loading orientation in the overall mechanical response of ice-templated alumina-epoxy composites.
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Factors Associated with Tobacco Smoking Among Saudi College Students: A Systematic Review
2020Saad A. Alotaibi and Praveen Durgampudi
Introduction: There has been an increase in tobacco smoking among Saudi college students in recent years. However, no study has examined, with a systematic approach, the extent to which specific factors are associated with tobacco smoking among this population.
Methods: PubMed, ProQuest, CINAHL, and Web of Science were utilized to retrieve studies addressing risk factors associated with tobacco smoking among Saudi college students between 2010 and 2019. After confirming their eligibility criteria, studies were imported to the NVivo software for data collection and synthesis. All included articles were critically appraised, based on a modified STROBE.
Results: Twenty-one out of 300 studies met the eligibility requirements for inclusion. Riyadh, health-related science, and male were the location, field of study, and gender of the population of most of those included in the studies, respectively. Only one study used a longitudinal design based on a theoretical framework; the rest were cross-sectional and lacked theoretical utilization. Four individual and two social factors were established to have a significant relationship with tobacco smoking behavior among college students in four or more studies. Environmental factors were found to be associated with a change in smoking behavior among Saudi college students based on two studies.
Conclusions: There is a dearth of research in utilizing theoretical frameworks to guide the research in order to propose an intervention program among Saudi college students. Future research should aim to recruit participants from different institutions in the KSA, apply other methodological approaches, test other measurements of tobacco smoking, and utilize a theoretical framework.
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Middle Managers & Leadership Trainings for Effective Senior Leadership Positions in Public Organizations; Applications in Emergency Management
2020Norah Alshayhan and Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf
Leaders and training are vital dimensions of organizational development and effectiveness. Availing leadership programs provide continuous learning to the leaders in public sector organizations. However, leaders in senior positions in the public sector organizations have faced struggles and obstacles that inhibit their capacity to drive organizational agenda. Therefore, understanding the relationship between the training programs and the performance of the leaders in the senior positions is vital. The study will discover the struggles and obstacles experienced by the public-service leader and the impact training middle managers the leadership skills. The study hopes to propose a training program for middle managers and organizational collaboration to foster leadership skills in leading public organizations. The study will use leadership behavior theory to explain, predict, and foster understanding of the relationship between middle managers' need for leadership training and effective performance in senior leadership positions in the public sector organizations. Additionally, the study will use a qualitative method that will involve interviews and focus groups data collections. The research will use the case of Local Emergency Management of Senior Professionals in Virginia to collect different perspectives on their experiences of leadership training and the effective capability of leading in public sector organizations.
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Bolstering Emergency Management with Technological Tools: Opportunities for 'E-Resilience' Collaborations in Hampton Roads
2020Ren-Neasha Royanna Blake
Emergency management continues to ignite policy discussions globally. With the growing impacts of climate change, pandemics, and the international political economy (IPE), more resources are invested in emergency resilience. Researchers in the Hampton Roads area underscore the growing need for emergency management strategies, especially considering the recurrence of natural disasters in the area. To that end, seminars, workshops, and conferences are held annually to convene key stakeholders on this subject. Simultaneously, there is rapid growth in global technological innovations that aim at bolstering countries’ resiliency thrust. These technological innovations gave rise to the 21st-century buzzword ‘e-resilience’. E-resilience involves the use of technology in advancing emergency management. The United Nations continues to promote the e-resilience thrust, highlighting the significant role technology plays in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from emergencies. Whether through cellular phone applications, geographic information systems (GIS), data-free services, or satellite imageries, technology is value-added in times of emergency. The main purpose of this study will be to unearth feasible technological tools to bolster emergency management in the Hampton Roads area. Furthermore, to decipher the collaborations and non-technological components needed for e-resilience. A phenomenology methodology will be adopted, underpinned by the social constructivist research paradigm. Data will be collected through elite interviews, focus group discussions, and secondary data review. The researcher will aim at documenting the perception of policy experts on e-resilience, based on their lived experiences and expert knowledge in emergency management. As is evidenced by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, researches into the technological facets of emergency management are pivotal. The findings from this study will be significant for both theory and practice in emergency management, and for the wider public policy and government spheres.
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Impact of Emotional Competencies on Current E-Cigarette Use Within a Young Adult Sample
2020Laurel O. Brockenberry, Kelli England, and Paul T. Harrell
Significance: Maladaptive emotional states are important drivers of tobacco use, but the mediating factors are poorly understood, particularly for e-cigarette use. Given that e-cigarette use has increased in prevalence and popularity, research examining motivating factors to engage in use is necessary. Methods: Survey data were collected from youth (18-25) attending a four-year university (N = 216, M-age = 20.41, 36.6% African American). Respondents answered questions about emotion dysregulation (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale; DERS), positive/negative urgency (Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, and Positive Urgency Scale; UPPS-P), affect (Positive and Negative Affect Scale, PANAS), distress tolerance (Distress Tolerance Scale, DTS); negative affect reduction outcome expectancies (NAROE) and current use. A path analysis was used to examine the direct effects of affect, the 3 emotional competencies (emotion dysregulation, positive and negative urgency, and distress tolerance), and NAROE on current use, as well as the mediational effects of NAROE. Results: Path analyses displayed a positive direct effect of negative urgency (β = .209; p=.017) on negative affect reduction outcome expectancies and direct effects of negative affect (β = -.170; p=.032), positive urgency (β = -.180; p=.013), and negative affect reduction outcome expectancies (β = .257; p=.007) on current use. Negative affect reduction outcome expectancies mediated the relationship between negative urgency and current use (β =.052, p=.008) and positive urgency and current use (β =.037, p=.038) Conclusion: Emotion competencies, specifically the ability to control one’s impulses during highly emotional periods may play a role in e-cigarette initiation and maintenance. Emotional competencies may be helpful in implementing preventative and cessation programs.
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Sulfur Dioxide From the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Satellite
2020Doug Cameron
The version 4.0 dataset from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment – Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) on SCISAT, released in March of 2019, has sulfur dioxide (SO2) volume mixing ratio (VMR) profiles as a routine data product. From this dataset, global SO2 distributions between the altitudes of 10.5 km and 23.5 km are analyzed. The global distribution of all SO2 VMR data by altitude is broken down into 30° and 5° latitude zones. Seasonality of the global SO2 distribution is explored. Volcanic SO2 plumes are isolated in the dataset and compared with extinction data from the ACE-FTS Imager.
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The Effects of Physical Exercise on Salivary microRNA Levels
2020Thomas R. Campbell, Jessica C. Martinez, Noah L. Robertson, Felicia G. Clements, Emily N. Valle, Wyclef Etiennet, Audrey C. Ferguson, and Klye J. Kelleran
Diagnosing concussions provides challenges for healthcare professionals due to current diagnostic protocols utilizing subjective input from patients. Recent studies have shown relationships between specific salivary microRNA levels and concussions, but it is unknown if this is due to concussive forces or physical exertion. Analysis of this distinction may contribute to further confirming the relationship of concussions and microRNA, improving techniques for objective assessments of concussion. Objective: To measure the effects of physical exertion through exercise on specific salivary microRNA. Methods: Twenty non-intercollegiate athletes (10:M, 10:F) were recruited for this case series. After ensuring the participants received a minimum of 6-hours of sleep the previous night, a baseline salivary sample was taken with the p-157: Nucleic acid stabilization kit (DNA Genotek; Ottawa, Canada). Participants completed a graded exercise test on a treadmill following the Bruce Protocol (VO2-Max). Participants began walking and investigators gradually increased the intensity at regular 3-minute intervals. Intensity increases were achieved by increasing both the speed and incline of the treadmill until maximal physical exhaustion was achieved. Physiological measures were measured to ensure safety. Immediately following the graded exercise test, a second salivary sample was collected. All samples were sent to Quadrant Biosciences for analysis and NextGen sequencing. Upon receiving normalized data from Quadrant Biosciences (Syracuse, NY), investigators performed paired t-tests (α Conclusions: The findings of this study reinforce the relationship between 6 salivary microRNA and concussions. The body of evidence of the aforementioned salivary microRNA’s relationship to concussions is strengthened as no significant differences were found, indicating the concentration of the 6 salivary microRNA are not affected by exercise.
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Educator and Preceptor Roles in Athletic Training Student Development
2020Gary Cohen, E. Nelson, H. M. Wathen, C. E. Welch Bacon, and Julie M. Cavallario
Context: Healthcare professions use a unique learning pattern in which they are educated both didactically and clinically. Previous research has focused on preceptor selection and training, but there has been limited emphasis on perceived roles of didactic and clinical educators. Identifying potential discrepancies in perceived roles may help improve athletic training student education through a shared understanding of role delineation.
Objective: To understand the perceived roles of academic faculty and clinical preceptors regarding athletic training student development.
Design: Consensual qualitative research.
Setting: Webex Focus Group Interviews.
Patient or other Participants: 8 faculty, 7 preceptors, and 7 dual role educator/preceptor representing professional programs participated in this study. Data saturation guided the number of focus groups conducted.
Data Collection and Data Analysis: Semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Four researchers used a consensus process to analyze data, identify emergent themes, and create a codebook independently. Once completed, a consensual codebook was created with all identified themes and subgroups. Credibility was established by use of an external auditor to finalize the codebook.
Results: Three themes emerged from the data: (1) Contributors to Role Achievement, (2) Challenges to Role Achievement, and (3) Perceived Improvements. Factors that contributed to role achievement included positive relationships, effective communication, role development,
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Re-imagining the Collegiate Ideal: An Exploration of the Higher Education Motivations and Self-Formation of Students From International Schools
2020Natalie Cruz and Chris R. Glass
There has been a substantial growth in global student mobility in the last twenty years, with almost five million students choosing to study outside their home country for tertiary education. Likewise, P12 international schools have experienced tremendous growth, with over five million students enrolled worldwide. Students from international schools often find themselves at a crossroads when choosing a university. To unpack the college choice process and understand how students viewed their transnational identities as important factors in their self-formation, researchers interviewed 19 graduating students from international schools and countries across the world. This longitudinal phenomenological study used self-formation (Marginson, 2018) and the push-pull theory (Altbach, 1998) as theoretical frameworks. Researchers explored the key people and experiences that shaped students’ college choice process and their expectations for the future through semi-structured interviews. The conversations highlighted four main elements that shaped their views of the ideal university experience: pre-college experiences, college explorations, college choice, and post-college aspirations. The second round of interviews will explore how students’ college expectations have compared to their actual experience, and how their transnational identities and self-formation has evolved.
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Exploring the Motivations and Perceptions of First-Generation Doctoral Students Abstract
2020Saige Hill
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are words that spark the attention of the public and private sectors alike. Institutions such as universities, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations are taking the initiative to challenge conventional attitudes and foster equity within their communities. Academia is one discipline that is experiencing a significant shift towards increased diversity and inclusion, but much work is needed to further promote equity. Disparities in education are among the most significant factors that impact long-term success. Beginning in primary school, children who are not afforded quality education are placed at a lifelong academic disadvantage. They are also less likely to come from families of college graduates; therefore, it is questionable if they receive adequate guidance on options following high school. Furthermore, these students are less likely to pursue college education, and those that do are faced with obstacles that often plague first-generation students. The purpose of this study is to explore the motivations and perceptions of first-generation doctoral students – students who are the first in their immediate families to pursue doctoral degrees. The study allows researchers to analyze trends in motivations and perceptions of first-generation doctoral students to examine the equitability of doctoral education from the student perspective. A social constructivist case study of first-generation doctoral students at a large research university in Hampton Roads was used as the foundation for this project. Four students participated in the focus group, and a semi-structured interview style was used. The researcher found that professional, familial, and personal motivations and competing self (internal) and social (external) perceptions most affected participants’ doctoral experiences. This study presents preliminary findings on research in an emergent area; the researcher’s next steps include collecting survey data and developing an academic equity lens tool.
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Gender-Specific Mentorship for Collegiate Female Band Directors
2020Laura M. Johnson and Douglas T. Owens
The purpose of this study was to provide insight on the impact of gender-specific mentorship for aspiring female collegiate wind band conductors. The areas of focus included impactful mentorship methods, identifying mentors, and potential improvements for the wind band field. This research project was approved for an IRB exemption by the Old Dominion University College of Arts and Letters Human Subjects Review Committee. Two Qualtrics surveys were created for this study to reflect the differences in the level of experience of wind band conductors. Female collegiate/university band conductors and current/former music education or conducting graduate students completed Survey A (N = 97). Female undergraduate instrumental music education students completed Survey B (N = 93). The survey questions addressed impactful mentors and methods of mentorship, preferred gender for mentors, the importance of mentorship, potential improvements for mentorship, and perceptions of the wind band conducting field. The Survey B subjects reported their likelihood to pursue graduate studies and collegiate level careers. The Survey A subjects reported the potential influence of their gender in their experiences conducting collegiate level bands. The data were analyzed using statistical mean, mode, and standard deviation, and through the use of thematic category tables. The results from this study were compared to Elizabeth Grant’s (2000) study on gender-specific mentorship. The results indicate that mentorship is viewed as important for aspiring wind band conductors, with a variety of responses on the types of mentor and the methods of impactful mentorship.
The results demonstrate a male-dominated perception of the wind band conductor field, with subjects from Survey A and Survey B reporting fewer female mentors and previous female teachers in their experiences. The comparisons demonstrate the potential implications of gender-specific mentorship and the potential present-day gender inequities in the wind band community that may impact aspiring female wind band conductors.
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Athletic Training Student Patient Encounter Characteristics during Immersive and Non-Immersive Experiences: A Report From the Athletic Training Clinical Network
2020Bailey Jones, Julie M. Cavallario, Cailee-Welch Bacon, Stacey Walker, and Bonnie Van Lunen
Context: Professional athletic training programs are now required to include at least one immersive clinical experience (ICE), which allow students to see more patient-care opportunities and job responsibilities that athletic trainers complete than those at a non-immersive clinical experience (N-ICE). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of patient encounters (PEs) that occurred at ICEs and N-ICEs.
Methods: This study used a multi-site panel design in which 336 athletic training students from 12 professional, CAATE-accredited programs (5 undergraduate, 7 graduate) logged PEs for one academic year (2018-2019). PEs were documented in E*Value (MedHub, Minneapolis, MN), and descriptive statistics were used to summarize the characteristic of each PE. Chi-Square tests were used to compare the percentages of student role during PEs in ICEs and N-ICEs (p<0.05).
Results: A total of 10,999 PEs occurred at ICEs and 18,228 PEs occurred at N-ICEs. Immersive experiences mostly occurred at collegiate settings (64%) followed by secondary school settings (29.8%); similar frequencies were found with N-ICEs (collegiate=67.2%, secondary school=24.4%). At ICEs, students performed 70.6% of reported PEs, assisted with 17.2%, and observed 12.2%. At N-ICEs, students performed 72% of reported PEs, assisted with 16.3%, and observed 11.7%. Participants averaged 0.80 diagnoses and 1.35 procedures per PE during ICEs, compared to 0.82 diagnoses and 1.33 procedures per PE during N-ICEs. Chi-square analyses revealed that there were no significant differences in the percentages of observed (χ2(1) = .00, p=1.00), assisted (χ 2(1)=.03, p=.862), or performed (χ 2(1)=.007, p=.933) PEs between ICEs and N-ICEs.
Conclusions: Student role during PEs, clinical site type, and PE length similarly occurred at both ICEs and N-ICEs. Programs may intend to use ICEs later in their curriculum to demonstrate progressive clinical autonomy, but there were no statistically significant differences in student role during ICEs or N-ICEs in this study.
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Effects of Bug-in-Ear Technology on Specific Praise Statements Given by Paraeducators to Transition-Age Students with Autism
2020Olga Karadimou, Sierra Lotts, and Annmarie Horn
This investigation experimentally evaluated the effects of eCoaching with Bug-in-Ear (BIE) technology on the use of contingent specific praise in three paraeducators working in a special education transition classroom. A trained special education teacher provided performance-based feedback in real-time as paraeducators worked one-on-one with transition-age students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and comorbid intellectual disability (ID). As such, we used a multiple baseline research design to evaluate the effects of the independent variable (i.e., eCoaching). Results indicated that eCoaching using BIE technology increased the use of contingent specific praise given by paraeducators as they worked one-on-one with students. Increased rates of specific praise were observed during the fading condition, and all three paraeducators sustained high rates of specific praise. Our study demonstrates the efficacy of providing performance-based feedback by means of eCoaching with BIE technology, and recommendations for research and practical application are offered.
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Reported Barriers to AAC Service Delivery & Post-Professional Learning Preferences Among Speech-Language Pathologists
2020Meredith Laverdure and Rachel K. Johnson
This mixed methods experimental study used a survey to identify speech-language pathologists’ perceptions, including preparedness to provide augmentative-alternative communication (AAC) services to individuals with complex communication needs and learning preferences for post-professional training. Following certification standard changes in 2005 and 2014, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) now requires instruction and clinical experiences during graduate studies across nine major content areas, including the use of AAC modalities. Prior to this change, the number of preservice programs reported to offer at least one AAC course increased from 62% (Ratcliff & Beukelman, 1995) to 72% (Ratcliff, Koul, & Lloyd, 2008). Since the certification standard changes, the trend continued with 86% of preservice programs reported to offer at least one dedicated AAC course (Johnson & Prebor, 2019). Despite improvements in preservice training coursework, the confidence and competence to provide AAC services to individuals with CCN remains a concern. Only 51% of graduate programs feel that at least half of students are prepared for AAC service delivery at the time of graduation (Johnson & Prebor, 2019). More than 70% of speech-language pathologists report inadequate preparation to delivery AAC services (Costigan & Light, 2010; Marvin, Montano, Fusco, & Gould, 2003) and 60% report having limited or poor comfort with AAC (Marvin et al., 2003). This study identified caseload, time, and knowledge as primary barriers for AAC service delivery. Speech-language pathologists reported learning preferences for on-the-spot training related to AAC evaluation and specific AAC interventions. Further, participants reported preferences for In-service, webinar, and conference training formats. Based on these results, trainings for post-professional speech-language pathologists can be designed to reflect both training preferences and current service delivery barriers.
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D-Vine Copula Model For Dependent Binary Data
2020Huihui Lin and N. Rao Chaganty
High-dimensional dependent binary data are prevalent in a wide range of scientific disciplines. A popular method for analyzing such data is the Multivariate Probit (MP) model. But the MP model sometimes fails even within a feasible range of binary correlations, because the underlying correlation matrix of the latent variables may not be positive definite. In this research, we proposed pair copula models, assuming the dependence between the binary variables is first order autoregressive (AR(1))or equicorrelated structure. Also, when Archimediean copula is used, most paper converted Kendall Tau to corresponding copula parameter, there is no explicit function of Pearson’s correlation coefficient with copula parameter. Therefore, we obtain the relationship between binary variable coefficient with copula parameter in the study as well. The outline of this poster presentation is as follows: we start with the definition of the copula and pictorially illustrate the relation between the copula parameter and the binary correlation. We illustrate pair copula constructions of multivariate binary distributions using D-vines and C-vines. We show the application of our method on a real life data. Finally, we briefly discuss our ongoing research.
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Developing Speech-Language Pathology Students’ Grammatical Identification Skills Through Gamification
2020Emerson Lopez Odango, Anne M. P. Michalek, Corrin Richels, and Jane Roitsch
Background: Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are communication experts required to analyze and interpret a variety of language components (Schuele, 2010). Language sampling is a form of communication analysis and is used with adult and pediatric populations. SLPs collect and analyze language samples in an effort to make evidence-based diagnostic and intervention decisions. When analyzing a language sample, sentences must be deconstructed along a variety of parameters. At Old Dominion University (ODU), the undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorders program requires students to identify broad and specific grammatical categories during language sample analysis in preparation for clinical experiences.
This research involves the design and implementaiton of a gaming application using spaced retrieval practice and principles of gaming theory to facilitate grammatical identification skills in undergraduate and graduate SLP students.
Purpose: The primary aim of this project is to generate pilot data determining the utility of a gaming application (designed by the course instructor) for teaching grammatical category identification. The gaming application has been developed with an ODU undergraduate student and Information Technology specialists, and it is in the prototyping phase. There are three planned phases of application design in the pursuit of creating a generalizable and individualized tool for instruction at the elementary level and for other SLP college programs.
Research Questions: 1) Do students who use the gaming application more accurately identify auxiliary verbs, main verbs, secondary verbs, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns, personal pronouns, and conjunctions more accurately than students who did not use the gaming application? 2) Over time, do students who use the gaming application perform better on accurately identifying auxiliary verbs, main verbs, secondary verbs, subjective pronouns, objective pronouns, personal pronouns, and conjunctions than students who do not use the gaming application?
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Examining the Role of Environmental Nonprofits in Shoreline Management for Coastal Resilience in Virginia
2020Taiwo Oguntuyo, Ogechukwu Agim, Ren-Neasha Blake, Juita-Elena Wie Yusuf, Marina Saitgalina, and Michelle Covi
Environmental Nonprofits emerged over the years to attend to the environmental needs of communities and individuals, as well as address environmental issues that concern the public. These issues are usually those that have been neglected, given insufficient attention, or cannot be singularly handled by the government. In advocating for coastal resilience, environmental nonprofits have been identified in the literature as actors with critical roles in addressing coastal issues such as sea-level rise, flooding and shoreline management. In recent times, shoreline management has emerged as one of the foremost areas of focus expedient for the achievement of coastal resilience, and the role of environmental nonprofits in ensuring the management of shorelines is of crucial importance. This study seeks to examine the roles environment nonprofits play in shoreline management for coastal resilience in Virginia. Utilizing qualitative research methods, data from some environmental nonprofits in Virginia’s coastal communities will be collected and analyzed, with the aim of interpreting the roles they play in the management and stabilization of shorelines and elaborating on the impact and implications for environmental sustainability and coastal resilience.
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Positive Communication Across the Lifespan: Early Childhood ACEs to VIAs
2020Adam Pyecha
Felitti et al., (1985; 1998) developed Adverse Childhood Experiences test (ACEs), after researching adults suffering from obesity and addictive overeating. Positive correlations were linked with traumatic childhood experiences, such as severe physical, sexual and mental abuse with those participants struggling with obesity. ACEs is widely accepted in the field of psychology, proving individuals with higher ACEs scores indicate higher probability for mental illness and high risk deviant like substance abuse and felony crime. Identifying students with high ACEs before entering grade school may give educators and institutions the ability positively alter character and behavior outcomes of these victimized children. Nicholson, et al., (2019) believe in a range of trauma informed practices which can be used in their early childhood programs creating “strength-based environments” supporting the flourishment of children's health, healing, and well-being. This proposal is for the continued proactive attempt to increase the future well-being outcomes for children who have experienced extreme trauma in early childhood may prove most beneficial in early education. Utilizing trauma informed care programs, traditional education practices and new positive education curriculums “strengthening” Seligman’s (2011) Values-In-Action (VIA), educators and institutions may influence positive future well-being outcomes and better mental health care for those students with high ACEs scores. It is likely that individual life expectancy may increase for those high ACEs score if implementation of ACEs tests are used throughout students early education.
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Effects of Increased Attention Allocation on Postural Stability Related to History of Concussion
2020Nicholas Reilly, Jessica Prebor, Jacquelyn Moxey, and Eric Schussler
Postural instability is among the most common symptoms associated with concussion. However, clinical screenings for concussion are heavily reliant on self-reports of cognitive symptoms such as nausea and headache to determine if a full recovery has been achieved. The objective of this study was to determine if impairments of postural stability that are associated with the acute stages of concussion persist beyond the current clinical standards for determination of recovery from concussion. Fifty-four healthy participants were recruited for the study and divided based on whether they reported having no history of concussion (n = 27) or whether they had been previously diagnosed with one or more concussions (n = 27). Individuals reporting a history of concussion averaged 2.26 (± 1.40) diagnoses and 6.91 (± 5.67) years since their most recent injury. Postural stability was assessed by having all participants stand on a force plate in order to track the center-of-pressure of their standing sway on both one and two legs, and under a single and dual-task condition implemented in the form of a concurrent cognitive task. Results revealed that individuals with a prior history of concussion exhibited greater postural sway displacement in the anterior-posterior (AP) plane (p = 0.033) as well as greater elliptical area of sway (p = 0.01) and reductions in sway regularity (p = 0.008) under dual-task conditions compared to individuals reporting no history of concussion. These findings indicate that balance impairments associated with concussion persist well beyond the resolution of cognitive symptoms. In particular, the results suggest that damage to neural tissue sustained from a concussion can impair an individual’s ability to allocate attention to multiple tasks at once and that these deficits can remain for years following the initial injury.
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Integrating Emergency Preparedness Rules in CMS Regulated Nursing Homes: A Case Study in Hampton Roads, VA
2020Tihara A. Richardson
The purpose of this research is to examine emergency preparedness in nursing homes within the Hampton Roads region. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) added specific emergency preparedness requirements to the existing fire safety requirements for regulated nursing homes. The Emergency Preparedness rule outlines regulations for states and long-term care facilities in four core elements: risk assessment and emergency planning; communication plan; policies and procedures; and training and testing. Although there has been an increased focus on emergency preparedness for hospitals, the long-term care industry has often fallen through the cracks as an important component of the health care system. Previous literature has identified gaps in nursing home disaster preparedness. Efforts to close those gaps and improve nursing home preparedness include involving nursing home administrators, health care associations, as well as local, state and national regulators and administrators. The population in this quantitative study include CMS regulated nursing homes in Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia. This study examines how facility size and staffing levels are related to CMS emergency preparedness rule compliance for regulated nursing homes in the Hampton Roads region. Findings from this study will highlight the progress that has been made in nursing home emergency preparedness while also identifying possible challenges for facilities in this area.
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Healthy Foods in Schools: Communicating With Children
2020Carolina Rodriguez-Ospina
“Eat well to grow up healthy” is the most memorable message that families transmitted to their children, but what happens with these words of wisdom when the kids have to face the world of school cafeterias? Do they have enough choices to follow these recommendations? Do they want to look for healthy food? These are some questions that can be answered through analyzing meals in school and the narrative related to it. Moreover, some strategies have been created to persuade kids to eat healthily. In the reviewed literature, a lot of sources and procedures are studied to improve choices that kids make and also the actions that school administrators apply to enhance the menus.
According to the CDS Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in its Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2019) almost 1 of 5 children are obese, and they are more likely to have it in the adulthood. Less than 1 in 10 children eat the recommended daily amount of vegetables, and nearly 30 million Americans live in neighborhoods without easy access to affordable, nutritious food. Moreover, an estimated 73% of children 3-5 years old not yet in kindergarten are in a non-parental care arrangement every week.
This paper presents examples to improve this problem in our country, for example, it shows how the CDC is working with other local and national organizations to promote programs to apply healthy practices with the children, such as prevention programs in the early childcare system training them, funding, and giving technical assistance. In addition, different approaches to teach kids to eat healthily, such as competitions, pledges, and incentives. Moving to read books and finally learn about food in schools, and a lot of resources that we can follow as parents to push back on big brands and companies that are affecting the life of the kids.
Finally, my research shows that activism can be part of the solution, with an example of a chef who dedicates his life to teach and creates a program about how the knowledge about food can be incorporated in all the school environments through making it part of the learning skills that the kids get from school.
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Cylindrical Similarity Measurement for Helices in Medium-Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy Density Maps
2020Salim Sazzed, Peter Scheible, Maytha Alshammari, Willy Wriggers, and Jing He
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) density maps at medium resolution (5-10 Å) reveal secondary structural features such as α-helices and β-sheets, but they lack the side chains details that would enable a direct structure determination. Among the more than 800 entries in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB) of medium-resolution density maps that are associated with atomic models, a wide variety of similarities can be observed between maps and models. To validate such atomic models and to classify structural features, a local similarity criterion, the F1 score, is proposed and evaluated in this study. The F1 score is theoretically normalized to a range from zero to one, providing a local measure of cylindrical agreement between the density and atomic model of a helix. A systematic scan of 30,994 helices (among 3,247 protein chains modeled into medium-resolution density maps) reveals an actual range of observed F1 scores from 0.171 to 0.848, suggesting that the local similarity is quantified and discriminated as intended. The best (highest) F1 scores tend to be associated with regions that exhibit high and spatially homogeneous local resolution (between 5 Å to 7.5 Å) in the helical density. The proposed F1 scores can be used as a discriminative classifier for validation studies and as a ranking criterion for cryo-EM density features in databases.
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Artificial Perches as a Technique for Enhancing Tropical Forest Restoration: A Case Study From the Dominican Republic
2020Spencer Schubert, Ally S. Lahey, Ashley R. Weisman, and Eric L. Walters
Recovering secondary forests on degraded agricultural lands represents a promising opportunity to offset global carbon emissions as well as increasing local biodiversity and ecosystem services. In the insular tropical forests of the Caribbean, frugivorous birds are the primary seed dispersers for most native woody plants and have a large influence on regeneration dynamics during forest succession. In 2017, we initiated an experimental forest restoration program incorporating artificial perches on private farms within the Rio Yaque del Norte watershed in La Vega province, Dominican Republic. Five restoration plots (0.15–0.25 ha) were constructed in pastures near deforested streams. In each plot, 6-12 artificial perches, each 5 m in height, were constructed from bamboo poles fitted with crossbars. We remotely monitored perch use by birds using video cameras and evaluated the effects of perches on the establishment of woody plants in seedling quadrats both below perches and in open spaces. During the summer of 2019, we conducted a behavioral experiment using audio broadcasts of bird sound to test the effect of different avian taxa and feeding guilds on attracting seed dispersers. Eleven avian species were recorded visiting perches, with the most common being Northern Mockingbird and Gray Kingbird. Broadcasting bird sounds led to a significantly greater number of avian visits to the plot. We documented 1,171 seeds from 31 distinguishable species collected from seed traps below perches during the study. Most seedling regeneration in our plots was from exotic non-bird-dispersed taxa which grew equally in perches and control quadrats. Native plant seedlings were infrequent (i.e. beneath 4 of 36 perches) but grew exclusively beneath perches. We conclude that artificial perches are an effective method for augmenting the natural seed bank but are likely to be most effective when used in tandem with planting trees that readily grow to produce shade and litter.
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Relationships Between Injury-Related Fear, Balance Self-Efficacy, and Dynamic Balance Performance in Those With Chronic Ankle Instability
2020Ashley M. B. Suttmiller, Kelly Johnson, and Ryan S. McCann
Interactions between sensory-perceptual and motor-behavioral impairments in individuals with chronic ankle instability (CAI) are important for successful assessment and treatment of CAI. One of the most consistently reported motor-behavioral impairments is poor reach performance in a dynamic balance task. Injury-related fear is recognized as an important sensory-perceptual impairment, and those with injury-related fears may engage in protective movement strategies found to be associated with reach deficits. Injury-related fear may also impact one’s perception of ability, or self-efficacy, which has demonstrated positive associations with balance performance in other populations, but these relationships have yet to be investigated in the CAI population. Objective: To examine the relationships between injury-related fear, self-efficacy, and dynamic balance performance in those with CAI. Methods: 33 individuals with CAI (F:18, M:15, 22.8±3.3yrs, 170.2±8.5cm, 78.0±13.6kg) reported their level of injury-related fear via the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK-11). The Self-Efficacy of Balance Scale (SEBS) was utilized to capture participants’ level of balance self-efficacy. Dynamic balance performance was assessed on the involved limb with the Star-Excursion Balance Test in the anterior, posteromedial (SEBT-PM), and posterolateral (SEBT-PL) directions and a composite (SEBT-COMP) score was calculated for overall performance. Pearson correlations were used to analyze associations between these outcomes with significance set at P PResults: Significant negative correlations were identified between TSK-11 and SEBS scores (r=-0.34, P=0.050), indicating those with higher levels of kinesiophobia demonstrated lower levels of balance self-efficacy. Significant positive correlations were identified between SEBS scores and SEBT-COMP (r=0.48, P=0.005), SEBT-PM (r=0.42, P=0.016), and SEBT-PL (r=0.48, P=0.005), indicating that individuals who perceived themselves as more confident in their balance ability demonstrated better balance performance. Conclusions: Injury-related fear did not have a direct relationship with dynamic reach performance in individuals with CAI, but may have an indirect relationship with dynamic balance performance by impacting one’s balance self-efficacy.
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