Digital Commons Network^™

Yoga In The Library - A Research Guide, Beth Posner

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Burnout Or Depression: Both Individual And Social Issue, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In view of the profound problems attached to the construct of burnout, we recommended that occupational health specialists focus on (job-related) depression rather than burnout to help workers more effectively. Epstein and Privitera (April 8, 1398) rejected our recommendation on the grounds that burnout is not a “purely individual syndrome”. Problematically, Epstein and Privitera attributed to us an idea that is not ours. In these authors’ view, equating burnout with depression is synonymous with mistakenly individualising a social problem. For two reasons, the argument that depression cannot replace burnout because burnout is a social problem whereas depression is an individual …

Consequences Of Job Stress For The Psychological Well-Being Of Teachers, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi, Peter Luehring-Jones

Publications and Research

This chapter examines research on the relationship between job stressors and mental health (depressive symptoms, burnout, and mental disorders such as depression) in teachers. Teachers are exposed daily to job stressors (e.g., student disruptiveness) that have been linked to adverse mental health effects. Epidemiologic research indicates that when compared to members of other groups, teachers experience higher rates of mental disorder, although some studies question that conclusion. Large-scale studies indicate when compared to members of other occupational groups, teachers are at higher risk for exposure to workplace violence, with its adverse mental health consequences. Longitudinal research has linked teaching-related stressors …

Economic Freedom And Philanthropy, Ian Pritchard

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

This thesis provides an empirical testing of the relationship between economic freedom and philanthropy. At present, a wealth of literature exists on the relationship between economic freedom and other macroeconomic indicators like growth and income, but no relationship has been defined between economic freedom and philanthropy. Using data provided by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, as well as the Economic Freedom of North America Index provided by the Fraser Institute, we are able to test this relationship in a number of different specifications to control for various different factors. We find results that indicate that there is a positive, …

Impact Of Federal Crop Insurance On North Dakota Agriculture Production Efficiency, Matthew John Breker

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

This study examines the impact of three major policy shifts in federal crop insurance on North Dakota agriculture production efficiency. An empirical application of 53 counties in North Dakota from 1980 to 2014 indicates that “with crop insurance”, the technical efficiency of agriculture is higher as compared to “without crop insurance”. This finding implies that producers are utilizing their input resources more effectively and are increasing the use of technology efficiently in their operations with crop insurance. The results are important to policy makers as it proves that with government support, the federal crop insurance program is not only mitigating …

An Analysis Of Financial Risk Measures Within Agricultural Cooperatives, Kristi Schweiss

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Agricultural Cooperatives have been facing times of low financial risk in the previous years. However, this is expected to change in the near future and controlling for financial risk will become an increasing concern. A review of the risk balancing hypothesis literature shows that financial risk has not been fully defined by previous researchers. The objective of this research is to better define financial risk and analyze whether the academic literature or the lending industry has found ways to capture and measure financial risk. This is done by utilizing a stochastic simulation model of an agricultural cooperative comparing low and …

Optimization Of Soybean Buying Strategies Using Derivatives, Nathaniel David Moody

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

The portfolio model of hedging framework, based off Markowitz (1952), is used to determine the best mix of futures, basis, and option contracts to hedge a soybean purchase from PNW 28 weeks in to the future. Eighteen options are incorporated including in-the-money, at-the-money, and out-of-the-money call and puts with different expiration dates. Futures and option pricing data is extracted from ProphetX from November of 2013 to December of 2016. Expected utility objectives including mean-variance, CVaR, Mean-CVaR, and Mean-CVaR with copula are maximized using linear programming optimization methods. A two stage model is built to simulate hedging scenarios while measuring various …

Shifting Wetland Policy And Perception In The Columbia Slough, Ryan Pemberton

Geography Masters Research Papers

On the periphery of Portland, Oregon, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers lies an expansive wetland, the Columbia Slough. Once a thriving wetland ecosystem nineteen miles long by three miles wide, the Slough has been drained, filled, and developed into a humanized landscape. The human experience of this landscape has always been about use: people make, move, and exchange things here. Few people actually live and play in this transformed wetland, and most would consider it a featureless, polluted, and otherwise valueless landscape save for the money to be made here. Yet remnants of the old, wild …

Identifying Clouds With Convolutional Neural Networks, Jeff Mullins, Sean Richardson, Peter Drake

Portland Institute for Computational Science Publications

The greatest source of uncertainty in model estimates of projected climate change involve clouds and aerosols. Photographic images of clouds in the sky are simple to acquire and archive, but climate scientists need an automated process for identifying clouds in these images. We bring machine learning to bear on this problem. Specifically, we use convolutional neural networks, which to our knowledge have not previously been applied to this task. We trained a network to identify clear sky, thin cloud, thick cloud, and non-sky pixels in photos taken by the Total Sky Imager. The trained network is capable of classifying 91.9% …

Your Teaching Strategy Matters: How Engagement Impacts Application In Health Information Literacy Instruction, Heather A. Johnson, Laura C. Barrett

Dartmouth Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to compare two pedagogical methods, active learning and passive instruction, to determine which is more useful in helping students to achieve the learning outcomes in a one-hour research skills instructional session.

Understanding The Role Of Uterine Blood Flow On Offspring Development And Meat Quality In Swine, Briana Lynn Ferguson

Animal Sciences

Piglets that are born with low viability have increased mortality during early life, result in increased labor by personnel and potential animal welfare concerns. Producers focused on improving ovulation rates with the outcome of increased number of piglets with the average of piglets born increasing from 8.0 pigs/litter/sow to 10.3 pigs/litter/sow (NASS, 2016). This may not be advantageous, as number of piglets born per litter increased the weight of each piglet decreased. It is hypothesized this is due to decreased uterine blood flow available per piglet in larger litters, resulting in lower viability piglets at birth. Two studies with the …

Biological Evaluation Of The Associations Between Animal Size, Feeding Behavior, Blood Metabolites And Feed Efficiency In Beef Cattle, Ananda Barbara Portela Fontoura

Animal Sciences

The biological variation in feed efficiency is regulated by multiple physiological mechanisms relevant to energy use in livestock species. The current study examined the associations between body composition, feeding behavior, linear body measurements and plasma metabolites with different measures of feed efficiency in growing heifers, finishing steers and mature pregnant cows. Our findings indicate that inclusion of body size measurements in prediction models of gain and intake improved the models’ accuracy and might account important differences related to eating capacity. Among the traits evaluated, feeding behavior possessed stronger associations with efficiency measures and displayed differences between efficient and inefficient animals. …

Disseminating Agriculture Information Using The Bbq Boot Camp Model, Austen John Germolus

Animal Sciences

The BBQ Boot Camp program was designed to educate consumers about agriculture production and sustainability, while teaching outdoor cooking methods with meat as the focus. Through the BBQ Boot Camp model, consumer impact was analyzed using a pre- and post-program test. The test questions focused on outdoor cooking, agriculture practices, and food safety issues. Data were collected from 3,112 attendees from 31 BBQ Boot Camps in 2009–2013. Data were analyzed using the MIXED procedure in SAS with fixed effects of year, time, age, sex, and city size (1=population>15k; 2=population between 2.5k-15k; and 3=population<2.5k) and all two-way interactions were tested and removed from the model if P>0.1. Consumer demographics included men and …

The Effect Of Vitamin A Restriction On Marbling And Adipogenic Gene Expression In Commercial Angus And Simmental Steers, Evan Elliot Knutson

Animal Sciences

Vitamin A (Vit-A) restriction has been shown to increase marbling in cattle. Our hypothesis for this study was that a low Vit-A diet would increase marbling and improve meat quality characteristics while having no effect on production characteristics of Angus cross and Simmental steers. We also hypothesize that expression of proadipogenic factors such as PPARγ, C/EBPα, and FABP4 will be upregulated, and anti-adipogenic factors such as PREF-1 down regulated in cattle with high marbling scores. Treatments consisted of an unsupplemented VA basal diet and a VA supplemented diet at 2200IU/kg DM, arranged in a 2x2-treatment arrangement with breed. There was …

The Use Of Subjective And Objective Methods Of Behavioral Evaluation In Swine And Dairy Cattle, Blaine Lee Novak

Animal Sciences

The objectives of the studies described in this thesis were to quantify livestock behavior and improve animal wellbeing. Subjective and objective evaluation methods can be used as an estimation parameter of animal welfare. The first study used behavioral methods to evaluate the analgesic effects of a pharmaceutical drug in lame dairy cattle. Lameness pain was evaluated by measuring weight shifting, locomotion score, and visual analog scale score. Correlation analysis of the three methods determined cohesion among subjective methods. The second study measured the behavioral effects of ramp exposure during the nursery period of swine development. Loading can be a stressful …

Performance Evaluation Of Virtual Flow Metering Models And Its Application To Metering Backup And Production Allocation, Kahila Mokhtari Jadid

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the oil and gas industry, reliable and accurate measurements of the amount of oil, gas and water being produced by individual wells is essential. The production revenue for each well is determined from measured flow rates. Measurement of well production can be achieved by using multiphase flow meters on individual wells. However, the use of such metering technique is not always reliable or economical. As an alternative technique to monitoring individual well performance in real-time, multiphase flow simulators together with pressure and temperature sensors located at different locations in the production systems have been recently deployed to estimate individual …

The Lloyd Public Space Plan, Stuart Campbell, Àlvaro Caviedes, Ben Kahn, Raina Smith-Roller, Daniel Scheppke, Layne Wyse

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

This plan defines a set of recommended strategies for enhancing and activating public spaces in Lloyd that fall within three main themes: Safe Lloyd, Collective Lloyd, and Dynamic Lloyd. Implementing these actions will help realize a new vision of Lloyd: A vibrant community filled with activities and amenities for people at different times of the day, days of the week, and months of the year.

The report Measuring Public Space is included here as a supplemental file.

Cyberpdx: A Camp For Broadening Participation In Cybersecurity, Wu-Chang Feng, Robert Liebman, Lois Delcambre, Michael Mooradian Lupro, Tim Sheard, Scott Britell, Gerald W. Recktenwald

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

With society’s increasing dependence on technology infrastructure, the importance of securing the computers, networks, data, and algorithms that run our digital and physical lives is becoming critical. To equip the next generation of citizens for the challenges ahead, an effort is underway to introduce security content early in a student’s academic career. It is important that these efforts broaden participation and increase diversity in the field. While many camps and curricula focus on introducing technical content and skills related to cybersecurity, such approaches can prematurely limit how students view career opportunities in the field, potentially limiting those who ultimately pursue …

Dear Solitary Black Student, Mychel L. Estevez

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teaching Note, a letter aimed at ways to avoid further marginalizing black students.

The Distribution Of Talker Variability Impacts Infants’ Word Learning, Carolyn Quam, Sara Knight, Louann Gerken

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Infants struggle to apply earlier-demonstrated sound-discrimination abilities to later word learning, attending to non-constrastive acoustic dimensions (e.g., Hay et al., 2015), and not always to contrastive dimensions (e.g., Stager & Werker, 1997). One hint about the nature of infants’ difficulties comes from the observation that input from multiple talkers can improve word learning (Rost & McMurray, 2009). This may be because, when a single talker says both of the to-be-learned words, consistent talker’s-voice characteristics make the acoustics of the two words more overlapping (Apfelbaum & McMurray, 2011). Here, we test that notion. We taught 14-month-old infants two similar-sounding words in …

Podcasts Episode 02: Greg Stilson, Greg Stilson, Amy T. Parker

O&M On the Go

At the time of this podcast, Mr. Greg Stilson was a Product Director at Humanware and since has become a Product Director at Aira. In this podcast, Mr. Stilson, who happens to be blind, reflects on the advances in orientation aids and the ways that these technologies complement older technologies, such as canes and tactile maps.

Image credit: LinkedIn Greg Stilson profile

Podcasts Episode 06: Dr. Grace Ambrose Zaken, Grace Ambrose Zaken, Amy T. Parker

O&M On the Go

Dr. Grace Ambrose Zaken is a Professor of Special Education at Hunter College in New York. In this podcast, she describes her passion for young travelers, including toddlers with visual impairment. Through her research and practice, she has designed a new type of cane that encourages young children with vision loss to move and explore with less fear of falling.

Image Credit: Grace Ambrose Zaken YouTube

Podcasts Episode 04: Dr. Sandra Rosen, Sandra Rosen, Amy T. Parker

O&M On the Go

In the fourth episode of the podcast for SPED 510 (Orientation & Mobility Methods), Prof. Amy Parker talks with Dr. Sandra Rosen. Dr. Rosen is an expert on orientation and mobility -- helping people with visual impairments develop the skills needed for safe, independent travel.

Image credit: Graduate College of Education - San Francisco State University

Trading Safety For Innovation And Access: An Empirical Evaluation Of The Fda’S Premarket Approval Process, George Horvath

Faculty Scholarship

Congress created the premarket approval process (PMA) to provide a rigorous safety evaluation of high-risk medical devices before they may be sold on the U.S. market. Evaluating a PMA application requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct a lengthy, complex, and costly assessment of the extensive data a manufacturer must submit. But other policy concerns, notably a fear of hampering innovation and a desire to assure timely access to new technologies, have led Congress to relax some of the rigorous data requirements the PMA process imposes on manufacturers. Congress mandates that the FDA employ the “least burdensome” approach …

Variations In Crowding, Saccadic Precision, And Spatial Localization Reveal The Shared Topology Of Spatial Vision, John A. Greenwood, Martin Szinte, Bilge Sayim, Patrick Cavanagh

Dartmouth Scholarship

Visual sensitivity varies across the visual field in several characteristic ways. For example, sensitivity declines sharply in peripheral (vs. foveal) vision and is typically worse in the upper (vs. lower) visual field. These variations can affect processes ranging from acuity and crowding (the deleterious effect of clutter on object recognition) to the precision of saccadic eye movements. Here we examine whether these variations can be attributed to a common source within the visual system. We first compared the size of crowding zones with the precision of saccades using an oriented clock target and two adjacent flanker elements. We report that …

The Role Of Imperfection In Everyday Aesthetics, Yuriko Saito

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The notions of perfection and imperfection do not have the same prominent presence they once occupied in earlier aesthetics discourse. However, they still play an important role as criteria for aesthetic judgments today in our everyday life. The wide-spread and easily accepted aesthetic appeal of objects with perfection tends to overshadow the potential aesthetic value of imperfect objects that are considered to be defective or deficient. This not only impoverishes our aesthetic lives but also leads to some serious environmental and social consequences. I first argue for the need to cultivate an aesthetic sensibility to appreciate imperfection in our everyday …

The Aesthetics Of Conversation: Dewey And Davidson, Kalle Puolakka

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Conversation is one of the most mundane events of human life, yet the conversations we have can vary a lot. Some proceed only with great effort, while others engage us thoroughly. Drawing on Dewey’s aesthetics, this paper argues that the movement and rhythm of conversations can make them into genuine candidates for an aesthetic status. The key term of the paper is interaction. For Dewey, all experience, aesthetic experience included, is constituted by an interaction between humans and their environment. In his later philosophy of language, which is critical of conventionalist explanations of language, Davidson, in turn, offers a very …

Imagination In The Stars: The Role Of The Imagination In Artistic Astronomical Photography, Stephen Chadwick

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

In this article I discuss the role the imagination plays in the production of what I call artistic astronomical photographs. I examine the entire creative process, which has been defined as “that stretch of mental and physical activity between the incept and the final touch.”[1] I begin with an examination of some of the ways in which the imagination is exercised in traditional artistic photography and in observational painting, in order to tease out the similarities and differences. Following a brief explanation of the way artistic astronomical photographs are produced, I examine these similarities and differences and, in doing so, …

Bowled Over By Cricket: Impact Of Tape-Ball Injuries On The Eyes, Salman Naveed Sadiq, Azam Ali, Bushra Usmani, Khabir Ahmed

Department of Surgery Docs

Abstract

PURPOSE:

The aim of this study was to describe the type and severity of tape-ball cricket-related eye injuries seen at a tertiary care hospital.

DESIGN:

A descriptive case series.

METHODS:

This study included all cases of tape-ball cricket-related eye injuries presenting to the Section of Ophthalmology, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from January 2014 to January 2015.

RESULTS:

A total of 20 patients with tape-ball cricket-related eye injuries were treated during this period. The right eye was involved in most (14/20) of the cases. The commonest presenting symptoms included reduced/blurred vision, ocular pain, redness, and floaters. Sixty percent (12/20) …

Hernia Of Morgagni Presenting As Constipation In A 65-Year-Old Male, Hamza A Khan, Adeel Samad, Omar A Khan, Farida K Chagan, Jamal K Khan, Saulat H. Fatimi

Department of Surgery Docs

Hernia of Morgagni is congenital defects in the diaphragm. They are mostly asymptomatic and present with vague symptoms when they do so. A high index of suspicion is required for timely diagnose of this condition. Here we present the case of a 65-year-old male patient presented to our institute with constipation for the past six months. Chest radiology raised the suspicion of a hernia which was further confirmed by contrast studies. Laparotomy was done and the hernia sac identified, colon and greater omentum reduced and defect repaired. He was discharged in stable condition and was doing well on follow-up.