621 research outputs found
A case study of the design, implementation, and formative evaluation of a team development program for a women's swimming and diving team in a NCAA division I university setting
No full textThis dissertation reflects a case study of the process of the design, implementation and formative evaluation of a team development program conducted with a swimming and diving team consisting of twenty-three women at a NCAA Division I university during the 2008-2009 academic year. The dissertation was undertaken to contribute to the knowledge base about how team development programs can be designed and implemented in athletic settings. As a foundation for the dissertation, the participant observer role was used in conjunction with Maher's (2000) Program Planning and Evaluation (PP&E) Framework and Maher's (2004) Student-Athlete Pyramid of Development. Relying on these approaches as procedural and technical guidance, a framework of knowledge, skills and abilities was formulated and then put into an evaluable programmatic form to assist the student-athletes on the team with interpersonal communication, within the team context. This dissertation explores how the PP&E Framework can be coupled with some of the levels of the Student-Athlete Pyramid of Development along with knowledge about team development from business, military, and sport to assist an athletic team in learning to communicate constructively. Formative evaluation data is provided from participating team members and the coaching staff about the actual and potential value of this kind of program. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are offered for the possible design and implementation of similar team development programs in athletic, business, and other contexts.Psy.DIncludes bibliographical references (p. 119-126)by Robyn L. OdegaardIncludes abstrac
Farm to Fork Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment for Norovirus on Frozen Strawberries
No full textFoodborne illness outbreaks have been increasingly linked to the consumption of fresh and frozen berries that were contaminated with pathogenic viruses, such as human norovirus (NoV). Contamination of berries is assumed to take place at harvest by the use of contaminated water for pesticide dilution, irrigation water source or by shedding berry pickers in the field. A quantitative microbial risk assessment simulation model was built to replicate the largest known NoV outbreak which sickened about 11,000 people over a 3-week period. The outbreak occurred in Germany in 2012 when contaminated frozen strawberries were served at nearly 400 schools and daycare centers. The risk model explicitly assumed that all contamination would arise from NoV contamination of surface water used for pesticide dilution. Input data was collected from the published literature, observational studies and assumptions. The model starts with contamination of the berries in the field, and proceeds through transportation to processing facility, washing, sanitizing, freezing, frozen transport to cargo ship, transport view of cargo ship, transport to distribution center, frozen storage at the distribution center, transport to the catering facility, food service preparation and consumption, dose response, and predicted illnesses. A total of 21 scenarios were chosen to evaluate the impact of model parameters on the number of illness associated with NoV contamination of berries. Scenarios evaluated include the initial level of NoV in surface water, the effect of seasonality on the prevalence of NoV in surface water, the strength of the pesticide used, the volume of water used to dilute the pesticide, temperature during transportation to processing facility, washing and sanitizing conditions at processing facility and preparation (heat-treatment) of berries prior to consumption. Scenarios were compared via the Factor Sensitivity technique where the logarithm of the ratio of mean illnesses was used to compare different assumptions. The input that had the greatest effect on increasing in the number of illnesses was a high NoV concentration in the water (8 log Genome Copies/L) when compared to the baseline scenario with resulting mean illnesses of 7,964 illnesses and ~2 illnesses, respectively. This assumption about the concentration of virus in the pesticide makeup water was the only variable capable of producing an outbreak similar to that observed in Germany in 2012. Heat-treatment of the berries, use of a pesticide with strong antiviral effect, and assumption about the virus concentration in the pesticide make-up water had the largest impact on decreasing illnesses.Peer reviewe
Musical score, "Haste Love," for voice and piano. Words by Minnie Gilmore, music by Alfred G. Robyn. Balmer and Weber Music House Company, c. 1892
No full textPatrick Gilmore's daughter, Minnie L. Gilmore, was an author in her own right. Her published works include "Songs from the Wings," "Pipes from the Prairieland," "A Son of Esau," and "The Woman Who Stood Between." One of her verses, from "Songs from the Wings," is entitled "To my father--Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore": "Though he is dead, I still may do/ Him honor, by a life akin/ To that pure life my childhood knew,/ His fatherheart within./ And for the true musician's place,/ You claimed a throne beside the priest;/ Since both, you said, redeemed the base,/ And blessed both great and least." In this song, her verse was set to music by Alfred George Robyn (1860-1935) a composer of light opera and founder of the Marion English Opera Company in New York. Balmer and Weber Music House Company, [c.] 1892
SMAD2, SMAD3 and SMAD4 mutations in colorectal cancer
No full textAbstract not availableNicholas I. Fleming, Robert N. Jorissen, Dmitri Mouradov, Michael Christie, Anuratha Sakthianandeswaren, Michelle Palmieri, Fiona Day, Shan Li, Cary Tsui, Lara Lipton, Jayesh Desai, Ian T. Jones, Stephen McLaughlin, Robyn L. Ward, Nicholas J. Hawkins, Andrew R. Ruszkiewicz, James Moore, Hong-Jian Zhu, John M. Mariadason, Antony W. Burgess, Dana Busam, Qi Zhao, Robert L. Strausberg, Peter Gibbs, and Oliver M. Siebe
Cost-effectiveness analysis of germ-line BRCA testing in women with breast cancer and cascade testing in family members of mutation carriers
No full textPurpose:
To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of BRCA testing in women with breast cancer, and cascade testing in family members of BRCA mutation carriers.
Methods:
A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted using a cohort Markov model from a health-payer perspective. The model estimated the long-term benefits and costs of testing women with breast cancer who had at least a 10% pretest BRCA mutation probability, and the cascade testing of first- and second-degree relatives of women who test positive.
Results:
Compared with no testing, BRCA testing of affected women resulted in an incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained of AU1,880; incremental QALY gain 0.10) with reductions of 0.04 breast and 0.01 ovarian cancer events. Testing affected women and cascade testing of family members resulted in an incremental cost per QALY gained of AU665; incremental QALY gain 0.07) with additional reductions of 0.06 breast and 0.01 ovarian cancer events.
Conclusion:
BRCA testing in women with breast cancer is cost-effective and is associated with reduced risk of cancer and improved survival. Extending testing to cover family members of affected women who test positive improves cost-effectiveness beyond restricting testing to affected women only.Griffith Health, School of MedicineNo Full Tex
Pilot testing of the Research Impact Assessment Framework
No full textTraditional academic impact frameworks and metrics have been criticised, because they fail to assess the 'real-world' value of research. The Research Impact Assessment Framework was developed to complement and extend existing impact assessment frameworks by focusing on health system needs and priorities. This paper reports on piloting of the Research Impact Assessment Framework for feasibility and utility with researchers working in health and research organisations in Sydney, Australia. The Framework's Research Environment domain was assessed through a bespoke employee survey, and the Alignment and Influence of Research domain through independent review of case studies. Using synthetic data, the outputs from the two domains were combined to compare institutions. The tools tested in this pilot are feasible to use in assessing an organisation's capacity to produce impactful research that is aligned with identified health, social and economic priorities. The case study reviews illustrated the challenge of determining potential versus realised impact. This study identified that implementation of the Research Impact Assessment Framework will be enabled by use of existing routinely collected data, such as annual employee surveys, and the use of artificial intelligence tools to reduce administrative burden and ensure consistency of outputs.</p
Shifts in microbial community structure as a result of a wildfire in the New Jersey Pinelands
No full textAs the threat of wildfires in the United States increases due to global warming, understanding their effects on the soil biological community becomes central to recovery efforts. Therefore, it is important to study microbial community dynamics in forest soils impacted by fires from the view of elucidating how the new state compares with the original state of the microbial community. For this study, wildfires were hypothesized to cause a shift in the microbial community structure with dominant microbes being those best capable of responding to changes in their environment caused by the perturbation. The objectives of this research were to examine the recovery of the forest soil microbial communities after a wildfire and to investigate the state of the communities more than two years post-fire. After a wildfire occurred in the New Jersey Pinelands in 2007, soil samples were collected from the organic and mineral layers of two severely burned sites and an unburned control site over the span of two years following the fire. Microbial community composition was evaluated by principal component analysis and multivariate analysis of variance of molecular fingerprint data for bacterial, archaeal, and fungal-specific amplicons from denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. The bacterial communities in the samples collected from 2 and 5 months following the fire clustered separately from those collected 13 and 17 months post-fire in two-dimensional space, indicating that the soil bacterial community structure changed with time following the fire. Deeper evaluation of the bacterial, archaeal, and fungal community patterns revealed that even though there were common bands between the unburned and the severely burned samples, the community structure of the samples from the unburned site grouped separately from those of the severely burned sites collected 2, 13, and 25 months post-fire. Generally, the microbial community composition in the unburned samples did not change significantly over two years. These data support the hypothesis that the soil microbial community was selected by both the direct and indirect effects associated with the wildfire in the initial two years after the perturbation. Rather than return to the predisturbance state, the soil microbial communities may reflect an alternate state two years following the fire.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Robyn Ann Mikit
The Baron, his niece and friends : Friedrich von Hügel as a spiritual director, 1915-1925
No full textWhile the practice of spiritual direction is widespread and increasingly popular, there has been relatively little research on the practices of those perceived to be exemplary spiritual directors. The primary focus of this dissertation is Baron Friedrich von Hügel's spiritual direction of Gwendolen Greene, during the final decade of his life (1915-1925). It also analyses his direction of nine other individuals during this same period, enabling one to recognise and evaluate recurring trends in von Hügel's approach to spiritual nurture.
The key to the interpretation of von Hügel's approach is his conception of the 'Three Elements of Religion,' the Mystical, Intellectual and Institutional Elements. The thesis illustrates through analysis of von Hügel's correspondence and diaries the extent to which these shape his whole approach to spiritual direction.
The research is archival, focusing on von Hügel's letters of spiritual direction and his personal diaries. The methodology is critical historical research, based on a close reading and assessment of the materials available. To this end, a great deal of original material is unearthed and discussed for the purposes of articulating and evaluating the nature of von Hügel's role as a spiritual director.
The findings of this investigation indicate strengths and weaknesses in von Hügel's approach to spiritual direction. His primary contribution is his articulation and utilisation of the 'Three Elements of Religion.' These provide a balanced and holistic approach to spiritual direction. The primary weaknesses in his approach to spiritual direction are evident when he succumbs to values more indicative of the age in which he lived, than of the essence of the Christian tradition
Not today, but tomorrow.
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.'Not today, but tomorrow', the title of this body of work, references a collection of daily lists I assembled during my first year of the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) programme. I had written 'not today but tomorrow' on one of my Monday lists and that was all. It seems a fitting description and context for this body of work as I try to hold on to the moment, today, in anticipation of what is yet to come, tomorrow
- …
