Common Core has been at the very front of parent and teacher criticism alike for some time now. The reason there is such a gap between the excitement for a better way to teach and the utter confusion on specifically Common Core Math is the understanding of the rationale behind it. The aim of this research and presentation is to bridge that gap by introducing the background of why the math curriculum has changed, how to understand the new math strategies that have resulted from this change, and how to pass that understanding on to make math and Common Core, not a bad thing. Real-life examples, quotes from high profile criticism, and pictures of Common Core Math problems are used to help aid the understanding of this subject.

This presentation considers a dialogue between climate scientists and Christian theological discourse on the natural order in the context of the Anthropocene. The presentation discusses principles concerning the natural order articulated by contemporary theologians to guide human reflection and action on behalf of environmental stewardship. The presentation also presents scientific understanding of climate change and environmental degradation in the current context of the Anthropocene, a concept used by cultural anthropologists, climate scientists, public intellectuals, and community organizations to guide research, environmental public policy, and activism on behalf of environmental justice. Scientific and theological perspectives on climate matters will be discussed within an ethical, empirical, political, and justice framework.

Human trafficking is one of the most profitable crimes on the planet. In the United States tens of thousands are victims of human trafficking. While this crime occurs every day, there is little information regarding how human trafficking is discussed in college textbooks, specifically among criminal justice students. The percentage of the adult population that has a degree has increased significantly over the past 20 years, and at the same time police departments have either awarded extra credit on qualifying exams for college degrees or required college degrees to be considered for employment, especially in criminal justice. Beyond individual classes that focus on the human trafficking, there is limited space provided to explaining human trafficking within introduction to criminal justice and criminology textbooks. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the gap within academia of criminal justice students being presented with factual, academic, and detailed information about human trafficking as they prepare for careers in law enforcement. The findings of this study and implications for future research and practical suggestions for criminal justice faculty and law enforcement officials will be provided.

The pharmaceutical industry mainly uses HPLC and gas chromatography (GC), for quantitative analysis of the active ingredients. Quantitative proton-nuclear magnetic resonance technique (q-NMR) provides an alternative method for quantification of these drugs and a wide variety of other organic compounds. In this study comparative quantitative analyses of cetirizine dihydrochloride were conducted by HPLC and q-NMR techniques. Concentrations range of 0.043 mM to 0.22 mM were used for HPLC analysis. Plackett-Burman design of experiment (DOE) approach was employed for screening and optimization of buffer concentration, organic solvent percentage, and injection volume. Box Behnken design was utilized for further optimization. The optimal conditions found from DOE were 2.1 pH 40 mM phosphate buffer with acetonitrile 22:78 v/v as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 2 mL/min, and an injection volume of 5mL. These optimal conditions resulted in 4% deviation in retention time from the predicted value. Validation studies of the HPLC method showed high degree of linearity (regression value of 0.9994), accuracy, robustness, and stability. The q-NMR studies were done on 300 MHz NMR instrument using maleic acid as the internal standard. Cetirizine dihydrochloride in D₂O solutions with concentrations range of 20-100 mM with 50 mM of maleic acid were analyzed in triplicate. The peak area of three sets of protons in cetirizine were quantified with respect to the olefinic protons peak area of maleic acid. The calibration curves of peak areas vs. concentrations for three different sets of protons showed linear relationship with regression values of greater than 0.998.

This paper will review a variety of ways to support commuter success on campus, specifically for Honors Students. Honors Students typically have an intense workload that expects detailed focus into a variety of specific areas for class purpose as well as an expectance in extra-curricular activities and volunteer work. Because of the high expectations Honors students face, there is a need for universities to provide support networks for students. Universities can support their students in a variety of ways, however specific emphasis needs to be placed on Honors students who commute to campus. The author argues two influential ways that can effectively support Honors students that are transitioning to college and/or continuing college education. The first is an example of tangible support and having a student area for Honors students on campus. These usually manifest themselves as “Honors Lounges” that provide a physical area on a campus specifically for Honors students that isn’t inherently focused on studying or academic activities. The main focus of these Honors spaces is to have a space specifically for Honors which could be the only physical place on campus for Honors students that commute. Resident Honors students have the additional resource of a dorm on campus which functions as “their space” on campus but for commuter students, they are in need of somewhere on campus to call, “theirs”. A more personal approach to providing support for commuter students is having Peer Mentors available to students. Peer Mentors that are Honors students themselves are especially useful because they’re able to empathize with students with the shared experience of being a college Honors student.

This project follows a faculty working group as they attempt to understand barriers to access to course materials through the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Through the workgroup’s research and collaboration with students in a problem-based learning course, the workgroup uncovered elements of the hidden curriculum in assumptions regarding course material procurement. This essay argues that understandings of the importance of course materials and the utilization of course materials for all aspects of the course are often hidden pedagogy and must be made explicit by each instructor. Further, instructors must be prepared to make decisions on the cost and quality of course materials while weighing the probability of student purchasing behaviors. Implications for future student collaboration in SoTL are discussed.

According to the WEF Global Competitiveness Report (2017), Germany’s infrastructure ranked eighth in the world. The public investment in Germany has increased significantly in last thirty years. The government gross fixed capital formation increased by 37% in 2018 in comparison to 1990 (German Finance Ministry, 2018). The government gross fixed capital formation in relation to nominal GDP (the investment-to-GDP ratio) was 2.6% in 2018, compared with 1.7% in 2001.These outstanding public infrastructure system and investment profiles are likely a consequences of the country’s healthy public finances, robust institutional framework, structural reforms, and continuous public investments to boost competitiveness.

The goal of this paper is to understand the country’s public infrastructure financing structures and processes to identify the linkages between the infrastructure financing practices and outcomes. The emerging themes found in this descriptive study is that Germany provides exceptional conditions for capital investments; institutional framework, healthy public finance, structural reform, and special investment and redemption fund that gave a boost to government investment.

Pekka Hämäläinen’s The Comanche Empire reminds us that we scholars have not paid the indigenous dominance of large swaths of land (and water) claimed but not controlled by modern nation-states the attention that it deserves. The Comcáac (Seri) probably do not meet the criteria for having had an empire, but they did have a major impact on the settlement of non-indigenous peoples into their ancestral lands up until the late 1930’s (and perhaps beyond). Nonetheless, they have been (by me and other scholars) treated as victims of European colonial expansion. There are no doubts that the Comcáac faced a colonial onslaught at the hands of first the Spanish and then later Mexicans. These included pacification campaigns aimed at their permanent extermination as a people. Yet, the Comcáac persisted and made use of an array of strategies – ecological, political, and martial – to resist colonization. Here, through an exploration of the anti-colonial strategies that they adopted, I propose to reposition the Comcáac from victims of colonization to a people who often dominated the crossroads along the southeastern Gulf of California.

The postmodern condition is a chaotic and convoluted one. It’s labyrinthian nature presents an awfully rigorous analysis for those who possess even extraordinary mental faculty; which those responsible for postmodernism’s foundational texts clearly possessed. For this reason I will define postmodernism strictly in terms of its relationship with academia, specifically the humanities. Within the scholarly works of the humanities is where one can find the most pernicious qualities of postmodernism. This presents a problem, one which I intend to present and contend with; as well as establish the importance of understanding what the postmodern condition truly is.

Here within the contents of this paper I will build upon the works of scholars such as Alan Sokal and Jordan B. Peterson. I seek to discuss and portray the decrease in enrollment and academic quality of the humanities. The postmodern tenets of deconstruction, denaturalization, and the essential claim that everything is a power struggle are disastrous for academia. The application of deconstructive analysis within academia has led to a dulling of academic work. The deconstructive insistence on total linguistic relativism and gross over-representation of subjective reality are radical ones; therefore a damper to the quality of work accomplished within the humanities. Furthermore, postmodernism’s insistence upon denaturalizing hierarchies and that all things in life are based on power, detract from academic endeavors. These induce an emotive and activist state amongst scholars instead of a traditionally academic one. Such qualities not fit for the post-secondary have been expressed through instructors, academic journals, and the humanities as a whole; permeating throughout the political landscape. As a result we have borne witness to a decrease in scholars going into the humanities proportionally, and a vast majority of Humanities papers never receiving a single citation.

Incarcerated populations have a higher burden of chronic disease and elevated risk factors for cancer (BJS, 2012). In 2013, cancer (31%) and heart disease (26%) accounted for over half of all prisoner deaths. The Genomics Research Program of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (2016) identified incarcerated persons as an understudied population about which there is limited data regarding cancer risks and outcomes. A majority of studies on corrections populations focus on health issues associated with reduction of infectious diseases such as HIV, Tuberculosis, and Hepatitis. Scant research has been conducted on issues associated with cancer prevention and control among African Americans with a history of incarceration.

This qualitative, participatory, pilot research study explores the domains of cancer health disparities among African American men and women who were formerly incarcerated in Illinois prisons. Four qualitative focus groups will be conducted. The primary purpose of the focus groups is to collect and qualitatively analyze preliminary data on the barriers to access, utilization and treatment of cancer. This presentation seeks to: (1) describe the need for enhanced access to cancer care and treatment, (2) advocate for the inclusion of best practices in cancer care in corrections systems and, (3) identify policy recommendations and initiatives aimed at reducing cancer disparities among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated persons.

Using mixed-methods programmatic research, this presentation presents findings from a content analysis to develop a typology of political conflict based on participants’ descriptions of political disagreements with family members. Further, it presents results from two surveys and one qualitative study on political conflict in the home environment. Political disagreements concern partisanship, ideology, issues, and specific candidates and elections. Drawing on research on cross-cutting (Mutz, 2002) and dangerous discussions (Eveland & Hively 2009), this typology was then used to predict relational outcomes. Findings provide support for previous research that Republicans are more homogenous in close relationships (Mutz & Martin, 2001). Additionally, this program of research argues that individuals with less political information efficacy were more likely to report less communication satisfaction. Implications of the findings for family communication, network diversity, and asymmetric polarization are discussed.

Background: Our foundational work found very low rates of attendance at a genetic counseling (GC) consultation among AA women with hereditary breast cancer (BC) risk who were referred for GC, and a strong desire among women and their primary care physicians (PCPs) for culturally sensitive educational material to help women understand the purpose of GC. We created a story-based educational intervention delivered on a mobile device platform that is designed to motivate AA women with familial BC risk to attend GC.

Methods: Using an iterative process encompassing semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and group story circles with AA women referred for GC (primarily non-attenders), we identified themes that represent barriers and motivators to attendance for AA women. The storyline and educational content for the script were based on the themes identified. The script and artwork were tested with focus groups that included members of the target audience and key community stakeholders. We also conducted key informant interviews with PCPs providing care for AA women.

Results: Findings from semi-structured interviews (N=20) were augmented with data collected from group story circle sessions with a subgroup of women who participated in the interviews (N=11). Nine themes emerged from the combined data and findings were used to create a story-based script. Focus groups conducted with community stakeholders and the target audience led to revision in the overall design and style of the intervention and additional content revisions. Additional findings from focus groups were presented and the completed educational video was previewed.

Abstract

Approximately 80 million adults in the U.S., which is 36% of the population, have low health literacy. The impact of low health literacy is most prevalent in vulnerable subgroups including the elderly, minorities, those who speak English as a second language, and is compounded with the presence of chronic diseases such as diabetes. Reliable assessments, such as REALM, TOFHLA, and NVS are used to measure patient health literacy. However, reliable assessments are necessary to measure the provider’s use of communication accommodation strategies. The purpose of this study was to develop and to determine a reliable low health literacy accommodation (LHLA) measure for future provider-patient communication studies. The survey instrument was designed to measure the Socioecological (SEM) Critical Pedagogy communication strategies utilized by providers to accommodate patients with low health literacy.

Convenience and snowball sampling were used. Participants, which included physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and medical nurses, completed the anonymous online self-administered 32-item survey. Participants were recruited through social media and professional networks, direct contacts at hospitals, and medical conferences (N=98). The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cronbach’s alpha were used to assess the instrument’s validity and reliability. The PCA was performed and the final 11-component two-dimensional dataset resulted with a 70.138% cumulative variance and a highly acceptable .926 Cronbach’s Alpha score. The descriptive statistics was N=96, Range = 28.00, Mean = 43.58, SD = 6.50, and Variance = 43.33. The 11-component LHLA encompasses the greatest variance and is a time saving, easy-to-use, and reliable questionnaire for future studies.

In the United States, about 117 million adults suffer chronic diseases, representing about 50% of the nation’s adult population.This number is projected to grow to 157 million by 2020, among which 81 million have more than one chronic condition.People with chronic conditions face substantial out-of-pocket costs of their care. According to the CDC, people with chronic diseases or conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and arthritis received only 55% of recommended healthcare.

In 2010 the Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) designed to provide affordable insurance coverage for millions of Americans who otherwise lack of financial means to access healthcare. One of the significant provisions of the ACA is that individuals with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage or benefits, or charged prohibitively high premium rates. Following ACA’s implementation millions of uninsured received coverage through Medicaid expansions in 29 states as of March 2015 and through the Marketplaces under the ACA that provided subsidized coverage for purchase.

Since Present Trump took office, several attempts have made to “repeal and replace” the ACA that was criticized for its employer and individual mandate penalty, limited participation of insurers in the ACA’s insurance exchanges Marketplaces, rising insurance premiums, and medical device innovation tax. The purpose of this study is to examine the consequences of repealing the ACA without a “replacement” plan for individuals with chronic conditions by assessing the following main issue: The impact of the ACA on access to healthcare among individuals with chronic conditions.

Within the LGBTQIA+ community, it is known that transitioning is significant to a transgender person because it helps them feel confident in their body, boosting their overall self-esteem and mental health. It is important that transgender youth have social support throughout and after the transitioning process. However, research on transgender youth is limited to the impact of sparse familial support. Due to these limitations, there is an increasing need to focus on the experiences of transgender youth. According to McConnell, Birkett, and Mustanski, transgender youth who have other forms of social support report a decrease in psychological distress (2016).

To investigate the community support available to transgender youth ages 11 to 16, we will conduct a comparative survey of available resources for Transgender and Gender Non-conforming (TGNC) youth in metropolitan versus rural areas of Illinois. We are excluding Cook and the Collar Counties due to the plethora of resources available there. We choose to focus outside of the family because developing youth are heavily influenced by their peers. We will be conducting a comparative survey of other metropolitan and rural areas. Our search will consist of researching programs within the areas we defined above based on information available, youth activities, and support groups. We will note whether these services are offered without parental consent. By surveying the amount and type of community support available to TGNC youth outside Chicago, we will begin to draw conclusions about the effects of social rejection, as it relates to transitioning in this vulnerable age group.