The clinical competency of practicing and nonpracticing faculty of associate degree schools of nursing

This study assesses and describes the perception of clinical competency and the relationship to clinical practice of full-time nursing faculty in the associate degree nursing programs in the state of Florida. The study was developed around one major hypothesis and four research questions. The Hygiene-Motivators Theory proposed by Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959) provided the conceptual framework to explain factors that would motivate a person to expand workload and maintain job satisfaction.^ Data were collected from the 244 faculty members teaching full-time at the 15 associate degree schools of nursing accredited by the National League for Nursing in the state of Florida. A total of 186 faculty (76%) responded and 175 (72%) cases were used for data analysis.^ Two instruments were modified and combined for the investigation. The instruments were the Faculty Perception of Practice Questionnaire (Parascenzo, 1983) and a three-part Attributes Deemed Necessary for Faculty to Proclaim Clinical Competency (Smith, 1991) scale. Computer analyses employing descriptive and inferential statistics were performed.^ The findings revealed that faculty were closely divided as to practice activities with more faculty nonpracticing than practicing. Factors identified as impediments to increased clinical practice were identified as teaching load and personal/family responsibilities that lead to a lack of time and lack of opportunity. Those faculty who practice did so as moonlighters in positions that would not require advanced training. Both the practicing and nonpracticing faculty reported a high level of satisfaction with their activities as a means of maintaining clinical practice. While both groups reported a high level of expertise, those practicing faculty perceived themselves to be more clinically competent on the attributes of knowledge, skills, and on the total attribute scale. It was further revealed that perception of competency declined with the length of time spent out of practice. There was no difference in the two groups on the attributes of values/attitude. ^

Putting the Green in Bureaucracy: Practices of Quantification and Valuation in Environmental Regulation

While researchers have devoted considerable attention to exploring the ways that intentional environmental reregulation creates new avenues for capital accumulation (e.g. Smith, 2007; Castree, 2008), it remains somewhat unclear how the less grandiose day-to-day work of environmental regulators may also help create new sources of ecological value. Through an ethnographic study of environmental regulators tasked with enforcing key environmental laws, I shed light on the subtle ways that rule interpretation and scientific practice structure the frames, models, and methodologies regulators use to enact “best professional judgments” about ecological systems, and ultimately to assign particular values to nature. I also show the ways that non-human nature pushes back against such assessments, which in combination with the interpretive work of environmental regulation, opens spaces of conflict in at least two arenas: one focused on modes of quantification, where actors contend between economistic, ecological, statutory, and moral frames for making value assessments; and one focused on presentations of value, where actors contend between value assessments that best represent their self-defined interests. The ‘value settlements’ environmental regulators reach in these contested spaces allow processes of commensuration to proceed, and ultimately make nature legible for capitalization and exchange. Accounting for the ways that these basic regulatory practice help create ecological value is essential for creating a fuller picture of the ways capital and natural capital relate.

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2013

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held on May 24, 2013 at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus.

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2010

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus.

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2011

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus. Among the speakers was US Senator Marco Rubio.

FIU College of Law Graduation Pre-Ceremony May 2011

Montage of photos of FIU Law Students on display before the start of the College of Law Commencement Ceremony, May 2011. Event held at US Century Bank Arena

Assessment of silicone polymer composites for the trace extraction of herbicides : a tool for environmental forensics

Passive samplers are not only a versatile tool to integrate environmental concentrations of pollutants, but also to avoid the use of live sentinel organisms for environmental monitoring. This study introduced the use of magnetic silicone polymer composites (Fe-PDMS) as passive sampling media to pre-concentrate a wide range of analytes from environmental settings. The composite samplers were assessed for their accumulation properties by performing lab experiments with two model herbicides (Atrazine and Irgarol 1051) and evaluated for their uptake properties from environmental settings (waters and sediments). The Fe-PDMS composites showed good accumulation of herbicides and pesticides from both freshwater and saltwater settings and the accumulation mechanism was positively correlated with the log Kow value of individual analytes. Results from the studies show that these composites could be easily used for a wide number of applications such as monitoring, cleanup, and/or bioaccumulation modeling, and as a non-intrusive and nondestructive monitoring tool for environmental forensic purposes.

The effect of weathering processes on the vertical turbulent dispersion characteristics of crude oil spilled on the sea

Since the Exxon Valdez accident in 1987, renewed interest has come forth to better understand and predict the fate and transport of crude oil lost to marine environments. The short-term fate of an Arabian Crude oil was simulated in laboratory experiments using artificial seawater. The time-dependent changes in the rheological and chemical properties of the oil under the influence of natural weathering processes were characterized, including dispersion behavior of the oil under simulated ocean turbulence. Methodology included monitoring the changes in the chemical composition of the oil by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GCMS), toxicity evaluations for the oil dispersions by Microtox analysis, and quantification of dispersed soluble aromatics by fluorescence spectrometry. Results for this oil show a sharp initial increase in viscosity, due to evaporative losses of lower molecular weight hydrocarbons, with the formation of stable water-in-oil emulsions occurring within one week. Toxicity evaluations indicate a decreased EC-50 value (higher toxicity) occurring after the oil has weathered eight hours, with maximum toxicity being observed after weathering seven days. Particle charge distributions, determined by electrophoretic techniques using a Coulter DELSA 440, reveal that an unstable oil dispersion exists within the size range of 1.5 to 2.5 um, with recombination processes being observed between sequential laser runs of a single sample.

The effect of participation in a ``Greening the BCC Curriculum'' workshop series on the environmental literacy of a community college faculty

The purpose of this study was to develop a series of workshops designed to raise the environmental literacy of a community college faculty and facilitate infusion of an environmental perspective into the courses they teach. Data was gathered on the effect of the workshops on the level of environmental literacy of the participants as well as the persistence of any observed effect. How faculty infused an environmental perspective into their courses was also explored.^ The workshop model was developed by reviewing adult learning and change theories, case studies of workshops at other colleges, environmental education research, and results of a pilot study. Content, organization, and delivery methods from these sources were selected and integrated to create the 14 components of the model employed by the workshops in this study.^ Forty-two faculty from the North Campus of Broward Community College participated in the study. The 20 workshop participants from seven academic departments attended seven two hour workshops during the fall term of 1996, and implemented projects to infuse environmental topics into their courses the following term. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest-delayed posttest nonequivalent control group design was employed in which the 22 members of the control group who did not attend the workshops were administered the Wisconsin Environmental Survey at the same time as the workshop participants (immediately before the first workshop, immediately following the last workshop, and four months following the completion of the workshop series). This instrument, an adaption of the Wisconsin High School Student Environmental Survey, yielded three measures of environmental literacy: Affective, Behavior, and Cognitive Subscale scores.^ The repeated measures MANOVA performed using the scores of the two groups on the three administrations of WES revealed a significant interaction for group by time, so repeated measures ANOVA were performed for each of the three subscales to investigate the interaction. Tukey-HSD post hoc comparisons indicated that for all three subscale scores, the two groups were not significantly different on the pretest, but on the posttest and the delayed posttest, the workshop participants demonstrated significantly higher levels of environmental literacy. All statistical tests were performed at $\alpha$ =.05. ^

Evaluation of contact and non-contact trapping efficiencies of human scent chemical profiles and their stabilities under different environmental conditions

Establishing an association between the scent a perpetrator left at a crime scene to the odor of the suspect of that crime is the basis for the use of human scent identification evidence in a court of law. Law enforcement agencies gather evidence through the collection of scent from the objects that a perpetrator may have handled during the execution of the criminal act. The collected scent evidence is consequently presented to the canines for identification line-up procedures with the apprehended suspects. Presently, canine scent identification is admitted as expert witness testimony, however, the accurate behavior of the dogs and the scent collection methods used are often challenged by the court system. The primary focus of this research project entailed an evaluation of contact and non-contact scent collection techniques with an emphasis on the optimization of collection materials of different fiber chemistries to evaluate the chemical odor profiles obtained using varying environment conditions to provide a better scientific understanding of human scent as a discriminative tool in the identification of suspects. The collection of hand odor from female and male subjects through both contact and non-contact sampling approaches yielded new insights into the types of VOCs collected when different materials are utilized, which had never been instrumentally performed. Furthermore, the collected scent mass was shown to be obtained in the highest amounts for both gender hand odor samples on cotton sorbent materials. Compared to non-contact sampling, the contact sampling methods yielded a higher number of volatiles, an enhancement of up to 3 times, as well as a higher scent mass than non-contact methods by more than an order of magnitude. The evaluation of the STU-100 as a non-contact methodology highlighted strong instrumental drawbacks that need to be targeted for enhanced scientific validation of current field practices. These results demonstrated that an individual's human scent components vary considerably depending on the method used to collect scent from the same body region. This study demonstrated the importance of collection medium selection as well as the collection method employed in providing a reproducible human scent sample that can be used to differentiate individuals.