The complex relationship between personal sense of connection to animals and self-reported proenvironmental behaviors by zoo visitors.

The global biodiversity crisis requires an engaged citizenry that provides collective support for public policies and recognizes the consequences of personal consumption decisions. Understanding the factors that affect personal engagement in proenvironmental behaviors is essential for the development of actionable conservation solutions. Zoos and aquariums may be some of the only places where many people can explore their relations with wild animals and proenvironmental behaviors.

A quality improvement project focused on women's perceptions of skin-to-skin contact after cesarean birth.

A quality improvement (QI) project was designed to identify women's perceptions of the benefits of skin-to-skin contact with newborns immediately following cesarean birth. Women reported positive experiences associated with skin-to-skin contact with their newborns. A major theme that emerged was that women who had cesarean birth felt that this QI project resulted in a birthing experience comparable to that of mothers who had vaginal deliveries.

Promoting and Protecting Against Stigma in Assisted Living and Nursing Homes.

Purpose Of The Study: To determine the extent to which structures and processes of care in multilevel settings (independent living, assisted living, and nursing homes) result in stigma in assisted living and nursing homes.

Design And Methods: Ethnographic in-depth interviews were conducted in 5 multilevel settings with 256 residents, families, and staff members. Qualitative analyses identified the themes that resulted when examining text describing either structures of care or processes of care in relation to 7 codes associated with stigma.

The facade of stability in assisted living.

Objectives: The study sought to identify the varied types of change arising from internal and external influences in assisted living (AL) settings, expanding upon the literature's limited focus on resident decline and staff turnover and clarifying the importance of changes to life and work there.

Method: This analysis employed qualitative interviews and observations from 4 studies involving 17 ALs to identify elements of change largely absent from the literature. Case material identified by the research team members relating to persons, groups, and settings exemplifying typical changes, as well as variations across settings, are presented.

Reference ranges for fetal brain fissure development on 3-dimensional sonography in the multiplanar mode.

Objectives: To determine reference ranges for measurements of fetal cerebral fissures by 3-dimensional (3D) sonography in the multiplanar mode and to evaluate the reliability and concordance of these measurements.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 393 women with normal pregnancies at 22 weeks to 33 weeks 6 days. The distances between the internal bone plate of the fetal calvaria and the sylvian, parieto-occipital, hippocampal, and calcarine fissures were assessed.

Adolescent literacy: learning and understanding content.

Learning to read--amazing as it is to small children and their parents--is one thing. Reading to learn, explains Susan Goldman of the University of Illinois at Chicago, is quite another. Are today's students able to use reading and writing to acquire knowledge, solve problems, and make decisions in academic, personal, and professional arenas? Do they have the literacy skills necessary to meet the demands of the twenty-first century? To answer these questions, Goldman describes the increasingly complex comprehension, reasoning skills, and knowledge that students need as they progress through school and surveys what researchers and educators know about how to teach those skills.

Prenatal diagnosis of bladder exstrophy by fetal MRI.

Purpose: To review our experience with prenatal diagnosis of bladder exstrophy by fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Bladder exstrophy can be diagnosed by ultrasonography (US) evaluation of the fetus based on absence of bladder filling, low-set umbilicus, small genitalia and lower abdominal mass, although in some instances more accurate anatomical information is desired.

Material And Methods: We studied three patients at mean gestational age of 27.

Assessing the use of multiple sources in student essays.

The present study explored different approaches for automatically scoring student essays that were written on the basis of multiple texts. Specifically, these approaches were developed to classify whether or not important elements of the texts were present in the essays. The first was a simple pattern-matching approach called "multi-word" that allowed for flexible matching of words and phrases in the sentences.

Baby Boomers in an active adult retirement community: comity interrupted.

Purpose Of The Study: This article explores a clash between incoming Baby Boomers and older residents in an active adult retirement community (AARC). We examine issues of social identity and attitudes as these groups encounter each other.

Design And Methods: Data are drawn from a multiyear ethnographic study of social relations in senior housing.

Evaluation of the efficacy and reproducibility of cholangiopancreatography by magnetic resonance for detecting biliary complications following orthotopic liver transplantation.

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) in the detection of biliary complications in liver transplanted patients.

Methods: A study was conducted, with blinded review of 28 MRCP exams of 24 patients submitted to liver transplantation. The images were reviewed by two independent observers, at two different moments, regarding the degree of biliary tree visualization and the presence or absence of biliary complications.

Fetal lung volume in fetuses with urinary tract malformations: comparison by 2D-, 3D-sonography and magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective: To evaluate the concordance between two-dimensional ultrasonography (2DUS), three-dimensional ultrasonography (3DUS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the assessment of lung volume in fetuses with urinary tract malformations (UTM).

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 12 pregnancies between 19 and 34 weeks, with various fetal UTM. Pulmonary volume was obtained by 2DUS using the following equation: total lung volume = [right lung antero-posterior diameter (X) x transverse diameter (Y) x cranial-caudal diameter x 0.

Advances in pheochromocytoma management in the era of laparoscopy.

Purpose: To understand the advances that were made in the management of pheochromocytoma since laparoscopy was initiated at our institution.

Materials And Methods: Data for all patients who underwent surgical procedure for adrenal diseases had been recorded prospectively since September 2000, when laparoscopy was routinely initiated at our institution; all patients with a diagnosis of pheochromocytoma up to December 2005 had their data assessed (group 1). Charts for all patients with a diagnosis of pheochromocytoma who underwent surgery at our institution from 1990 to 1995 (group 2) were reviewed, and the data were compared with data from patients in group 1.

Use of latent semantic analysis for predicting psychological phenomena: two issues and proposed solutions.

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a computational model of human knowledge representation that approximates semantic relatedness judgments. Two issues are discussed that researchers must attend to when evaluating the utility of LSA for predicting psychological phenomena. First, the role of semantic relatedness in the psychological process of interest must be understood.