The focus of this study is the role of health narratives play in mobilization when shared among community members experiencing exposure to air pollution from numerous sources of industrial pollution. Grounded in the practice of community-based participatory research, The Stories Project (as the collection of narratives has been colloquially named) highlights various aspects of both the process and outcome of community and academic partnerships. Drawing attention to the process illustrates the complexity of such relationships in the field, and how an understanding of these relationships is vital to successful engagement of community members in such studies. The process of storytelling became the tool for successful mobilization in this community. Narratives became strategies and vehicles for social justice. Throughout, the reflexivity of the researcher also informed the process. It is this complexity that serves as the primary focus of the study, for intertwined in a reflection of storytelling and empowerment is the role the researcher plays in such outcomes.
Leadership is a key factor in successful social movement mobilization. Without a grasp of leadership dynamics in a community, it is difficult to explain how individuals come to occupy leadership roles and what impact this has on the overall success of a movement effort. In this study, I use the qualitative approach to investigate how leadership is framed in a community facing the existence of environmental contamination. I follow the development of leadership among actors and particularly the relationships that they create and maintain with expert environmental activists. Using interview data from 35 community residents and activists, I establish how leadership frames were presented to the community and how these frames impacted mobilization efforts and outcomes.
Public administration studies often fail to address the role of middle management in organizations. On the whole, most scholarship focuses on either top-level or street-level bureaucrats while the saliency of racial identity for management practices is an understudied phenomenon. Bridging the literatures on race in public administration and middle management, we argue that race is a significant component of managerial strategy. Utilizing a large- N dataset of school administrators, this analysis seeks to assess whether differences exist among mid-level managers. Specifically, this study addresses two questions. First, in what ways does middle manager strategy differ by race? Second, if such differences exist, how do they affect organizational performance? Preliminary findings suggest variation in management styles and policy preferences across racial groups. Moreover, race acts as a correlate of administrative and strategy choices, yet the overall impacts of these differential practices are mixed.
Abstract Small enterprises have fewer resources, are more financially precarious, and have higher rates of occupational injury and illness compared with larger enterprises. Interventions that address the promotion of health and well-being in addition to traditional occupational safety and health hazards, a Total Worker Health® (TWH) approach, may be effective in reducing injuries and preventing illness. However, little research has examined the impact of TWH interventions in small enterprises. The aim of this research was to explore and characterize health and safety practices, policies, and programs in small Midwestern enterprises from a TWH perspective. Utilizing a case studies approach, site visits were conducted with small business, between 10 and 250 employees, from 2014 through 2016 and included workplace audits and interviews with multiple employees in varying roles within each organization. Both open and closed coding were used to identify specific themes. Eight themes emerged from the site visits: value and return on investment, organizational factors, program design, engaging employees, low-cost strategies, evaluation, and integration. These themes overlapped with both the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's (NIOSH) Essential Elements of TWH and the NIOSH Fundamentals. Industry sector and enterprise size also affect resources and integration of these resources. As TWH expands to organizations of all sizes, it is necessary to address the unique needs of smaller enterprises.
It has now been over 60 years since U.S. nuclear testing was conducted in the Pacific islands and Nevada, exposing military personnel to varying levels of ionizing radiation. Actual doses are not well-established, as film badges in the 1950s had many limitations. We sought a means of independently assessing dose for comparison with historical film badge records and dose reconstruction conducted in parallel. For the purpose of quantitative retrospective biodosimetry, peripheral blood samples from 12 exposed veterans and 12 age-matched (>80 years) veteran controls were collected and evaluated for radiation-induced chromosome damage utilizing directional genomic hybridization (dGH), a cytogenomics-based methodology that facilitates simultaneous detection of translocations and inversions. Standard calibration curves were constructed from six male volunteers in their mid-20s to reflect the age range of the veterans at time of exposure. Doses were estimated for each veteran using translocation and inversion rates independently; however, combining them by a weighted-average generally improved the accuracy of dose estimations. Various confounding factors were also evaluated for potential effects on chromosome aberration frequencies. Perhaps not surprisingly, smoking and age-associated increases in background frequencies of inversions were observed. Telomere length was also measured, and inverse relationships with both age and combined weighted dose estimates were observed. Interestingly, smokers in the non-exposed control veteran cohort displayed similar telomere lengths as those in the never-smoker exposed veteran group, suggesting that chronic smoking had as much effect on telomere length as a single exposure to radioactive fallout. Taken together, we find that our approach of combined chromosome aberration-based retrospective biodosimetry provided reliable dose estimation capability, particularly on a group average basis, for exposures above statistical detection limits.
Objective: The main objectives of this breakout session are for the Data Management Training (DMT) Clearinghouse team to: 1) introduce the Clearinghouse and its current design and implementation, 2) solicit submissions to its learning resource inventory, and 3) collect feedback upon its web interface and future development. Features of the Clearinghouse that will be demonstrated include how to search and browse its inventory as well as submit a learning resource to the Clearinghouse using the LRMI (Learning Resource Metadata Initiative) metadata format. The team will also share the roadmap for the Clearinghouse's upcoming features. In order to provide feedback regarding the Clearinghouse's usability, the team will invite the session attendees to test the Clearinghouse's services and will encourage comments to guide its future development. Setting/Participants/Resources: Since the DMT Clearinghouse is entirely accessible via the web, in order to demonstrate the Clearinghouse successfully, a reliable (and preferably free of charge) internet connection, and an overhead projecting capability will need to be available to the presenter. It would also be very useful for the attendees of the session to have access to the same internet connection, so that if they desire, the attendees can follow along with the steps of the demonstration, and contribute to the Clearinghouse inventory. The main presenter will plan to bring her own laptop with built-in standard HDMI and USB ports. As a result, it will be helpful if a HDMI or USB cable could also be provided for the presenter to connect her laptop to the projecting equipment. Method: Many research organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions have been developing excellent learning resources in order to support and meet the needs for data management training. However, these learning resources are often hosted on various websites and spread across various scientific domains. Consequently, these resources can be difficult to locate, especially by those who are not already familiar with the creators/authors. This is a barrier to the use and reuse of these resources, and can have significant impact on the promotion and propagation of best practices for data management. To address this need within the Earth sciences, the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Community for Data Integration (CDI), the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), and the Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) have collaborated to create a web-based Clearinghouse1 for collecting data management learning resources that are focused on the Earth sciences. The initial seed funding for the effort was provided by a grant received from the USGS CDI earlier in 2016, and ESIP's Drupal site provided the hosting infrastructure for the Clearinghouse. Members from the USGS, DataONE, ESIP's Data Stewardship Committee and its Data Management Training Working Group, Knowledge Motifs LLC, as well as Blue Dot Lab met regularly between April and October, 2016 in order to discuss, create, and implement the content structure and infrastructure components necessary to build the current revision of the Clearinghouse. 1. http://dmtclearinghouse.esipfed.org Results: As a registry of information about the educational resources on topics related to research data management (initially focused on Earth sciences), the Clearinghouse serves as a centralized location for searching or browsing an inventory of these learning resources. Currently, the Clearinghouse offers search and browse functionality that is open to all, and submission of information about educational resources by login with a free ESIP account. To assist with discoverability, the learning resources are described using Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) schema. Additionally, the resources may be associated with the steps of data and research life cycles, such as the USGS CDI's Science Support Framework2 and DataONE's Data Life Cycle3. Leveraging the team's collective experience in creating, presenting and distributing data management learning resources, the Clearinghouse included the learning resources from USGS, ESIP, and DataONE as its initial inventory, but is expanding to resources from NASA and others. Crowdsourcing is currently the main mechanism for sustaining the Clearinghouse. Going forward, in addition to the built-in workflow to allow anyone from the public to submit descriptive information about the data management learning resources that s/he wishes to share, future capabilities will be added to enable contributions to review, edit, and rank the submissions, as desired. 2. https://my.usgs.gov/confluence/display/cdi/CDI+Science+Support+Framework3. https://www.dataone.org/data-life-cycle Discussion/Conclusion: The DMT Clearinghouse team was successful in completing the initial development phase as scheduled for the first six months of its funding, including some informal usability testing of the interface. The team aims to continue to develop and enhance the Clearinghouse's capabilities, including the evaluation of its usability, through collaboration with additional communities, and if feasible, adding the capability for bulk-loading of learning resources. Being able to present the Clearinghouse at the eScience Symposium would not only allow those who are involved with or would like to learn about data management to leverage the Clearinghouse's resources, but also connect those who would like to contribute to the project with the Clearinghouse team. Ultimately, the Clearinghouse is designed so that the resources from its inventory could be used in a variety of data management training and education environments. By exposing the Clearinghouse to diverse users and communities, the Clearinghouse team can better assess how the Clearinghouse can be updated and what technological enhancements to pursue in the future in order to improve our support of research data management training needs.
