Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed July 9, 2007). PDF text: 111 p. : ill. UMI publication number: AAT 3251358. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Post-release survival of hatchery fishes is imperative to the success of any supplemental stocking program. The purpose of this research was to identify differences between hatchery and wild red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) and determine if pre-release exposure techniques improve survival of hatchery individuals. Objectives were to contrast survival skills of hatchery and wild red drum from different locations, and examine if exposure to natural stimuli (e.g., habitat, predators, live prey) enhances survival skills in naïve hatchery red drum. Laboratory trials using high-speed videography (250 frames per second, fps) and field mesocosm experiments were used to investigate differences in prey-capture (e.g., attack distance, mean attack velocity, capture time, maximum gape, time to maximum gape, gape cycle duration, and foraging behaviors) and anti-predator performance (e.g., reaction distance, response distance, maximum velocity, time to maximum velocity, mean acceleration, and maximum acceleration) of hatchery and wild red drum. Results indicated that anti-predator performance measures differed significantly between hatchery and wild red drum. Variability in prey-capture and anti-predator performance for hatchery and wild red drum was high (CV range: 5.6 – 76.5%), and was greatest for hatchery fish for the majority of performance variables tested. Exposure to habitat (Spartina alterniflora marsh) did not appear to afford any obvious survival benefits to hatchery red drum, although survival skills did vary according to ontogenetic stage. Hatchery red drum exposed to natural predators (pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides) exhibited significantly greater attack distances during feeding events, and anti-predator performance variables were 20 – 300% in these individuals versus naïve red drum. In predation experiments with free-ranging pinfish predators, mortality rates (Z) ranged from 0.047 – 0.060 h-1 · predator-1; however no significant differences in mortality were found between fish reared with and without predators. Hatchery red drum reared on live prey (Artemia franciscana, mysid shrimp) demonstrated enhanced prey-capture and foraging behaviors as well as anti-predator performance relative to fish reared on artificial (pellet) diets. Findings of this research indicate that several behavioral patterns differed between hatchery and wild red drum; however, these differences can be mediated through the use of various pre-release exposure techniques.

Post-release survival of hatchery fishes is imperative to the success of any supplemental stocking program. The purpose of this research was to identify differences between hatchery and wild red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) and determine if pre-release exposure techniques improve survival of hatchery individuals. Objectives were to contrast survival skills of hatchery and wild red drum from different locations, and examine if exposure to natural stimuli (e.g., habitat, predators, live prey) enhances survival skills in naïve hatchery red drum. Laboratory trials using high-speed videography (250 frames per second, fps) and field mesocosm experiments were used to investigate differences in prey-capture (e.g., attack distance, mean attack velocity, capture time, maximum gape, time to maximum gape, gape cycle duration, and foraging behaviors) and anti-predator performance (e.g., reaction distance, response distance, maximum velocity, time to maximum velocity, mean acceleration, and maximum acceleration) of hatchery and wild red drum. Results indicated that anti-predator performance measures differed significantly between hatchery and wild red drum. Variability in prey-capture and anti-predator performance for hatchery and wild red drum was high (CV range: 5.6 – 76.5%), and was greatest for hatchery fish for the majority of performance variables tested. Exposure to habitat (Spartina alterniflora marsh) did not appear to afford any obvious survival benefits to hatchery red drum, although survival skills did vary according to ontogenetic stage. Hatchery red drum exposed to natural predators (pinfish, Lagodon rhomboides) exhibited significantly greater attack distances during feeding events, and anti-predator performance variables were 20 – 300% in these individuals versus naïve red drum. In predation experiments with free-ranging pinfish predators, mortality rates (Z) ranged from 0.047 – 0.060 h-1 · predator-1; however no significant differences in mortality were found between fish reared with and without predators. Hatchery red drum reared on live prey (Artemia franciscana, mysid shrimp) demonstrated enhanced prey-capture and foraging behaviors as well as anti-predator performance relative to fish reared on artificial (pellet) diets. Findings of this research indicate that several behavioral patterns differed between hatchery and wild red drum; however, these differences can be mediated through the use of various pre-release exposure techniques.

Nurses play a central role in preparing patients for discharge. Diabetes affects one-third of all hospitalized patients, with readmission rates 20% higher for patients with diabetes. Low health literacy affects patients' ability to understand education provided during a hospitalization, especially in diabetic patients who are required to perform complex self-care activities. The rehabilitation nurses within the practicum site struggled to provide adequate diabetes education, leading to patients' readmissions and frequent calls to the nursing unit post discharge. The purpose of this project was to educate nurses on an inpatient unit about survival skills and teach-back approaches to improve inpatient diabetes education. Orem's self-care nursing deficit theory guided the project. Nursing literature provided current evidence-based practice guidelines on diabetes education for the staff education program. An expert panel was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the project in improving rehabilitation nurses' knowledge, skills, and ability to administer patient education to diabetic patients using the teach-back method. All 6 expert panel members agreed that the in-service content was relevant to the environment and would improve the nurses' ability to deliver diabetic education on the rehabilitation unit using the teach-back method. Current knowledge of diabetes education practices and strategies to overcome low health literacy can bring positive social change and improve nursing practice by advancing the nurses' ability to provide inpatient diabetes education.

A conflict exists between student desire for a pragmatic education leading to gainful employment and our desire to teach them to think critically about the world. This study argues the necessity of both and concludes—through the voices of three workplace writers—that students must become avid life-long learners and researchers in order to keep pace in an age of exponential information growth. This study presents three workplace writers‘ self-reports in the post process era. Arguing the validity of writers‘ self-reports, this study moves research of workplace writers beyond process, which is typically considered invention, drafting, revising, and editing, by expanding the lens through which we consider workplace writers. Specifically, this study examines their history as writers, the preparation they received, their motivation to write on the job, their acquisition of job specific literacy, how they manage multiple audiences, the corporate identities and voices they must assume, the process they employ to accomplish their writing, their revision strategies, how they manage writer‘s block, and, finally, the survival skills they utilize in order to become proficient workplace writers. The addition of these facets to the standard process model seeks to push research beyond post process. Bartholomae suggests students will ―invent the university‖ in their writing. This study suggests that they will one day invent the workplace in much the same way. The three writers studied here describe steep learning curves before they felt adept at writing in their workplaces, highlighting the importance that students identify as life-long learners and researchers. They privilege grammar and mechanics, yet they acknowledge the importance of collaboration, solid research skills, and audience. They offer survival strategies for getting their writing done amidst the chaos of workplace demands and occasional writer‘s block. Finally, this study suggests a pedagogy that seeks more intentionality in teaching students about writing while teaching them to write in order to provide them with a meta-awareness of the act of writing that will carry them successfully into the workplace. / Dr. Patrick Bizzaro Dr. Resa Crane Bizzaro Dr. Jeannine Fontaine

This dissertation documents the memories of Medellin's city dwellers and explores how people in violent urban contexts make sense of violence and deal with its presence in their lives. This study is defined as an anthropology of remembering; it is an ethnographic observation of the practices of remembering and forgetting and how these practices shape and are shaped by the lived experience of violence. The dissertation is built on extensive fieldwork in the Colombian city of Medellin with a cross section of women, youth and community leaders. The thesis argues that when the uncertainty and paradox created by widespread forms of violence threaten to destroy the social and material worlds of Colombian city dwellers, memory becomes a strategic tool for human and cultural survival. The creation of an oral history of death and the dead, the presence of a local social knowledge that assists city dwellers in their safe circulation in and through the city, and the maintenance of practices of place making are examples of how city dwellers deal with the devastating effects of violence in their lives. The thesis develops a place-based exploration of memory and violence and approaches place as a physical, sensory, social and imaginative experience that maintains a sense of continuity between the past and the every day life of Medellin's city dwellers. The two connecting concepts that ground the analysis of the relationship between people, memory and violence are those of "sense of place" and "communities of memory." The dimensions of human agency, cultural survival and human suffering are central to the exploration of memory, place and violence developed in this thesis. From this perspective, the thesis takes to task anthropological works on violence that emphasize the routinization of terror and fear for those who live amidst widespread violence. The thesis discusses the multiple ways in which memory is disputed in Colombia and the risks posed by a local reading of violence as intrinsic to the history of the country. It concludes that when individuals are faced with realities such as life and death, the familiar faces of the actors of violence and the weakening of the social and ethical fabric of their communities, they do not stand in definite positions and cannot be defined in simple terms such as victims and perpetrators. Thus, it can be recognized that although violence plays a central role in the Medellin city dwellers processes of identity formation, it does not exhaust these possibilities.

This dissertation documents the memories of Medellin's city dwellers and explores how people in violent urban contexts make sense of violence and deal with its presence in their lives. This study is defined as an anthropology of remembering; it is an ethnographic observation of the practices of remembering and forgetting and how these practices shape and are shaped by the lived experience of violence. The dissertation is built on extensive fieldwork in the Colombian city of Medellin with a cross section of women, youth and community leaders. The thesis argues that when the uncertainty and paradox created by widespread forms of violence threaten to destroy the social and material worlds of Colombian city dwellers, memory becomes a strategic tool for human and cultural survival. The creation of an oral history of death and the dead, the presence of a local social knowledge that assists city dwellers in their safe circulation in and through the city, and the maintenance of practices of place making are examples of how city dwellers deal with the devastating effects of violence in their lives. The thesis develops a place-based exploration of memory and violence and approaches place as a physical, sensory, social and imaginative experience that maintains a sense of continuity between the past and the every day life of Medellin's city dwellers. The two connecting concepts that ground the analysis of the relationship between people, memory and violence are those of "sense of place" and "communities of memory." The dimensions of human agency, cultural survival and human suffering are central to the exploration of memory, place and violence developed in this thesis. From this perspective, the thesis takes to task anthropological works on violence that emphasize the routinization of terror and fear for those who live amidst widespread violence. The thesis discusses the multiple ways in which memory is disputed in Colombia and the risks posed by a local reading of violence as intrinsic to the history of the country. It concludes that when individuals are faced with realities such as life and death, the familiar faces of the actors of violence and the weakening of the social and ethical fabric of their communities, they do not stand in definite positions and cannot be defined in simple terms such as victims and perpetrators. Thus, it can be recognized that although violence plays a central role in the Medellin city dwellers processes of identity formation, it does not exhaust these possibilities. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate