California State University Dominguez Hills Research Articles

Energy and Climate Change Issues Around CSUDH

Climate change is posing significant challenges to California’s energy sector. Extreme weather events (heat and cold) may pressure existing infrastructure. Many studies have indicated that extreme climate events would impact the energy system by affecting peak electricity demand. However, very few studies have been conducted to understand how disadvantaged communities (DACs) will be impacted. Because of unequal access to energy infrastructure (electricity generation and battery storage), DACs are more vulnerable to power outages due to the rising number of significant weather events caused by climate change. To address the issue of how DACs are disproportionately affected by climate change-related energy issues, we used DACs, infrastructure, and climate data. We identified the most vulnerable communities associated with climate change-related energy issues in areas around California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). This study’s findings will support building the resilience of energy infrastructure to climate change and minimize the energy burden on DACs.

Shark bellies flow like Tesla valves

Sharks, skates and rays are known for their unique intestines, which are spiral shaped and located behind the stomach. This unusual spiral intestine naturally slows digestion and expands the intestine's surface area to improve nutrient absorption. The inside of the spiral intestine can vary greatly in shape, but had previously only been studied through two-dimensional illustrations, losing the complexity of the structure's three-dimensional shape and preventing researchers from fully understanding the role that these designs may play in digestion. Samantha Leigh from California State University Dominguez Hills, USA, and colleagues from the University of Washington, Biomark Inc., and the University of California Irvine, USA, wanted to compare the three-dimensional (3D) shape and function of the spiral intestines from 22 shark families to better understand whether corkscrew shaped intestines could predict a shark's diet type and how food moves through these unconventional intestines.After obtaining museum specimens of species ranging from the small and rare combtooth dogfish (Centroscyllium nigrum) to the large and charismatic smooth hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena), the team removed the sharks’ spiral intestines and CT scanned them at Friday Harbor Laboratories, USA, and the University of California Irvine. Analysing the structures of the intestines in 3D, the team realised that the digestive tracts came in four distinct forms: column-shaped, funnel-shaped toward the end, funnel-shaped toward the beginning and scroll-shaped. The team then selected four sharks, each representing one of the four intestine designs, and pushed three different solutions, ranging in viscosity from water to 25% glycerol, through the intestines to measure their flow rates. Lastly, the team injected a hormone that stimulates muscles to contract into the intestines of five dogfish sharks, to measure how long it takes for food to move through these spiral intestines as the animals digest dinner.The researchers found that some shapes, such as the funnel-shaped spiral intestines, have a slower flow rate than others, suggesting that sharks with these shapes likely have slower digestion rates. This may also increase the water and nutrient absorption in the spiral intestine, so that sharks can harvest the most energy from their food. Though spiral intestines vary in shape, these shapes did not predict what the sharks chose to eat. In addition, when the team analysed how fluids flow through the pulsating tissue, they realised that spiral intestines work like a Tesla valve, which only allows fluid to move in one direction without the benefit of additional moving components, such as flap valves. In short, spiral intestines prevent food from moving backward, in the wrong direction. The team also realised that the pulsing contractions that propel food through these intestines can be concentrated in just a few locations and could help to mix and move food better as it progresses through the digestive system.Most incredibly, this corkscrew intestine design evolved in a shark ancestor around 450 million years ago, so this structure is older than land animals! Yet, despite its success at sticking around for so long, it has only evolved in a few groups of fishes and occurs most in the cartilaginous fishes (such as the sharks, skates and rays). The main benefit of the curly design is that it naturally prevents blockages and food from accidentally flowing backward, maintaining a slow progress that is ideal for digestion. While the four different spiral intestine shapes may not be directly related to the diets that these animals consume, they do affect how fast food moves through. Future studies might uncover why these different shapes evolved in the first place and what role the difference in food flow speed may have on a shark's digestion.

Book Review: In the Corridors of Academic Leadership by Gary Sayed (California State University Dominguez Hills, 2020)

Book Review: In the Corridors of Academic Leadership by Gary Sayed (California State University Dominguez Hills, 2020)

Identifying Factors that Influence Student Success in Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program

The profile of today9s college students looks quite different than it did decades ago, when the average student was a recent high school graduate moving directly from high school to university. Students today are older, work to support themselves and their families, and are ethnically more diverse than their peers of decades past. The student demographic shifts necessitate regular evaluation of academic programs including reevaluating admissions requirements, financial aids availability, and schedule flexibility to meet the demands of the new student demographics. Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS) at California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) is the largest CLS program in Southern California and is accredited by National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS). The program admits both undergraduate and post-baccalaureate candidates for training as Clinical Laboratory Scientists for careers in healthcare or research. Despite the great success in graduating well qualified candidates, there has been a trend in which a larger portion of students spend more time than expected to complete the program requirements. This phenomenon prompted the faculty at CSUDH to seek the causes for such lengthening time towards graduation. In the current study, we report the results of survey questionnaire that was submitted to CLS students at CSUDH in 2015. The results confirm the recent shift in student demographics in the CLS program and identify the primary obstacle towards a timely graduation to be inability to register for required courses due to schedule conflicts and/or intense competition for available seats. ABBREVIATIONS:CLS – Clinical Laboratory Sciences, CSUDH- California State University Dominguez Hills

Mentors as Fellow Travelers

A junior faculty member arrives an unfamiliar university for a new teaching assignment. She is poised for the adventure, but feels like a traveler at the edge of long, unknown road. She does not know what obstacles or vistas may appear on the road, and wants to avoid major potholes. She takes a nervous look around and finds an experienced traveler nearby at the beginning of the road. The fellow traveler is a more senior faculty member who has gone farther up the road already and come back to share valuable experience with newcomers. Together the junior and senior travelers set off on their adventure. Their journey illustrates how faculty developers at one state university acted as travel guides in a mentoring program that increased the likelihood of successful travels toward university careers. Faculty development professionals at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), play active roles in enabling mentoring relationships such as this. At CSUDH, faculty developers host orientation activities for new faculty members. Orientation is an ideal time for fellow travelers to meet. Although it looks different on every campus, the intent is the same--to provide early career faculty with an introduction to the university and foster a high level of success. Junior and senior faculty members are guided by faculty developers to form mentoring pairs. Arrangements made by faculty developers enabled junior and senior faculty members to meet and become fellow travelers. Faculty Developers as Travel Guides Just as travel agents organize the trip and make arrangements for travelers, faculty developers at CSUDH facilitated a mentoring program. There are a number of reasons why faculty developers instituted faculty-mentoring-faculty programs. For example, mentoring has been demonstrated to help faculty members gain perspective and clarity about their own career paths (Hobson, Ashby, Malderez & Tomlinson, 2009). A primary motivation was an interest in the development and retention of human assets contributing to the performance of the university. The benefits to the university include: 1. Increased productivity and organizational stability 2. Increased socialization and communication 3. The retention of valued employees 4. The preservation of intellectual capital and institutional memory 5. The support of cultural diversity 6. Improved leadership capacity and succession planning 7. Cost-effectiveness (Zellers, Howard, & Barcic, 2008, p. 4). In many ways, the success of the university depends on a healthy working environment and the satisfaction of the faculty members who work there. Successful mentoring programs are those that faculty developers integrate into existing initiatives like human resource management, personnel practices, professional development training programs, performance appraisals, and systems of rewards and recognition (Zellers et al., 2008). Faculty developers often organize the mentoring journey by stimulating partnerships throughout the campus. At CSUDH, faculty developers forged a multi-level collaboration to support mentoring. The Human Resources department handled the formal paperwork and passed the roster of new faculty along to the faculty developers. Faculty Affairs reinforced the importance of the mentoring program and dealt with personnel systems. Academic Affairs and academic deans financially and institutionally supported the mentoring program. The deans also promoted the strength of the mentoring program when they touted the program as a faculty recruitment strategy. Further, a campus-wide mandate encouraged promotion and tenure committees to recognize the work of mentors as a service to the university. This super-highway network of collaboration helps to sustain the mentoring program and gives our faculty developers a concrete footing upon which to build. Junior Travelers as Adult Learners Early career faculty members face dual expectations of being knowledgeable in their fields and having quality teaching skills. …

Nursing Against the Odds

Assistant Professor, College of Health and Human Services, School of Nursing, California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, CA 90747 (e-mail: [email protected]).

Gauging the Reception of Choice Reviews through Online Union Catalog Holdings

The reviews in Choice are known to influence book selection, particularly for academic library collections. An investigation was made of how many books that were reviewed over a seven-year period in Choice Reviews (the CD-ROM version of Choice) were subsequently received or purchased at Cain Library of California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), as well as by a large number of other libraries across the country. All of the books mentioned in Choice Reviews were purchased by one or more libraries, while the majority of books were purchased by several hundred libraries These findings were further tested to determine the extent to which they could be incorporated into an academic approval program. Two notification-slip approval plans were created for new titles from the presses and publisher of the best-received books. Notification-slip titles were searched shortly after they appeared or were profiled by the vendors, and a correlation was found between the later review holdings and these early approval holdings.

Implementing Peer Review Programs: A Twelve Step Model

Nationally, universities and colleges are expressing increased interest in peer review of teaching in response to public calls for accountability from academe. Further motivation comes from within campuses themselves as they respond to an increasingly non-traditional student body. Based on our experience with a peer observation program at California State University-Dominguez Hills, we identified twelve steps for planning and implementing a peer review process. In this article we discuss each of the twelve steps, presenting a rationale and sharing our experiences.

?Time is not on our side?: Cultural vs. structural explanations of black American women students' achievement in the urban, nonelite university

Drawing primarily on 42 in-depth interviews with working-, lower-, and underclass black American women students at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), this article challenges the cultural argument that credits black women students' lower educational achievement to their adherence to oppositionalcultural forms and a preindustrial time sense that inhibits success in higher educational contexts. It argues such an explanation gives too much autonomy to culture while failing to situate the everyday responses of working-class black women students within the complex of race, class, and gender forces that affect them. Documenting that urban, nonelite university black women students are bound up in that stratification complex such that they come to the university while attempting to cope with financial hardship and heavy employment loads, I suggest the individual costs they pay are much less time to devote to academic activities and, hence, lower academic achievement.

Measurement of Plantar Pressure Using Fuji Prescale Film???A Preliminary Study

Gwen Ralphs is a graduate of the Orthotic and Prosthetic program at California State University Dominguez Hills and is now employed by Ortho Pro, Inc., of Nevada, as a board eligible practitioner. Thomas R. Lunsford, C.O., is Chief Orthotist at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, 7450 Leeds Street, Downey, California 90242, and Clinical Director of the Baccalaureate program in Orthotics and Prosthetics at California State University Dominguez Hills. Jack Greenfield is Assistant Chief of the Orthotic Department at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, Downey, California.

The Binational Student

D uring the past decade, I have had the opportunity to visit many public and private schools in Mexico. The Mexican administrators and teachers whom I have met during these visits have expressed a great curiosity about the American educational system and welcome professional exchanges with American educators. Also, as coordinator of Bilingual/Crosscultural Programs for the School of Education at California State University Dominguez Hills, I have worked with many teachers and administrators who express a reciprocal interest in the Mexican educational system.