Child abuse and neglect in military and non-military families: An analysis of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, 2000--2003

Rentz, Ericka Danielle The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

Context. The impact and stress of war extend beyond the military soldier to include emotional upheaval for his or her family, yet little is known about how war affects the occurrence of child maltreatment in families. This study is the first to use data from a national surveillance system to compare child maltreatment in military and non-military families. Further, it is the only known study to characterize military perpetrators of child maltreatment and to examine the effects of the September 11 th, 2001 attacks on the occurrence of child maltreatment. Objective. The first objective of this study was to determine if being a child in a military family is protective of, or a risk factor for, substantiated child maltreatment. The second objective was to assess the impact the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the subsequent US military response had on the occurrence of substantiated child maltreatment in military families. Methods. This study is a secondary analysis of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System that incorporates state-level information from the US Census Bureau and the Department of Defense to calculate and compare the rates of occurrence of substantiated maltreatment in children of military and non-military families. All reports of child maltreatment in the state of Texas that received a disposition of substantiation from January 1, 2000 through June 30, 2003 were the focus of these analyses. Texas was selected because of the completeness and quality of its NCANDS data and its large military population. Results. The rate of occurrence of substantiated child maltreatment in military families is generally lower than that of non-military families. However, the rate doubled when comparing the period after October 1, 2002 to the period before. The periods with the highest rates of child maltreatment corresponded to intense military operations in Iraq, the highest percentage of departures to operational deployments, and the lowest percentage of returns from operational deployments. Conclusion. Compared to children of non-military families, children of military families generally experienced lower rates of child maltreatment. However, this protective effect seemed to disappear when military combat increased and military families experienced operation-related deployment.

Imagining the parish: Parochial space and spiritual community in late medieval England

Rentz, Ellen K Columbia University 2009 해외박사(DDOD)

The parish was central to the spiritual life of the late medieval laity. In England's thousands of rural and urban parishes, lay people made confession and heard sermons, communed with the dead, and worshipped and performed the sacraments in a corporate setting. In addition to both the spatial entity comprised by church and churchyard, and the set of ritual practices performed in those spaces, the parish was also a spiritual fellowship of "even-Cristen" and a neighborhood whose bounds exceeded the limits of the churchyard wall. After the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, the parish became both sponsor and object of an outpouring of vernacular sermon collections, exempla, penitential handbooks, and catechetical treatises. But the parish itself, as both spatial entity and spiritual community, was also a new literary and artistic subject in fourteenth-century England. My dissertation examines representations of the parish in Middle English literature, penitential handbooks, parish wall paintings, manuscript illumination, and liturgical texts. While the space and community of the parish were central to lay spiritual identity, the fourteenth-century parish was also haunted by the threat of foreclosure as devotion became increasingly privatized. As the primacy of the parish was challenged by the proliferation of books of hours and spiritual guides intended for lay use, as well as the predatory advances of hermits, friars, and pardoners, authors such as Robert Mannyng, John Mirk, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer grappled with the changing shape and status of the parish in late medieval England.

English education: A multi-case study of three university programs in Florida responsible for initial teacher preparation

Rentz, Pamela R The Florida State University 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

This study explores the critical issue of teacher preparation in university-based English education programs in the state of Florida. Numerous training programs and certification avenues currently exist in response to the growing concentration on teacher training, teacher quality, induction and retention, and teacher shortages. This study, an exploration of Florida's State University System undergraduate programs of initial English teacher preparation, examines how Florida universities are preparing pre-service middle and high school English teachers for induction into the profession. Of specific interest is the incorporation of the state-mandated Florida Educator Accomplished Practices into the programs preparing novice teachers for the classroom. Following a collaborative case study design, data were collected from three university-based English education programs in Florida. Interviews and focus groups targeted stakeholders from each baccalaureate program including faculty and administration at the university, current students, and recent graduates. Textual analyses were used to determine trends in course offerings, sequencing, requirements, and standards infusion. Findings from this study address the issues of the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices, professional identity formation, field experience, induction support, and professional collaborations---all relevant components in the preparation of Florida's middle/secondary English language arts teacher preparation.

Degradative repression and co-metabolism, plant-microbe interactions affecting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon phytoremediation

Rentz, Jeremy Adam The University of Iowa 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are persistent organic pollutants that affect human health. Physical, chemical, and biological remediation is limited by contaminant hydrophobicity that promotes strong sorption to soil organic matter. Enhanced PAH degradation has been observed during phytoremediation, however, the processes responsible for increased degradation are not well understood. Hydrophobicity of PAHs prevents significant uptake/translocation within plants, and suggests that rhizodegradation (plant-microbe interactions in the root zone promoting degradation) is important for PAH phytoremediation. Hybrid poplars were grown in hydrocarbon-contaminated soil and five passive methods of oxygen delivery were examined. When Oxygen Release Compound RTM (ORC) was placed in filters above hydrocarbon contaminated soil, a statistically significant increase of 145% was observed in poplar biomass growth, relative to controls. The ORC in filters also stimulated significant increases in root density. The positive response of poplars to oxygen amendments suggests the root zone may be an oxygen sink when soil contamination exerts a high biochemical oxygen demand, such as in former refinery sites. Plant root exudates and extracts, model rhizosphere carbon sources, repressed the phenanthrene degrading activity of Pseudomonas putida ATCC 17484. Partial characterization of root extracts identified acetate, amino acids, and glucose indicating a complex mixture of substrates. Repression of enzymatic activity was also observed following exposure to root derived substrates including organic acids, glucose, and glutamate. This suggested that carbon source regulation (i.e. catabolite repression) was responsible for the observed repression of P. putida phenanthrene degrading activity by root exudates and extracts. Higher microbial concentrations in the rhizosphere could compensate for the observed repression of PAH catabolic genes and increase overall PAH degradation. Co-metabolism of benzo[a]pyrene, a high molecular weight (HMW) PAH, by Sphingomonas yanoikuyae JAR02 was observed using plant root extracts as a primary substrate. These results provided evidence that co-metabolism of HMW PAH in the rhizosphere may be a feasible pathway for enhanced degradation. Mineralization of 14C labeled benzo[a]pyrene by S. yanoikuyae JAR02 (salicylate induced) yielded ∼4% 14CO 2 and ∼10% of a polar metabolite, tentatively identified as benzo[a]pyrene-8-hydroxy-7carboxylic acid using HPLC/MS.