Latest news with #Dakin
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Dakin Humane Society in Springfield awarded large grant for facility upgrade
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – Dakin Humane Society has been awarded a $100,000 grant for a vital HVAC upgrade. Dakin Humane Society of Springfield awarded grant for adoption and lifesaving efforts The nonprofit animal shelter states that the grant was awarded from the John T. and Jane A. Wiederhold Foundation, a supporting organization of the Northwest CT Community Foundation. The grant will be put towards a capital improvement project for Dakin's facility, and will specifically be used for replacing an aging cooling tower and condenser water pumps for the building's HVAC system. The system is important for climate control and to create a healthy environment for animals, maintaining stable temperatures to minimize stress and promote overall animal health. It also provides optimum air quality for people working in and visiting the building. 'We're grateful to the John T. and Jane A. Wiederhold Foundation, a supporting organization of the Northwest CT Community Foundation, for their continued, generous support of Dakin. The foundation understands that our facility is critical to our operations and capital funding for this type of project is not easy to secure. Many of our major mechanical systems, including HVAC, are original to the building which was constructed nearly thirty years ago. Being able to replace our cooling tower and pumps will enable our building's HVAC system to operate at peak efficiency during the warmer months when we are busiest, and provide a comfortable setting for our many animals, employees, and volunteers.' WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
19-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Iowa football special teams star given lofty predictions from CBS Sports
Iowa football special teams star given lofty predictions from CBS Sports Strong special teams are synonymous with the Iowa Hawkeyes. LeVar Woods, Iowa's special teams coordinator and arguably the best in the country, has transformed the unit into one that has won games for Iowa and often dictates field position in Big Ten battles. One way Iowa helps its offense and defense is with the punting unit. While it isn't flashy or always the most fun, Iowa does it more effectively than just about anyone in the country. They back their opponents up to help the defense, which in turn creates short fields for the offense to work on. Leading the charge for Iowa in the punting game is the Australian, Rhys Dakin. Entering his second year with Iowa, Dakin knows he is a vital part of Iowa's success and is hoping to take the next step forward after a strong freshman campaign. If he can continue his punting prowess, CBS Sports believes he could take home the Ray Guy Award as college football's top punter. Ray Guy Award (Top Punter) Prediction: Rhys Dakin, P, Iowa Iowa is a punting factory. The Hawkeyes have another really good one in Dakin, who averaged 44.1 yards per boot as a true freshman last season while totaling 2,822 yards with his leg, ranking eighth nationally. He also led the Big Ten with 29 punts downed inside the 20-yard line. - Will Backus, CBS Sports Rhys Dakin punted 64 times for Iowa in the 2024-25 college football season with a booming average of 44.1 yards with a season-long of 61 yards. More impressively, Dakin dropped 29 of his punts (45.3%) inside the opponents' 20-yard line, which puts them against the odds on pure yardage, let alone going against Phil Parker's Iowa defense. Iowa will continue to punt and play the field position game as a more conservative team in the country. When done right, as Iowa so often does, it can win games. Contact/Follow us @HawkeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Iowa news, notes and opinions. Follow Riley on X: @rileydonald
West Australian
13-05-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Allison Dakin is selected for National Farmers' Federation competitive leadership program
Myroodah Station's Allison Dakin has been selected for the National Farmers' Federation's mentoring and networking program designed to nurture women in the agriculture industry. Ms Dakin joins 11 other women from across the country in the 2025 Diversity in Agriculture Leadership Program which will connect and empower the leaders to elevate their careers, expand their networks, and drive meaningful change within the industry. All candidates will be matched with an industry-leading mentor and will work towards personal and professional goals during the program. Ms Dakin — who currently lives at Myroodah Station, Derby — has spent the majority of her life working in the Australia agriculture industry and said she was looking forward to the three-day leadership retreat in Canberra in June. She said she is particularly looking forward to learning and being inspired by 'amazing women doing amazing things'. Ms Dakin is no stranger to leadership, currently working as an executive officer at the Kimberley Agriculture and Pastoral Company — an integrated pastoral enterprise made up of four Indigenous-owned pastoral stations in northern WA, including Mt Anderson, Myroodah, Frazier Downs and Bohemia Downs. KAPCO provides an avenue for Indigenous people to gain training, skills and employment on country. NFF President David Jochinke said it was a very competitive selection process for the 2025 cohort. 'These twelve women are the cream of the crop, and we congratulate them for taking the time and effort to further their leadership skills through this program,' he said. 'The NFF has set a goal to double the number of women in agriculture's leadership ranks by 2030. 'This program boasts dozens of alumni and is now in its eighth year, a testament to the desire for diversity in ag's leadership spaces. 'I look forward to seeing these talented professionals thrive in this year's program.' Ms Dakin will be joined by Queensland's Karen Penfold, Courtney Bailey, Vivienne McCollum and Bronwyn Venus, New South Wales' Nada Sukkarieh, Malinda Newton, Mary Johnson and Georgia Campbell, Northern Territory's Anna Cochrane, and South Australia's Mon Saunders. The flagship initiative was implemented in 2018 to address the under representation of women in agriculture's leadership ranks. WA 2024 graduate Ming Fung Chua praised the program for expanding her leadership horizons. 'The program has empowered me to break free from self-imposed limitations, embrace my potential, and build lasting bonds with incredible women who have supported my journey toward personal and professional growth,' she said.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nearly four tons of pet food donated to Dakin Humane Society in Springfield
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A premium pet food company donated nearly four tons of product to a Springfield non-profit animal shelter. In a news release sent to 22News from Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food, a pet food manufacturer based in Connecticut, donated approximately 32,000 meals to Dakin Humane Society through its Chicken Soup for the Soul's Fill A Bowl… Feed A Soul program. Target to open new store at former Eastfield Mall location Through this program, a portion of all proceeds from the sale of Chicken Soup for the Soul pet food helped provide 7,976 pounds of all-natural dog and cat food to Dakin Humane Society. Their all-natural dog and cat food is made in the USA and is crafted with real meats, healthy vegetables, and fruits. 'We choose to donate to Dakin because of its long history of dedication to the Springfield, MA community as well as outlining towns. Through its adoption, transport, medical and educational programs Dakin has sheltered, rehabilitated and adopted out thousands of animals,' said Jeanne Blandford, Senior Director of Marketing for Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food. 'Their Pet Food Aid Program assists people who are experiencing an unexpected, personal emergency and need temporary assistance with dog and cat food – helping to keep their family together.' Dakin's Executive Director Meg Talbert stated, 'We couldn't ask for a better partner to help us assist people when they are in need. There are so many challenges facing people that affect their ability to stay with their pets, and we are more determined than ever to remove as many of those barriers as possible. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food, we can offer valuable resources to our community to keep their pets fed and by their side, while also tending to the many pets in our care. We are grateful to this organization for joining us in offering compassion and comfort to so many – both animal and human – who need our help.' 'As workers go back to their offices and living costs increase for families, the rescue community is seeing a spike in dog and cat intakes,' said Ed Uebele, Senior VP Sales and Marketing, Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food. 'Animal rescue organizations are a continued source of inspiration to us at Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food as they continue their dedication to the care and safe treatment of all animals during uncertain times. We are proud to be able to lift some of the financial burden for these rescues as well as members of the communities they serve by providing this nutritional support.' 'Thank you again for your company's generosity. This delivery comes at a critical time as our animal population is beginning to increase as we get closer to spring and summer months as well as the demand for our Pet Food Aid Program increasing,' said Stacey Price, Director of Development and Marketing for Dakin. For over 55 years, Dakin Humane Society has provided shelter, medical care, and spay/neuter services to more than 20,000 animals a year. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Technical.ly
21-03-2025
- Health
- Technical.ly
This app optimizes caring for NICU babies, with a lofty goal to eliminate feeding errors
Feeding a newborn can be challenging in the best of situations, but for newborns in intensive care, the logistics are truly complex. Breastfeeding is particularly beneficial for low-birthweight premature babies, and particularly challenging. Physical contact between a mother and newborn helps with the continued production of milk, something moms with babies in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may have to postpone for days, weeks or even months. Breastmilk-fed babies need to be matched with their own specific feed order including any necessary medications mixed with their mother's milk. It's so precise that accidentally feeding the wrong bottle to an infant can be catastrophic. Without technology, nurses use manual spreadsheets and calculate recipes with calculators, and errors, though rare, happen. In 2016, Laura Carpenter, a lactation consultant with the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, set out to find a better way to manage breast milk feeding in the NICU. She wasn't a technologist herself, so she brought the challenge to a hackathon at Penn Center for Innovation. The topic struck a chord with Vidur Bhatnagar, a hackathon participant who had personal experience with the NICU from the patient side. Bhatnagar would become the founder of Keriton, a NICU feeding technology app now used in dozens of hospitals across the country. 'It's a classic story of a provider identifying a clinical need and being very frustrated with a complex workflow that was leading to patient safety issues,' Adam Dakin, CEO of Keriton, told Focusing on neonatal care for nurses and parents The platform has two major components: the NICU nurse component, and the patient component. In the NICU, the app is used to scan barcodes on bottles, refrigerators and freezers, tracking the exact location, contents and expiration date of every bottle of milk or formula in real-time. The patient component allows for HIPAA-compliant communication between NICU nurses and parents, including a tracking system for milk pumped at home so the NICU knows when they need to replenish milk from the home freezer to the hospital. 'If you think of this as supply chain management, the supply chain starts with mom pumping it, and then it has to go from the family to the NICU, and then eventually get to the patient,' Dakin said. 'How can you manage a supply chain if you don't have communication with your supplier?' That communication is good for logistics, and also for the mental health of families during an emotionally turbulent time. Nurses can easily update parents, and parents can easily contact the NICU without having to leave phone messages. Nurses can also send real-time photos of the baby through the app, which can help with milk production. At the core of the technology, though, is the barcode-based system designed to not only reduce feeding errors but eliminate them. And, Dakin says, there are more potential errors than feeding the wrong milk to the wrong baby. Feeding orders from the doctor are complicated and may have 25 or more variables that have to be mixed with the milk. NICU nurses have been 'bedside bartenders,' using pocket calculators to mix the orders. The Keriton app automates the calculations. 'If you stay within the platform, you don't make mistakes,' Dakin said. 'Instead, it's a near miss. We've prevented over 60,000 feeding errors in real-time.' That's out of about 2.5 million feeds at this point. Currently, Keriton is either live or under contract with 62 hospitals and health systems in the US, including Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, New York Presbyterian and one of its newest partners, Intermountain Healthcare, a major healthcare system in the western US. The evolution of a support system Sixty-two health systems is a long way from when Keriton's VP of sales and clinical strategy Dominic Petrovia, a former nurse of 20 years, first encountered the app at Penn Medicine several years ago. 'I was a nurse at the time, and I was handed a phone and told, this is how you scan milk,' Petrovia told 'I had been a NICU nurse at that point for over 10 years. I had seen a lot of things in my clinical practice as a nursing leader, director and patient care nurse. And I said, if this is safe, and we're actually making a difference and making the work easier for our nursing staff, I want to jump on this train.' Keriton doesn't share its financials publicly, but they've raised about $3 million in VC funding from investors including BioAdvance Capital, DreamIt Ventures and Ben Franklin Technology Partners, as well as angel investors, including several from Broad Street Angels. When Dakin joined the company as CEO in March of 2024, there was a small bridge round to help it get to the next level, which, Dakin says, includes scaling the commercial side of the business and expanding the technology to include AI to make it even more efficient and personalized. 'We have access to a very unique data set, because we have access to all the feeding and nutritional information, and the sort of the growth and clinical information on the patient,' Dakin said. 'It puts us in a unique position to apply analytics and AI to develop — we are evolving into a true clinical decision support system.'
