Digital Commons Network^™

Revisiting The Volumetric Swing Frequency Response Method For The Determination Of Limiting Mass Transfer Mechanisms Of N2 And O2 In Carbon Molecular Sieve 3k172, Adam Marshall Burke

Theses and Dissertations

Adsorption-based separations processes, along with the adsorbents that enable them, have benefited from a greater particular focus in recent years, following a desire to improve process energy efficiencies and cost economics. One such adsorbent, carbon molecular sieves (CMS), have likewise been a greater focus. CMS materials offer several key practical uses, such as the separation of nitrogen and oxygen, and the removal of carbon dioxide from methane process streams. In order to effectively design and implement an industrial scale process using a CMS material, the behavior of these gases on the chosen material must be known, including the limiting mass …

Medicare Shared Savings Performance: Three-Year Pandemic Analysis, Bryan Adams

Theses & Dissertations

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid's (CMS) Office of Actuary predicts that U.S. national health expenditures will surpass U.S. gross domestic product per capita by 1.1% annually until 2028, totaling $6.2 trillion in healthcare spending. A significant portion of this spending, 36%, is attributed to Medicare and Medicaid. To address this issue, CMS has implemented the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) to assist Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in reducing healthcare costs and improving the quality of care for beneficiaries. The main objectives of this dissertation are twofold. Firstly, it aims to investigate the relationship between various factors, such as quality …

Strategies To Improve Hospital Patient Satisfaction To Increase Performance-Based Reimbursements, Celso G. Silla Iii

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the hospital valued-based purchasing (VBP) program focused on controlling cost, inefficiencies, and quality-of-care. Hospital leaders are incentivized or penalized based on meeting quality outcomes and risk millions of dollars in reimbursement if they do not meet the quality-of-care standards specified in the CMS hospital VBP program. Grounded in the transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies hospital leaders used to improve patient satisfaction to increase VBP performance-based reimbursements. Participants included eight hospital leaders from seven hospitals in California who successfully implemented …

Using Machine Learning To Search For Vector Boson Scattering At The Cms Detector During Run 2, Mark Mekosh

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This work reports on the use of different machine learning (ML) techniques in the search for vector boson scattering (VBS) events in the semileptonic $WV$ channel. VBS is an important process for studying electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB), the Higgs mechanism, as well as for probing beyond the standard model physics. Boosted decision trees as well as deep neural networks were trained on Monte Carlo simulation samples and applied to 137 fb$^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data taken from 2016 to 2018 by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with a center of mass energy $\sqrt{s} …

Strategies To Improve Hospital Patient Satisfaction To Increase Performance-Based Reimbursements, Celso G. Silla Iii

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the hospital valued-based purchasing (VBP) program focused on controlling cost, inefficiencies, and quality-of-care. Hospital leaders are incentivized or penalized based on meeting quality outcomes and risk millions of dollars in reimbursement if they do not meet the quality-of-care standards specified in the CMS hospital VBP program. Grounded in the transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies hospital leaders used to improve patient satisfaction to increase VBP performance-based reimbursements. Participants included eight hospital leaders from seven hospitals in California who successfully implemented …

Doubling Down On Sepsis: A Quality Improvement Project To Improve Sepsis Bundle Compliance On An Inpatient Oncology Unit, Kayla Slay

Dissertations

Problem: Sepsis is a leading cause of death worldwide, and the second most common cause of death in cancer patients. Early management of sepsis through use of sepsis bundles have been shown to improve patient outcomes, yet bundle adherence is unfortunately inconsistent.

Methods: A two-nurse team, called the Sepsis Sidekicks, was a process improvement initiative to increase compliance with the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sepsis bundle and improve patient outcomes related to sepsis. The observational quality improvement project utilized a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model over a six-week period where quantitative data was collected using a retrospective chart review. …

Palliative Care Screening For Persons Living With Dementia In A Nursing Home, Shanika S. Pruitt

Dissertations

Problem: Dementia is rapidly increasing as the people of the world mature and life expectancy increases. As the world ages and the prevalence of dementia increases, nursing home placement will and is the most sought place for care of this population. Dementia is under recognized as a terminal illness and palliative care is underutilized for nursing home residents with advanced symptoms of dementia.

Methods: This quality improvement (QI) initiative utilized a prospective, descriptive design. The Palliative Care Screening for the Elderly tool was administered to a purposive sample of persons living with dementia residing in the nursing home. Qualitative data …

Playable Case Study Content Management System, Mitchell Stevenson Cross

Theses and Dissertations

Educational simulations can help mitigate the natural gap between traditional education styles and the current professional world. Researchers at BYU have developed an educational simulation solution called Playable Case Studies (PCSs). PCSs are simulations that expose the user to real world scenarios and problems within a pre-built environment. With rising demand and use of these educational simulations, there is a need for easy and inexpensive ways to develop these simulations or Playable Case Studies (PCSs). We propose a content management system (CMS) that is tied to a system that utilizes dynamic modules that make up these simulations. We present a …

Strategies Physicians Apply To Value-Based Patient Care For Quality Reimbursement, Sadia Chaudhry-Zutshi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low-quality value-based patient care negatively impacts physicians’ ability to maintain private solo practices. Physicians who lack strategies to apply value-based patient care may lose their ability to stay in a private solo practice. Grounded in the complex adaptive system theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies used by private solo physicians that provided value-based patient care. Participants were four physicians in solo private practice who successfully applied value-based patient care to maintain their private solo practice. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and organizational documents and analyzed using thematic analysis. Three themes emerged: (a) …

Walk Experience, Samina Khaliq, Bilha Ghedeon, Nevada Graci

Student Capstones

The Mississauga Music Walk of Fame (MMWF) acknowledges the work of musicians and music industry members who have spent a considerable amount of time in Mississauga. Founded in 2012 and located in Port Credit Memorial Park, The Walk is home to the City’s most accomplished music industry talents. Noticing the lack of engagement at The Walk, the team aims to bring its stars into the 21^st century through the introduction of digital innovations. The Walk Experience Project captures the imagination of its visitors and invites them to learn more about the City’s artists and their outstanding work allowing the …

Search For New Physics In Rare Higgs Boson Decays With The Cms Detector At The Large Hadron Collider, Himal Acharya

Doctoral Dissertations

A new boson with a mass of 125 GeV was discovered at the large hadron collider (LHC) in July 2012. The properties of this particle are so far consistent with the standard model (SM) expectation. Differences in the Higgs boson decay rates and predicted by the SM might indicate the presence of new particles and forces between them. Particularly, rare exclusive decays of the Higgs boson are a promising laboratory to study physics beyond the standard model. Searches for decays of the Higgs boson into a Z boson and a J/ψ meson or into pairs of J/ψ or Υ mesons …

Measurement Of The Cross Section Of Top Quark Pairs Produced In Association With A Photon In Lepton + Jets Events At √S = 13 Tev With Full Runii Cms Data, Nabin Poudyal

Wayne State University Dissertations

The inclusive production cross section of top quark pairs in association with a photon is measured in proton-proton collisions at the LHC with 13 TeV energy using the full RunII data collected by CMS in 2016, 2017, and 2018 with a total corresponding integrated luminosity of 137 fb −1 . The relative fraction of ttγ events normalized to inclusive tt production is measured. The cross section measurement provides important information about the electromagnetic coupling of the standard model top quark and is sensitive to physics beyond the standard model. The analysis is carried out in the in semileptonic decay channel …

Analizimi Dhe Krahasimi I Cms Platformave Shkalla Bachelor, Fehim Morina

Theses and Dissertations

Qëllimi i këtij projekti është të analizojmë dhe të kemi një përmbledhje të shkurtër të tri sistemeve më të njohura të menaxhimit të përmbajtjes (CMS), të krahasojmë tiparet e tyre kryesore, funksionet etj. Kemi identifikuar pikat e forta dhe të dobëta të CMS, ku në krahasim kemi përshkruar procesin e zhvillimit, instalimit dhe kemi krahasuar ato me njëri-tjetrin në mënyrë që të zbulojmë se cili CMS i përshtatet një fillestari dhe cili ndonjë zhvillues profesional. Gjithashtu ky lloj krahasimi ka mundësuar përzgjedhjen e një CMS varësisht situatës në të cilën jemi, për shkak të kohës së zhvillimit si dhe menaxhimit …

Relationships Between Hospitals' Music Therapy Services And Hospital Consumer Assessment Of Healthcare Providers And Systems ( Hcahps ) Scores, Kimberly S. Iverson

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The implementation of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey measured patients’ satisfaction with their hospital stays. The HCAHPS brought increased public access regarding hospital performance and changes to repayment polices. As such, patient satisfaction became a popular topic in hospitals within the last several years. Previous research demonstrated medical benefits for the use music therapy in hospitals, but research regarding its relationship to patient satisfaction was limited.

Hypotheses: The hypothesis of the current study was that patients who received music therapy services while in the hospital would have higher HCAHPS scores than those who …

A Clinical Documentation Practice Improvement To Increase Insurance Reimbursement, Allison R. Hamilton

Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Background: The National Institute Mental Health (2015) estimated there were about 44.7 million people diagnosed with a serious mental illness and 62.9% of those diagnosed were without mental health services. The loss of services was due to unemployment, reoccurring hospitalization, inabilities to care for themselves, and lack of participation in societal norms (World Health Organization [WHO], 2014). According to Insel (2011/2015), the U.S. cost of mental healthcare was an estimated $57.5 billion in 2006. This cost was not due to actual care but associated with the economic burden of job loss and the excessive use of community resources. The Affordable …

Reduction Of Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services Reimbursement Penalty Risk, Christopher Douglas Poteet

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare centers face increasing revenue risk under the Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (MACRA). The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that successful leaders of healthcare centers use to mitigate the risk of reimbursement penalties under MACRA. The conceptual framework of this study was Generation 3 cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT-III), and the analysis process used was Yin's recursive and iterative phases. Participants of this study were 6 leaders of healthcare centers in the United States identified as having high quality and low cost via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid public use …

Kinetic Characterization Of Listeria Monocytogenes 2-C- Methyl-D-Erythritol 4-Phosphate Cytidylyltransferase ( Cms ) Enzymes Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography ( Hplc ), Mark Oblazny

Theses and Dissertations

Infectious diseases, with increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, coupled with the declining rate in discovery of antimicrobial agents, impose one of the most significant threats to human health. Here we identify 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate cytidylyltransferase (CMS) as a valid target for antibiotic development which is an enzyme in pathogenic organisms that leads to the biosynthesis of isoprene precursor molecules. Isoprene molecules are one of nature’s most common building blocks that are vital to many biological metabolic processes and are synthesized via the mevalonic acid dependent (MVA), or methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway. Vertebrates utilize the MVA pathway, while many pathogenic bacteria …

Vital Signs Of U.S. Osteopathic Medical Residency Programs Pivoting To Single Accreditation Standards, Timothy S. Novak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Osteopathic physician (D.O.) residency programs that do not achieve accreditation under the new Single Accreditation System (SAS) standards by June 30, 2020 will lose access to their share of more than $9,000,000,000 of public tax dollars. This U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funding helps sponsoring institutions cover direct and indirect resident physician training expenses. A significant financial burden would then be shifted to marginal costs of the residency program’s sponsoring institution in the absence of CMS funding. The sponsoring institution’s ability or willingness to bare these costs occurs during a time when hospital operating margins are at …

Does Intensive Behavioral Therapy Result In Greater Weight Loss Among Patients With Obesity At A 12-Week Interval, Angela Jones

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Purpose: To examine the efficacy of Intensive Behavioral Therapy (IBT) in adult, obese patients at a 3-month interval conceptually consistent with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) measures of 6.6 pounds in six months as determinant of weight loss success. Method: A convenience sample of 42 patients in the NEA Baptist Weight Management Program with a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or greater and active participation in the program for a minimum of 12 weeks. Patients pregnant, currently treated for cancer, or other body surface restricting conditions were excluded. Active participation entailed face-to-face visits with APRN, nurse weigh-ins, weekly group …

Correction To Luminosity Measurement For The Pixel Luminosity Telescope At Cms, Krishna Thapa

Masters Theses

The search for and detailed study of new particles and forces with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN is fundamentally dependent on the precise measurement of the rate at which proton-proton collisions produce any particles, the so-called luminosity. Therefore, a new detector, the Pixel Luminosity Telescope (PLT), dedicated to measure the luminosity at high precision was added to the CMS experiment in 2015. It measures the inclusive charged particle production from each collision of proton bunches in the LHC. Additional charged particles which are observed by the instrument but produced from sources …

Improving The Accuracy Of Publicly Reported Psi Rates Through Enhanced Internal Documentation Review, Daniel E. Furlong

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Patient Safety Indicators, or PSIs, are used by several healthcare related federal agencies and third-party payers to determine the quality of care being delivered by a healthcare provider. A composite PSI, PSI-90, includes a group of PSIs that are publicly reported as quality indicators for a provider, and that are used as part of the Value Based Purchasing calculation. Poor PSI-90 rates directly influence healthcare services reimbursement rates by CMS and may be considered an indication of a quality of care problem by potential patients and third party payers. This research is a case study on the effectiveness of a …

Improving Medicare & Medicaid Reimbursement Framework For Molecular Diagnostics Tests Using Gene Sequencing: A Case Study In Health Economics, Advait Apte

Dissertations and Theses

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of deaths among women, as about one in eight women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime. After the diagnosis of breast cancer, chemotherapy is the commonly prescribed first line of treatment. In the recent past, research has shown that molecular diagnostic tests have revealed that about 20% of the tumors carry the HER-2 mutation on cell surface, which can be treated with the drug Herceptin, or trastuzumab, improving cancer free survival rates from 71.9% to 84.2% in five years. However, in spite of the observed increase in survival …

The Cms Pixel Luminosity Telescope Browser Interface, Mark Miller Foerster

Masters Theses

The search for and detailed study of new particles and forces with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN is fundamentally dependent on the precise measurement of the rate at which proton-proton collisions produce any particles, the so-called luminosity. For the discovery of the Higgs candidate in 2012 the relative precision of this quantity was about 2.5%. To be able to observe deviations from Standard Model predictions for decay rates of this particle and others which can hint to new phenomena the targeted luminosity uncertainty is about 1%. Therefore, a new device, the …

Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act And The Infection Prevention And Control Department Of The Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Daniel R. Keppel

Public Administration Master’s Projects

Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Prospective Payment System-Exempt Cancer Centers, including the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, will eventually be denied payments by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program for certain preventable Hospital Acquired Conditions. This study is a participant-observer case study of the Infection Prevention and Control Department of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects that the CMS’ Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program may have on the Infection Prevention and Control Department of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Data was collected through direct observation …

Online Course Management System For Wic Nutrition Education And Study Of Its Effectiveness In Behavioral And Attitude Changes, Ryan A. Amy

Theses and Dissertations

Social media has been used in a variety of contexts to connect people of varying backgrounds and as a method of teaching. This thesis collaborated with the Utah County Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) department to develop an online course management system that facilitated research to evaluate the effectiveness of social media on nutrition behavior and attitude changes among WIC clients. We created a toddler themed Facebook page in conjunction with the online nutrition classes and provided the opportunity for clients to use them. Previous social media research used individuals that had agreed to participate in the social media experiment …

Search For Contact Interactions Using The Dimuon Mass Spectrum In P-P Collisions At Sqrt(S) = 8 Tev At Cms, Chamath Kottachchi

Wayne State University Dissertations

The mass hierarchy problem associated with the standard model suggests that there might be more fundamental particles in nature. If quarks and leptons have substructures, known as preons, the manifestation of compositeness can be a four-fermion contact interaction. The experimental signal for contact interactions is a non-resonant enhancement of the number of events in the high-mass region of the dimuon mass spectrum. This dissertation describes a detailed search strategy for contact interactions using the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment. The dimuon mass spectrum above 300 GeV has been studied using the data collected in 2012 at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV corresponding …

Measurement Of The Prompt Double J/Psi Production Cross Section In Pp Collisions At Sqrt(S) = 7 Tev, Andrew David York

Doctoral Dissertations

The simultaneous production of two J/psi mesons has been significantly observed in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the CMS detector. The two J/psi mesons are fully reconstructed in their decay to muons. The signal yield is extracted with an extended maximum likelihood fit based on four event variables. A method was developed to correct for detector acceptances and efficiencies based on the measured momenta of the J/psi and their decay muons to maintain the least model dependence possible.

The measurement is performed in an acceptance region defined by the individual J/psi transverse momentum and rapidity. …

Disruptive Transformations In Health Care: Technological Innovation And The Acute Care General Hospital, D. Pulane Lucas

Theses and Dissertations

Advances in medical technology have altered the need for certain types of surgery to be performed in traditional inpatient hospital settings. Less invasive surgical procedures allow a growing number of medical treatments to take place on an outpatient basis. Hospitals face growing competition from ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). The competitive threats posed by ASCs are important, given that inpatient surgery has been the cornerstone of hospital services for over a century. Additional research is needed to understand how surgical volume shifts between and within acute care general hospitals (ACGHs) and ASCs. This study investigates how medical technology within the hospital …

Component Mode Synthesis Approach For Quantum Mechanical Electrostatic And Transport Analysis Of Nanoscale Structures And Devices, Zhe Gao

All Theses

As the dimensions of commonly used semiconductor devices have shrunk into nanometer regime, it is recognized that the influence of quantum effects on their electrostatic and transport properties cannot be ignored. In the past few decades, various computational models and approaches have been developed to analyze these properties in nanostructures and devices. Among these computational models, the Schršdinger-Poisson model has been widely adopted for quantum mechanical electrostatic and transport analysis of nanostructures and devices such as quantum wires, metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). The numerical results allow for evaluations of the electrical properties such as charge …

The Effectiveness Of Drupal’S User Interface In Aiding Users During Website Development, Kristina Colelli

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to determine, based on the code knowledge of users, the effectiveness of Drupal’s graphical user interface in aiding developers during website creation. It includes research on current website developer trends, with a heavy emphasis on Drupal’s content management system, its usage, and the pros and cons of its graphical user interface. An online survey querying website developer knowledge of content management systems and preferences was distributed. Additionally, an in person case study that allowed users from two controlled groups, individuals with code knowledge and individuals with limited code knowledge, to physically interact with Drupal’s …