Digital Commons Network^™

Classification Of Twitter Vaping Discourse Using Bertweet: Comparative Deep Learning Study, William Baker, Jason B. Colditz, Page D. Dobbs, Huy Mai, Shyam Visweswaran, Justin Zhan, Brian A. Primack

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background:

Twitter provides a valuable platform for the surveillance and monitoring of public health topics; however, manually categorizing large quantities of Twitter data is labor intensive and presents barriers to identify major trends and sentiments. Additionally, while machine and deep learning approaches have been proposed with high accuracy, they require large, annotated data sets. Public pretrained deep learning classification models, such as BERTweet, produce higher-quality models while using smaller annotated training sets.

Objective:

This study aims to derive and evaluate a pretrained deep learning model based on BERTweet that can identify tweets relevant to vaping, tweets (related to vaping) of …

Investigating The Impact Of Nonlinguistic Cognitive Reserve On Naming Pre- And Post-Treatment, Lillian Jarold

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The relationship between linguistic and nonlinguistic cognition in persons with aphasia is complex and often debated in the literature. Furthermore, the impact of nonlinguistic cognition on aphasia treatment outcomes is unclear. The present study sought 1) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and performance on a test of naming and 2) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and change scores on a test of naming between baseline and post-treatment in persons with chronic aphasia.

Method: This retrospective study utilized data from participants (N=102) who were recruited for a multi-center cross-over trial (POLAR: Predicting Outcomes of Language Rehabilitation). …

Measuring Orthographic Influences On Phonological Processing In Beginning Readers: An Eyetracking Study, Emily Grace Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose – Both orthographic and phonemic awareness are essential to reading. However, the role of orthographic knowledge in phonemic awareness has not been thoroughly investigated in beginning readers until recently. The purpose of this study was to examine if orthographic knowledge influenced phonological processing in beginning readers and to establish a proof of concept for the use of eyetracking measures to examine these skills in young children.

Method – 22 participants, aged 6-7 years, completed norm-referenced assessments of language and reading ability as well as experimental measures of orthographic and phonological awareness while their eye movements were monitored.

Results – …

Unintended Consequences Of The Electronic Health Record And Cognitive Load In Emergency Department Nurses, Carolyn S. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The electronic health record (EHR) was rapidly implemented to improve patient safety. However, this rapid and widespread EHR implementation negatively connects to patient safety. Clinician cognitive overload is also thought to be negatively connected to patient safety, especially in the chaotic emergency department (ED) setting. Limited research has been conducted on unintended consequences of the EHR (UC-EHR) and cognitive load (CL) in ED nurses. Understanding the UC-EHR and CL in ED nurses facilitate informed interventions to improve nursing practice and patient safety.

Aims: Guided by the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) 2.0 framework, the aims of this …

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation As An Adjuvant For Nonfluent Aphasia Therapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study, Lynsey Mcgrath Keator

Theses and Dissertations

Identifying effective and efficient rehabilitation tools is crucial to improve language outcomes for persons living with chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment has proved to be particularly successful in improving speech output in nonfluent aphasia. It is hypothesized that, for patients with aberrant oscillatory synchronization between anterior and posterior language regions of the left hemisphere, speech entrainment may act as an external gaiting mechanism to bolster an impaired efference copy and improve synchrony between these regions. Theoretical and empirical evidence supports this idea that speech production relies on anterior-posterior connectivity in the left hemisphere.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) delivers low, periodically-alternating …

Contributions Of Semantic And Phonological Working Memory To Narrative Language Independent Of Single Word Production: Evidence From Acute Stroke

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Neuropsychological case studies have provided evidence that individuals with semantic, but not phonological, working memory (WM) deficits have difficulty producing phrases containing several content words. These findings supported the claim of a phrasal scope of planning at the grammatical formulation stage of production, where semantic WM supports the maintenance of lexical-semantic representations as they are inserted into slots in phrasal constituents. Recent narrative production results for individuals at the acute stage of stroke supported the role for semantic WM in phrasal elaboration while suggesting a role for phonological WM at a subsequent phonological encoding stage in supporting fluent, rapid speech. …

The Relationship Between The Field-Shifting Phenomenon And Representational Coherence Of Place Cells In Ca1 And Ca3 In A Cue-Altered Environment

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Few studies have systematically investigated the reading skill profiles of English Learners (ELs) in late elementary school, a critical developmental period for language and literacy and the most common grades for initial identification with specific learning disabilities (O’Connor et al., 2013). We investigated the reading skill profiles of 331 ELs in 3rd and 4th grades, including ELs with and without risk for dyslexia due to significant deficits in word and pseudo-word reading accuracy and fluency. We utilized latent profile analysis and factor mixture modeling to investigate: (1) the nature and distribution of reading skill profiles; (2) whether these …

Health Equity In Medicine, Tracy Macintosh, Barbara L. Gracious, Jeremy R. Brooks, Graig Donini

HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine

Healthcare disparities exist when, due to racial, ethnic, or gender identity differences linked to social, economic or environmental factors, certain populations lack equitable access to quality healthcare and insurance coverage. Such disparities across history carry profound future implications that we have only begun to contemplate as a profession. This special issue of the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine examines the critical issue of health equity in medicine and how the medical community can advance health equity through inclusive behavior and interactions in clinical and educational settings, and our communities.

Patients, Corporate Attorneys, And Moral Obligations, Ioan-Radu Motoarcă

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

There are two main questions that any account of corporate lawyers’ moral obligations needs to answer: (1) Do corporate lawyers have moral obligations to third parties? and (2) In cases of conflict between obligations to the corporation and obligations to third parties, which should prevail? This Article offers answers to these questions in the context of lawyers working in medical corporations. I argue that lawyers do have moral obligations to third parties, and that in cases where patients’ rights are being violated by a medical company, patients’ rights should prevail. Consequently, attorney–client confidentiality rules should be relaxed to allow for …

Podium Presentation: Broadening The Lens: How Using A Multidisciplinary Approach To Increase Cultural Competency In Nurses, Joann Long

2022 Providence Nurse Research Conference

Background: Cultural competence is central to the development of healthy nurse-patient relationships. Considered an essential standard of professional practice for nursing and multiple disciplines world-wide, the use interdisciplinary materials from anthropology, philosophy and theology broaden the lens through which students can critically think about human diversity. The online course in Cultural Diversity was revised to enhance the cultural competence of nurses enrolled in an RN-BSN program of study. Drawing on global research conducted by cultural anthropologists provides students with a global look at key cultural concepts through which national cultures may be better understood. Video interviews with nursing theorist and …

Inhibitory Control Of Emotional Interference In Deaf Children: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials And Event-Related Spectral Perturbation Analysis, Qiong Chen, Junfeng Zhao, Huang Gu, Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Background: Impairment of interference control ability may reflect a more general deficit in executive functioning, and lead to an increase in internal-externalized problems such as impulsivity, which has been reported in deaf children. However, few researches have examined the neural mechanism of this impairment.

Methods: This study applied the electroencephalogram (EEG) technique to investigate the interference control ability in 31 deaf children and 28 hearing controls with emotional face-word stroop task.

Results: Results from behavioral task showed that deaf children exhibited lower accuracy compared to hearing controls. As for EEG analysis, reduced activation of ERP components in N1 and enhanced …

Event-Related Brain Potential Correlates Of Event-Based Prospective Memory In Children With Learning Disability, Lili Jing, Qi Zhao, Yafei Zhang, Jiaojiao Wan, Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Prospective memory (PM) has been reported to be impaired in children with learning disabilities (LD), but few studies have examined the underlying neural mechanism of this impairment. To address this issue, the present study applied ERP technique to explore the difference of event-based prospective memory (EBPM) in 21 children with LD and 20 non-LD children with double task paradigm. Results from behavioral data showed that LD children exhibited lower accuracy than non-LD children. The ERP results showed that the two groups displayed significant difference in the ERP components, with longer N300 latency in LD group, but there was no obvious …

A Comparative Study On The Expository Writing Abilities Of Kindergarten Students With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Kristine Michelle Dayley Andrus

Theses and Dissertations

State standards require kindergarten students to produce expository writing, but little research has been done regarding their abilities in this area. This study describes expository writing samples of 47 typically developing (TD) kindergarteners and 43 kindergarteners with developmental language disorder (DLD). The Expository Language Measures (ELM) Flow Chart and the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software were used to detail the language complexity and text structure features the children in the sample produced. When comparing TD and DLD children's expository written samples, no significant differences in the language and text structure measures were found. It is important to continue …

The Impact Of Background Noise On The Communicative Experience Of People With Mild To Moderate Aphasia: A Qualitative Study, Riley Robertson Hegewald

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how retelling stories with a variety different background noise conditions affected the communicative experiences of people with aphasia (PWA). Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants participated in a semi-structured interview immediately following the experimental measure where they were asked open-ended questions regarding their experience retelling stories and how those experiences related to their everyday lives. Results revealed three themes related to how participants responded to communicating in noise: (a) cognitive reactions, (b) emotional reactions, and (c) social reactions. The findings suggest that PWA exert more effort when …

The Analysis Of Omission And Substitution Errors In Various Language Tasks In Bilingual Children, Macy Whiting

Theses and Dissertations

As the population of Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States steadily grows, the importance of accurately assessing and diagnosing developmental language disorder (DLD) has also grown. Understanding a child's underlying language learning system is critical in this process. Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of nonword repetition (NWR) tasks in bilingual children across a wide range of development, however there is little information regarding guidelines for interpretation of NWR performance or analyzing error patterns. This study was conducted to address these gaps in the research. A sample of 26 Spanish-English bilingual school aged children (6;0-9;4) were administered English and …

Public Libraries As Community Health Partners, Melinda Hodges

Certified Public Manager® Applied Research

Public libraries are a combination meeting space, educational resource, information repository, and community building organization. As such, they are already positioned to act as a valuable partner in the public health arena. This article researches the basic tenets of public health and identifies areas that public libraries could participate in productively. This article also reviews literature about the potential of public libraries as health partners, as well as what is already being accomplished from the perspective of both library/information sciences and public health studies. This will include the benefits that libraries can bring to public health work and the barriers …

Examining The Preliminary Validity Of A Dynamic Assessment Of Narrative Language In Mandarin Chinese, Lok Yee Sarah Cheung

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the preliminary validity of a newly developed dynamic assessment of narrative language in Mandarin Chinese. Two studies are reported in this thesis. Study 1 included 31 second grade participants and Study 2 included 43 first grade participants. All participants were enrolled in a Chinese immersion program in an elementary school in Utah. A dynamic assessment of narrative language was administered to each participant in Mandarin Chinese. A teacher rating was also included in Study 1. Results indicated that the dynamic assessment investigated in this thesis demonstrated some similar characteristics with other valid …

Implicit Learning In Preschool Children With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Abigail E. Tolomei

University Honors Theses

The study below was designed to compare implicit learning in fifty-two preschool-aged children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) to test the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH). The PDH claims that procedural memory, the basis of implicit learning, is the main impairment in DLD. Using a computer-based program to conduct sound-meaning-mapping tasks, we asked children to select one of two images according to the corresponding sound they heard. After all the participants were tested, an additional cue was found in the experiment that impacted the data. Instead of the children attuning to the sounds to depict the correct answer, the …

Translation And Validation Of The Caprini Risk Assessment Score For Urdu Speakers, Khairunisa Lalani

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Background: Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) is a potentially fatal condition and determination of risk level and identification of risk factors for VTE should be performed during the post-operative period. The Caprini Risk Assessment Score (CRS), is a validated risk assessment instrument tool used widely to predict postoperative VTE in the Western world, but it has limited utility among resource-poor and developing countries due to the limited English language proficiency of potential instrument users.

Aims: We aimed to translate the CRS tool to Urdu and validate its use in the Urdu speaking population through a correlation of self-administered and healthcare professional-administered scores. …

Visualizing Diversity: Spatial Data As A Resource Enabling Extension To Better Engage Communities, Justin Krohn, Jacqueline Davis-Manigaulte, Christopher Fulcher, Jennifer Sarah Tiffany

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

Effective Extension programming relies on engaging people of all races, ethnicities, and cultures. Extension educators sometimes struggle with how best to engage communities that are not “traditional” program audiences. Centering data visualization on the strength of Black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and other potentially marginalized communities can assist Extension’s work to engage diverse staff, program participants, and advisory board members. For example, using maps to understand what languages people speak at home strengthens the connections between Extension programs and community participants and can inform staff recruitment and advisory board composition. However, maps of aggregated areas like counties can mask socioeconomic …

Fostering A Sense Of Belonging In Urban Extension For Internal And External Stakeholders, Ramona Madhosingh-Hector, Linda M. Seals

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

In urban areas, the communities are as diverse as the issues, and different educational and engagement strategies must be deployed to support urban Extension clientele. Urban communities must connect with and feel a sense of “belonging” with Extension–this connection can strengthen Extension’s presence and value proposition to urban constituents. This study found that although Extension was engaged in efforts to support belonging, its efforts were hampered by a lack of collaboration and commitment to supporting a system-wide effort to change the culture. Intentionality, emotional intelligence, and dialogue were presented as strategies to foster a sense of belonging for Extension personnel …

Prefrontal Cortex Supports Speech Perception In Listeners With Cochlear Implants, Arefeh Sherafati, Noel Dwyer, Aahana Bajracharya, Mahlega Samira Hassanpour, Adam T Eggebrecht, Jill B Firszt, Joseph P Culver, Jonathan E Peelle

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cochlear implants are neuroprosthetic devices that can restore hearing in people with severe to profound hearing loss by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve. Because of physical limitations on the precision of this stimulation, the acoustic information delivered by a cochlear implant does not convey the same level of acoustic detail as that conveyed by normal hearing. As a result, speech understanding in listeners with cochlear implants is typically poorer and more effortful than in listeners with normal hearing. The brain networks supporting speech understanding in listeners with cochlear implants are not well understood, partly due to difficulties obtaining functional neuroimaging …

Unpacking Misinfodemic During A Global Health Crisis: A Qualitative Inquiry Of Psychosocial Characteristics In Social Media Interactions

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The pervasiveness of health information in social media has led to a modern misinformation crisis, also known as a misinfodemic. Misinfodemics have upended public health activities as clearly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study is to characterize social media content and information sources using theory-driven health behavior and psychology constructs to better understand the motifs of misinformation and their role in the dissemination of health (mis)information in Twitter posts. We analyzed 1,400 randomly selected tweets related to COVID-19 to ascertain four important variables, what is the tweet about (content), how is it structured (linguistic features), who …

Latent Linguistic Motifs In Social Media Postings Resisting Covid-19 Misinformation

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Social media has become a predominant source of information for many health care consumers. However, false and misleading information is a pervasive problem in this context. Specifically, health-related misinformation has become a significant public health challenge, impeding the effectiveness of public health awareness campaigns and resulting in suboptimal responsiveness to the communication of legitimate risk-related information. Little is known about the mechanisms driving the seeding and spreading of such information. In this paper, we specifically examine COVID-19 tweets which attempt to correct misinformation. We employ a mixed-methods approach comprising qualitative coding, deep learning classification, and computerized text analysis to understand …

The Effects Of Language Proficiency On Narrative Macrostructure In Spanish-English Bilinguals, Jenny Magallon

Dissertations and Theses

Bilingual children of the same age may have different narrative skills depending on the quantity and quality of their experiences in the two languages. Thus, children's storytelling skills can vary depending on children's oral proficiency in each language. The present study examined the effects of oral proficiency on story structure in forty 5- to 7-year-old Spanish-English speaking children using Spanish and English samples from story retelling tasks. Language proficiency was measured as continuum of performance using the Spanish-English Language Proficiency Scale (SELPS; Smyk et al., 2013). To estimate the effects of Spanish and English proficiency on story structure, linear regressions …

Factors Related To Contraceptive Use And Family Planning Decision-Making In The South Asian Community Residing In New York City, Nandini Shroff

Dissertations and Theses

Introduction: Currently, there are approximately 5.4 million South Asians residing in the United States (U.S.). The limited literature illustrates that contraceptive use is underutilized among Asians and Asian sub-groups, including South Asian Americans, compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Using Los Angeles County Health survey data, one study found that 22% of Asian Americans reported always using condom in the past 12 months compared to 37% of African Americans, 27% of Whites, and 27% of Hispanics. A study among New Jersey women revealed that compared to non-South Asian women, South Asians (SAs) were less likely to have used ever …

Intercampus Health Care Simulation Model For Development Of Students’ Interprofessional Socialization And Competency, Cody Marie Busch, Lynn Gilbertson, Colleen Gullickson, Elizabeth Laessig

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Clinical education standards for speech-language pathology and nursing programs indicate the need for students to gain experience with interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP). However, colleges not affiliated with hospitals struggle to offer experiences between healthcare disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study as a model for interprofessional healthcare simulation that can be applied to schools that have limited access to a variety of professional programs and few complimentary medical specialties at their home institution. The partnership of a masters in speech-language pathology (MS-SLP) program at a public state sponsored institution and a bachelors of science in …

Perceptions And Effects Of Online Clinical Preparation Modules For First-Semester Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students, Elizabeth M. Leatherman, Kris Pedersen

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Students begin graduate school with varying backgrounds and experiences from their undergraduate program, which can result in different degrees of competence as they begin clinical work. This study investigated the effects of a series of seven online modules designed to review foundational clinical skills and enhance students’ clinical success. A cohort of 39 incoming graduate students at a midwestern university participated in the study and completed the modules during program orientation. Mixed methods were used to evaluate the effects and perceptions of the modules, including surveying students and the clinical faculty, comparing students’ clinical evaluations to those of previous students …

The Blended And Online Learning Design Fellows Program: Developing Teacher-Researchers In Communication Sciences And Disorders, Laurel Teller, Jena Mcdaniel, C. Melanie Schuele, Cynthia J. Brame

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Developing skills in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) represents an important gap in doctoral training in Communication Sciences and Disorders. This study describes the Blended and Online Learning Design Fellows Program (BOLD) as a model for infusing SoTL into doctoral studies and for teaching graduate students how to develop online instructional modules. We first describe the structure of the yearlong BOLD Program. We then provide a case example of the development and SoTL evaluation of an online instructional module on the topic of intentional communication. We conclude with a discussion regarding how our study results inform future instructional …

Innovative Changes To Study Abroad: Virtual Intercultural Learning During The Pandemic, Lata A. Krishnan, Lan Jin, Aletha Stahl, Sita Sreekumar, Saumya Sundaram, Manju Subrahmanian, Praveena Davis

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Intercultural competence (ICC) is increasingly important for healthcare professionals, and study abroad (SA) programs have been one mechanism to increase students’ ICC. With SA programs being cancelled due to the pandemic, and qualitative literature supporting virtual intercultural learning (ICL), the purpose of this paper is to describe a novel approach towards “study abroad” without traveling abroad and evaluate participant gains in ICC with a virtual international ICL experience embedded into a graduate level pediatric audiology course. Nine U.S students and ten students at a partner institution in India were enrolled in the course. Comparison of pre- and post-IDI® scores showed …