Digital Commons Network^™

The Fate Of Organic Nitrogen In Agroecosystems: Drivers And Outcomes, Lauren C. Breza

Doctoral Dissertations

Enhancing soil nitrogen (N) stocks is critical for managing soil health in agroecosystems. Growers apply external N as synthetic fertilizer to increase the amount of available N to crops. However, it is well known that synthetic fertilizer usage in agroecosystems leads to widespread pollution and contributes significantly to climate change. Nevertheless, growers and researchers recognize this N problem as a global problem and are developing solutions via alternative farming methods. Some of these alternative strategies include cover cropping, diversifying crop rotations, organic farming (i.e., no inputs), or combining these methods. Understanding how the different facets of agricultural management influence the …

Single Chain Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (Raft) Poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide) For Chemical Sensing, Tianyu Ren

Doctoral Dissertations

An approach to single chain poly-N-isopropyl acrylamide (polyNIPAM) with a redox tag was polymerized by the reversible addition fragmentation-chain transfer (RAFT) method. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) technology is the design of an artificial receptor with high selectivity for a specific analyte. The synthesized RAFT polymers were devised to develop conformation-based electrochemical MIP sensors.The material polyNIPAM is attractive as a receptor of a chemical sensor. Due to its thermosensitive properties, polyNIPAM collapses above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) and returns to its original state when the temperature is reduced below LCST. This reversible aggregation behavior shows that polyNIPAM has a …

Operads, Symmetric Monoidal Categories, And Localizations, Emma Catherine Phillips

Doctoral Dissertations

An operad can be thought of as a collection of operations, each with a finite number of inputs and a single output, along with a composition rule. We prove that the category of operads in an appropriate concrete symmetric monoidal category V is equivalent to a subcategory of symmetric monoidal categories enriched in V. Though versions of this result have appeared previously in the literature, we prove that a more restrictive subcategory is needed to construct the equivalence. Our subcategory has the advantage that its objects share important properties with the historical precursor to operads, PROPs.

We also review a …

Application Of Molecular Tools To Assess Toxicity In Industrial Wastewater And Track Viral Pathogens In Municipal Wastewaters, Mina Aghababaei Shahrestani

Doctoral Dissertations

Wastewater is a complex matrix containing a wide range of microorganisms and chemical compounds. For public health purposes, it is critical to monitor for harmful microorganisms and evaluate the toxicity of chemicals present in industrial and municipal wastewaters on human and ecosystem health. Over the past decade, sophisticated technologies such as high-throughput sequencing have enabled the development of molecular tools, which are now widely employed for tracking pathogens and assessing toxicity of municipal and industrial wastewaters. Molecular tools for biomonitoring of wastewater are designed to target specific microbial biomarkers including nucleic acids, proteins and antigens. Accordingly, this dissertation applied molecular …

Influence Of Permafrost Thaw, Microtopography, And Precipitation On Methane Cycling In Northern Peatlands, Clarice Rachelle Perryman

Doctoral Dissertations

Northern peatlands are both globally important carbon (C) stores and sources of methane (CH4). The impacts of climate change including warming, changing precipitation and hydrology, shifts in vegetation, and thawing permafrost may increase the vulnerability of the northern peatland C stock, including the amount of C lost to the atmosphere as CH4. Variation in peatland water table depth strongly influences CH4 cycling, as water table levels largely control redox conditions and therefore rates of anaerobic CH4 production (methanogenesis) and aerobic CH4 oxidation (consumption, methanotrophy). As CH4 emissions reflect the balance of methanogenesis and methanotrophy, changes in water table depth due …

Substorm Onset Related Ultra Low Frequency Waves, Michelle Salzano

Doctoral Dissertations

Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves are geomagnetic perturbations in the mHz to Hz range that contribute both directly and indirectly to particle losses in the radiation belts. Pi1B waves are ULF broadband bursts in the Pi1 range that are well correlated with substorm onset. Intervals of Pulsations of Diminishing Periods (IPDPs) are a sub-type of ULF Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves that are characterized by an increase in frequency over time. IPDPs are thought to be generated by particles injected at substorm onset. One of the main instruments used to identify ULF waves is the searchcoil magnetometer. In this dissertation, …

Integrating Behavior And Genomics To Understand Sensory Integration In Cnidarians, Sydney Birch

Doctoral Dissertations

Class Hydrozoa belongs to Phylum Cnidaria which occupies a key phylogenetic position in animal evolution. Phylum Cnidaria, which includes animals such as jellyfish, sea anemones, corals, and hydrozoans, is the evolutionary sister lineage to bilaterians. My Ph.D. research is focused on understanding how hydrozoans integrate sensory information from the environment at the genetic level and how that mediates an organismal behavioral response by investigating three closely related hydrozoan species: Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus, Hydra vulgaris, and Ectopleura crocea. Many of the studies on cnidarian sensory ecology have focused on adult stages or anthozoan species (sea anemones and corals) leaving a lack of …

First-Year Students And Writing Support: Learning From Student Choices, Alicia Clark-Barnes

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2022, COVID-19 has disrupted the academic experience of students, including students access to writing support. The importance of the support universities offer and that students are able to access has greatly increased as offerings and circumstances shift and change. Students seeking support may turn to university-sponsored services but if those do not fit student needs, students may rely on informal supports, including friends and family. While investigating the gaps in university-sponsored writing support first-year students experience, I explore how first-year students understand what writing support is, how available/accessible it is to them, and why students return to a form …

Answering Topical Information Needs Using Neural Entity-Oriented Information Retrieval And Extraction, Shubham Chatterjee

Doctoral Dissertations

In the modern world, search engines are an integral part of human lives. The field of Information Retrieval (IR) is concerned with finding material (usually documents) of an unstructured nature (usually text) that satisfies an information need (query) from within large collections (usually stored on computers). The search engine then displays a ranked list of results relevant to our query. Traditional document retrieval algorithms match a query to a document using the overlap of words in both. However, the last decade has seen the focus shifting to leveraging the rich semantic information available in the form of entities. Entities are …

Neighborhood Disorder And Adolescent Psychological Distress: Effects Of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Social Support, And Self Concept, Jean Bessette

Doctoral Dissertations

Sociological research on mental health is often guided by the stress process framework. A key tenet of this paradigm is the proposition that both exposure and vulnerability to social stressors arise from one’s placement in the social structure; those with lower social status face greater exposure and/or greater vulnerability to stressors that detrimentally impact their psychological wellbeing. A consequential social stressor is the neighborhood context in which one resides. Past research has suggested a disadvantageous effect of greater neighborhood physical and social disorder on youth mental health. This research employs the stress process framework to examine how the effects of …

Environmental Implications Of Ubiquitous Dicarboxylic Acid Aerosol And Biomass Burning Generated Reactive Nitrogen, Jackson Hart Kaspari

Doctoral Dissertations

Aerosols impact our lives in many different ways, including the health of our species,visibility and the global climate. In terms of climate effects, large uncertainty still exists surrounding the combined influence of aerosols on the Earth’s radiative budget. This highlights the importance of research that seeks to better understand atmospheric aerosols and associated gas phase compounds, as advances in the field will allow for the production of more accurate climate models. In laboratory studies, great variability in reported deliquescence relative humidity (DRH) warrants the need for new methods of analysis. A custom built electrobalance with variable active particle humidity control …

Self-Validated Ensemble Modelling, Trent Lemkus

Doctoral Dissertations

An important objective when performing designed experiments is to build models that predict future performance of a system in study; e.g. predict future yields of a bio-process used to manufacture therapeutic proteins. Because experimentation is costly experimental designs are structured to be efficient in terms of the number of trials while providing substantial information about the behavior of the physical system. The strategy to build accurate predictive models in larger data sets is to partition the data into a training set, used to fit the model, and a validation set to access prediction performance. Models are selected that have the …

Essays On The Economics Of Vaccination, Andrew Evans Whitaker

Doctoral Dissertations

I examine vaccination behavior during a measles outbreak. By abandoning the rationalexpectations framework, I develop a model of vaccine behavior which recreates empirically observed vaccine hesitancy, as well as vaccination spikes during an outbreak. I use an agent-based model to simulate disease spread and agent behavior in a measles outbreak, in which rational agents minimize their expected costs by choosing their vaccination state. I allow some agents to instead use a heuristic, and others to have misinformation regarding vaccine risks, and finds that both reduce welfare. Including a social network has an ambiguous effect, as using more relevant local data …

Narratives Of Becoming: Conceptualization Of Teacher Identity Through The Experiences Of Educators From Racially, Linguistically, And Culturally Minoritized Backgrounds, Sumeyra Gok Gulmezoglu

Doctoral Dissertations

Teacher education programs are predominantly White spaces with their faculty, teacher candidates, curriculum, and practices. In these spaces, the experiences of teacher candidates from minoritized backgrounds can be alienating and their voices can be overlooked or silenced. In three interrelated but distinct studies, this research aims to highlight the experiences and perspectives of educators from minoritized racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds as they are conceptualizing their professional identities as educators. These three studies are narratives of becoming as they explore conceptualization of teacher identity through three different narrative methods namely autoethnography, counterstories, and narrative inquiry. Although each study has its …

Manual Culture, Women’S Medical Practice, And English Health In Spenser, Shakespeare, And Wroth, Melissa L. Kleinschmidt

Doctoral Dissertations

As England’s boundaries became increasingly permeable due to expanding intercultural interactions in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, defining what it meant to be “English” became increasingly vital. The English housewife was integral to shaping a national English identity. The creation of a distinctly English housewife, I argue, manifested itself most clearly in what I term “manual culture,” a phenomenon in which manuals were imbued with authority to dictate acceptable behaviors, beliefs, and knowledge for women to have and follow. These domestic and conduct manuals provided instruction on not only how to behave, but also how to maintain healthy minds, bodies, …

A Novel Approach To Damage Detection Using Structural Health Monitoring Data And Convolutional Neural Networks, Dominic Emory

Master's Theses and Capstones

This study investigates the efficiency of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to detect structural damage from measured structural response. In this regard, strain gages were used to measure structural response from live loads. Data used during experimentation was gathered through the testing of a full-scale concrete bridge mockup. The test captured the response of the mock-up bridge utilizing 24 transversely oriented resistance-based strain gages under similar loading conditions, but with different levels of damage induced. There are three levels of damage the bridge was subjected to; crash-induced damage to the barrier, transverse cut on the entire barrier, and transverse cut along …

Concurrent Measurements Of Inflow, Power Performance And Loads For A Grid-Synchronized Cross-Flow Turbine Operating In A Tidal Estuary, Patrick W. O'Byrne

Master's Theses and Capstones

The adaptation of sustainable fluid energy conversion technologies, such as wind or tidalenergy, requires numerical modeling tools that are able to accurately predict device performance and loading in an effort to reduce the costs of turbines, deployment platforms and mooring structures. To validate models, data sets from turbines operating in real flow environments are required. Particularly for tidal energy, data sets of inflow (tidal current resource), power performance (electrical power and shaft speed), and thrust loading for any scale device are rare because the work to date has largely been funded by private developers and the data is not made …

Identifying And Enhancing Key Competencies For Emergency Nursing In Rural Alaska: A Quality Improvement Project, Denise Plano

DNP Scholarly Projects

Identifying and

Enhancing Key Competencies for Emergency Nursing in Rural Alaska:

A Quality Improvement Project

Denise Plano

University of New Hampshire

Faculty Mentor: Cathleen Colleran, DNP

Practice Mentor: Lynn Van Vactor, RN CPHQ

Content Expert: Marianne Murray, DNP

Date of Submission: April 19, 2022

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Rural nurses practice in challenging environments that include remote villages and towns. They are faced with providing emergency care to patients without the resources that are available at larger tertiary hospitals. Low volume and high-risk scenarios challenge the nurse's ability to maintain competencies and respond to emergent patient needs. Identifying the most critical competencies …

Implementation Of A Standardized Suicide Risk Screening Tool: An Improvement Project In A University Counseling Center, Clint Emmett

DNP Scholarly Projects

This article describes a quality improvement project undertaken at the University of Idaho Counseling and Testing Center (CTC). This quality improvement project describes the use of the Ask Suicide Questions (ASQ) screening tool to accurately assess the severity of suicide risk during an initial assessment or crisis visit. Clinicians were provided with education and demonstration of the ASQ and shown how to incorporate this tool into their practice. 86 eligible appointments were included in the project for analysis. Simple descriptive statistics were used to present the resulting data. Results indicate that 30.3% of eligible appointments were screened. 43.8% of clinicians …

Optimizing Mental Health Care By Increasing Access Services Through Evidenced-Based Mhealth Applications, Barbara Laganiere

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: The COVID pandemic has disrupted mental health services leading to an increased need for mental health support. Nearly half of all adults in the United States have reported worry and stress leading to a rise in feelings of anxiety. Currently, there is a mental health workforce shortage, impacting the available treatment services. Mobile Health (mHealth) applications can help bridge the gap in the availability of these services and potentially improve health outcomes through education, social support, self-managed care, and patient-provider communication.

PURPOSE: The purpose is to optimize mental health care and access to services by leveraging the use of …

Workplace Violence Prevention For Nurses And Healthcare Workers In The State Of Maine A Health Policy Initiative, Gretchen Forsley

DNP Scholarly Projects

Abstract

Background: Health care workplace violence is a pervasive and persistent problem, underreported, and when reported it is tolerated, excused, or ignored. Prior to the pandemic, the “normal” demands of a stressful workplace for a resilient nurse might include short staffing, a lack of resources, violence, bullying, and disruptive behaviors from patients or families. Since the pandemic, the rates of increasing healthcare violence can be attributed to several factors such as delays in care and services, reducing admissions and procedures, consistent understaffing, a lack of adequate mental health services, increased violence against women, limited or no visitor policies, low-security coverage, …

Engaging Nurses In Public Policy, Carlene Ferrier

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background: Nurses have been engaged in public policy since the inception of the profession. Academicians and thought leaders recognize the importance of nurses engaging in public policy to improve health and healthcare. Nurses are also the largest healthcare group and the most trusted profession for twenty years, yet they are minimally represented in the state and federal legislature. Nurses possess a skill set that is directly transferable to the policy arena such as listening and communicating effectively, leading by inspiring a shared vision, applying evidence-based research, and collaborating and building relationships to achieve a common goal. Locally, the New Hampshire …

Impact Of Literacy On Obesity And Hypertension: A Quality Improvement Project, Stephanie Penney

DNP Scholarly Projects

Social determinants of health (SDoH) are defined as factors, including things such as food security, housing, literacy, finances, and work and school environments, that affect health risks and outcomes (About Social, 2021). Healthcare disparities are often affected by one’s social determinants. National data shows low-income populations present with considerable unmet needs, including food, housing, clothing, and quality health care. Closing the health disparities gap has long been the focus of healthcare organizations across the board. The care coordination model (CCM) enables organizations to improve care through collaboration. CCM looks at care coordination from the perspective of a patient-centered medical home. …

Implementation And Evaluation Of A Psychoeducation Training Program For Correctional Psychiatric Nurses, Katie Lyn Araja

DNP Scholarly Projects

This article describes a quality improvement project undertaken at a northeastern prison focusing on the psychiatric hospital unit. The project's primary aim is to implement training in nurse-led psychoeducation groups for psychiatric hospital unit nurses with the outcome of increasing confidence and competency through improved self-efficacy. The secondary aim of this project is to positively impact the psychiatric hospital unit nurses' intuition as a component of clinical decision-making through skill training that improves KSAs and care delivery to the highest level of the nurses' licensure. Participating nurses received pre and post-intervention surveys, including the Psychiatric Nurse Self-Efficacy Scales and the …

Tackling Burnout: Investing In Nurse Managers To Secure The Future Of Nursing, Enhance Manager Effectiveness, And Support High Quality Patient Care, Corey French

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background: Burnout is a widespread, pervasive issue the healthcare industry. Many efforts related to burnout reduction have been focused on front line caregivers but there is continued opportunity to address burnout in leadership. The global aim of this quality improvement project was to reduce burnout among the nursing leadership team at a large, academic medical center in the greater Boston area.

Problem Description: A preliminary survey was completed to assess for the presence of burnout within the leadership team. Results revealed that more than half of the nurse leaders surveyed were experiencing burnout at least 50% of the time. This …

Promoting A Culture Of Self-Care: Application Of A Caring Science Framework To Prevent Nursing Faculty Burnout, Angela M. Braswell

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: Threats to nurses’ well-being from chronic workplace stress often leads to burnout. Lack of self-care contributes to nursing faculty burnout due to the inability to maintain well-being. Emerging evidence points to theory guided self-caring practices as effective coping strategies to manage the negative effects of workplace environments on well-being.

METHODS: This quality improvement project aimed to provide nursing faculty and staff in the academic workplace with opportunities to cultivate and enhance self-care practices to promote overall health and well-being following principles of Caring Science and Jean Watson’s 10 Caritas Processes^®. A multifaceted set of interventions were provided: …

Implementation Of A Standardized Medication Reconciliation Protocol In A Psychiatric Stabilization Setting, Sara Robinson

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: Medication errors are a prevalent patient safety concern across healthcare settings. High-quality medication reconciliation is an intervention and expected standard of care that can help to prevent adverse drug events. This quality improvement project focused on implementing a standardized medication reconciliation protocol on a short-stay psychiatric unit.

INTERVENTION: An evidence-based toolkit supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Medications at Transitions and Clinical Handoffs (MATCH) was selected as the framework for developing and implementing this protocol.

Congruent with the evidence-based toolkit recommendations, baseline data collection and needs assessment provided context for tailoring the intervention to the …

Implementing A Health-Related Quality Of Life Assessment Tool In An Outpatient Hematology/Oncology Clinic: A Pilot Quality Improvement Project, Jennifer Holl

DNP Scholarly Projects

BACKGROUND: Although overall and disease-free survival remain the goals of cancer care, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) during and after treatment is increasingly acknowledged as vital to the patient’s outcomes. The purpose of this project was to identify and implement a valid, reliable HRQOL assessment tool into daily clinical practice in an outpatient hematology/oncology clinic at a 25-bed critical access hospital in rural New Hampshire.

METHODS: This project used a methodological design. Descriptive and inferential statistics, plus qualitative analysis were used to determine results. Three nurses and seven patients participated in this quality improvement project.

INTERVENTIONS: The interventions …

Feeding Different Iodine Sources To Dairy Cows: Effects On Colostrum Production And Growth And Health Of Their Calves, Kayla Renee Johnston

Master's Theses and Capstones

Limited research exists on supplementing seaweeds to prepartum cows and its effects on colostrum production and development of their calves in-utero and after birth. The high iodine (I) concentration of seaweeds is concerning, and previous research have shown that excess I supplementation to ewes inhibits immunoglobulin G (IgG) absorption in their lambs. The objectives of this study were: (1) evaluate the effects of incremental amounts of Ascophyllum nodosum (ASCO) meal supplementation (0, 57, and 113 g/d) to prepartum cows on colostrum production and subsequent growth, health, and blood concentrations of glucose, β-hydroxybutyric acid (BHBA), and thyroid hormones (TH) of their …

Seasonal Assessments Of Bioregeneration In Slow Sand Filters Amended With Granular Activated Carbon, Katherine R. Morsefield

Master's Theses and Capstones

The application of slow sand filtration (SSF) has conventionally proven to be a reliable and relatively inexpensive means of producing potable drinking water for decades. As technologies in drinking water treatment continue to advance, innovations to the design and operation of slow sand filtration have the ability to transform its contribution in municipal and industrial settings. SSF amended with granular activated carbon (GAC) has been on the rise in recent decades due to its ability to improve the removal of organic material, while allowing SSF to maintain its innate treatment simplicity.

A slow sand filter amended with granular activated carbon …