Digital Commons Network^™

Sensory Interfaces: Intelligent Surgical Box Trainer, Krystal York

Honors Theses

The Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) box trainer currently offers medical students the opportunity to practice their dexterity with laparoscopic surgical tools and accustom themselves to the disconnect between their actions and their visible frame of reference. However, at this stage the box trainer offers few ways to test, practice, or improve upon important factors in laparoscopic surgery including disturbance of and pressure applied to patient tissue. The purpose of this project was to add sensory interfaces to the FLS box trainer to offer more concrete feedback for medical students practicing the required tasks, consolidate the information gathered by the …

What Roles Does Food Sovereignty Play In Exposing The Consequences Of Globalization, And In Conveying Solutions To The Consequences Of Globalization Pertaining To Food Access In West Africa And U.S. Midwest?, Nia Evans

Honors Theses

The social problem being studied is food access in the U.S. Midwest in comparison to food access in Western Africa. In the Midwest U.S., there is a problem of food deserts. There are primarily urban areas where there is a lack of physical access to healthy foods because there is a lack of stores or vendors that sell it. An investigation exposed whether or not the same problem exists in Western Africa. The research question is the following: What role does food sovereignty play in exposing the consequences of globalization, and in conveying solutions to the consequences of globalization in …

Perceived Sources Of Academic Stress In The Nursing Program, Iana Fontanilla

Honors Theses

University students in health disciplines face many different sources of stress and challenges during their experience in their individual programs. However, a study shows that baccalaureate nursing students experience higher levels of stress as well as higher levels of physiological and psychological symptoms than students in other health-related disciplines (Beck et al., 1997). In order to create interventions to improve student performance and self-efficacy in the nursing program, both the professors and students in the program must understand the most significant stressors that can negatively impact the overall performance of the nursing students.

A survey was conducted to identify the …

Low Acuity Pediatric Patients Presenting Uncomplicated Colds And Nonspecific Upper Respiratory Symptoms In U.S. Emergency Departments, Margaret Berry

Honors Theses

Emergency departments serve as the nation’s hub for patients faced with life-threatening injuries and illnesses. Although the role of emergency departments (EDs) may seem clear by its title, U.S EDs are overcrowded with patients presenting nonurgent symptoms. A significant population of nonurgent ED users are pediatric patients presenting nonspecific upper respiratory symptoms and uncomplicated colds. Findings have uncovered that although pediatric upper respiratory infections (URIs) are one of the most uncommon reasons for hospital admittance from an ED, it is one of the most common reasons pediatric patients are brought into emergency departments. It appears that inappropriate facility usage is …

Western Michigan University’S Department Of Dance Marketing Plan, Cassandra Hartline

Honors Theses

The following report constitutes the formal marketing plan for the department of dance at Western Michigan University. This plan is intended to synthesize all of the marketing related information pertinent to Western’s dance department and provide easy one step access to this material at any time. The other purpose of this plan is to dictate the primary objectives the department is looking to accomplish through implementation of marketing tactics.

The first primary objective includes increasing visibility of the department of dance as a whole to both our primary and secondary target audiences; the second objective is to create innovative marketing …

Healthcare Resources For The Deaf Community: A Study Of Kalamazoo Area Hospitals, Rachel Kellogg

Honors Theses

Hospitals need to analyze all patient care delivery methods, and especially those designated for vulnerable populations. The Deaf community is a particularly unique and often overlooked vulnerable population because of the additional communication barriers that they possess. The goal for this research is to look at the current best practices for communication and treatment in hospitals from the perspective of the Deaf community. This research also looks at how or if these practices are being carried out in community hospitals. In order to obtain this information, interview questions were developed with the help of an ASL interpreter and two interviews …

Enhance A Deep Neural Network Model For Twitter Sentiment Analysis By Incorporating A User-Level Information, Ahmed Sulaiman M Alharbi

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Most existing sentiment classification methods for social media focus on document-level classification. They utilize local text information and ignore the crucial characteristic information of users. These methods usually suffer from high model complexity and only exhibit word-level preference.

Therefore, motivated by the successful utilization of deep neural networks in computer vision, speech recognition and natural language processing and their ability of learning in multi-prospective ways, a neural network based sentiment analysis model is proposed to incorporate user-level information into sentiment classification.

By user-level information we mean information extracted or inferred from the user that helps the proposed model to engage …

Data Driven Decision Making: Utilizing Alumni Perspectives In Strategic Management, Robert Welton

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The most basic premise of macro-economic states that as prices for a good or service increase, demand decreases. As shown below, the cost of higher education in Michigan compares unfavorable to the rest of the nation. In order to remain viable in an age of worldwide competition for students, WMU (and more specifically SPAA) will need to identify marketable areas of competitive advantage as well as opportunities for programmatic improvement.

Western News, April 13, 2017, Western Michigan University

Western News (1972-2018)

Story highlights: Economist; labor expert is new WMU president, WMU; K College grant bolsters Asia-related classes, Theatre professor wins NEH grant, Counselor earns local NAACP award, Arbor Day to salute Dunns, Spring semester Make a Difference winners to be feted at April 17 reception, On Campus with Chris Hummel, Honorary degree to be awarded to Antonio Flores

Reach For The Stars, Jill Heilborn

Honors Theses

Literacy is a huge topic today, both in education and in politics. Many are asking questions like: How do we define it? How do we support its development? What is inhibiting literacy? Some programs, such as Read and Write Kalamazoo (RAWK), are working hard to support and encourage literacy in communities. I was able to work with RAWK to plan and teach a 4 hour Saturday workshop (for middle schoolers in the community) called "Reach for the Stars". It combined learning about astronomy with reading and writing.

In my thesis is a portfolio of pieces, which include:

- Literacy Narrative, …

Encore Dance Costume Rental: A Business Plan, Aubrey Utting

Honors Theses

Dance can be very expensive to participate in. One of the things making dance expensive is the high prices of dance costumes. Encore Dance Costume Rental helps solve the problem of expensive dance costumes by using a rental business model instead of traditional dance costume sales. This business plan details how this business will operate and create value for its customers.

Communicator, April 2017, Western Michigan University

Communicator: School of Communication Newsletter

• Sports Media students getting real-world experience with ESPN3
• J Gabriel Ware, a School of Communication undergraduate alum and current MA student, is one of the summer 2017 Chips Quinn Scholars
• WMU journalism students take over Encore

Assessing Inter-Professional Teamwork Through Low-Fidelity Simulation, Lisa Singleterry, Sally Vliem, Kristine Gibson, Scott Gaynor

Assessment Grants

In 2003, it was determined that health-related education needed to shift from discipline-specific silos and into the arena of inter-professional teams. Given this goal, teamwork – which includes communication and the opportunity to learn about, with, and from multiple health disciplines – is the focus of this assessment grant. A sub-group of the faculty in training team of WMU professionals accelerating clinical education redesign (PACER) chose to utilize a low-fidelity simulation (one which uses verbal descriptions, case studies, discussion and role play to explore a particular topic, engaging all simulation participants in an active learning atmosphere) for medical students, clinical …

Pre-Service Teachers Establishing Professional Identities In The 21st Century, Hsiao-Chin Kuo, Susan Piazza

Assessment Grants

This project investigates how pre-service teachers document their developing professional identities and learning outcomes through an ePortfolio assignment. The goal is to strengthen the program’s ability to improve and document student learning outcomes. Direct measures that determine the development of effective teachers is becoming more challenging with traditional paper and print-based artifacts. An increasing number of programs in higher education utilize web-based portfolios to measure learning outcomes. The ePortfolio developed in an undergraduate literacy course will make use of formative and summative assessments. Data is collected via multiple sources, including pre-service teachers’ ePortfolios and other class artifacts, classroom observations and …

Honing In On What To Measure, Kristen Mckinney

Assessment in Action Conference

Institutional and departmental outcomes are framed in necessarily broad terms as we articulate the key values and goals of our work. Bridging the gap between those broad outcomes and more tailored and measurable program and service specific outcomes can be difficult. This session will present some ideas and strategies for developing outcomes and guide participants through the process of drafting outcomes for their own programs.

Topic Generation And Development In The Freshman Research Paper, Edward J. Eckel

Assessment Grants

This study will help better understand the cognitive process students go through in developing their research paper topics by examining how students in selected sections of a freshman engineering writing class come up with an initial topic for their course research paper, how they refine or develop that topic into something they can find adequate research on, and how they shape that topic into a purpose statement for their final research paper. Research methodologies include short online surveys, in-person interviews at the end of the semester, and use of a rubric to assess the final submitted purpose statements for their …

The Socializer-Spring 2017, Department Of Sociology

The Socializer

Spring 2017 Sociology departmental newsletter.

College Of Arts And Sciences: Spring 2017, College Of Arts And Sciences

College of Arts and Sciences news

• Collegiate Pathways program allows students to earn the full Chinese language minor offered by WMU while still enrolled in high school.
• With six Fulbright scholars, four of whom are Arts and Sciences faculty, WMU is hailed as a top producer among the nation's research universities.
• Dr. Jeffrey Angles, professor of Japanese, is one of only a handful of non-native speakers ever to win Japan's Yomiuri Prize for Literature.
• Sports media students are getting real-world experience with ESPN3.
• Alum featured in CBS show: Dr. Jim Olson (B.S. '84, Biomedical Sciences) "lights up" brain tumors so neurosurgeons can see cancer.

Special Elements Of Excellence: Spring 2017, Department Of Chemistry

Chemistry News

• Chair's Welcome
• The Science Behind Crafting Beer
• 10 Year Chemistry Building Celebration 8th Annual Research Chemistry Research Day & Spring 2017 Awards
• KALSEC Tour - An Insider's Look
• New Faculty Specialist!
• 2017 Million Dollar Club
• Frontiers in Chemistry Lectureship
• Recent Awards received by Students and Faculty of the WMU Department of Chemistry
• Examples of Published Research from the Faculty of WMU Department of Chemistry

Using Data To Tell Your Story, Kristen Mckinney

Assessment in Action Conference

We are increasingly faced with a dizzying array of options for how to display data. How do we make informed choices about what will really aid the user in telling a compelling story versus those that are just “pretty”? This session will review aspects of visual perception that influence how we process visual information, as well as discuss the messages conveyed by various visual displays and how to select options that best aid the reader in understanding key data points.

April 2017, Global News, Haenicke Institute

Global News

• Governor, honorary degree recipient highlight WMU commencement
• Screening, performance set for world premiere of 'Spirit Moves'
• WMU, K College grant to bolster Asian language and culture classes
• U.C.-Davis prof to focus on economic impact of immigration in Sichel talk
• Take advantage of global engagement opportunities in May
• Experience Chinese culture by taking a class this summer

The Unifying Power Of Education, Keagan Potts, Jenji Learn

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

• Without Expertise or Experience: Philosophizing When Your Students Know You Know Nothing
• Segregated Students — Segregated Society: The Primacy of Education in Ending Hate
• Combatting Emerging Resegregation: Teaching Those in Power to Empower

Are The Leadership Behaviors Of K–12 Leaders In Mid-Western Urban School Districts Influenced By Their Beliefs And Attitudes Regarding Spirituality?, Ericka M. Taylor

Dissertations

Working in a stressful and chaotic environment can be difficult for building principals in urban school districts (DeNisco, 2013; Stokley, 2002; Thompson, 2004). Presumably, the job is only expected to get more arduous with the increasing demands to improve student achievement (Allison, 2012; Kimball & Sirotnik, 2000; Queen & Schumacher, 2006). What is quite apparent today is that the role and responsibilities of the principal have changed dramatically over the past twenty years (Carlson, 2012; Hill-Yeverton, 2003) shifting from a factory model of management of learning to one in which teachers and principals have to create more student-centered and project-based …

Expanding A Path Analytic Model Of Quality Management To Include The Management Of Safety, Bruce J. Ladewski

Dissertations

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) reports that every year 4.1 million American workers are seriously injured from workplace accidents at an annual direct and indirect cost estimated at hundreds of billions (OSHA, 2012). At the public level, actions to reduce the workplace deaths, injuries, and associated costs in the form legislation. At the private level, actions taken include implementing behavior based safety programs focused on various ways of encouraging employee behaviors to reduce reported injuries. The most recent move to drive down worker injuries focuses on the implementation of management systems by adopting principles used to prevent product …

Good Looking In The Dark: A Narrative Across Three Mediums, Aimee J. Valentine

Dissertations

Good Looking in the Dark: A Narrative Across Three Mediums is a single story presented in three distinct formats: short story, stage drama, and graphic narrative. This project is an exploration of the creative process and its relation to medium, reader anticipation, participation and response. Reflecting my position that narrative meaning is made primarily in the dark space of the reader’s mind, the story selected for this project is one that takes place almost entirely in the dark. In Good Looking in the Dark, two strangers are locked in a closet and engage one another without seeing the other—just …

Artificial Immune Systems: Applications, Multi-Class Classification, Optimizations, And Analysis, Brian Haroldo Schmidt

Dissertations

The focus of this research is the application of the Artificial Immune System (AIS) paradigm to a new research area along with the modifications necessary to adapt it to a new problem. In the past 10 years, there has been much research into the use of various Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in Network Flow Traffic Classification. AIS algorithms have thus far not been applied to this problem. Because AIS algorithms have been used extensively for Network Intrusion Detection applications, which is a similar area of research, the motivation to extend them to the network flow classification problem is clear.

This …

Preparing Teachers In English Language Arts: Mentor Teachers Speak, Lindsay J. Jeffers

Dissertations

This narrative inquiry case study brings the voices of mentor teachers into the discourse of English language arts teacher preparation. In a series of interviews, mentor teachers discuss the challenges faced by student teachers, the pedagogical content knowledge needed to teach secondary ELA, and the relationship between secondary schools and universities.

The first theme explores the challenges that are faced by student teachers. Mentor teachers spoke about the difficulty of making the transition from student to secondary teacher and learning how to put theory into practice in their classrooms. They also considered the challenge of student teachers engaging diverse groups …

From Descendants Of Refugees To First-Generation College Students: The Untold Story Of Southeast Asian American College Students’ Lived Experience, Vunsin Hiew Doubblestein

Dissertations

Aggregate data on Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) may show APAs to have exceptionally high educational attainment and economic mobility compared to other racial groups (Museus & Buenavista, 2016). In reality, various APA sub-groups face significant obstacles to academic access and success and are found at both the highest and lowest levels of the achievement, as well as educational attainment and income spectrums. In spite of the growing awareness of and scholarship on the complexity of APA student experience in higher education, there is limited research on Southeast Asian Americans (SEAAs) who have come to the U.S. as refugees, the circumstances …

Justice Involved Veterans’ Post-Release Employment-Related Experiences, James L. Dawson

Dissertations

In 2010, the cost to U.S. taxpayers was $39 billion to incarcerate individuals in State and Federal Correctional facilities. A sub-population of these prisoners is those that have served in the U.S. military, or “Justice Involved Veterans” (JIVs). Many Veterans are eligible for federal and state funds for Career Tech. Education to assist them with obtaining employment, which research shows often contributes to keeping them from re-offending. However, recent studies of employment after prison have all been quantitative investigations that do not incorporate the voices of JIVs describing their experiences in depth. Bush’s (2011), and Bolman and Deal’s (2008) theories …

Western Michigan University Magazine, Spring 2017, Western Michigan University

Western Michigan University Magazine (1997-present)

• A Students’ Prez. A Big-idea Leader. A Dunn Deal. Because of President John M. Dunn, WMU moves into the future with an international reputation for student success, valuable partnerships, innovation and sustainability. His July retirement marks the culmination of a productive presidency.
• Welcome, Dr. Montgomery: Noted public policy expert is WMU’s ninth leader
• Degreed to Succeed: Our latest postgraduate success rate: 92 percent
• Can Biologists Cure What’s Ailing Bats?: A seemingly unstoppable fungus has killed millions
• Archaeological Aspirations: Unearthed Scholarship winner digs into her ambitions
• Foiling Fake News: Catch the untrue before it catches you
• Public Health Defenders: New public …