Digital Commons Network^™

Reconstruction Of The Professional Identity: The Mature Ad Nurse After Bsn Completion, Constance G. Demmery

Dissertations

In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) announced a key initiative to increase the number of registered nurses (RN) at the bedside prepared at the baccalaureate of science in nursing (BSN) level. For decades, the RN entry level into the profession has been debated, often lying dormant during nursing shortages. The profile of today's RN is age 50, has many years of clinical experience, and holds an associate degree in nursing (ADN). Many ADN-prepared nurses are returning to academia to earn their BSN. However, there is little research on how the mature, experienced ADN integrates years of clinical experience with …

Exploring The Relationship Between Job Satisfaction And Intent To Remain Within An Organization Among Millenial Nursing Faculty, Kristie E. Davis-Collins

Dissertations

The nursing faculty shortage continues to grow with time with impending detrimental effects. Several factors influence the nursing faculty shortage, including inadequate compensation to clinical areas, low pool of potential nurse educators in graduate programs, and a faculty wave of retirements. Based on this information, it is vital for nursing institutions to improve job satisfaction and the intent to remain among millennial nursing faculty. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between job satisfaction and intent to remain within an organization among millennial nursing faculty. A cross-sectional, correlational research design was used to test the hypotheses of …

The Effects Of Disinformation Upon National Attitudes Towards The Eu And Its Institutions, Alex Murphy

Dissertations

This work explores the effects of misinformation and disinformation upon national attitudes towards the EU. Several nations, in particular the Russian Federation, have been working for decades to spread narratives that debase the political processes of healthy democracies around the world. There is strong evidence to show that extensive efforts have been made to disrupt the inner workings and overall membership of the EU, to support disruptive policies in the United States such that political deadlock is maintained indefinitely. These efforts are largely based on the spreading of misinformation and disinformation across social networks that have done very little to …

Development Of A Hospital Discharge Planning System Augmented With A Neural Clinical Decision Support Engine, David Mulqueen

Dissertations

The process of discharging patients from a tertiary care hospital, is one of the key activities to ensure the efficient and effective operation of a hospital. However, the decision to discharge a patient from a hospital is complex, as it requires multiple interactions with nurses, family, consultants, health information records and doctors, which can be very time consuming and prone to error. This thesis descries how a neural network based Clinical Decision Support system can be developed, to help in the decision making process and dramatically reduce the time and effort in running the discharge process in a hospital. A …

Variation In Organizational Factors Influencing The Implementation Of The Pediatric Annual Physical Therapy Visit, Katherine Anne M. Smith

Dissertations

Hypothesis and Research Question

The research hypothesis is “Organizational Factors influencing the implementation of the Pediatric Annual Physical Therapy Visit (PAPTV) vary by practice setting, geographic location, and experience implementing the PAPTV.” The related research question is “How do organizational factors influencing the implementation of the PAPTV vary by geographic location, practice setting, and therapists experience with the PAPTV?

Problem and Purpose of Research

While health promotion and wellness (HPW) initiatives are widely accepted as beneficial to both the patient and the healthcare system, the rollout of new initiatives is often challenging. The PAPTV has been a significant HPW initiative …

Shallow Subsurface Seismic Velocity And Event Location At The Apollo 17 Landing Site, Deanna Phillips

Dissertations

The origins of thermal moonquakes reveal insight into the evolution of the lunar surface through cyclic thermal stresses. While thermal moonquakes were observed during the passive Apollo 17 Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (LSPE), they have never conclusively been located. Using a shallow surface velocity model, thermal moonquakes can be located by minimizing the residual between the observed and theoretical travel times. The purpose of this study is to determine the source mechanism of thermal moonquakes to understand cyclic thermal stresses impacting lunar boulder breakdown. This study develops a location algorithm and explores the affects of various shallow surface velocity models. …

Regulation Of Rare Genetic Variation In Human Disease, Carter Wright

Dissertations

Genomic technologies are used to analyze genetic information. The work described focused on multiple sequencing applications to evaluate the impact of genetic variation in patients with disease. Whole genome sequencing, RNA-sequencing, and ChIP-sequencing were performed to identify variants, understand gene expression, and determine the differences in chromatin structure that contribute to cellular and organismal phenotypes. My thesis work describes the use of computational tools to analyze genomic data with the goal of understanding acquired genetic and epigenetic variation in cancer as well as inherited variation associated with rare neurological disease. Whole genome sequencing yielded a diagnostic rate of 53 percent …

Hyperinsulinemic Lew.1wr1 Rats Develop Insulin Resistance And Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, Madushika M. Wimalarathne

Dissertations

The pathophysiological causes of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) development are not fully understood but are often associated with hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance and ectopic lipid accumulation. A subpopulation of type 1 diabetes patients develops the pathophysiological parameters to be termed “double diabetes,” which is associated with NASH. The objective of this work was to identify metabolic features of double diabetes and assess if LEW.1WR1 rats develop NASH. I assessed pathophysiologically relevant protein changes using proteomics and western blotting. I found that 17-week-old LEW.1WR1 rats showed protein changes related to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a precursor to NASH. We tested a second population …

Contributions To Data Compression Research For Various Media Formats Using Particle Swarm Optimization And Neural Networks, Reetu Hooda

Dissertations

Advancement in high resolution devices used to capture images and videos has put strain on data storage and transmission. For their practical usage, efficient data compression techniques becomes essential. In this context, we conducted a study on compression of two media formats, including ROI maps of hyperspectral images, and 3D point clouds. For lossless compression of ROI maps, we proposed novel schemes that can achieve high compression ratios by partitioning the intricate regions of the image into smaller blocks. Our analysis of a linear predictive model applied on the original images showed that the resulting residual images tend to have …

Understanding The Sequence Specificity Of Ribosome Arresting Peptides, Heather Nicole Gentle

Dissertations

Regulatory arrest peptides (RAPs) fine-tune gene expression based on physiological cues from internal and external environments. These peptides, generated from upstream open reading frames in bacteria and eukaryotes, function by conditionally arresting the ribosome to control the fate of associated messenger RNAs (mRNA). Commonly, RAPs contain two functional domains composed of conserved residues that are critical for ribosome arrest called the sensor and stalling domains. The sensor domain allows the peptide to monitor outside or within the ribosome for its inducer molecule by folding into secondary structures that produce a binding site. The stalling domain slows the rate of translation …

Analysis Of Cryptic Variation Affecting Splicing In Early-Onset Mendelian Disease, Stephanie A. Felker

Dissertations

Genetic variants with poor annotation or unknown biological consequence are often systematically excluded in genomic analysis. Here I analyze variants near "poison exons” which are often absent from standard gene annotations and are alternative exons whose inclusion results in a premature termination codon. Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) often result from rare genetic variation, but the genomic testing yield for NDDs remains around 50%, suggesting some clinically relevant rare variants may be missed by standard analyses. Variants that alter poison exons inclusion can lead to loss-of-function and may be highly penetrant contributors to disease. I analyzed variants found by genome sequencing in …

Semantic Deduplication Of Redundant And Non-Conformant Data In Temporal Domains, Jon C. Rogers

Dissertations

Semantic deduplication is the process of identifying records that describe or are derivative of the same entity and is a crucial task when merging data pulled at different times and/or from multiple sources. Failure to resolve these duplicates may bias the data and the applications and models that use them. Duplicates may range in nature from exact matches to more interesting cases where the data differs due to syntactic representation, missing or updated information, or adversarial transforms. The implications of duplication may go beyond redundancy to include recognizing critical information updates, error detection, and identifying similar behaviors. This task is …

Airborne Passive Microwave Geophysical Retrievals And Applications In Assessing Environmental And Aerosol Impacts On Maritime Convection, Corey G. Amiot

Dissertations

Improvements to NASA’s Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) have yielded physically realistic brightness temperatures (T_b) from the Olympic Mountains Experiment / Radar Definition Experiment (OLYMPEX/RADEX) and Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP²Ex). Multi-linear regression equations, developed to retrieve integrated cloud liquid water (CLW), water vapor (WV), and 10-m wind speed (WS), were tested using simulations, deconvolved AMPR T_b from OLYMPEX/RADEX, independent retrievals, and in situ data. Simulated retrievals yielded average CLW, WV, and WS root-mean-square deviations (RMSD) of 0.11 kg m^-2, 1.28 kg m^-2, and 1.11 m s^{-1 …}

Effects Of Pressure Side Film Cooling Hole Placement And Configuration On Surface Heat Transfer Characteristics Of A Transonic Turbine Squealer Blade Tip, Hallie Collopy

Dissertations

Investigated are the effects of pressure side film cooling hole placement and configuration on the surface heat transfer characteristics of a transonic turbine squealer blade tip. Eight different blade tip arrangements are investigated, which are denoted C1, C2, C3, B1, B2, B3, B4, and 8D. Data are provided which include spatially-resolved and line-averaged distributions of heat transfer coefficient ratio and adiabatic film cooling effectiveness. The SS/TS/WT (supersonic/transonic/wind tunnel) blow down facility is employed with a transonic test section containing a five blade linear cascade. Spatially-resolved surface heat transfer characteristics are measured using transient infrared thermography, and an impulse response transient …

Design And Synthesis Of Earth Abundant Transition Metal Catalysts For Selective Oxidation Of Light Alkanes And Olefins, Muntaseer Bunian

Dissertations

Production of value-added chemicals by way of selective oxidation of hydrocarbons presents a prospect of establishing a new process that is sustainable and capable of providing an optimum product yield at a lower cost. Selective oxidation reactions involve hydrogen abstraction from appropriate sites from the hydrocarbons and insertion of oxygen while ensuring a stop at partial oxidation product without further oxidation and thus maximizing the production of the desired products. Earth-abundant transition metals, such as Fe and Ni, can be selective and active in such reactions when synthesized with specific structures. In Chapter 3, we primarily focus on identifying the …

Ultrafast Photoelectron Transportation In Gaas And Gaas-Based Devices, Rui Zhou

Dissertations

Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) is one of the most important semiconductors in the field of photonics and has been the focus of extensive studies since the 1960s. In particular, GaAs photonic devices such as GaAs diode lasers and GaAs photocathodes have attracted tremendous interest owing to their superb features and wide ranges of applications. Despite the success of past research, the advancement of new theoretical models and experimental techniques continues to offer new insights into the properties of GaAs and the potentials of GaAs photonic devices. The work presented in this dissertation represents our most recent effort towards understanding the ultrafast …

A Qualitative Study Of The Time Of Completion For African Graduate Students At Andrews University, George Opoku

Dissertations

Problem

International students are an important part of higher education institutions because they bring in funds, they enhance the diversity, and increase the knowledge being shared (Srivastava et al., 2010; Luo & Jamieson-Drake, 2013; Ongo, 2019; Knight, 2007; Pandit, K., 2007; Baklashova & Kazakov, 2016). Therefore, if retention is not monitored and maintained, the United States could soon lose this important group to other countries with more competitive retention plans (Srivastava, 2010, p. 1561). Andrews University is one school in the U.S. that already shows signs of retention issues among international students, including African international students. There are several challenges …

Impact Of The Regionalization Of Universidad De Antioquia In The Development Of Human Capital And Improvement Of The Equity In The Region Of Urabá, Monica Castaño Mejía

Dissertations

Problem

In Colombia, higher education plays a relevant role in developing human capital and equity, giving everyone the opportunity to access higher education. In particular, the government has been supporting public and private universities to open campuses in rural areas where guerrillas, the mafia, and paramilitary groups were fighting the government to dominate the territories. In 1995, the government of the State of Antioquia officially established the regionalization of higher education as a strategy to promote higher education in disadvantaged regions. The Universidad de Antioquia (Universidad de Antioquia) adopted that strategy as part of its development plans during the last …

Evaluation Of Communication Sciences And Disorders Graduate Student Attitudes Related To Trauma-Informed Client Interactions, Jenica Joseph

Dissertations

Problem

Communication sciences and disorders (CSD) graduate students may have trauma histories and may be ill-equipped to identify and manage trauma responses in clients. This mixed-methods study examined graduate student attitudes towards implementing trauma-informed educational practice (TIEP) methods and trauma-informed patient care.

Method

The Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) Scale (Baker et al., 2016) quantitatively measured pretest/posttest changes in CSD graduate student attitudes towards use of trauma-informed care with clients. Participants (n=43) were assigned to non-equivalent experimental and control groups. Groups received the pre/posttest and either an immediate (experimental) or delayed (control) trauma-informed educational session. Twenty-one participants completed focus …

Associating High School Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math (Stem) Course-Taking With Future Earnings For Non-Stem Employed High School Graduates, Beth Marchant

Dissertations

Problem

Due to the current resurgence of attention given to high school students' taking courses in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), research was needed to examine whether a relationship between the number of STEM courses a high school student, who graduates from high school and works in a non-STEM field, completes and the success of that student 10 years later. One measure of student success, future earnings, can be measured quantitatively and is included in the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:2002) data set, an ideal source of information to evaluate this issue (Institute of Education Sciences, 2019b).

Method …

A Computational Model Of Trust Based On Dynamic Interaction In The Stack Overflow Community, Patrick O’Neill

Dissertations

A member’s reputation in an online community is a quantified representation of their trustworthiness within the community. Reputation is calculated using rules-based algorithms which are primarily tied to the upvotes or downvotes a member receives on posts. The main drawback of this form of reputation calculation is the inability to consider dynamic factors such as a member’s activity (or inactivity) within the community. The research involves the construction of dynamic mathematical models to calculate reputation and then determine to what extent these results compare with rules-based models. This research begins with exploratory research of the existing corpus of knowledge. Constructive …

Exploring Gender Bias In Semantic Representations For Occupational Classification In Nlp: Techniques And Mitigation Strategies, Joseph Michael O'Carroll

Dissertations

Gender bias in Natural Language Processing (NLP) models is a non-trivial problem that can perpetuate and amplify existing societal biases. This thesis investigates gender bias in occupation classification and explores the effectiveness of different debiasing methods for language models to reduce the impact of bias in the model’s representations. The study employs a data-driven empirical methodology focusing heavily on experimentation and result investigation. The study uses five distinct semantic representations and models with varying levels of complexity to classify the occupation of individuals based on their biographies.

Evaluating The Performance Of Vulkan Glsl Compute Shaders In Real-Time Ray-Traced Audio Propagation Through 3d Virtual Environments, James Buggy

Dissertations

Real time ray tracing is a growing area of interest with applications in audio processing. However, real time audio processing comes with strict performance requirements, which parallel computing is often used to overcome. As graphics processing units (GPUs) have become more powerful and programmable, general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) has allowed GPUs to become extremely powerful parallel processors, leading them to become more prevalent in the domain of audio processing through platforms such as CUDA. The aim of this research was to investigate the potential of GLSL compute shaders in the domain of real time audio processing. Specifically …

Evaluation Of Text Transformers For Classifying Sentiment Of Reviews By Using Tf-Idf, Bert (Word Embedding), Sbert (Sentence Embedding) With Support Vector Machine Evaluation, Mina Jamshidian

Dissertations

As the online world evolves and new media emerge, consumers are sharing their reviews and opinions online. This has been studied in various academic fields, including marketing and computer science. Sentiment analysis, a technique used to identify the sentiment of a piece of text, has been researched in different domains such as movie reviews and mobile app ratings. However, the video game industry has received relatively little research on experiential products. The purpose of this study is to apply sentiment analysis to user reviews of games on Steam, a popular gaming platform, in order to produce actionable results. The video …

Application Of Shallow Neural Networks To Retail Intermittent Demand Time Series, Urko Allende

Dissertations

Accurate sales predictions are essential for businesses in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. However, their demand forecasts are often unreliable, leading to imprecisions that affect downstream decisions. This dissertation proposes using an artificial neural network to improve intermittent demand forecasting in the retail sector. The research investigates the validity of using unprocessed historical information, eluding hand-crafted features, to learn patterns in intermittent demand data. The experiment tests a selection of shallow neural network architectures that can expedite the time-to-market in comparison to conventional demand forecasting methods. The results demonstrate that organisations that still rely on manual and direct forecasting …

Explaining Deep Q-Learning Experience Replay With Shapley Additive Explanations, Robert S. Sullivan

Dissertations

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has shown promise in optimizing complex control and decision-making processes but Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) lacks interpretability, limiting its adoption in regulated sectors like manufacturing, finance, and healthcare. Difficulties arise from DRL’s opaque decision-making, hindering efficiency and resource use, this issue is amplified with every advancement. While many seek to move from Experience Replay to A3C, the latter demands more resources. Despite efforts to improve Experience Replay selection strategies, there is a tendency to keep capacity high. This dissertation investigates training a Deep Convolutional Q-learning agent across 20 Atari games, in solving a control task, physics task, …

The Use Of Data Balancing Algorithms To Correct For The Under-Representation Of Female Patients In A Cardiovascular Dataset, Sian Miller

Dissertations

Given that women are under-represented in medical datasets, and that machine learning classification algorithms are known to exhibit bias towards the majority class, the growing application of machine learning in the medical field risks resulting in worse medical outcomes for female patients. The Heart Failure Prediction (HFP) dataset is a historical dataset used for the training of models for the prediction of heart disease. This dataset contains significantly fewer female patients than male patients, and as such it is expected that models trained using this data will inherit a gender bias to favour male patients. This dissertation explores the use …

Probability Expressions In Ai Decision Support: Impacts On Human+Ai Team Performance, Elias Spinn

Dissertations

AI decision support systems aim to assist people in highly complex and consequential domains to make efficient, effective, and high-quality decisions. AI alone cannot be guaranteed to be correct in these complex decision tasks, and a human is often needed to ensure decision accuracy. The ambition is for these human+ AI teams to perform better together than either would individually. To realise this, decision makers must trust their AI partners appropriately, knowing when to rely on their recommendations and when to be sceptical. However, research has shown that decision makers often either mistrust and underutilise these systems, or trust them …

Modelling And Mitigating Interlocutor Confusion In Situated Human-Avatar And Human-Robot Interaction, Na Li

Dissertations

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is an important but challenging field focused on improving the interaction between humans and robots, to make the interaction more intelligent and effective. However, building a natural conversational HRI is an interdisciplinary challenge for scholars, engineers, and designers. Achieving successful conversational interaction with a social robot necessitates not only observing a user’s active participation in the interaction but also being aware of their emotional and attitudinal states as the interaction progresses. On the topic of attitudinal states, one field that has received little attention to date is monitoring the user for possible confusion states. Confusion is a …

Model-Free Control Methods For Gait And Standing Push Recovery In Bipedal Humanoid Robots, Jerry Sweafford Jr.

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of model-free control methods in various aspects of effective balance and gait control for two-legged humanoid robots. It explores what it should mean to improve balance and gait control for robots and proposes gait fragility as an alternative framework to the prevailing yet undefined dynamic stability objective. Next, it presents techniques for trajectory tracking control without deriving dynamic models, using modifications of the conventional reinforcement learning approach. Finally, it explores the use of deep online reinforcement learning with disturbance and assistance curricula for learning standing push recovery in bipeds.