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The Nursing Clinical Instructor's Rationale, Preparation, And Meaning For The Post-Clinical Conference, Joseph Michael Mucha

Dissertations

Purpose

Nursing education is a complex combination of classroom and clinical instruction. The clinical portion is usually divided into the pre-clinical conference, direct care, and the post-clinical conference. Many goals are listed in the literature as learning outcomes for the post-clinical conference. The purpose of this study was to describe the most important goals, meaning, rationale, and preparation for the post-clinical conference by clinical nursing instructors in associate degree and baccalaureate degree programs.

Method

This study used a survey design with an instrument developed to identify clinical nursing instructors’ meaning, rationale, and preparation for the post-clinical conference. Two open-ended questions …

Hypervirulent Clostridium Difficile Strains: Adherence, Toxin Production And Sporulation, Michelle Marie Merrigan

Dissertations

Clostridium difficile is a leading cause of nosocomial infections, and recently emerged "hypervirulent" C. difficile strains have caused epidemics worldwide. We hypothesized that multiple factors were responsible for this phenotype, particularly the interaction of C. difficile with the epithelial cell, as well as toxin production and sporulation.

To test if host interaction varied in HV strains, we developed a quantitative host-cell adherence assay, and found that while C. difficile strains varied in adherence to human intestinal epithelial cells, hypervirulent strains were not significantly more adherent than other strains. The bacterial surface protein SlpA varied in both size and amount between …

Forced-Exercise Alleviates Neuropathic Pain In Experimental Diabetes: Effects On Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels, Sahadev A. Shankarappa

Dissertations

Exercise is now established as an integral adjunct to the management of diabetes. Diabetic polyneuropathy, a painful complication of diabetes, remains untreatable, emphasizing a critical need for improved therapeutic strategies. Recent evidence suggests that exercise may facilitate recovery of peripheral nerve function in diabetes. However, the mechanism by which exercise protects against diabetes-induced nerve dysfunction is unknown. In this dissertation we hypothesized that forced-exercise protects against experimental DPN by preventing glucose-associated alterations of voltage-gated calcium currents (VGCC) in small diameter dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Using behavioral, nerve-electrophysiology and patch-clamp methodology we examined the functional consequences of forced-exercise (treadmill, 5.4 …

Moral Distress And Avoidance Behavior In Nurses Working In Critical Care And Non-Critical Care Units, Mary Jo De Villers

Dissertations

Significance: Nurses facing impediments to what they perceive as moral practice may experience inner turmoil, frustration, and moral distress. These scenarios may culminate in resignation from employment at the individual level, increased attrition at the systems level, and poor patient outcomes, including increased morbidity and mortality.

Purpose: To explore the relationships between moral distress and avoidance thoughts and behavior between nurses currently practicing in critical care and non-critical care settings.

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional comparative design was used. The sample was comprised of a randomized subset of 370 critical care nurses, a convenience sample of 87 nurses from a nursing …

Joy As Attunement And End In The Philosophies Of Martin Heidegger And Henri Bergson, Justin Albert Harrison

Dissertations

Martin Heidegger claims that attunement is one of the primordial ways in which Dasein understands its world. He focuses on anxiety as the fundamental attunement in which Dasein can more authentically uncover its Being. However, it is necessary to ask if anxiety is the only attunement out of which one can most authentically appropriate Being. Heidegger seems to have an unexamined bias in favor of "negative" attunements (anxiety, boredom) and never undertakes an extended analysis of "positive" moods such as joy or happiness. This dissertation is an examination of joy as a fundamental attunement through the works of Henri Bergson …

The Soul And The Body In Hegel's Anthropology, Nicholas Mowad

Dissertations

I provide a close exegetical reading of Hegel's "anthropology," his doctrine of the human body and soul, located in the first part of the Philosophy of Spirit, volume three of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. In the course of this exegesis I show how Hegel demonstrates that all of the phenomena there under investigation must be understood as at once corporeal and distinctively human. Accordingly, anthropological phenomena should not be understood as essentially the same in humans as it is in animals, though many commentators allege that they should be. I provide a survey of the secondary literature on …

An Experiential Approach To Kant's Moral Philosophy: A Reply To Dogmatism, Formalism And Rigorism, Chris Mctavish

Dissertations

Many of Kant's commentators and critics interpret his moral philosophy solely in terms of the cognitive dimension of his categorical imperative. Such a predominant manner of reading Kant gives rise to the criticism that his moral philosophy is too far removed from the actual way in which human beings orient themselves as moral persons in the world. In response to this general tendency in Kant interpretation, my dissertation proposes to offer an experiential approach to Kant's ethics. By the expression experiential I mean an approach to Kant's thinking that attends to the living sense in which we experience the phenomena …

Agape And Personal Knowledge, Peter Eric Bergeron

Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the connection between love and personal knowledge and what Jesus' life and teaching reveal about the relationship between these. I want to distinguish that form of love or caring that makes relationships personal from those forms, like benevolence or compassion, where the concern is impersonal. It is commonly thought in contemporary Western culture that the autonomy necessary for mature moral agency or for the realization of one's unique personal identity is diminished by the influence of other persons. In contrast, I argue that the relational image of love, or agape, in the …

Components Of Religious Beliefs, Religious Maturity, And Religious History As Predictors Of Proscribed And Non-Proscribed Explicit And Implicit Prejudices, Luke Fiedorowicz

Dissertations

Many theorists propose a link between religiosity and prejudice; however, many studies show contradictory results. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the differences between implicit and explicit prejudices. Current literature suggests that explicit and implicit attitudes are linked and one can influence the other. However, it is possible there are different sets of predictors of each attitude type. African-Americans have historically been the most openly targeted minority in America. Recently, gay men and lesbians have also faced increased prejudice. The purpose of this project was to examine several aspects of religiosity (involvement, intrinsic/extrinsic, fundamentalism, quest, history, and …

Internalizing Mental Health Disorders: Examining The Connection Between Children's Symptoms And Parent Involvement And Autonomy Support., Anne Walsh

Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the connection between parent involvement and autonomy support, as well as the combined construct of autonomy supportive parent involvement, with internalized mental health symptoms. A secondary purpose of this study is to determine how certain parent demographics relate to attitudes and behaviors towards both parent involvement and autonomy support. Similarly, this study seeks to examine how certain how student demographics relate to internalized mental health symptoms.

The participants in this study were parents with one or more children in grades K-8 at three different schools in the suburbs of a large …

I Love You (But I Can't Look You In The Eyes): Explicit And Implicit Self-Esteem Predict Verbal And Nonverbal Response To Relationship Threat, Julie Longua Peterson

Dissertations

Research has revealed the value of studying communication patterns, both verbal and nonverbal, in couple conflict discussions (Gottman & Levenson, 2000; Noller, Feeney, Bonnell, & Callan, 1994). In fact, the study of behavioral reactions to relationship conflict has been central to predicting important relationship outcomes, such as relationship satisfaction and breakup (e.g. see Gottman, 1998 for a review). The goal of the current dissertation was to explore how explicit (i.e., conscious, deliberate) and implicit (i.e., unconscious, automatic) self-esteem correspond to people's self-reported approach and avoidance verbal and nonverbal behaviors following a relationship threat manipulation (Study 1) and people's observer-rated approach …

The Absence Of Presence: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Indicated Interventions To Increase Student Attendance, Brandy R. Maynard

Dissertations

The present study utilized systematic review methods and meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize research and systematically examine the effects of indicated intervention programs on school attendance behaviors of elementary and secondary school students. A comprehensive search strategy resulted in the identification 11 randomized studies, 9 quasi-experimental studies and 13 single group pre-post test studies that met inclusion criteria. Effect sizes data and study, participant, and intervention characteristics were coded and analyzed. Analyses of the randomized and quasi-experimental studies were performed separately from the single group pre-post test studies.

The meta-analytic findings showed overall positive and moderate effects of indicated attendance interventions …

How Counseling Helps: An In-Depth Look At Domestic Violence Counseling, Sonya V. Crabtree-Nelson

Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is currently described by trauma researchers as a social epidemic (Briere & Jordan, 2004) . The array of domestic violence services we currently have in the United States were started 30 years ago by women victims assisting other women. Currently, the services we have for victims of IPV are largely unchanged and the literature lacks information on what is helpful to victims of IPV in a domestic violence counseling setting. The research points to the fact that women seeking domestic violence counseling experience an array of physical and mental health sequelae as a result of the …

Factors Of Body Image Dissatisfaction Among High School Female Athletes, Trisha Margaret Karr

Dissertations

The relation between sport type and body image dissatisfaction was investigated with a sample of high school female athletes living in the Chicago area. In order to assess sport type, gymnastics, cross country, and softball were designated for the comparison of aesthetic, endurance, and ball sports. Low family cohesion and high independence were predictive of body image concerns among gymnasts, whereas high cohesion and infrequent conversations about sport participation with mothers were associated with body dissatisfaction among runners. Although body mass index was a risk factor for body image concerns across all sports, athletic self-efficacy was protective against body dissatisfaction …

Exploring The Relationship Between Work, Family And Religion Among Clergy Families, Lenore Johnson

Dissertations

Studies examining how working adults manage the competing demands of family, home and work shed light on the interconnectedness of public and private life. The notion that private life is a refuge separate from work is highly contested, and the experiences of clergy families add further support to such claims. However, while clergy families experience many of the same strains as other families, the relationship between public and private life is noticeably impacted by the inclusion of religion, adding further complications to the process of balancing multiple responsibilities. In this study, I explore the complex relationship between these aspects of …

The Tumor Suppressor Pkcδ Is Critical For Uv-Induced G2/M Checkpoint Activation And Apoptosis, Edward Lewis Lagory

Dissertations

Protein kinase C delta (PKCδ) is an essential component of the intrinsic apoptotic program. Following DNA damage, such as exposure to UV radiation, PKCδ is cleaved in a caspase-dependent manner, generating a constitutively active catalytic fragment (PKCδ-cat) which is necessary and sufficient for keratinocyte (KC) apoptosis. We found that in addition to inducing apoptosis, expression of PKCδ-cat caused a pronounced G2/M cell cycle arrest in both primary human KCs and immortalized HaCaT cells. Consistent with a G2/M arrest, PKCδ-cat induced phosphorylation of Cdk1 (Tyr15), a critical event in the G2/M checkpoint. Treatment with the ATM/ATR inhibitor caffeine was unable to …

Pedagogy And Primary Sources: Outcomes Of The Library Of Congress' Professional Development Program, Teaching With Primary Sources At Loyola, Michelle Fry

Dissertations

Until recently, few K-12 teachers outside of social studies have integrated primary sources in classroom instruction. Integrating primary sources in educational practice does require an uncommon pedagogical understanding. Addressing this K-12 educator need is the Library of Congress. Recently, the Library implemented a national educator professional development program, Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS).

The TPS program operates at multiple universities and colleges, including Loyola University Chicago. This program aims to educate K-12 educators of all subject-areas to integrate online, digitized primary sources into classroom practices. This study addressed questions related to the outcomes of teacher participants' classroom practices after completing …

The Role Of The Principal In The Professional Life Of Male Elementary Classroom Teachers, Brian Gendron Ricca

Dissertations

There are very few men that choose to enter the profession of teaching, especially at the elementary level (U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 2008). The men that do make this choice are faced with certain challenges and societal stereotypes that make this career path even more difficult to navigate. Given the small numbers that exist and some of the unique factors that face men at this level, the relationship between a male elementary classroom teacher and his building administrator is one to examine.

Within the context of the research that has been done on the gendered role of elementary …

An Historical Analysis Of The Chicago Public Schools Policy On The Requirements For The Selection Of Principals, 1983-2008, Siobhan Marie Cafferty

Dissertations

This historical analysis provided an opportunity to appreciate Chicago's course in

the national school reform landscape. This study helped to understand the effects school

reform efforts had on school leadership policy in Chicago. It verified a roster of

superintendents in Chicago during 1983-2008, established a chronology of school reform

events and assembled an inventory of reform policies, theories and directives that

potentially may create the capacity to instruct and inform future initiatives, perspective

and debate on the issue of principal preparation at the local level. The analysis of change

in local policy echoed and identified national educational trends in this …

The Interpretation Of The Lord's Prayer, Q 11:2b-4, In The Formative Stratum Of Q According To The Literary And Cultural Perspectives Afforded By The Affixed Aphorisms, Q 11:9-10, 11-13, Richard Wendel

Dissertations

The Lord's Prayer is one of the most discussed texts within the Christian scriptures (Matt 6:9-13/Luke 11:2b-4). Most commentators have focused on the Matthean version of the prayer and have overlooked the source from which it comes: Q and its context. Both canonical versions of the prayer alter it and place it in different literary settings. This re-contextualizing of the original prayer has produced interpretations that either obscure or reinterpret the message from Q. These efforts have been overly influenced by extraneous source material, often subject to certain interpretative tendencies involving Jewish prophetic, Jewish intertestamental apocalyptic literature, and/or Christian eschatological …

The Role Of Igf-1 And Notch Signaling In Thoracic Malignancies., Sandra Eliasz

Dissertations

Thoracic malignancies are one of the deadliest of all cancers, being the leading cause of cancer death in the Western world. Thoracic malignancies arise from different tissues; however the most common are of epithelial (commonly referred to as non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC), neuroendocrine (small cell lung cancer, or SCLC) and mesothelial origin (malignant mesothelioma, or MM). The DNA oncogenic virus Simian Virus 40 (SV40) has been shown to cooperate with environmental oncogenic fibers in the onset of MM. Insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) signaling plays a central role in all thoracic malignancies and in the process of SV40-mediated …

New Cyclophanes As Supramolecular Scaffolds: The Synthesis Of Tribenzo-1,4,7-Triazacyclononatriene., Andria M. Panagopoulos

Dissertations

Supramolecular chemistry involves the formation of complex molecular entities that have the capacity to participate in specific molecular recognition of guest molecules. A commonly employed scaffold in supramolecular chemistry is the trimeric crown-shaped molecule cyclotriveratrylene (CTV). CTV has been studied extensively for its capability of binding a number of smaller organic and organometallic guests within its bowl-shaped cleft and has been used as a building block enabling the construction of more complex cryptophanes. The goal of this research is the synthesis and characterization of a novel cyclophane, tribenzo-1,4,7-triazacyclononene and derivatives thereof. These new cyclophanes should have greater versatility than the …

Notch Signaling Is Important In The Survival, Proliferation, And Self-Renewal Of The Putative Breast Cancer Stem Cell Population, Peter Grudzien

Dissertations

Numerous studies have identified stem-like cells, termed cancer stem cells (CSCs), in breast tumors and established cell lines. It has been hypothesized that CSCs are responsible for breast cancer formation, progression and recurrence; therefore, a deeper understanding of the signaling pathways regulating CSC survival will benefit development of novel therapeutic strategies. Notch signaling, which is dysregulated in breast cancer and has been implicated in mammary stem cell self-renewal, and can be effectively blocked by gamma-secretase inhibitors (GSIs). While GSIs are currently in clinical trials for breast cancer, it is not fully understood how these compounds will affect CSCs or if …

Curriculum Reform In Post-Soviet Armenia: Balancing Local And Global Contexts In Armenian Secondary Schools, Shelley Marie Terzian

Dissertations

Structured according to the conceptual frameworks of nationalism and globalization, this study examined relationships between and among the Armenian Ministry of Education, the World Bank, the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation -Armenia, and Armenian secondary school teachers and principals from 1991 to the present. Each group played a central role, developing and implementing the Armenian National Curriculum and State Standard for Secondary Education throughout the education system.

Using Laurence Neuman's inductive approach to open, axial, and final coding, this qualitative case study investigated the global and national groups that produced the Armenian National Curriculum (the Curriculum) and the State Standard …

Immigrant Stories: Generation 1.5 Mexican American Students And English Language Learning In An Illinois Community College, Thomas Lloyd Hansen

Dissertations

The number of recent immigrants to the United States has increased dramatically in the last few years, and more of these immigrants are members of a group often designated as "Generation 1.5" students. These immigrant students were born in another country, came to the United States at the age of 13 or older, and graduated from high school in this country. This qualitative research study occurs within two Illinois community colleges that require some students to enroll in courses below regular English Composition I as indicated by one or more placement tests. These courses are English as a Second Language …

The Role Of Institutional Relations With Alumni Major Donors In Evangelical Higher Education, Brian Gardner

Dissertations

American higher education has never been more expensive. Its continued excellence and accessibility depends even more today on charitable subsidy. As previous beneficiaries of that charitable subsidy, alumni are the most logical benefactor of its sustenance. The relatively few alumni who can give most generously make the difference in the success of any fund raising effort. Understanding the motivation of alumni major gift prospects to give such gifts is therefore critical to securing them.

This study seeks to understand 1) the strategies and processes institutions employ in engaging alumni major donors, 2) the motivations of these donors to give or …

Examining The Relationship Among Reading Curriculum-Based Measures, Level Of Language Proficiency, And State Accountability Test Scores With Middle School Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners, Nicole Osterman Stokes

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive ability of oral reading fluency (R-CBM) on a sixth grade high-stakes assessment with ELL and non- ELL students, as well as determine the average rate of growth on R-CBM and how that relates to level of English Proficiency. The participants in the current study included 350 sixth grade students from a middle school located in west Phoenix, AZ. Ninety of the 350 students were English Language Learners at varying levels of language proficiency in English. Archival data was used for the study. Each participant completed R-CBM three times throughout …

Depressive Symptoms In Women Being Screened For Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Suzanne Marie Savoy

Dissertations

Background: Depressive symptomology is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Over 15% of persons with cardiovascular disease have depressive symptoms, and women are twice as likely to experience these symptoms as men. Depressive symptoms in women “ at risk ” for cardiovascular disease has not been well studied.

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between depressive symptoms, health-promoting lifestyle behaviors, heart disease risk awareness, cardiac risk, and quality of life in women at risk for cardiovascular disease. Whether the effect of depressive symptoms on quality of life was mediated by cardiac risk and/or health-promoting lifestyle behaviors was also examined. …

Raindrop Demise In A High-Speed Projectile Flowfield, Bruce Emerson Moylan

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Correlational Study Of The Ventures For Excellence Interview-Rating System And First Year Teacher Evaluations, Brian Lee Clemons

Dissertations

Research suggests that the character traits of a teacher seem to be an important element in student learning. Thus, when administrators make hiring decisions, they often utilize instruments to assess candidates’ character traits. However, limited information exists on the identification of character traits as they relate to quality teachers and the accuracy of character interview-rating systems. Therefore, this study evaluates the Ventures for Excellence interview-rating systems for their ability to accurately assess the character traits of teacher candidates. The purpose of this study was to conduct a correlation study of Ventures for Excellence interview-rating system and teacher evaluations. Data were …