Digital Commons Network^™

Resilience: The Lived Experience Of Elderly Widowers Following The Death Of A Spouse, Dorothy Battersby Crummy Phd, Msn, Rn

Dissertations

Aged widowers are at risk for increased incidence of health problems and higher mortality rates following the death of a spouse. Mens' abilities for dealing with loss have been questioned, but little research has been done with this group. Surviving widowers provided significant insights illuminating the experience of resilience and providing relevant information regarding this population. Utilizing interpretive phenomenology, a methodology advocated by van Manen, in-depth interviews were conducted researching the lived experience of resilience among nineteen elderly widowers between 71 years and 100 years of age. Participants, identified by network sampling, lived independently and had survived the death of …

Development Of The Postpartum Smoking Questionnaire (Ppsq), Cynthia J. Gantt Phd, Msn, C-Fnp, Rn

Dissertations

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Smoking also accounts for significant morbidity for others exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. Many women stop smoking during pregnancy. Most women relapse to smoking following delivery, yet postpartum smoking issues have received little attention. The purpose of this study was to develop and test an instrument, the Postpartum Smoking Questionnaire (PPSQ) using Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior. The belief-based items of the PPSR-Q were developed following content analysis of 35 individual, structured elicitation study interviews with postpartum women in the military healthcare system. Beliefs that prevented women …

Protective Care: Mothering A Child Dependent On Parenteral Nutrition, Lorie H. Judson Phd, Mn, Rn

Dissertations

Home care of technology-dependent infants and children has become an accepted and expected consequence of higher survival rates among critically ill newborns and children who develop chronic illnesses. One of the high-tech modalities which foster dependence of these infants and children is parenteral nutrition. Parenteral nutrition, also called total parenteral nutrition (TPN), supplies life-sustaining nutrients through a central venous catheter and requires the use of machinery to pump this fluid directly into the bloodstream. Due to the tremendous cost of prolonged hospitalization for these children, and the deleterious effects to the child, home care is considered an obvious and viable …

Genre Studies: Temporary Homogeneous Grouping To Improve Reading Or Merely Another Form Of Tracking?, Brenda Wright Campbell Edd

Dissertations

For the last fifty years, raising the achievement levels of students thought to be “at-risk” has proven to be one of the most difficult and vexing problems facing educators. Although many different strategies have been tried with varying levels of success, no single at-risk solution has emerged that both promotes significant achievement gains and helps to narrow the achievement gap between people of color and whites. This study examined the effectiveness of a particular district-wide literacy strategy in its first year that focused on literacy to educate students identified as “at-risk”. Specifically, this study used data gathered from two measures …

Collaborative Leadership In Middle Schools And Teacher Job Satisfaction: A Search For Relationships, A. Greg Bowden Edd

Dissertations

This correlational study examined the relationship between the leadership practiced by middle school principals and the job satisfaction reported by their teachers. Data were collected from 10 middle school principals who completed a demographic survey and the Principal Leadership Survey-Self (PLS-S). Data were also collected from 183 teachers who completed a demographic survey, the Principal Leadership Survey-Other (PLS-O), the School Participant Empowerment Scale (SPES), and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ). Sub scale scores from the PLS-O and the SPES were used to measure collaborative leadership. Telephone interviews were conducted with nine of the teachers who reported the highest degree of …

Lever-Press Acquisition By Rats: Effects Of Some Historical Variables, Susan M. Snycerski

Dissertations

Traditionally, behavior analysts and behavioral pharmacologists have emphasized the study of steady-state behavior, while neglecting behavior in transition. In the last 10 years, researchers in these fields have begun to investigate behavioral transitions, particularly the transition from near-zero to above-zero responding involved in response acquisition. This research has focused on variables (e.g., reinforcement delay) that affect acquisition and on procedures (e.g., resetting vs. nonresetting delays) used to assess acquisition. Most studies of acquisition have provided their subjects with behavioral histories prior to testing for acquisition, but few have systematically investigated the importance of historical variables. Consequently, the present study examined …

Using Measures Of Intervention Integrity, Intervention Acceptability, And Intervention Effectiveness To Evaluate A Toilet Training Program In A Preschool Classroom For Children With Special Needs, Katherine M. Holverstott-Cockrell

Dissertations

The primary objective of this study is to use measures of intervention integrity, intervention acceptability, and intervention effectiveness identified by Witt and Elliott (1985) to evaluate the toilet training program in a preschool classroom. The second objective is to assess the effects of parent participation with the toileting program. The third objective is to assess the effects of the toilet training intervention. Specifically, this study investigated (a) the relationship between intervention integrity, acceptability, and effectiveness of a toilet training intervention implemented in a preschool setting and at home; (b) the relationship between parental participation with the intervention and the efficacy …

Documenting Lines Of Communication Between School Personnel And Physicians For Medication Evaluation Purposes For Students With Adhd, Pamela M. Radford

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to document current and desired lines of communication between school personnel and physicians for the purpose of making medication decisions for students with ADHD. School-physician communication practices-were assessed utilizing a national survey of primary care physicians who are members o f the American Medical Association (AMA) and school psychologists who are members of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Specific information exchange practices that were assessed included: (a) on what student characteristics is information collected (e.g., academic performance, disruptive behavior, social interactions), (b) how school-based information is collected (e.g., direct observations, rating scales), …

The Impact Of A Congenitally Blind Child Upon Family Functioning And Interaction, Pamela S. Berryman

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was an impact of congenital blindness upon family functioning and interaction. This research investigated the level of blindness upon family adaptability, cohesion, satisfaction, and social family climate from a family systems perspective. The study analyzed data from a sample of 56 participants who were parents/care-givers of children age 0-12 years with either no vision, partial vision, or full vision. Chi-squares were computed to determine if any of the demographic variables differed among the three groups. Respondents’ gender, relationship to child, age, child’s level of blindness, number of siblings, and household …

Organizational Alignment: A Tool For Obtaining Greater Organizational Efficiency And Effectiveness In A State Government Agency, Patricia A. Collins

Dissertations

This study focuses on the modem day use of TQM, reengineering and privatization initiatives to gain efficiency and effectiveness in government operations, and the impact of alignment on the successful implementation of these three initiatives. A large state government agency which is currently using TQM, reengineering and privatization was used as a case study. Two-hundred-and-twenty-four employees were voluntary participants. This study examined three research questions: 1. Could the level of alignment, as hypothesized by Labovitz and Rosansky, be replicated with a sample of public agency employees? 2. Is the agency aligned, based on the Labovitz and Rosansky model, to successfully …

Demographic Factors Predictive Of Medicaid Enrollment In Michigan Counties, Dale Kennedy Howe

Dissertations

Recent changes in administration of the Medicaid program make it imperative that local agencies improve their ability to forecast demand for Medicaid services. In October of 1998 the State of Michigan redesigned the Medicaid specialty care in Michigan from a fee-for-service system to a capitated system. In a capitated healthcare system, financial risk is a result of unanticipated changes in the population size and mix. Numerous demographic factors, such as crime, population, unemployment, median age, income, and ethnicity may be used to improve the accuracy of predicted changes in enrollment for Medicaid. Using naive ordinary least squares models as the …

Using Bibliometric Journal Citation Analysis As A Technique To Assess Trends In School Psychology Journal Publications From 1995-1999, Meg Kwak

Dissertations

School psychology is a field influenced by die many different areas within psychology and education. School psychologists respond to many challenges and when working in the schools it is imperative that they stay abreast of the newest research findings. In order to remain informed, as well as to develop new knowledge, it is essential that professionals are aware o f the influences of the publications and the relative strength of specific journals (Kawano, Kehle, Clark, & Jenson, 1993). One way to assess publication trends is through journal citation analysis. Citation analysis is characterized by its objective ability to highlight the …

An Examination Of The Effects Of Fluency Training On Retention, Distractibility, And Generativity, Victoria Mary Pellettiere

Dissertations

The Precision Teaching movement grew out of a commitment to use frequency as a universal measure of behavior, as well as the desire to employ research methods derived from the experimental analysis of behavior in education (Lindsley, 1991). One component of instruction employing the precision teaching model is fluency training that typically involves exposing learners to the training materials until they have met criteria for both accuracy and speed. Proponents of fluency training ascribe a number of specific benefits to this instructional tool. Lindsley (1992, 1995) and others (Binder, 1993, 1996; Haughton, 1981b) suggested that fluency training enhances retention, endurance, …

Chemical, Isotopic, And Hydrogeologic Investigations Of An Agriculturally Impacted Area, Nottawa Creek Watershed, Calhoun County, Michigan, Gerald A. Unterreiner

Dissertations

A 4 km2 agricultural area within the somewhat poorly drained Nottawa Creek Watershed, south central Michigan, was investigated to help understand transport and transformation processes of nutrients and herbicides to surface water. Geology o f the study area is comprised of a thin glacial drift cover overlying shale bedrock. A one layer, two-dimensional numerical triangular finite element groundwater flow model was developed to evaluate regional groundwater flow. Selected horizontal hydraulic conductivities ranged from 3 x 10‘3 m/day to 107 m/day. Field-scale infiltration modeling with the computer program GLEAMS, substantiated with water level measurements, suggest significant recharge events occur during summer, …

Systematic Methods For The Design Of A Class Of Fuzzy Logic Controllers, Saad Y. Yasin

Dissertations

Fuzzy logic control, a relatively new branch of control, can be used effectively whenever conventional control techniques become inapplicable or impractical. Various attempts have been made to create a generalized fuzzy control system and to formulate an analytically based fuzzy control law. In this study, two methods, the left and right parameterization method and the normalized spline-base membership function method, were utilized for formulating analytical fuzzy control laws in important practical control applications. The first model was used to design an idle speed controller, while the second was used to control an inverted control problem. The results of both showed …

Social Responsiblity And Types Of Service Learning: A Comparison Of Curricular Service Learning, Co-Curricular Service Learning, And Traditional Community Service, Jay Richardson Cooper

Dissertations

This study investigated social responsibility among college students involved in three different types of service learning. Social responsibility, the dependent variable, was analyzed using scores on the Social Responsibility Inventory. Three institutions, representative of Masters I Colleges and Universities, were involved in the study and 198 students completed the questionnaire. A one-way analysis of variance was run, which demonstrated that there was a significant difference among the mean scores on the Social Responsibility Inventory in the three types of service learning. Type of service learning, the independent variable, included traditional community service, co-curricular service learning, and curricular service learning. Traditional …

A Study Of Quality Of Life Issues In Community-Dwelling Elders, Kimberly S. Mcclane Phd

Dissertations

In the year 2000, there were approximately 35 million people in the United States who were 65 years of age or older, a ten-fold increase since 1900. The growth of this population has presented opportunities and challenges to American society. Health care needs, physical changes of aging, and the allocation of health care resources are several of the issues that need to be addressed (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, 2000). Quality of life measurement tools have been used to assess the health and social needs of aging people both in the United States and internationally since their conception in …

Ladies' Library Associations Of Michigan: Women, Reform, And Use Of Public Space, Sharon Carlson

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the ladies' library associations in Southwestern Michigan from the middle nineteenth century through the early twentieth century to explore the impact of these organizations as agents of reform and in shaping public space. Ladies' library association records provide a major component of this study. Association records, consisting of constitutions, bylaws, minutes, treasurer records, book catalogs, yearbooks, and published reports yield valuable information to analyze and interpret the activities of ladies' library associations. Plat maps, panoramic maps, photographs, architectural drawings, and tax records offer evidence about the built environment and material culture of ladies' library associations. The actual …

Point Of Transition Service Integration Project: A Multiple-Case Study Of A Systems Change Intervention, David A. Noyes Edd

Dissertations

The Point of Transition Service Integration Project (POTSIP) was initiated in 1997 in California as a three-year model demonstration grant funded by the Department of Education. The goal of the project was to improve the level of cooperation and collaboration among public schools, the State Department of Rehabilitation, and the State Department of Developmental Services related to efforts assisting students with severe disabilities who are transitioning from school to adult life. This qualitative study examined a stakeholder-centered perspective on the transition process within the POTSIP model. The purpose of this study was to identify the critical incidents and factors that …

A New Theory Of Premixed Flames In Near-Stoichiometric Mixtures, Eliana S. Antoniou

Dissertations

In this dissertation, a new model of premixed flames in near-stoichiometric mixtures is derived. Unlike most previous theories, which are valid only for very lean or very rich, i.e. off-stoichiometric conditions, our model remains valid over the entire spectrum of mixture compositions, from lean to rich, including the near-stoichiometric regime. Since fuel-mixture composition is known to have a significant effect on flame behavior, such a model is expected to contribute new insights into classical problems in premixed combustion.

In the first part of this dissertation, we describe the derivation of a model for premixed flames in two-reactant mixtures in a …

Simultaneous Removal Of Ortho-Dichlorobenzene And Ethanol Vapors In A Biotrickling Filter : Experimental Results And Process Modeling, Suchismita Bhattacharya

Dissertations

This study investigated the possibility of simultaneous removal of vapors of dissimilar volatile organic compounds from air streams in a biotrickling filter (BTF). Using a rricrobial consortium known to utilize ortho-dichlorobenzene (o-DCB) as sole carbon and energy source, a culture was developed on o-DCB/ethanol mixtures and a BTF unit was developed and operated with air streams carrying o-DCB and ethanol vapors. Simultaneous removal of the two compounds was observed in experiments that span a period of over three years.

Experiments were performed at air residence times ranging from 4 to 6.5 min, liquid flow rates from 3.6 to 9 Lh …

Numerical Simulation Of Mechanofusion System For Dry Particle Coating Process, Wenliang Chen

Dissertations

A numerical simulation of the Meclianofusion device for dry particle coating is carried out using Discrete Element Method (DEM) technique. In dry particle coating, tiny sub-micron guest particles are coated onto larger micron sized host particles by using mechanical forces, which the Mechanofusion device provides. It consists of a rotating cylindrical chamber that contains the powder mixture, a stationary inner piece (which has a cylindrical surface at the end), and a fixed scraper blade, which prevents powder from caking against the chamber wall. The simulation studies are performed on two scales: system scale to investigate the particle-particle and particle system …

Application Of Chemical Kinetic Modeling To Improve Design And Performance Criteria For A Practical Incineration System, Charles A. Bass Jr.

Dissertations

In this study, detailed thermo-chemical kinetics with networked ideal reactor model were applied to simulate a practical combustion system -the Secondary Combustion Chamber (SCC) of the Rotary Kiln incineration Simulator (RKIS) at the EPA facility at Research Triangle Park, NC. The networked ideal model was developed using analysis of reactor geometry, temperature profile measurements, and SO₂ tracer data provided by EPA. A computer simulation of the networked model was developed using the CHEMKIN H library. A parallel effort considered the effects of non-ideal mixing on detailed thermo-kinetic, simulations. Specifically, an alternate approach was developed to solve the Partially Stirred …

Seismic Response Of Transformer Bushing Systems And Their Rehabilitation Using Frictional Pendulum System, Selahattin Ersoy

Dissertations

This thesis is concerned with the performance of electric power transformers and their attachments under earthquake loading. It begins with the description of the transformers, attached bushings, and some typical examples of substation failures in earthquake loading. This is followed by the development of finite element model of three different sizes of transformers. Finite element models consist of several thousand degrees of freedom and they are basic to this thesis. Some of the major findings from these models are utilized to derive a simplified model of a portion of a substation, The frictional pendulum system (a base isolation method) is …

On Performance Analysis And Implementation Issues Of Iterative Decoding For Graph Based Codes, Xuefei Wei

Dissertations

There is no doubt that long random-like code has the potential to achieve good performance because of its excellent distance spectrum. However, these codes remain useless in practical applications due to the lack of decoders rendering good performance at an acceptable complexity. The invention of turbo code marks a milestone progress in channel coding theory in that it achieves near Shannon limit performance by using an elegant iterative decoding algorithm. This great success stimulated intensive research oil long compound codes sharing the same decoding mechanism. Among these long codes are low-density parity-check (LDPC) code and product code, which render brilliant …

Experimental And Numerical Study Of Flow Characteristics And Segregation In Flow Enhanced Systems, Gregory James

Dissertations

In the study of granular materials, two major topics of importance are powder flow enhancement mechanisms and the flow characterization. This dissertation is involved with both of these topics. With respect to the powder flow enhancement, this study involves investigation of two types of flow enhancement methods. The first flow enhancement method examined is a novel method called the Magnetically Assisted Powder Flow (MAPF) method. In the MAPF, small magnetic particles and powders are placed in a test hopper. A mesh is placed at the bottom of the hopper to hold the magnetic particles while the powder is discharged through …

On The Data Hiding Theory And Multimedia Content Security Applications, Litao Gang

Dissertations

This dissertation is a comprehensive study of digital steganography for multimedia content protection. With the increasing development of Internet technology, protection and enforcement of multimedia property rights has become a great concern to multimedia authors and distributors. Watermarking technologies provide a possible solution for this problem.

The dissertation first briefly introduces the current watermarking schemes, including their applications in video,, image and audio. Most available embedding schemes are based on direct Spread Sequence (SS) modulation. A small value pseudo random signature sequence is embedded into the host signal and the information is extracted via correlation. The correlation detection problem is …

Inelastic Seismic Behavior Of Stiffening Systems : Multi-Span Simply-Supported (Msss) Bridges, Alireza Yazdani-Motlagh

Dissertations

Stiffening behavior can result from interaction between a structure (base system) and its surrounding environment as in the MSSS bridge soil-structure interaction. In this study, three MSSS bridge cases are parametrically analyzed and their dynamic characteristics and behavior are presented and discussed. Later, for investigating stiffening behavior, a simplified stiffening model is introduced and an extensive parametric study with more than 367,000 analyzed cases is performed. In the parametric study, different stiffening parameters (i.e., stiffness, strength, gap size, and mass), 41 strong motion records, and several damage criteria are considered and effects of the stiffening parameters variations on the dynamic …

Development Of Analytical Systems And Monitoring Of Vocs Emissions During Polymer Processing, Qin Xiang

Dissertations

A method using direct flame ionization detector (FID) measurement was developed to study total volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions during thermal degradation of polymers. This was used to estimate organic emissions from both virgin polymer resins and commingled plastics. The effects of process parameters, i. e., temperature, heating rate and residence time, were also studied. Significant VOCs emissions were observed at normal processing temperatures, particularly from recycled polymers. Each polymer showed a distinct evolution pattern during its thermal degradation. Kinetics of VOCs emissions were also studied using a non-isothermal technique. The kinetic parameters were in agreement with data from the …

Computation And Control Of Flow-Induced Noise Behind A Circular Cylinder Using An Acoustic Analogy Approach, Sirivit Taechajedcadarungsri

Dissertations

The computational aeroacoustics (CAA) research, which focuses on predicting acoustics by means of advanced numerical techniques, has recently gained a great deal of progress. In most applications, the prediction of both the sound source and its far-field propagation is necessary as required by regulations. Recently, powerful computers and reliable algorithms have allowed the prediction of far-field noise through the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) data as near-field sound sources. One of the most useful analytical methods, used for the computation of noise, is Lighthill's acoustic analogy. The latter will be used in the present study.

Lighthill's acoustic analogy, combined …