Digital Commons Network^™

Home Health Care Nurses’ Experiences And Perceptions Of Providing Care To Older Adults During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Descriptive Study, Joan R. Dugas

Open Access Dissertations

Home health care nurses were essential front line healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Research in this area has primarily focused on the experiences of nurses in the acute and long-term care settings. This study aims to: (1) gain an understanding of the subjective experiences and perceptions of home health care nurses providing care to OAs during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) elucidate aspects affecting the care provided to OAs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Twenty nurses were interviewed between July 2022 and September 2022. The interviews were semi-structured and were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four …

Advancing Nanopore Characterization Of Carbohydrates With Chemical Synthesis And Machine-Learning, James Thomas Hagan

Open Access Dissertations

The work presented in this thesis covers advancements made in carbohydrate analysis, a topic relevant for pharmaceutical testing, medical diagnostics, food adulteration analysis, and numerous other glycomics-related purposes. While carbohydrates have been extracted and commodified by humans for several millennia,^1,2 and their associated chemical identity and structural motifs have been known for over a century,^3,4 reliable and readily available methods for full characterization of this prevalent and naturally occurring group of molecules are lacking and under-developed. Conventional methods of analysis show promise but are constrained by several obstacles to overcome. This thesis work answers a still-relevant 2012 call …

Investigating The Mechanism And Expanding The Reactivity Of Cu(I)-Catalyzed [2+2] Photocycloaddition Reactions Of Olefins, Gethmini Kasunka Jayasekara

Open Access Dissertations

Light-matter interactions can change the physical and chemical properties of a substance. The energy of photons can be used to dissociate the chemical bonds as well as to generate new bonds. The work in this dissertation is an attempt to understand how photon energy governs the formation of new carbon bonds via alkene groups in the presence of copper catalyst.

Intermolecular and intramolecular [2+2] photocycloaddition reactions facilitate the generation of cyclobutane moieties which are otherwise difficult to synthesize. Transition metal-based salts are used as catalysts to promote photocycloaddition reactions. The structure and the ring strain of a substrate can affect …

Photochemical And Photophysical Dynamics Of The Aqueous Ferrate(Vi) Ion, Cali Antolini

Open Access Dissertations

Ferrate(VI) has been suggested as a ‘green’ alternative to current oxidation and disinfection methods used in water treatment, especially in combination with ultraviolet light. UV-activation of the ferrate salts has been shown to improve the efficiency of treating water due to the generation of highly oxidizing Fe(V) and Fe(IV) species. However, the incomplete understanding behind the nature of these intermediates, the mechanisms by which they form, and their roles in downstream oxidation reactions have limited the full-scale use of ferrate salts in facilities. Our goal is to advance the engineering of UV/ferrate(VI)-based water treatment processes by gaining a better understanding …

Flux To Flow: A Clearer View Of Earth’S Water Cycle Via Neural Networks And Satellite Data, Albert Eric Larson

Open Access Dissertations

Earth’s weather and climate changes dynamically, and humans must monitor the evolution of our environment or fail to plan and adapt. Water is our most valuable resource, and as such it is of the utmost importance to have a continuous view of its movements as water cycles over, in, and under land, in the atmosphere, and in the sea. One way that we observe the water cycle is with satellite measurements. Unfortunately, the resolution of these instruments is typically too coarse to visualize many transient phenomena of interest. If their vision is fine enough, the instrument captures only a small …

Design, Dynamic Modeling And Control Of Soft Robots, Xiaotian Chen

Open Access Dissertations

Inspired from biological systems, researchers are designing soft robots to replace conventional rigid body robots in many applications, including human-machine interaction, manipulation, medical instrumentation and wearable devices.

Soft robots, due to their flexible bodies capable of achieving complex movements, are suitable for motion in unstructured complex environments. Moreover, soft robots can provide a more pleasant interaction experience for humans, or grip and manipulate fragile objects. However, because of the potential ability of the soft robot, controlling the soft robot still remains as a difficult task, as the soft robot contains high complexity and non-linearity. Currently, machine learning is involved in …

Development Of Polymeric Nano- And Microparticle-Based Controlled Release Platforms, Ryan Ivone

Open Access Dissertations

The success of the development of drug delivery formulations hinges upon their ability to maintain therapeutic efficacy, while simultaneously aiming to minimize off-site side effects and reduce the dosing burden often faced by patients. Localized formulations deliver therapeutics directly to the disease site and can help circumvent physiological obstacles such as the first pass effect, which remains one of the primary barriers for oral drug delivery. Barriers such as the first pass effect can drastically reduce the overall bioavailability of a formulation, potentially requiring a higher initial dose to remain therapeutically effective. However, many compounds demonstrate dose dependent side effects, …

The Effect Of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy On Value Consistency During A Weight Loss Program, Leah Dorfman

Open Access Dissertations

In the last decade, the prevalence of obesity has increased significantly in populations worldwide. It is well established that overweight and obesity are associated with a host of deleterious health consequences. Standard Behavioral Therapy (SBT) for weight loss has been demonstrated to yield only modest outcomes with poor long-term maintenance. Therefore, efforts must be made to improve upon what is currently considered to be best practices in weight loss interventions, especially with a goal of improving retention and long-term maintenance. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a behavioral and cognitive intervention that implements both acceptance and mindfulness processes, and commitment …

The Immigrant Experience Of Latina Mothers From A Strengths Perspective: A Focused Ethnography, Esperanza Gutierrez

Open Access Dissertations

Latina mothers are part of a rapidly growing ethnic minority group in the United States (U.S.). Researchers have largely illuminated their challenges and problems in their immigration process. A problem-oriented approach leads to labeling of the individual based on vulnerabilities, pathologies, and deficits. Nursing needs a greater emphasis on the strengths perspective, empirical studies, and a broader culturally based conception of strengths, including Latina mothers who immigrate to the U.S. A strengths perspective would be beneficial in encompassing Latina mothers’ capabilities and potentialities.

Focused ethnography was used to identify and describe the strengths of Latina mothers who immigrated to the …

Hypoglycemia Screening In Term Normal Birth Weight Newborns: A Retrospective Electronic Health Record Review, Michelle G. Palmer

Open Access Dissertations

A gap in the evidence exists regarding screening of term normal birth weight newborns without identified risk factors for the presence of hypoglycemia. The purpose of this retrospective electronic health record review was to examine factors leading to and results associated with blood glucose screening of term normal birth weight newborns without previously identified risk factors for hypoglycemia.

The specific aims of this study were to: (a) determine if there were statistically significant differences between screened and unscreened full term, normal birth weight newborns without pre-existing identified risk factors for hypoglycemia by: gender, race, delayed cord clamping, skin-to-skin initiation and …

Pesticides, Polymers, And Pollution: Use Of Organic Chemistry To Combat Threats To Pollinator Health, Kassie Picard

Open Access Dissertations

Organic synthesis is a powerful tool that is used to solve real world problems from drug development to polymer synthesis. The basis of this work is the development and use of organic chemistry techniques to study pollinator health via the synthesis of small molecule pesticides and detection of microfibers

Pyrethroids are a class of synthetic pesticides with a wide range of agricultural, medical, and veterinary applications. These pesticides are particularly appealing due to the highly tunable molecular structure leading to selectivity towards pests and consistently low mammalian toxicity. The varroa mite, varroa destructor, is an ectoparasitic mite that infests honey …

Improving Quality: Exploring Ceramic Water Filters In Developing Communities, Hem Kumar Pokharel

Open Access Dissertations

The main objectives of this dissertation were to determine the underlying factors involved in the ceramic water filter (CWF) manufacturing and assist in quality control of the CWFs using peer reviewed articles, empirical models, and statistical procedures. First, the progress, bias and gaps in the ceramic filter research were identified based on the peer reviewed articles published after 2011. Second, flow rate (FR) and nominal pore diameter (NPD) values as parameters were used to predict the microbial removal of CWFs. Two empirical models (flow rate model, FRM, and nominal pore diameter model, NPDM) were developed based on the log removal …

Nanoscale Electrochemistry At Liquid/Liquid Interface For Biomedical And Energy Applications, Surendra R. Puri

Open Access Dissertations

The charge transfer across the liquid/liquid interface has been playing a crucial role in many biological and energy-related systems such as drug permeation through-bacterial membrane, ion or electron transfer through metal-reducing bacteria in microbial fuel cells (MFCs), and metabolic interaction in commensal bacterial species related to human health. Primarily, direct probing of these phenomena in situ is needed for more realistic fundamental analysis, thereby solving the problem related to public health and renewable energy generation. The interfacial CT in these systems mainly involves redox-inactive species that cannot be detected with conventional metal electrodes. Herein, the liquid/liquid interface is applied as …

X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy As A Technique To Study Environmentally Sustainable Materials, Melissa Ann Smith

Open Access Dissertations

As the environment of the earth continues to be a growing concern, it is important to use and develop techniques to study and improve sustainable materials. Complex materials with difficult matrices or multiple reaction pathways will always be a challenge for chemical analysis, but X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a valuable tool to bypass some of the obstacles.

Herein a promising photovoltaic material, FASnI₃, was studied in situ by X-ray absorption spectroscopy to isolate the kinetic oxidation of the bulk material. FASnI3 photovoltaics can be damaged by both moisture and oxidation, but isolating oxidation information can give insight to …

Making And Breaking Esters: Methods And Applications In Polymers, Lactones, And Pesticides, Thomas James Wright

Open Access Dissertations

Esters have applications that span food packaging, medicine and even pest control, in addition to the applications of naturally occurring esters. Before new molecules or materials can move to applications, synthetic chemists must first design methods for their production. As such, this dissertation examines the formation and breaking of esters as well as their applications.

(Thio)Urea H-Bonding catalysts are used for the highly controlled ROP of lactones. ROP is a thermodynamically driven process, therefore, equilibrium can be utilized to selectively transform polymer to monomer. Here a new method of additive, solvent, and metal free recycling (depolymerization) of polylactones is presented. …

Testing The Efficacy Of Behavioral Nudges For Reducing Plastic Bag Use And Perception Of Levy-Based Policy Among Retail Customers In Bangladesh, Md Tahsin Hasan

Open Access Dissertations

Over the last five decades, plastics have penetrated our lives slowly yet with such certainty that we cannot imagine a day without plastic products. From bottled water to injection syringes, we are submerged in plastics. Plastics have significantly improved human lifestyles and reduced living costs by providing cheap household items. However, it is also evident now that plastics threaten the natural environment and animal and human health. Specifically, single-use plastics are the most ubiquitous nuisance to the environment. Food packaging, pet bottles, and single-use plastic bags are the most found plastic items in household garbage. According to statistics from the …

Investigations Into The Adaptive Potential Of Southern Ocean Phytoplankton, Ian W. Bishop

Open Access Dissertations

Southern Ocean (SO) phytoplankton are foundational to Antarctic marine food webs and global carbon and silica cycling. As polar ocean environments continue to rapidly evolve, it is important to assess the extent to which these communities can successfully respond. Adaptation to novel conditions will be particularly important here, as shifts in biogeography to track temperature preferences are unlikely where communities already inhabit the coldest surface waters in the Southern Hemisphere. This work employs high throughput physiological and genomic methods to better understand how three important attributes, thermal trait diversity, standing genetic diversity, and repetitive genomic elements, assessed at a multiple …

Understanding The Impact Of Hydroclimatic Variables In Forecasting Geospatial Diarrheal Disease Risk, Farah Nusrat

Open Access Dissertations

Over 2 billion people globally are living in water-stressed regions. With population increase, poor management of natural resources, and a changing climate, water scarcity has become a widespread phenomenon in today’s world. As a result, waterborne diseases remain a major global health problem due to a lack of safe water supply and sanitation facilities. A large part of the global population is still at risk of having waterborne and water-related diarrheal diseases despite many scientific advancements. Meanwhile, Climate Change is exacerbating waterborne disease patterns and trends, as seen by the large increase in diarrheal cases globally. It is thus imperative …

How Does Practicing Mindfulness Relate To Consumer Willingness To Attend Events Post-Pandemic?, Gillian N. Palmer

Open Access Dissertations

A TWO ESSAY DISSERTATION EXAMINING MINDFULNESS IN THE EVENTS INDUSTRY

The restrictions and social concerns that limited social interaction during the first eighteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the multi-trillion-dollar event industry, which includes large hallmark events like festivals and concerts and business events like trade shows. In addition to the impact made to the events industry, there was a social and mental wellness impact on consumers as they learned how to live a "new norm" lifestyle. As vaccines and reductions in social distancing guidelines opened a path to return to physical, in-person events, event …

Cranberry Vine And Its Effects On The Periparturient Ovine And Her Offspring, Delaney Smith

Open Access Dissertations

Gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) are a major health concern globally, particularly for small ruminant producers. The most deadly of these GIN is an anemia-inducing parasite called Haemonchus contortus. Infections of H. contortus are most severe during what's known as the periparturient period (PPP), which is the last 6 weeks of gestation and first 8 weeks of lactation in maternal animals. Widespread genetic resistance of H. contortus to the traditionally used chemical dewormers have led producers and researchers alike to turn to the plant kingdom for answers. Plant based compounds have been used as bioactive compounds for centuries to cure a …

Characterization & Dynamic Response Of Novel Composite Structures To Air Blast And Underwater Shock, Piyush Wanchoo

Open Access Dissertations

The ever-advancing stage of modern warfare poses a threat to civilian and defense structures, necessitating the research and understanding of new, blast-resistant structural materials. In response to this need, composite and composite sandwich structures have been developed and are finding important applications in the naval and aerospace industry. Naval and marine communities worldwide are increasingly interested in using composite materials for construction, expanding their use beyond small surface boats to include submarines, deckhouses, and unmanned underwater vehicles. Composite materials offer several advantages over metallic materials in marine applications, including higher strength-to-weight ratios, reduced maintenance, better corrosion resistance, and improved acoustic …

Children’S Outcomes And Maternal Opioid Exposures During Pregnancy, Shuang Wang

Open Access Dissertations

Opioid use among pregnant women has markedly escalated in the United States in recent decades. Alarmingly, one-fifth of these women fill one or more prescriptions for opioids despite concerns about perinatal safety. Consequently, the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) in pregnancy and adverse outcomes in offspring has increased in parallel. In this dissertation, we explored the potential mediating roles of adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes residing in pathways between prenatal opioid exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in children. Additionally, we assessed the potential synergistic effect of opioid and antidepressant use in pregnancy on NDDs in offspring and the potential …

Diagnostic Brains, Experiential Minds And Metamodernism: Mcewan, Self, And Mccarthy As Case Studies, Mohamed Anis Ferchichi

Open Access Dissertations

In the wake of critical stances encompassing both modernism and postmodernism, we witness a theoretical preoccupation with how recent literary innovations position today's British fiction within the legacy of the novel form. On the one hand, postmodernism disrupted modernism's experiential phenomenology of interiority, subject, and character (what I call an experiential inflexion in critical comprehension of the form). On the other hand, what was declared "the decade of the brain" shifted some narrativization to exteriority, syndromic specifics, and reductive somaticism (what I see as a diagnostic inflexion in critical comprehension of the form). In considering today's British fiction within the …

Did Gasb 67 And 68 Impact Public Pension Risk Taking?, Michael B. Forte Jr.

Open Access Dissertations

This study sought to extend the methods used by Mohan & Zhang (2014) to the period after the adoption of GASB 67 & 68 to see if those pronouncements had an effect on pension investment risk at different funded ratio levels. The main measure used by Mohan & Zhang (2014) was the comparison of two measure of risk, equity allocation and a calculated pension asset beta, with the funded ratio of plans contained in the Public Plans Database at Boston College. The method of comparison was the same as was used by Mohan & Zhang (2014), fixed effects regression with …

Defining The Essential Genome Of Haemophilus Parainfluenzae And Conditionally Essential Genes Required For Its Survival In Biofilms And Serum Complement, Thaís Harder De Palma

Open Access Dissertations

Haemophilus parainfluenzae (Hp), a Gram-negative bacterium is found in different niches of the mouth, and it is very abundant in the supragingival plaque. While considered a commensal in the mouth, Hp is also a HACEK microorganism associated with endocarditis and considered an opportunistic pathogenic species. However, Hp remains a subject of limited investigation. Specifically, the genes necessary for Hp's survival and those that are conditionally essential for thriving under various environmental conditions are yet to be identified. This research addresses those questions using transposon sequencing (TnSeq) to identify the essential genome and the core essential genome in …

13c Labeling For Cho Cell Metabolism Tracing And Ms Based Analysis For Advanced Upstream Culture Monitoring To Support Cqa Understanding, Xin Bush

Open Access Dissertations

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) make up a large part of biopharmaceutical sales due to their great success in treating cancer, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases. Due to an increasing number of mAbs using innovative approaches in drug development, combined with changes in the drug market, there is an increased need for optimizing process intensification and quality control. Thus, a profound understanding of cellular metabolism and how this impacts the protein product’s critical quality attributes (CQA) would be of great value. Among the quality attributes of mAbs, post-translational modifications such as N-linked glycosylation are of particular importance as they affect the activity, efficacy, …

A Group Respite Intervention For Family Caregivers Of Children Living With Special Needs, Christine Mcgrane

Open Access Dissertations

Family caregiver stress is a growing healthcare concern as more and more families are providing a large portion of care at home. As a family caregiver, parents of children living with special needs are taking on this role as a lifelong journey with their child. Due to the provision of continuous caregiving, these parents are at higher risk for exhaustion, stress, and social isolation, and the challenges can impact both the child and family’s physical and emotional well-being. The demands of caregiving can impact their physical, mental, social, and financial health. As a society, the importance of caring for the …

The Impact Of Climate Stresses In Water Quality Of Agricultural, Urban And Forested Watersheds In Rhode Island, Shiva Shrestha

Open Access Dissertations

Hydrological regime and nutrient dynamics are associated with hydrological setting of any watershed. Human interventions have direct and indirect impacts on these hydrologic setting and watershed response. The increasing anthropogenic pressure has continued to degrade the water quality. This may lead to eutrophication that can seriously harm the water quality and aquatic ecosystems (Vitousek 1997).

The effective mitigation strategies in land and water management practices should have good understand of water and nutrient fluxes in watershed and relating them to spatio-temporal hydrologic factors (Liang et al., 2020).

The best approaches of the management strategies should always start from monitoring and …

Development And Applications Of An Electrochemical Method, Nanoemulsion-Integrated Single-Entity Electrochemistry, Hiranya Malshani Madawala

Open Access Dissertations

The present study explores the development and practical utilization of a new electroanalytical methodology, nanoemulsion-integrated single-entity electrochemistry (NI-SEE) to fundamentally elucidate the intriguing nanoemulsion (NE) system and sense/quantify biomedical or environmental toxicants at ultra-trace level. SEE is a modern electrochemical technique, where one can measure the change in the current or the potential upon the individual collision of a nano object on to the nano or the micro sized electrode at a time. We performed in situ and real-time study by uniquely employing SEE to investigate a physicochemical property, e.g., a partition coefficient (P) at intact individual NEs, …

Measuring The Needle In The Haystack: Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (Sers) Detection Of Anionic Environmental Pollutants, Timo Küster

Open Access Dissertations

Detection of anionic environmental pollutants such as nitrate in seawater is essential to monitoring and maintaining water quality in coastal ecosystems. Current on-site methods for nutrient detection often require extensive sample preparation and have detection limits above concentration thresholds associated with nutrient limited conditions where small variations in concentration can lead to sudden ecological events, such as toxic algae blooms.

Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is based on the enhancement of otherwise weak Raman scattering in the presence of nanostructured metal surfaces where analytes are within approximately 2 nm of the surface. For in situ measurements in an aqueous phase, …