Digital Commons Network^™

How Well Do Providers Screen For Depression And Suicide In Adolescents?, Judi Allyn Godsey

Theses

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds. Research indicates that suicide can be prevented with early screening and treatment. More than 50% of patients suffering from some form of mental disorder are seen only by their primary care provider. This data suggests that screening measures within the primary care setting can be instrumental in identifying risk behaviors among adolescents who
may be considered at risk for depression and suicide. This descriptive, comparative, quantitative study examined the documentation of primary care physicians, pediatricians and nurse practitioners regarding high risk behavioral indicators that could signal depression or …

Routine Activity Theory At The Census Tract-Level, Abigail G. Orscheln

Theses

The purpose of this study is to better understand predictors of neighborhood crime in metropolitan areas through a routine activity theory (RAT) lens. This paper examines whether neighborhood-level aspects of RAT have varying explanatory power for different crimes. This is accomplished by drawing on a sample of census tracts from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS). Using these data, multiple independent variables are regressed on four different types of crime using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The results do not suggest that there is a strong degree of variation in the ability of specific measures to predict specific forms …

The Luxury Trap, Zhihui Wu

Theses

Human beings have traveled from prehistory through an agricultural era to the industrial age to modern society today. I think every transition is a luxury trap. Why have there been there so many transitions? Why are transitions are traps?

The human being is a special kind of animal that endlessly strives for a better life. Human beings work hard for a better life that includes more luxury, no matter the material aspect or spiritual aspect. But when they complete a transition, they always fall into another trap that has different problems.

My works illustrate three different transitions of the human …

Revitalizing Low Income Communities Using Carbon Neutral Buildings, Charles Rau

Theses

Rochester New York, a city which thrived on manufacturing in the 1900’s, has declined over the years. The impacts of the economic down turn, suburbanization, and the highway system impeding pedestrian access to downtown Rochester, all took their toll on the city’s once vibrant urban fabric which has now deteriorated into surface parking and buildings in disrepair. The city of Rochester has started a conscious effort to rebuild its downtown which brings with it an increased population. This increased population begins to strain an already struggling municipality and city thus spreading the services provided by the municipality thin; causing yet …

Mobile Big Data Analytics In Healthcare, Alramzana Nujum Navaz

Theses

Mobile and ubiquitous devices are everywhere around us generating considerable amount of data. The concept of mobile computing and analytics is expanding due to the fact that we are using mobile devices day in and out without even realizing it. These mobile devices use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or mobile data to be intermittently connected to the world, generating, sending and receiving data on the move. Latest mobile applications incorporating graphics, video and audio are main causes of loading the mobile devices by consuming battery, memory and processing power. Mobile Big data analytics includes for instance, big health data, big location data, …

Work Engagement Antecedents And Consequences Across Generations In The United Arab Emirates, Nahla Abdullah Al Haj Hassan M. Fadhlani

Theses

Drawing upon generational differences and work engagement literatures, this research examines the antecedents and consequences of work engagement in the context of the UAE, and the moderating effect of generational membership.

Statistics predicted that in the year 2015, 45% of the UAE labor market was comprised by individuals born between 1980 and 1999, known as the Y Generation. However, little is known about generational differences in the UAE, in particular among members of the Y Generation with respect to work engagement. Whereas organizations need suitable human resources practices and tools to ensure the consistency and growth of the three generations …

Enabling Smart City Services For Heterogeneous Wireless Networks, Besintha Jafar Marakkarakath

Theses

A city can be transformed into a smart city if there is a resource-rich and reliable communication infrastructure available. A smart city in effect improves the quality of life of citizens by providing the means to convert the existing solutions to smart ones. Thus, there is a need for finding a suitable network structure that is capable of providing sufficient capacity and satisfactory quality-of-service in terms of latency and reliability. In this thesis, we propose a wireless network structure for smart cities. Our proposed network provides two wireless interfaces for each smart city node. One is supposed to connect to …

Performance Study For Capillary Machine-To-Machine Networks, Maisaa Othman Albaghdadi

Theses

Communication technologies witness a wide and rapid pervasiveness of wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. It is emerging to apply for data transfer among devices without human intervention. Capillary M2M networks represent a candidate for providing reliable M2M connectivity. In this thesis, we propose a wireless network architecture that aims at supporting a wide range of M2M applications (either real-time or non-real-time) with an acceptable QoS level. The architecture uses capillary gateways to reduce the number of devices communicating directly with a cellular network such as LTE. Moreover, the proposed architecture reduces the traffic load on the cellular network by providing capillary …

Mobile App Of Food Combinations- Medley For Mom, Xun Zhao

Theses

“There were variations in the types of dietary intervention and the effect of specific nutrient components. There was no heterogeneity for dietary intervention components, but considerate heterogeneity for all dietary interventions combined.” With the development of the society and the improvement of living conditions, people’s eating habit has become much more diverse. However, some food combinations could potentially bring discomfort, such as indigestion, constipation and so on.

Due to the individual differences of the human digestive system structures, improper food combinations lead to various harms to different groups of people, among which pregnant women suffer the most.

“There is little …

Fresh Food Delivery System Based On Suburban Community, Zhuo Wang

Theses

Healthy eating is one of the biggest problem that affect people’s health in US, unhealthy eating causes billions of dollars on related disease every year. Eating more fresh food is one the most efficient and simplest way to improve this situation, So questions are why certain people can not eat enough fresh food and how to help them eat more fresh food. Following the questions, my research shows that there are multiple reasons involved including long commute time, far away from fresh food shop and price, according to the research, a fresh food delivery system based on suburban community called …

Microbial Degradation Of Various Organic Pollutants Using Bacteria Isolated From Petroleum Sludge, Manal Ali Alhefeiti

Theses

Intensification of agriculture and manufacturing industries has resulted in increased release of a wide range of xenobiotic compounds to the environment. The extensive discharge of hazardous waste in industrial wastewater and the recalcitrant nature of some of these organic pollutants have fueled a strong interest in exploring efficient and environmentally friendly approaches for wastewater remediation. Bioremediation approaches can provide efficient, inexpensive and environmentally safe cleanup tools. In the present study, our main objective was to isolate novel bacterial strains from UAE petroleum sludge and to examine their abilities to degrade various aromatic pollutants, including azo dyes and emerging pollutants. We …

Effects Of Environmental Diesel Exhaust Particles On Gastric Stem Cells, Heba Ahmed Mazen Al Sadik

Theses

I would like to express my special thanks to the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi Emirate and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) for their input and support. Last, but certainly not least, these acknowledgments would be incomplete without expressing my deepest appreciation to my family. Special acknowledgment of this achievement goes to my parents, who not only showed me unconditional love, acceptance, and respect for the person that I am throughout my life, they also showed me the strength of character which has brought me to where I am today. To my wife, for her …

Short-Term Bilateral Adrenalectomy: Biochemical And Morphological Alterations In The Rat Hippocampus, Ahlam Said Abi Issa

Theses

Several studies showed the effects of glucocorticoid hormones on the hippocampus. It has been reported that the chronic administration of high dose glucocorticoids (GC) results in the degeneration of pyramidal neurons. However, bilateral adrenalectomy has been shown to damage the hippocampal neurons. Although the effects of long-term adrenalectomy have been studied extensively, there are few publications on the effects of short-term bilateral adrenalectomy (ADX). We aimed to investigate the effects of ADX on levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interkeukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α); levels of growth factors, response of microglia and astrocytes to neuronal death, and oxidative …

Gallium-Doped Microporous Γ-Al2o3: The Effect Of Preparative Conditions And Composition On The Textural Properties And The Catalytic Activity In Methanol Conversion To Dimethyl Ether As A Clean Fuel Alternative, Rawad Maarouf Bou Jaber

Theses

Solid acid catalysts, such as γ-alumina, are important materials in different catalytic applications such as dehydration reactions of alcohols. Methanol is one of the most important intermediates that can be obtained from natural gas and can be further converted to other efficient fuels and chemicals. Dimethyl ether, which can be obtained from methanol, is being considered as a promising future fuel besides being the building block for several industrially important chemicals. Although γ-alumina has shown significant activity for the dehydration of methanol to dimethyl ether, improving the conversion and the selectivity at relatively low temperatures is still a major concern. …

Urban Park Design, Level Of Enclosure And People’S Satisfaction: A Comparative Analysis Of Al Jahili And Al Selimi Parks In Al Ain, Uae, Amnah Ali S Gargoum

Theses

The purpose of this research is to understand how physical characteristics of parks with a particular focus on different levels of enclosure affect park usage level and user patterns in the city of Al-Ain, UAE. Parks in Al Ain are present in different parts of the city and provide plenty of opportunities for leisure and recreation. Despite this diversity, parks located within the inner city area remain the most popular among the residents of Al-Ain, and have expanded significantly in the last few years. Specifically, this thesis aims to understand how the levels of usage and the behavioral patterns of …

Machine Learning Based Autism Detection Using Brain Imaging, Gajendra Jung Katuwal

Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a group of heterogeneous developmental disabilities that manifest in early childhood. Currently, ASD is primarily diagnosed by assessing the behavioral and intellectual abilities of a child. This behavioral diagnosis can be subjective, time consuming, inconclusive, does not provide insight on the underlying etiology, and is not suitable for early detection. Diagnosis based on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—a widely used non- invasive tool—can be objective, can help understand the brain alterations in ASD, and can be suitable for early diagnosis. However, the brain morphological findings in ASD from MRI studies have been inconsistent. Moreover, there …

A Passionate Journey: Info-Motion Graphics Video Exploring Why And How To Find Work You Love., Jia Zhou

Theses

Benjamin Disraeli, a 19th century British Prime Minister, once said, “Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.” Passion is the fuel that can power you toward the realization of your dreams. To live a truly satisfying and purposeful life, it is important for every individual to know what their passions are so life will be fulfilling.

Teenagers choose their career after they graduate from high school. They begin to wonder what they will become and what contributions they can make in the future. It is important for people to …

Social Table Design For Culinary Enjoyment, Jiekun Qian

Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to design a new culinary experience to gather people together and make the cooking and dining activities more socialized, interactive and joyful.

A-Round is a modular culinary table that can satisfy user’s specific needs in regard to different social aspects by changing the elements of the middle part of the table (burner top, storage tray, serving tray, table top, etc.). The round shape semantically reduces the distance between people and gathers them together. By changing behaviors of users and offering resources around the dining area, this product not only functionally improves the culinary process, …

The Impact Of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs On The Dynamics Of The Opioid Epidemic, Samuel Gatley

Theses

The forces driving the prescription opioid epidemic currently raging across the United States include aggressive marketing, weak regulation, addiction, freely prescribing doctors, a glut of pills available for sharing, and easy access to illicit drugs like heroin. This thesis aims to quantitatively analyze the interactions between these drivers through construction of a System Dynamics model, in order to determine the efficacy of policy intervention through Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs. The System Dynamics model simulates the flow of doctors’ prescriptions to the two very different classes of prescription opioid patients. One class is the long-term pain patients whose tolerance and appetite …

Interviews Define Face Validity Of Physical Activity Survey Items With Fourth Graders, Elizabeth Dubiel Wayman

Theses

School-based and after school interventions to encourage child participation in physical activity use self-report surveys, among other methods, to assess level of physical activity. The current study investigated the face validity of nine physical activity self-report items used to evaluate the Fuel for Fun program, a nutrition and physical activity intervention for fourth graders administered in Colorado. A convenience sample of fourth graders demographically similar to Fuel for Fun participants in Colorado were cognitively interviewed to examine understanding and comprehension of survey items. Qualitative content analysis of interview transcripts revealed that 87.5% to 100% of students reported understanding the items …

The Role Of Estrogen In Mouse Gastric Stem Cell Homeostasis, Aysha Mohamed Yusuf Alkaabi

Theses

To maintain cellular homeostasis, the epithelial lining of the stomach wall continuously fluctuates between cellular proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. A key player in this process is the gastric stem cell (GSC). GSCs are located in the isthmus region of the corpus gastric gland and have the potential to proliferate and differentiate. Although several pathways have been identified to regulate stem cell role in several body tissues, little is known about controlling GSC homeostasis. This project aims to study the role of estrogen (E2) in GSC homeostasis using the well-established mouse gastric epithelial progenitor (mGEP) cell line. Our data showed that …

Genetic Polymorphism Of Cytochrome P450-1a2 (Cyp1a2) And N-Acetyltransferase-2 (Nat2) Among Emiratis, Mohammed Majed Al-Ahmad

Theses

Brief introduction: There are limited studies on CYP1A2 and NAT2 polymorphisms among Emiratis. Aims: This study aims to determine CYP1A2 and NAT2 alleles and genotypes and correlate these genotypes with caffeine metabolism phenotypes among Emiratis. Methods: After obtaining informed consent, five hundred and eighty-one non-smoker subjects were given 300ml of caffeinated soft drink and were asked to provide a buccal swab and a urine sample two hours later. TaqMan Real Time PCR, PCR-RFLP, DNA sequencing were performed to determine CYP1A2 and NAT2 alleles and genotypes. Phenotyping was carried out by analysing the caffeine metabolites using HPLC analysis. Results: We found …

Sense Of Belonging And Registered Nurse Job Satisfaction, Sarah E. Abel

Theses

Increased registered nurse turnover may be a significant contributor to the nursing shortage; therefore factors must be acknowledged that lead to poor nurse retention. Tourangeau, Cummings, Cranley, Ferron, and Harvey (2010) identified that a relationship exists between job satisfaction, nurse retention, and nurse turnover. This is a replication of Tourangeau et al.'s (2010) study and will seek to identify additional factors that may influence registered nurse turnover and specifically search to find what work or life situations influenced nurses to remain or end employment. Miles and Huberman's (1994) deductive qualitative data coding method will be used to categorize, refine, and …

Interactive Dynasty: An Effective Way To Learn About The Tang Dynasty History, Xiangyin Li

Theses

Today, interaction design is applied to multiple areas of visual communication and instructional design. Interactive elements can be found in websites, apps, and kiosk terminal equipment. Through the integration of interactive content such as step-by-step tutorials, the user can acquire a variety of different types of information efficiently and effectively to learn about historical events.

China has one of the longest and continuous cultures today. Its own unique charisma attracts many history buffs to learn more about important historical events. Kiosk terminals in history museums have successfully provided a learning environment for users to learn about China through interaction design. …

Patients' Perceptions Regarding Nursing Care In The General Surgical Wards At Kenyatta National Hospital, Elwin Shawa

Theses

Nursing care is a major component of the health services because it is one of the determinants of quality health services. The anecdotal patients' care evaluation and media reports have portrayed negative publicity and image regarding nursing care in certain hospitals. Patients' perceptions regarding nursing care is thought to be the determinant of quality nursing care. To explore patients' perceptions and experiences regarding nursing care in surgical wards.

Deep Learning Localization For Self-Driving Cars, Suvam Bag

Theses

Identifying the location of an autonomous car with the help of visual sensors can be a good alternative to traditional approaches like Global Positioning Systems (GPS) which are often inaccurate and absent due to insufficient network coverage. Recent research in deep learning has produced excellent results in different domains leading to the proposition of this thesis which uses deep learning to solve the problem of localization in smart cars with visual data.

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) were used to train models on visual data corresponding to unique locations throughout a geographic location. In order to evaluate the performance of …

Get A Grip: Analysis Of Muscle Activity And Perceived Comfort In Using Stylus Grips, Evanda Vanease Henry

Theses

The design of handwriting instruments has been based primarily on touch, feel, aesthetics, and muscle exertion. Previous studies make it clear that different pen characteristics have to be considered along with hand-instrument interaction in the design of writing instruments. This should include pens designed for touch screens and computer based writing surfaces. Hence, this study focuses primarily on evaluating grip style’s impact on user comfort and muscle activity associated with handgrip while using a stylus-pen.

Surface EMG measures were taken approximate to the adductor pollicis, flexor digitorum, and extensor indicis of eight participants while they performed writing, drawing, and point-and-click …

Novel Experimental Method For The Determination Of The Minimum Agitation Speed For Solids Suspension In Flat-Bottomed Stirred Tank Reactors, Shriarjun Shastry

Theses

Knowledge of the minimum agitation speed, Njs, required to suspend finely divided solids in vessels stirred by an impeller is a critical parameter to properly operate industrial tanks in a large number of industrial operations. The most common experimental approach to measure N_js is that of Zwietering’s (Chem. Eng. Sci., 1958, 8, 244-253), consisting of visually inspecting the tank bottom and visually determining the impeller agitation speed at which the solids are observed to rest on the tank bottom for no more than 1-2 seconds before being swept away. This method is quite reliable, but a method …

Real Time, Integrated, Paper Based Temperature Sensor For Lab On A Chip Device, Vignesh Shekhar

Theses

Temperature measurement and manipulation is a critical factor in a wide range of applications like Point Of Care Diagnostics (POC's), Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Temperature Gradient Focusing (TGF) to cite few prominent examples. In the past decade, researchers have used various techniques to sense and control the temperature in microfluidic systems. The primary challenge has been the twin problem of integration and accuracy using minimal equipment while keeping it simple. In this study, an equipment free fabrication of the temperature sensor using filter paper impregnated with p-type colloidal PbS quantum dots is demonstrated. This sensor is later integrated into line …

Je Me Soviens Seesaw Helps To Bring A Closer Relationship With Seniors By Integrating Across Generations, Jui-Chen Hsu

Theses

The goal for this project is to help us encourage closer relationships with our seniors by integrating across generations.

The world’s population is aging rapidly and this is becoming a big issue worldwide. According to the United Nations (UN), a person who is 60 or older is part of the older population. The UN also predicts people aged 60 and older make up 12.3% of the global population, and by 2050, that number will rise to almost 22% (Fund 2016). In other words, the senior population will reach over two million people all over the world. Therefore, we cannot neglect …