Digital Commons Network^™

Volume 11, Issue 43: December 5, 2011, Women's Studies & Gender Studies Program

Women's Studies & Gender Studies: Digest Magazine

No abstract provided.

A Bridge To One World: An Indigenous Wisdom-Based Approach To Designing A Transcultural Patient Family Advisory Council, Julie Lundberg

Theses and Graduate Projects

As health care organizations face increasing challenges to accommodate diverse patient populations amid growing concerns of persistent health disparities, there is urgent need to better understand and listen to diverse, unique patient experiences. This paper describes the design and implementation of a transcultural Patient Family Advisory Council (PFAC) as a concrete step towards ensuring that the voices of culturally diverse patients and families are effectively engaged to improve the patient experience at a large, Midwestern healthcare organization. Storytelling, ritual and dialogue provide a wisdom-based approach to the design of a Bridge to One World practice model grounded in Leininger's Culture …

Executive Turnover In The Chamber Of Commerce Industry, Lori R. Higgins

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of this action research project was to design an executive director retention plan for chambers of commerce. A literature review was conducted, reviewing inf,ormation on executive turnover, Ieadership traits and skills, and nonprofit executive challenges. A qualitative survey was emailed to 103 current chamber of commerce executive directors of whom 55 responded. A similar survey was emailed to 19 former chamber of commerce executives of whom 14 responded. The results of the surveys showed that executive directors of chambers tend to be visionary leaders who enjoy effecting change, serving businesses, and having leadership opportunities. Overall, executives are satisfied …

Care Of Self: How Reiki Is Used By Nurses To Reduce Stress On An Acute Care Unit, Leann Olson

Theses and Graduate Projects

As the nursing shortage escalates and patient acuity levels continue to rise, nurses can expect to experience increased stress and burnout. Indeed, studies show that job dissatisfaction among nurses today is widespread. Finding ways to reduce the stress, improve job satisfaction, and retention is important not only for nurses, nursing units, and organizations, but also for patients. This paper describes a nursing practice model that was developed to reduce stress and burnout among nurses in an acute care unit of a large urban hospital. The model uses the energy therapy of Reiki and is guided by Martha Rogers' Science of …

Creating A Healing Environment In The Intensive Care Unit, Elissa Egbers

Theses and Graduate Projects

The intensive care unit (ICU) can be a very stressful environment. Patients are critically ill and require constant monitoring. Indeed, high tech care in the ICU environment includes multiple factors that may impair the patient's ability to sleep and rest. The purpose of this paper is to describe a practice model that is conducive to patient healing in an intensive care unit in a large urban hospital. This practice model is significant to patients, families, and nursing staff and is based on Florence Nightingale's Environmental Model of Nursing and her thirteen canons. This paper describes the potential implementation of the …

Integration Of Upqc For Power Quality Improvement In Distributed Generation Network – A Review, Shafiuzzaman Khan Khadem, Malabika Basu, Michael Conlon

Conference Papers

In this paper a technical review of the integration of a Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) in a distributed generation network is presented. Although the primary task of UPQC is to minimize grid voltage and load current disturbances along with reactive and harmonic power compensation, additional functionalities such as compensation of voltage interruption and active power transfer to the load and grid have also been identified. Connection methodologies with their advantages and disadvantages are also described. Recent improvements in capacity expansion techniques and future trends for the application of UPQC in distributed modes are also identified.

Detection Of Diffuse Sea Floor Venting Using Structured Light Imaging, Gabrielle Inglis, Clara Smart, Christopher Roman, Steven Carey

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Efficiently identifying and localizing diffuse sea floor venting at hydrothermal and cold seep sites is often difficult. Actively venting fluids are usually identified by a temperature induced optical shimmering seen during direct visual inspections or in video data collected by vehicles working close to the sea floor. Relying on such direct methods complicates establishing spatial relations between areas within a survey covering a broad area. Our recent work with a structured light laser system has shown that venting can also be detected in the image data in an automated fashion. A structured light laser system consists of a camera and …

Daily Eastern News: December 05, 2011, Eastern Illinois University

December

No abstract provided.

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Agriculture And Applied Sciences, December 5, 2011, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

The present online Master of Dietetics Administration (MDA) degree offered by the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Sciences, which is part of the College of Agriculture at Utah State University, is proposing to add a Plan C option.

The Reconstruction Of Historical Buildings: A Visitor And Historical Site Study, Alyssa Holland

Theses and Dissertations

The reconstruction of historical buildings has been debated by preservationists, archeologists and historians, both with each other and within their own fields. But no matter how intensely scholars discuss and disagree on the subject, professionals at historic sites still continue to reconstruct historical buildings. The questions surrounding historical reconstruction include: is it ethical to reconstruct historical buildings? Is it worthwhile to reconstruct historical buildings for the benefit of the general public? I surveyed historical site workers from across the country and visitors from Red Hill National Memorial, the last home of Patrick Henry. From the survey, visitors seem to remember …

Acrb Trimer Stability And Efflux Activity, Insight From Mutagenesis Studies, Linliang Yu, Wei Lu, Yinan Wei

Chemistry Faculty Publications

The multidrug transporter AcrB in Escherichia coli exists and functions as a homo-trimer. The assembly process of obligate membrane protein oligomers, including AcrB, remains poorly understood. In a previous study, we have shown that individual AcrB subunit is capable of folding independently, suggesting that trimerization of AcrB follows a three-stage pathway in which monomers first fold, and then assemble. Here we destabilized the AcrB trimer through mutating a single Pro (P223) in the protruding loop of AcrB, which drastically reduced the protein activity. We replaced P223 separately with five residues, including Ala, Val, Tyr, Asn, and Gly, and found that …

A Reflexive Approach To Capability Valuation And Determination In Sustainable Human Development: The 2010 Hillsborough County Transit Referendum, Eric James Fiske

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable Human Development (SHD), rooted in Amartya Sen’s development theory on the capability approach, envisions achieving sustainable human capabilities at the local and global levels. One major area of contention within this field of research concerns determination and valuation of capabilities. How a community decides which capabilities should be developed is as important as the development itself. Some capability scholars argue that a small group of experts or “philosophers” should make this determination, while others argue that a deliberative democratic process needs to be followed. I seek to reconcile these two positions by introducing a third way of determining and …

Concerns About Teen Sexting Overblown, According To New Unh Research, Lori Wright

Media Relations

No abstract provided.

Usu Faculty Senate Minutes, December 5, 2011, Utah State University

Faculty Senate & Faculty Senate Executive Committee

• PRPC -Section 405.7.2, 405.8.3, and 403.3.2( Second Reading) Title changes for the new Vice President for Research and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies
• PRPC -Section 402.3.2 and 402.3.4 (First Reading) Vacancies in the Faculty Senate
• The Presidential Task Force on Curriculum - Norm Jones

The Parthenon, December 5, 2011 , Kristin Steele

The Parthenon

The Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper, is published by students Monday through Friday during the regular semester and weekly Thursday during the summer. The editorial staff is responsible for the news and the editorial content.

The Collegian (2011-12-05), Rene Cardona Jr.

UTB/TSC Archives - The Collegian [Newspaper]

Vol. 64. No. 15

Bjc Today

BJC Today

No abstract provided.

Nanozeolites Doped Photopolymer Layers With Reduced Shrinkage, Mohesh Moothanchery, Izabela Naydenova, Svetlana Mintova, Vincent Toal

Articles

An acrylamide based photopolymer doped with pure silica MFI-type zeolite (silicalite-1) nanoparticles has been characterized for holographic recording purposes. The concentrations of the silicalite-1 nanoparticles in the photopolymer layers were 1, 2.5, 5 and 7.5 wt.%. The inclusion of silicalite-1 nanoparticle in the photopolymer has resulted in an increase of the diffraction efficiency by up to 40%, and decrease of the shrinkage from 1.32% to 0.57%. The best results were obtained in layers doped with 5 wt.% silicalite-1 nanoparticles.

Dynamic Appointment Scheduling In Healthcare, Mckay N. Heasley

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, healthcare management has become fertile ground for the scheduling theory community. In addition to an extensive academic literature on this subject, there has also been a proliferation of healthcare scheduling software companies in the marketplace. Typical scheduling systems use rule-based analytics that give schedulers advisory information from programmable heuristics such as the Bailey-Welch rule cite{B,BW}, which recommends overbooking early in the day to fill-in potential no-shows later on. We propose a dynamic programming problem formulation to the scheduling problem that maximizes revenue. We formulate the problem and discuss the effectiveness of 3 different algorithms that solve the …

Remote Analysis Of Grain Size Characteristic In Submarine Pyroclastic Deposits From Kolumbo Volcano, Greece, Clara Smart, D. P. Whitesell, Christopher N. Roman, Steven Carey

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Grain size characteristics of pyroclastic deposits provide valuable information about source eruption energetics and depositional processes. Maximum size and sorting are often used to discriminate between fallout and sediment gravity flow processes during explosive eruptions. In the submarine environment the collection of such data in thick pyroclastic sequences is extremely challenging and potentially time consuming. A method has been developed to extract grain size information from stereo images collected by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). In the summer of 2010 the ROV Hercules collected a suite of stereo images from a thick pumice sequence in the caldera walls of Kolumbo …

Evaluating The Success Of Benefit Fraud And Compliance Act In Affecting Wages And Offers For Seven Common H1b Occupations In Virginia, 2002-2010, Khalafala Alsadig

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the role of the Benefits Fraud and Compliance Act (BFCA) in affecting H1B hiring policy in the state of Virginia, as it pertained to seven computer science-related occupations. By employing an independent samples t-test approach, it was discovered that there was a statistically significant difference in H1B actual wages, proposed wages, and per-employer offers before and after BFCA.

Adaptive Physical Education And Aquatics For Students With Disabilities: A Teacher's Unique Experience, Jennifer Cheryl Blassingame

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Students with the most severe disabilities have special needs that cannot be addressed with general education curriculum modifications in a traditional prekindergarten-12th grade environment (Heward, 2006). It is essential that expert teachers with specialized educational background and training are prepared to adapt daily lessons to accommodate all students. Thus, the purpose of this autoethnographic research was to study the personal and professional life experiences of an expert teacher that led to integrating physical education, sensory integration, and assistive technology into a unique pedagogical approach to teach students with multiple disabilities. This approach allowed these students to be as productive as …

Reported Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption And Body Composition In Urban Southern College Students, Sarah J. Achelpohl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Objective To determine the impact of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption on body composition in urban southern college students.Design This study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey design evaluating the relationships among sugar-sweetened beverage consumption frequency, body mass index, and body fat percentage in urban southern college students while controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity and analyzed using Pearson correlations.Subjects Fifty-three subjects between 17 and 25 years of age were included in the study and were enrolled at the University of Memphis.Results This study revealed a significant linear relationship between sugar-sweetened soda and body mass index and body fat percentage in Caucasian students. …

The Laboca Survey Of The Extended Chandra Deep Field-South: Clustering Of Submillimetre Galaxies, Ryan C. Hickox, J. L. Wardlow, Ian Smail, A. D. Myers

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present a measurement of the spatial clustering of submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) at z = 1–3. Using data from the 870 μm LABOCA submillimetre survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South, we employ a novel technique to measure the cross-correlation between SMGs and galaxies, accounting for the full probability distributions for photometric redshifts of the galaxies. From the observed projected two-point cross-correlation function we derive the linear bias and characteristic dark matter halo masses for the SMGs. We detect clustering in the cross-correlation between SMGs and galaxies at the > 4σ level. Accounting for the clustering of galaxies from their …

Analyzing Ecohydrology Of Subirrigated Meadow, Dry Valley And Upland Dune Ecosystems Using Remote Sensing And In-Situ Estimations In The Semiarid Sand Hills Region Of Nebraska, Usa, Nathan C. Healey

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nebraska’s dependence upon the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer for agricultural production is vital to the state’s economy, ecology and hydrology. The Sand Hills region (58,000 km²) of Nebraska is a unique system of lakes, (~5%) wetlands, (~10%) subirrigated meadows, (~20%) dry valleys and (~65%) upland sand dune ecosystems. Understanding how each of these land cover types reacts to climate conditions of different water limitations is vital to regional water resource management. This research explores the ecohydrological behavior of different land cover types at the Gudmundsen Sand Hills Research Laboratory (GSRL) near Whitman, Nebraska in the heart of the …

Identifying Modulators Of The Development Of Acute Functional Tolerance To Ethanol In Caenorhabditis Elegans., Ka-Po Leung

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol abuse is a problem in our society. There are few treatments available, in part due to the unclear molecular mechanisms of ethanol’s effects. Human studies indicate that there is a genetic component influencing disease susceptibility, and that an individual’s initial response to alcohol can predict their development of addiction. We have taken a forward genetics approach to study one component of initial response, acute functional tolerance (AFT), in Caenorhabditis elegans. We identified bet11, a mutation that causes animals to be defective in the development of AFT. Genetic analysis suggested that the gene that bet11 disrupts participates in a synthetic …

Living With Hiv: Views Through The Blog, Linda Eastham

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to develop a greater clarity of how HIV infected individuals live and work within the sphere of HIV infection as represented through unsolicited, personal narratives posted on blogs. Existing, single author, personal blogs were identified via a search engine. Blogs were defined as the blog author's postings and all responses, whether written by the blog author or a reader respondent. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed to respect indicators of bloggers' intentions for privacy, e.g., blogs which required a password were excluded. A total of 14 blogs met inclusion criteria. Actions to …

Organizational Capacity To Absorb External Knowledge: An Exploratory Study Of Public And Nonprofit Decision Makers' Perceptions Of Impediments And Facilitators, Linda S. Birtley

Theses and Dissertations

Research indicates that many youth-serving agencies do not adopt evidence-based innovations in the field of youth violence prevention. This qualitative study was designed to explore a sample of community-based decision makers’ perceptions of why innovative, evidence-based programs and practices for the prevention of violence by youth are, or are not, adopted at the local level. The rationale for this study was that knowledge of evidence-based innovations in youth violence prevention originates primarily from research scientists who are external to the organizations that are the intended recipients of the innovations. Prior research has not viewed the failure to adopt evidence-based innovations …

The Face In The Window, Clifford Garstang

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.

Jared Sampson's Mom, Dallas Woodburn

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.