Digital Commons Network^™

Quantifying The Energetic Cost Of Disorientation In Loggerhead (Caretta Caretta) And Green (Chelonia Mydas) Sea Turtle Hatchlings, Sean. Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The photopollution of beaches caused by artificial light sources can interfere with sea turtle hatchlings' ability to orient properly towards the sea. Exhaustion due to extended disorientation crawling may then increase hatchling mortality. This study evaluated the energetic consequences of long-distance crawls in green and loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. Turtles crawled for 200 m or 500 m on a treadmill, followed by a 30 minute evaluation of swim performance. Metabolic activity was quantified via measures of blood glucose, blood lactate, and oxygen consumption. No significant changes in metabolism resulted from long-distance crawling activity in loggerheads ; however, loggerheads rested for …

Public Speaking As The Last Battlefield, Shaundi C. Newbolt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Communication scholars are in disagreement over the presence of online public speaking courses in higher education. Despite limited research on the Online Public Speaking model, it is quickly replacing the traditional public speaking model in American colleges and universities. This study used Burkean Cluster-Agon Analysis to uncover core concepts from four contemporary public speaking textbooks used in various classroom models (traditional, online and hybrid). Concepts were then compared with traditional core concepts of early speech communication to determine if technology has influenced contemporary core concepts. Results determined that contemporary core concepts from three of the four public speaking textbooks reflected …

Religious Violence In Frank Herbert's Dune Series, Kenton Taylor Howard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This thesis examines the first two novels of Frank Herbert's Dune series, Dune and Dune Messiah, in order to consider these two novels from the framework of postcolonial theory and analyze how religious violence becomes a source of subjugation, military power, and colonialism within the works. The three chapters of this thesis chart the creation of a colonial project through epistemic violence, physical power, and cultural control enabled by religion. This thesis argues that, in the Dune novels, religious violence functions as a colonial project that closely resembles the goals of real-world colonial enterprises, and the failure to manage this …

Compensation, Employment Security, And The Economics Of Public-Sector Labor Law, Matthew Dimick

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Revisiting The Methodology And Application Of Value-At-Risk, Kyong. Chung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The main objective of this thesis is to simulate, evaluate and discuss three standard methodologies of calculating Value-at-Risk (VaR) : Historical simulation, the Variance-covariance method and Monte Carlo simulations. Historical simulation is the most common nonparametric method. The Variance-covariance and Monte Carlo simulations are widely used parametric methods. This thesis defines the three aforementioned VaR methodologies, and uses each to calculate 1-day VaR for a hypothetical portfolio through MATLAB simulations. The evaluation of the results shows that historical simulation yields the most reliable 1-day VaR for the hypothetical portfolio under extreme market conditions. Finally, this paper concludes with a suggestion …

Is Canada The New Shangri-La Of Global Securities Class Actions?, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

There has been significant academic buzz about Silver v. Imax, an Ontario case certifying a global class of shareholders alleging statutory and common law misrepresentation in connection with a secondary market distribution of shares. Although global class actions on a more limited scale have been certified in Canada prior to Imax, it can now be said that global classes have “officially” arrived in Canada. Many predict that the Imax decision means that Ontario will become the new center for the resolution of global securities disputes. This is particularly so after the United States largely relinquished this role in Morrison v. …

Doctor Of Nursing Practice Awareness: A Public Service Announcement, Rachael Buitrago

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this project was to demonstrate the need for public awareness of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. A five minute public service announcement was created to educate and create awareness of the Advanced Practice Nurse (APN)/DNP role and education required to obtain the degree. Americans should be educated regarding their options available to access their health care concerns. More than 3,600 members of the Doctor of Nursing Practice.org website were invited to view the PSA and partake in the questionnaire. Of those members and anyone viewing the PSA from the YouTube.com website, the project yielded a …

Transitional Care-Apn Guided Care Coordination, Karen P. Shields

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is an epidemic with estimated direct and indirect costs to the United States for 2008 of 34.8 billion (AHA, 2008). CHF is the only cardiovascular disease whose incidence is increasing (Williams, 2009). The most significant factor contributing to the increased incidence of CHF is the increased elderly population. Based on the 44-year follow-up of the NHLBI’s Framingham Heart Study, eighty percent of men and 70 percent of women under age 65 who have CHF will die within eight years (Williams, 2009). As the population ages, the total number of Americans with chronic conditions will rise rapidly. …

Does A Patient’S Disease Report Card Encourage Patient Self- Accountability And In Turn Improve Patient Literacy?, Janine Mccaffrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Poor chronic disease management and control is common in the United States. This study will look at using individual disease report cards to improve patient knowledge of their own chronic diseases which in hopes will improve self accountability as well as health literacy.

The Effects Of A Walking Exercise Program On Glucose Control In Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Judy R. Dasilva

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Individuals with type 2 diabetes are often unaware that physical activity can improve glucose utilization and thereby decrease blood sugar. The author investigated a 16 week walking intervention on Type 2 diabetics and the impact this exercise has on HbA1c levels, weight loss and exercise levels. Two men and seven women (n = 9 ) participated in the program. Results indicated significance increase in physical activity levels (t = 11.08 p = .001) and increased weight loss ( t = 12.5 p = .001) but no significance difference for HbA1c ( t = 1.4 p=1.08). Implications include the benefits of …

Effects Of A Crisis Intervention Team (Cit) Training Program Upon Police Officers Before And After Crisis Intervention Team Training: An Evidenced Based Program Evaluation Project In Miami Dade County Florida, Horace Ellis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Throughout communities across the United States, police officers frequently come in contact with individuals who are experiencing an active state of mental health crisis and do not have the necessary skills to safely and effectively intervene. The deinstitutionalization of patients in American psychiatric hospitals began in the 1970s (Burris, 2004). This policy was meant to be a way to help re-integrate those chronically ill patients back into the community (Burris, 2004). The theory of deinstitutionalization consists of component processes: the release of persons residing in psychiatric hospitals to families and alternative living facilities in the community, the diversion of potential …

Dnp Role In Specialty Care: Starting An Autonomous Psychiatric Practice In Miami Using Electronic Health Record (Ehr) Technology, George V. Cioffi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) in the state of Florida face multiple barriers to practicing autonomously. The Nurse Practice Act in Florida requires a collaborative agreement with a Medical Doctor, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine or a Dentist in order for the APN to be able to practice. Collaborative agreements, often called protocols, require a fee to be paid to the collaborating physician. This increases the fixed costs of the practice and is a financial burden that is not experienced by similar practices in other states. The project explores challenges of starting an autonomous APN psychiatric practice in South Florida using Electronic …

Guided Self-Help Concreteness Training As An Intervention For Major Depression In Primary Care: A Phase Ii Randomized Controlled Trial., E. R. Watkins, R. S. Taylor, R. Byng, C. Baeyens, R. Read, K. Pearson, L. Watson

Peninsula Medical School

BACKGROUND: The development of widely accessible, effective psychological interventions for depression is a priority. This randomized trial provides the first controlled data on an innovative cognitive bias modification (CBM) training guided self-help intervention for depression. METHOD: One hundred and twenty-one consecutively recruited participants meeting criteria for current major depression were randomly allocated to treatment as usual (TAU) or to TAU plus concreteness training (CNT) guided self-help or to TAU plus relaxation training (RT) guided self-help. CNT involved repeated practice at mental exercises designed to switch patients from an unhelpful abstract thinking habit to a helpful concrete thinking habit, thereby targeting …

Prevalence And Determinants For Overweight And Obesity Among Residents Of A Mining Township In Kitwe, Zambia, In 2011: A Population-Based Survey, Cosmas Zyaambo, Olesegun Babaniyi, Peter Songolo, Adamson S. Muula, Emmanuel Rudatsikira, Victor M. Mukonka, Seter Siziya

Faculty Publications

Background: Obesity and overweight in Africa have been attributed to demogra- phic and nutritional changes that have resulted from urbanization and sedentary lifestyles and increased caloric intake without much physical activities. This has put populations at an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, Diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis, dyslipidemia, and cancer. The objective of this study was to deter- mine the prevalence and associated factors for combined overweight and obesity among residents of a mining town, Kitwe, in Zambia.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted using a modified WHO glo- bal Non Communicable Diseases Surveillance Initiative STEPs 1 and 2 method of …

Designing Wise Communities That Engage In Creative Problem Solving: An Analysis Of An Online Design Model, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Ludmila Layne, Casey Frechette

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Addressing the conference theme of “design thinking,” this paper discusses an instructional design model, WisCom (Wisdom Communities) that we developed to build a wise learning community online, to solve open-ended, ill-structured problems such as solving a health crisis or an environmental disaster, which requires the exchange of multiple perspectives, inter-disciplinary thinking, creative problem solving, and social construction of knowledge. Based on socio-constructivist, sociocultural theories of learning and mediated cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995; Pea, 1993), group cognition (Stahl, 2006), research on how people learn (Bransford, Vye, Bateman, Brophy, & Roselli, 2004), and distance education design principles (Moore & …

Fingerprinting Co₂ Cartridges Used In Bb Guns, Alexandra Oswald

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Does A Ketogenic Diet Infer Neuroprotection In A Rat Model Of Neurotrauma, Ryan Lange

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Fractured Literature, 21st-Century Consciousness, And Postmodern Exhaustion In The Novel, Joshua Brorby

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Children's Adaptave Strategies In A Tool Use Task, Allison. Weinstein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Problem solving and strategy adaptation was assessed in 47 children ranging from 36 to 67 months. This was evaluated through problem sets in which participants were given tools that failed to reach given goal states, and then instructed to select appropriate tools in order to reach desired results. Analyses revealed that when participants were given a choice of tools to solve a given problem, they were more likely to select a correct tool when options were similar in function and appearance. Additionally, participants were more likely to verbalize the need for a new tool when there was a lack of …

Expanded Narrative: An On-Line Resource For Students, Lecturers And Practitioners, Emma Whittaker

School of Art, Design and Architecture

To investigate the ways in which the development of linear and interactive narrative features within undergraduate arts curricula at Plymouth University and partner colleges. To investigate the methods used to create expanded narratives by specialists in the field, within and outside of the arts. To develop an on-line resource that brings together expanded narrative practices from the arts, creative industries and research institutions, that provides relevant content for integration with HE arts curricula, that showcases student work and provides an evolving document of the student experience and offers opportunities for sharing knowledge and skills. The development of a community of …

Internationalising Chinese Maritime Higher Education: Developing Content And English Language Integrated Teaching And Learning, Robyn Morgan Pyne

Plymouth Business School Theses

This thesis examines how new maritime nations, which are engaged in the export of seafaring labour, need to respond to the demands of the international maritime industry. In particular, traditional maritime nations are calling for greater internationalisation of maritime education and training. The global labour market for seafarers, which is dominated by employers from traditional maritime nations, demands internationally minded graduates. China’s response to these demands for quality labour exports from new maritime nations is the subject of exploration in this thesis. Within the specific context of Maritime English teaching and learning, a significant opportunity for innovation and change is …

Facilitated Physical Activity As A Treatment For Depressed Adults: Randomised Controlled Trial, Melanie Chalder, Nicola J. Wiles, John Campbell, Sandra P. Hollinghurst, Anne M. Haase, Adrian H. Taylor, Kenneth R. Fox, Ceire Costelloe, Aidan Searle, Helen Baxter, Rachel Winder, Christine Wright, Katrina M. Turner, Michael Calnan, Deborah A. Lawlor, Tim J. Peters, Deborah J. Sharp, Alan A. Montgomery, Glyn Lewis

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

The Feasibility Of Collecting Information From People With Multiple Sclerosis For The Uk Ms Register Via A Web Portal: Characterising A Cohort Of People With Ms, David V. Ford, Kerina H. Jones, Rod M. Middleton, Hazel Lockhart-Jones, Inocencio D.C. Maramba, Gareth J. Noble, Lisa A. Osborne, Ronan A. Lyons

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Abstract Background A UK Register of people with Multiple Sclerosis has been developed to address the need for an increased knowledge-base about MS. The Register is being populated via: a web-based portal; NHS neurology clinical systems; and administrative data sources. The data are de-identified and linked at the individual level. At the outset, it was not known whether people with MS would wish to participate in the UK MS Register by personally contributing their data to the Register via a web-based system. Therefore, the research aim of this work was to build an internet-mounted recruitment and consenting technology for people …

The Professional Doctorate: Developing And Enacting Professional Learning Across Multiple Sites Of Learning, Nick Pratt, Michael Tedder, Peter Kelly, R Boyask

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

The research aimed to: - investigate the way in which EdD participants engage with, construct and enact new professional knowledge across a range of contexts; - better understand the significant relationships involved in this process – between people, sites and resources; - disseminate this new understanding within the pedagogic research arena.

Developing Sustainable Student Communities: Informal Learning And Becoming Peer, Rod Parker-Rees, Mel Joyner, Joanna Haynes

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

We aimed to exploit opportunities arising from the merging of the faculties of Health and Education to explore ways of supporting students in the development of a network of sustainable communities.While there is a substantial literature on how students engage and participate in the academic cultures of HEIs and on factors which affect student retention and quality of life, less research has been focused on the relationships between what might be called the formal curriculum and the informal learning opportunities afforded by participation in a student community.In the context of the creation of the Faculty of Health, Education and Society, …

Measuring The Performance Of Partnerships: Why, What, How, When?, C Kelly

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Partnerships have become increasingly prevalent across a wide range of sectors for the delivery of services and implementation of policy. Partnerships are seen as a more effective way of delivering policy interventions than state-led or ‘top-down’ approaches. Evaluating partnership performance is therefore crucial in order to determine whether partnerships really are better than more traditional methods of policy implementation. To date, however, partnership effectiveness has often been conceptualised as cumulative; the result of a set of variables acting in a one dimensional, linear way which results in the ability (or not) of a partnership to achieve its goals. This paper …

Moon Vehicle: Reflections From An Artist-Led Children's Workshop On The Chandrayaan-1 Spacecraft's Mission To The Moon, J Griffin

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This article reflects on the journey to the Moon of the spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 as it was interpreted through an artist-led workshop. The workshop participants were a group of children who lived close to where Chandrayaan was built and some of the engineers and scientists responsible for creating the spacecraft. Insights from the workshop show how a mission to the Moon draws on both the technological and the imaginative; they also have bearing on the relative agency of these individuals to contribute to the Moon missions in ways that are personally meaningful to them.

The Socio-Temporary In Architecture: Territories Of Second-Order Cybernetics, S Murrani

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Drawing Into Knowing: A Natural History, Sm Black, L Imperatore

School of Art, Design and Architecture

Co-presentation w/ Lynn Imperatore. ABSTRACT Whether drawing commences in strategic suspension of cognition or from a posture that seeks deeper recognition of the considered object, this research pair share a method of practice that employs the drawn line to trace paths commencing outward from acknowledged deficiencies of information. Both view drawing as tool for exploration; a kind of raw material of thought-made-visible in marks that nibble away at preconception and other barriers to knowledge. The resultant records of such active thinking reveal discoveries to both the artists and a wider audience. A practice-based drawing project was devised in order to …

Investigating E-Commerce Adoption In Small And Medium-Sized Tourism Enterprises: A Case Of Travel Agents In Egypt, Mohamed Ahmed Abd-Elraouf Abou-Shouk

Plymouth Business School Theses

SMEs are often described as slow adopters of technology. However, adopting e-commerce is one of many strategies taken by travel agents to re-intermediate themselves in the global travel market against the threat of disintermediation. Exploratory studies have revealed that Egyptian travel agents are laggards when it comes to technology adoption, although they perceive e-commerce as a beneficial tool that can increase their chances of survival. As many as 59.2% of Egyptian travel agents were found not to have websites (Egyptian Travel Agents Association, 2008), this study investigates the factors affecting e-commerce adoption by travel agents. Past literature has shown that …