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2014-December-13-Dr. Alison Barton, University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

System Of Systems Based Decision-Making For Power Systems Operation, Amin Kargarian Marvasti

Theses and Dissertations

A modern power system is composed of many individual entities collaborating with each other to operate the entire system in a secure and economic manner. These entities may have different owners and operators with their own operating rules and policies, and it complicates the decision-making process in the system. In this work, a system of systems (SoS) engineering framework is presented for optimally operating the modern power systems. The proposed SoS framework defines each entity as an independent system with its own regulations, and the communication and process of information exchange between the systems are discussed. Since the independent systems …

Outpatient Medication Error Improvement, Savannah M. Klinginsmith

Master's Projects and Capstones

Patient Safety Initiative -Improving Medication Administration (Outpatient Care)

SPECIFIC AIM: We aim to Improve the medication administration process and involve all staff within 6 months

In the microsystem consisting of 14 family practice and urgent care clinics, there is not a standard process based on evidence based practices for medication administration. With and estimated of 400-600 medications (immunizations included) being administered per day, without a standard of care protocol, the risk for medication errors is evident.

Objectives and changes anticipated based on implementation of the project is to engage staff in support for improving medication administration standard of care based …

Developing, Implementing, And Evaluating A No-Child-Left-Inside Pilot Program, Claudia Radel, Jamie C. Brand, Roslynn Brain

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

We describe experience with a pilot week-long, No-Child-Left-Inside (NCLI), outdoor program implemented in Cache Valley, Utah, in 2012. Through response analysis of a “pre-then-post” children's survey and a parent-completed demographic survey, we assess program effectiveness in raising children's enthusiasm for nature-related behaviors and in reaching a target audience of all local families. The program reached many families with low participation in other conservation programs but failed to reach families from the growing Latino population. Participating children experienced increased excitement to spend more time outdoors exploring and learning, accomplishing NCLI goals of laying a groundwork for children's enhanced environmental literacy.

Fall Prevention Through Proactive Toileting, Kristin Smith

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper will summarize the quality improvement falls prevention project conducted by a University of San Francisco Clinical Nurse Leader student. Falls in the hospital setting are an ongoing problem in our healthcare system as they have great physical and financial impacts (Salamon, Victory, & Bobay, 2012). Hospital A, an urban teaching hospital, uses the Schmid scale for determining if a patient is a fall risk which includes the assessment of need for ambulatory aids, history of falls, and impaired cognition among other criteria (Schmid,1990). Fall rates are climbing in the United States and the trend is similar on Hospital …

Refugee Resettlement And Family Reunification In Canada, Yohannes Kenningd Woonssi Sawassi Ys Sawassi

Master's Theses

This thesis addresses the plight of Sub-Saharan Africans who are now Canadians and are trying to settle in a new country in order to reunite with their family members. However, rather than assisting with process of resettlement, current Canadian policy has the opposite effect. It appears to create a route by which people can sponsor their loved ones, but in reality the nature of the process is arduous and filled with time delays, regulatory and processing issues and other kinds of difficulties. Consequently, what therefore appears as a hopeful situation ends up creating despair. This situation is particularly hard for …

Illinois State University, One Hundred And Fifty-Fifth Annual Commencement, December 13, 2014, Illinois State University

Commencement Programs

Illinois State University
One Hundred and Fifty-Fifth Annual Commencement
December 13, 2014

The Use Of Tonometry As A Diagnostic Tool To Evaluate Intraocular Pressures In Normal And Abnormal California Sea Lion Eyes, Johanna Del Carmen Mejia-Fava

Theses and Dissertations

Ocular disease is one of the most common problems encountered in sea lions at various zoos and aquariums around the world.1 The California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) is one of the most common marine mammals maintained in zoos and is also the most commonly afflicted with ocular disease. Studies have shown that pinnipeds housed in captivity manifest an array of ocular lesions.2 Eye disease can range from a pinpoint corneal opacity to loss of vision due to keratopathy, cataracts and secondary glaucoma. Glaucoma is a disease that has not been extensively studied in the sea lion.3 Observation of clinical signs …

The Effect Of The July 1, 2012 Federal Student Aid Changes On The Annual Student Debt Of Community College Students In Mississippi, Albert Lee Collins

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the changes to federal student aid, which were implemented on July 1, 2012, on student loan debt in Mississippi’s publicly-supported community colleges, particularly the change in the Estimated Family Contribution. The literature indicates a national epidemic of student borrowing. This research could provide Mississippi community college administrators the opportunity to observe and evaluate actual changes and to better understand the problem of student loan debt, which is escalating nationally. This study is expected to provide community college leaders a snapshot of the magnitude of the problem so that they …

Quantifying A Daily Light Integral For Warm-Season Putting Green Species, Benton Prichard Hodges

Theses and Dissertations

A major constraint for ultradwarf bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. x C. transvaalensis) putting green cultivars is poor performance under reduced light environments (RLEs) due to the overall poor shade tolerance of bermudagrass. The objectives of this research were to quantify a daily light integral (DLI) requirement for warm-season putting green cultivar establishment, quantify a DLI requirement for established warm-season putting green cultivars, and identify differences in plant responses of warm-season putting green cultivars under RLEs during establishment and for established turf stands, as well. Using regression analysis, DLI requirements were generated to quantify the amount of light needed to …

Self-Stigma, Social Stigma, And Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Counseling: International Students At Mississippi State University, Susan Boafo-Arthur

Theses and Dissertations

Each year, there is an increase in the number of international students pursuing higher education in the United States. These students often experience varying degrees of acculturative stress. International students are however not likely to seek counseling. Stigma has been identified as a major barrier to seeking psychological help. The study explored the relationship between self-stigma, social stigma, gender, and length of stay/residence as predictors of attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help of international students attending Mississippi State University. Results of the study indicated that between self-stigma and gender were statistically significant predictors of international students’ attitudes towards seeking professional …

Soundscape Evaluation On Mississippi State University Campus, Yalcin Yildirim

Theses and Dissertations

The term soundscape, used for the first time at the end of 1970s, refers to the sum of the sounds that can be heard and perceived by people in a specific environment. The concept of soundscape has recently received attention in planning and design disciplines. Recent studies on soundscape have shown that the acoustic environment plays an important role for the comfort of site users. Hence, this research investigates how objective measurement of soundscape might be different from subjective perceptions of users in the Mississippi State University Campus as a public open space due to demographic and climatic variations. The …

Woodrow Wilson's Lasting Impact On The Development Of Federal Budget Practice And Theory, Tyson Michael Elbert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the legitimacy of the academic field of public administration and the subield of public budgeting. The intellectual foundations for each, established largely by the early writings of Woodrow Wilson, are analyzed in order to better understand the ways Wilson influenced and impaired the development of theory and practice of public budgeting at the federal level of American government. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first segment addresses the theoretical frameworks and research methods used throughout. The second segment discusses the impact of Wilson on the founding, growth, and development of public budget theory and practice …

Multi-Year Trends In Community College Foundation Fundraising: An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A State-Level System Foundation Led By A Vice President For Institutional Advancement, Leonard Keith Gaskin

Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges generate only 2% of the total charitable funds raised by higher education institutions in the United States. In an era when America needs its community colleges to be active public sector partners in economic development and workforce training, state funding has been drastically cut, and other traditional funding sources are not making up for the much-needed funds. Forward thinking community college leaders must turn to their foundations as an important revenue source to offset the impact of budget cuts and sustain educational excellence and accessibility. But with limited resources for each institution to employ a professional fund raising …

Data Driven Decision-Making And Principals' Perceptions, Melissa F. Mccray

Theses and Dissertations

In this era of high stakes accountability, assessments are not only used as diagnostic tools, but they are also used to determine the effectiveness of school programs and personnel. Of the utmost importance is how principals use data to make instructional, intervention and planning decisions. The purpose of the current study was to determine principals’ perceptions regarding the importance, availability and utility of multiple sources of data in making their decisions and to determine their self-efficacy in M practices. This study was guided by 7 research questions and utilized 2 research designs. Descriptive research was used to answer research questions …

Ecosystem Services Of Moist-Soil Wetlands: Water Quality Benefits And Crayfish Harvest, Economics And Consumer Acceptance, Amy Brooke Alford

Theses and Dissertations

I estimated yield, population metrics, production costs, and evaluated consumer acceptability and nutritive content of crayfish (Procambarus clarkii, P. zonangulus) harvested from moist-soil wetlands in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (MAV) during springs 2009-2011. I also compared nutrient and sediment concentrations and loads exported from moist-soil wetlands and nearest agriculture fields in the MAV during winters 2010-2012. Daily yield of crayfish from moist-soil wetlands was 2.4 kg (wet) ha-1 (SE = 0.50; 95% CI = 1.3-3.4). When graded by size, yield of large crayfish (> 30 g) from wetlands dominated by P. clarkii was four times greater (P < 0.05) than yield of large crayfish from wetlands dominated by P. zonangulus. Crayfish harvesting costs (2013 US dollars [$]) ranged from $405.69 ha-1 to $917.88 ha-1 and breakeven selling prices ranged from $3.74 kg-1 to $8.49 kg-1. Consumer acceptability, proximate composition, and total fatty acid content of P. clarkii did not differ (0.73 > P > 0.11) …

Efficacy Of An Experiential, In-School Educational Program For Improving Elementary School Students' Attitudes And Knowledge About The Environment, Leslie M. Burger

Theses and Dissertations

Stagnant science achievement by students, greater demands and stresses on natural resources and environmental systems, and societal disengagement from nature highlight the need for education programs to ameliorate subsequent consequences. One attempt to address science performance and environmental apathy is Youth Environmental Science (YES), an environmental education program initiated in 2011 in a rural, minority-dominated, upper elementary school in Mississippi. The program provides five consecutive days (30 hours) of experiential learning in natural sciences. During 2011-2013, I studied cognitive and affective responses of fourth and fifth grade students to YES participation using a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design. The influence of demographic …

Evaluation Of Effectiveness, Reproducibility, And Repeatability Of Using Dentition For Estimating Cattle Age, Timothy F. Best

Theses and Dissertations

Study objectives were to determine the effectiveness, reproducibility, and repeatability of dental evaluation for estimating cattle age. Cattle (n = 400) aged 1.5 to 20 yr were evaluated by 3 technicians for estimated age via dentition. A subset (n = 383) was aged again 4 wk later by the same observers. Age estimations were most accurate in YOUNG (< 5 yr old) cattle with at least 95.7% rate of accuracy within 2 yr across all observers and observation events. For MIDDLE (6 to 10 yr old) and OLD (> 10 yr old) cattle, these accuracies were 81.5 and 62.1%, respectively. Reproducibility proved high, with all observers consistently assigning age estimates within 1 yr of one another for more than 9 out of 10 YOUNG animals; all observers agreed on at …

Assessment Of Secondary Agricultural Educators' Attrition Risk In The Southern Region Of The National Association Of Agricultural Educators, Roseanne Ellison Scammahorn

Theses and Dissertations

Attrition of secondary agricultural education professionals is a major concern to the educational system in the United States. A number of studies have documented that attrition is a very serious problem, especially for beginning teachers during his or her first years on the job. As the need for teachers continues to grow, it becomes progressively more difficult for school administration to recruit, identify, and hire highly qualified secondary agricultural education teachers. The purpose of this study was to examine the attrition risk factors among secondary agricultural education teachers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee and …

Bounds For The Maximum-Time Stochastic Shortest Path Problem, Anara Bolotbekovna Kozhokanova

Theses and Dissertations

A stochastic shortest path problem is an undiscounted infinite-horizon Markov decision process with an absorbing and costree target state, where the objective is to reach the target state while optimizing total expected cost. In almost all cases, the objective in solving a stochastic shortest path problem is to minimize the total expected cost to reach the target state. But in probabilistic model checking, it is also useful to solve a problem where the objective is to maximize the expected cost to reach the target state. This thesis considers the maximum-time stochastic shortest path problem, which is a special case of …

Trauma As Evangelical Anti-Abortion Strategy: A Qualitative Study Of Post Abortion Groups And The Personhood Amendment In Mississippi, Jonelle Henry Husain

Theses and Dissertations

Post-abortion support groups are a new sub-movement or strategy of the broader anti-abortion movement that provide support to women who understand their prior abortions as problematic. These groups construct abortion as a form of trauma that causes post-abortion syndrome (PAS), a broad array of negative mental health and behavioral problems similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. Although these claims are not substantiated by empirical evidence, claims that abortion causes PAS are increasingly featured in the public domain to bolster national anti-abortion claims that abortion represents a public health issue. A majority of PAS support groups are offered by crisis pregnancy centers …

Summer Engineering Academies: Developing Participant Self-Efficacy In Engineering, Nathan Eric Heiselt

Theses and Dissertations

With the growing concern over the reduction of university students pursuing degrees in STEM fields, there are a number of entities sponsoring and implementing programs for young people in order to promote interest in and self-efficacy for these fields. Summer Engineering Academies (SEAs) are implemented in a variety of settings by stakeholders with a single purpose: to expose young people to the fields and work of engineers in the hope of recruiting them. This study is seeks to identify whether any positive changes to the self-efficacy of the participants occurs through the curricula of the program. This self-efficacy can be …

Survival And Habitat Selection Of American Black Ducks In Tennessee, Kira Cristina Newcomb

Theses and Dissertations

American black duck (Anas rubripes) populations declined throughout North America from 1950–1990, but the breeding population since has stabilized. However, limited information exists on black ducks in the Mississippi Flyway, where wintering populations continue to decline. I radiomarked 111 female black ducks at Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge (TNWR) in winters 2010–2012 to estimate winter survival and investigate patterns of habitat selection. Winter survival (83–85%) was greater than or comparable to previous estimates for black duck populations in North America. Interval survival increased 0.6% with a 100 g increase in body mass, but survival differed between years and waterfowl hunting seasons …

Investigating Knowledge And Behavior Intention Among Ghanaian Smallholder Farmers, Alyssa Marie Barrett

Theses and Dissertations

Rural farmers in developing countries lack knowledge, access to educational resources, and capacity to stay informed of and implement current farming and health practices. The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of an educational program on the utilization of native plants in farming and health practices among rural farmers in Ghana. The research objectives were to describe the population, assess farmers’ knowledge of farming and health practices, describe participants’ current and planned behavior, and observe the implementation of the practices taught. Results indicated participants’ knowledge of farming and health practices increased after the workshops. Results also indicated …

A Command And Control Approach To Red Teaming, Kaitlin Britt Haynes

Theses and Dissertations

As the military has to react and respond to cyber attacks, they also are having to develop a way to apply cyber operations to the command and control hierarchy already in use. This thesis studies the requirements for a cyber command and control (C3) and conducts an experiment to test whether a C3 approach to red teaming helps users find more vulnerabilities. Since red teaming is similar in setting to the cyber operations setting, if the team finds that a C3 helps team members find more vulnerabilities, then a C3 environment can help the military better respond to cyber attacks. …

A New Fluid-Structure Interaction Point-Projection Method, Philip Robert Ivancic

Theses and Dissertations

A new point-projection method was developed to transfer loads and displacements in a two-way coupled fluid-structure interaction problem. The existing method involved projecting the load at each computational fluid dynamics (CFD) node onto a corresponding computation structural dynamics (CSD) element. The load is distributed to the CSD nodes on that element. However, the solution is not unique and will vary the projection. In the new method, a rigid pyramid element is built upon the CSD element and that encompasses the CFD node. Thus, the CFD load will be uniquely distributed to the CSD nodes. After the CSD code updates the …

Analyzing Predictors Of Bullying Victimization At School, Hatice Cecen Celik

Theses and Dissertations

Bullying victimization in school settings is a serious problem in many countries including the United States. Bullying victimization has been associated with serious incidents of school violence as well as detrimental physical, psychological, emotional, and social consequences for its victims. Given its consequences, it is crucial to understand who is more likely to be targeted for bullying victimization. This study examines whether a number of important factors such as gender, physical and interactionist school security measures, and involvement in extracurricular activities influence individuals’ risk of bullying victimization from social bond and routine activity perspectives. The study employs the 2011 School …

Associative Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria And Their Potential To Support The Growth Of Bioenergy Grasses On Marginal Lands, Jayani Jeewanthi Wewalwela

Theses and Dissertations

Rising demands for both food and energy have lifted up the idea of producing renewable biofuels from bioenergy grasses that can companion with associative N2ixing bacteria. Associative N2ixing bacteria can partially fulfill the N requirements of bioenergy grasses enabling successful application for marginal lands. The overall objective of this study was to measure the potential N2ixation of bacteria associated with three bioenergy grasses, giant miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum; ‘Alamo’) and energycane (hybrid of Saccharum spontaneum and S. officinarum; HO 02-147) as well as identifying N2ixing bacteria associated with these energy grasses and applying these isolates to grasses …

Development Of A Dynamic Performance Management Framework For Naval Ship Power System Using Model-Based Predictive Control, Jian Shi

Theses and Dissertations

Medium-Voltage Direct-Current (MVDC) power system has been considered as the trending technology for future All-Electric Ships (AES) to produce, convert and distribute electrical power. With the wide employment of highrequency power electronics converters and motor drives in DC system, accurate and fast assessment of system dynamic behaviors , as well as the optimization of system transient performance have become serious concerns for system-level studies, high-level control designs and power management algorithm development. The proposed technique presents a coordinated and automated approach to determine the system adjustment strategy for naval power systems to improve the transient performance and prevent potential instability …

Factors That Influence A High School Student's College Choice In A Rural Area In Mississippi, Amanda Lanier Walton

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study is to determine the factors that affect recruitment in community colleges and how community colleges can be competitive in the recruitment process. In recent years, community colleges have become more competitive in their tuition rates, course schedules, program offerings, and athletics. Therefore, community college recruiters are given the difficult task of vying for top students and athletes. Additionally, with the current economic situation, more students are returning to school to acquire an education or a trade so that they can have an advantage when applying for jobs. As a result, colleges are challenged to find …