Digital Commons Network^™

Challenges Of Change: Technology Ease Or Technology Upset?, Cherie Noteboom, Julee Hafner

Research & Publications

New knowledge learning that involves errorless task performance has become a key objective for healthcare organizations [Rushmer & Davies, 2004]. As knowledge changes to incorporate the use of computer systems, service delivery using the Electronic Health Record (EHR) has created unforeseen challenges for service providers and the organizations they serve. This challenge appears mainly to involve a change in actions, behaviors and mental models by providers using the EHR [Senge, 2006]. This is necessary for healthcare organizations if they want to remain competitive, improve the quality of care, and reduce costs. The challenge is to develop and implement this new …

Metabolic Consequences Of Long-Term Rapamycin Exposure On Common Marmoset Monkeys (Callithrix Jacchus), Corinna N. Ross, A. Salmon, R. Strong, E. Fernandez, M. Javors, A. Richardson, S. Tardif

Biology Faculty Publications (Archived)

Rapamycin has been shown to extend lifespan in rodent models, but the effects on metabolic health and function have been widely debated in both clinical and translational trials. Prior to rapamycin being used as a treatment to extend both lifespan and healthspan in the human population, it is vital to assess the side effects of the treatment on metabolic pathways in animal model systems, including a closely related non-human primate model. In this study, we found that long-term treatment of marmoset monkeys with orally-administered encapsulated rapamycin resulted in no overall effects on body weight and only a small decrease in …

Evaluating Dynamic Soil Change In The Barnes Soil Series Across Eastern North Dakota, Brandon Montgomery

Soil Science

Quantifying long-term, global soil change is of the utmost importance as the human population continues growing and food security needs intensify. North Dakota presents a unique opportunity to study dynamic soil change because of its agricultural prominence and extensive soil survey data. A resampling method to characterize soil change from legacy soil survey data was utilized on a benchmark soil series, the Barnes, in North Dakota. Significant decreases (p<0.05) in soil organic carbon (SOC) were measured in surface horizons of three Barnes pedons, and depending upon management practices, morphologic changes ranged from highly eroded, with the complete loss of the A horizon, at two sites, to non-eroded conditions at sites returned to CRP 25 years ago. Additionally, using remotely sensed evapotranspiration (ET) data as a non-biased proxy for soil function shows modeling potential. These results serve as a proof of concept and demonstrate the need for more comprehensive research.

A History Of Transplants: A Study Of Entryway Gardens At Amache, David Holden Garrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research shows that during the period of Japanese American internment gardening became a popular activity for the interned. Primarily approached historically, little work has been conducted to archaeologically analyze the efforts of landscaping by former internees. Gardening activity can paint a better picture of Japanese American identity during the period of forced confinement. This research investigates internee gardens methodologically through surface survey, ground penetrating radar, excavation, oral history, soil chemistry, archaeobotany, and palynology. The thorough investigation of landscaping efforts of internees builds upon knowledge of expression within Japanese American relocation centers, as well as the understanding of a lineage …

The Neuromuscular Response To Spinal Manipulation: Quantifying The Effect Of Pain With Electromyography, Stuart James Currie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective

To establish a methodology to quantify the neuromuscular response to spinal manipulation, develop a comprehensive date set including factors that affect the response, and compare the responses in both healthy participants and participants with acute and chronic low back pain.

Methods

Surface and indwelling electromyography at eight muscle locations were recorded during lumbar side-lying manipulations in 20 asymptomatic participants, 20 acute pain participants, and 20 chronic pain participants. Onset delay detection was optimized for signal detection failures and methodological comparisons were performed using a generalized linear model. The number of muscle responses and muscle activity onset delays in relation …

Foundations Of Inequity: A Social Ecological Exploration Of Colorado Rural School Leaders Lived Experiences, Bryan E. Deshasier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this mixed methods research study was to explore the lived experiences of Colorado's rural school leaders with the objective of explicating factors embedded within their lived experiences towards, where appropriate, an evolution of principal preparation programs; to lay the foundation for later research study inquiries; to determine if the phenomenon being observed may be expounded upon by a current theory; and to conclude if lived experiences contain answers towards a resolution of the two problems which informed this study. This exploratory approach yielded two primary themes with supporting points that are presented and discussed within this and …

Mandating Discretion: Juvenile Sentencing Schemes After Miller V. Alabama, Jennifer S. Breen, John Mills

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Examination Of The Impact Of Helmets On The Level Of Transferred Loads To The Head Under Ballistic And Blast Loads, Mehdi Salimi Jazi

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

The main causes of human Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) in war zones are ballistic impacts and blast waves. While understanding the mechanism of TBI and the brain injury thresholds are in urgent needs, efficiency of helmets as injury protective is not well-examined. To address these gaps, this study investigates the impact of ballistic helmets and padding systems on the biomechanical responses of the brain under dynamic ballistics and blasts loads. A nonlinear human head-neck finite element modeling procedure has been employed for the analysis. The results are examined against de-facto standard experimental data. The response of the finite element head …

Development Of Biobased Composites Of Structural Quality, Christopher Alan Taylor

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Highly biobased composites with properties and costs rivaling those consisting of synthetic constituents are a goal of much current research. The obvious material choices, vegetable oil based resins and natural fibers, present the challenges of poor resin properties and weak fiber/matrix bonding, respectively. Conventional methods of overcoming poor resin quality involve the incorporation of additives, which dilutes the resulting composite’s bio-content and increases cost. To overcome these limitations while maintaining high bio-content and low cost, epoxidized sucrose soyate is combined with surface-treated flax fiber to produce biocomposites. These composites are fabricated using methods emphasizing scalability and efficiency, for cost effectiveness …

Teamwork During Cardiopulmonary Resuscitations At A Rural Minnesota Hospital, Kayla Dale Dascher

Nursing

Cardiac arrest is a major public health problem affecting thousands of individuals each year in both out-of-hospital and in-hospital settings (Sutton, Nadkarni, & Abella, 2012). In 2012 nearly 383,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests occurred and approximately 209,000 cardiac arrests occurred within a hospital (American Heart Association, 2012). Survival rates from cardiac arrest are improving, however overall rates of survival are still low (American Heart Association, 2012). The purpose of this project was to enhance the teamwork, knowledge, and technical skills of all individuals involved in cardiopulmonary resuscitations at the project site. Expectations of the project were to (1) enhance cardiopulmonary …

New Graduate Nurse Residency Program Development, Allison Kathleen Danzl

Nursing

This Project reports perceptions of how a new nurse residency addresses essential nursing competencies and transition stress. This Project involved development of content for a new graduate nurse residency program. Part of the Project evaluation was answering the questions: Does knowledge level of the Quality, Safety and Education for Nurses’ competencies at a Midwest critical access hospital increase for program evaluators after review of the content in the developed new graduate residency program? Is the content presented in the five modules relevant to new graduate nurse needs at the Midwest critical access hospital in order to decrease transition stress in …

The Fruit And Vegetable Consumption Problem, Natalie Marie Aughinbaugh

Nursing

Fruit and vegetable consumption is an essential component of a healthy diet and one of the most modifiable risk factors for chronic disease. Only a small percentage of the world’s population consumes the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables (Litt et al., 2011). In addition, young adults experience significant lifestyle changes as a result of independence, often establishing life-long dietary habits affecting future health and the health of their future families. The purpose of this project was to improve provider practice by using a food frequencyscreening tool and education within the clinical setting to facilitate increased knowledge, awareness, and fruit …

Analytical Pyrolysis Principles And Applications To Environmental Science, Michael A. Kruge

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Over the past half century, analytical pyrolysis has proven itself to be an effective means for the semiquantitative characterization of complex macromolecular organic substances. It has been demonstrated that instruments such as Py-FID, Py-MS, and in particular, Py-GC/MS can provide valuable geochemical insights when applied to a wide variety of problems in environmental science. The more widespread use of analytical pyrolysis methods in the evaluation of environmental pollution is recommended, because of their relatively low cost and information-rich results.

Pyrolysis is the heating of organic substances in an inert, oxygen-free atmosphere, thereby avoiding combustion. When performed on a large scale, …

Where Law And Science (And Religion) Meet, David Faigman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trust In Immigration Enforcement: State Noncooperation And Sanctuary Cities After Secure Communities, Ming Hsu Chen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Nature Of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotube-Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells, John Michael Harris

Physics

Since their inception in 2007, nanotube-silicon heterojunction solar cells have experienced rapid improvement due to the diligent work of several research groups. These devices have quickly reached a point where they might begin to possibly compete with current well-established silicon solar technologies; however the development of industrial-scale nanotube synthesis and purification capabilities remains problematic. Although there has been significant recent progress in improving performance, the precise classification of nanotube-silicon heterojunctions has remained ambiguous. In this thesis, I use type, chirality and length purified single-wall carbon nanotubes to clarify the nature of this particular class of solar cell. The junctions that …

Demographic Analysis Of Student Evaluations, Lucas James Huebner

Statistics

Data was collected from North Dakota State University’s student rating of instructor’s forms during the fall of 2013 and the spring of 2014. This thesis investigates differences between male and female instructor’s ratings, as well as attempts to describe outcomes using other demographics. T-tests were performed comparing the means of class averages for male and female instructors for each question on the student evaluation. There was not a difference for the mean class averages between male and female instructors when the whole university was considered and when only looking at the College of Science and Math. The analysis conducted also …

Agency And Empowerment In The Childbirth Process: The Effect Of Medicalization On Women's Decision Making, Alicia Jane Kauffman

Sociology and Anthropology

Over the past decade, rates of caesarean section births and other interventions in childbirth have increased substantially. With increased medicalization of childbirth, it is often viewed as an illness requiring treatment rather than a natural process that women are equipped to handle with little intervention in most cases. A qualitative study was completed that included interviews with nine women participants who had previously given birth to at least one child. The findings elaborate on how women navigated the medical structures of childbirth in order to assert themselves as decision makers in the process, how they related to their bodies during …

The Rhetoric Of Mathematical Logicism, Intuitionism, And Formalism, John Travis Shrontz

Honors Capstone Projects and Theses

No abstract provided.

Comparative Classification Of Prostate Cancer Data Using The Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, Dualks And K-Nearest Neighbours, Kekoura Sakouvogui

Statistics

This paper compares four classifications tools, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), DualKS and the k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN) that are based on different statistical learning theories. The dataset used is a microarray gene expression of 596 male patients with prostate cancer. After treatment, the patients were classified into one group of phenotype with three levels: PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen), Systematic and NED (No Evidence of Disease). The purpose of this research is to determine the performance rate of each classifier by selecting the optimal kernels and parameters that give the best prediction rate of the phenotype. The paper begins with …

Law Enforcement And Military Members: Engaging In The Community, Karen C. Kalmbach, Randy Garner

Psychology Faculty Publications (Archived)

This chapter seeks to assist law enforcement by providing an empirical review of research on the relationship between military service and risk of dangerousness—to self (suicide) or others (violent crime). Risk posed by military members is poorly understood and largely overstated by media reports. The following discussion will reveal that—notwithstanding the unique aspects of military culture and service—most risk factors for violence (towards self and others) are similar for both military members and nonmilitary alike. However, some aspects of military service, (e.g., combat exposure), may impact the behavior and thought processes of service members who come into contact with law …

Compassion Fatigue In Critical Care Nursing And Development Of An Educational Module, Keshia Ryan Kotula

Nursing

Compassion fatigue is a troubling phenomenon which affects those in care giving roles, and nurses are especially susceptible. The first purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of compassion fatigue among critical care nurses. The study also examined which demographic characteristics would be associated with a higher level of compassion fatigue. Registered nurses (N=58) from two intensive care units completed the Professional Quality of Life Scale, Version 5 (ProQOL5) and a demographic questionnaire. Overall, the level of compassion fatigue was low as measured by the burnout and secondary traumatic stress subscales. The overall compassion satisfaction was low as …

The Body Inversion Effect: The Role Of Visual Appearance On Body Processing, Carol Huynh

Psychology

The purpose of this study was to determine if body stimuli are uniquely processed by the visual recognition system. First, my results supported past findings showing that body processing differs from object processing (e.g., cars, chairs, houses). However, body processing depended on the presence/absence of a head. Second, the nature of appearance impacted observers’ performance such that discrimination was better for real than artificial bodies. Finally, I examined the impact of body appearance on event-related potential (ERP) responses, specifically the P100 and N170, and found that amplitudes elicited by real headless bodies was significantly larger than amplitudes elicited by all …

Interplay Of Porous Media And Fracture Stimulation In Sedimentary Enhanced Geothermal Systems : Red River Formation, Williston Basin, North Dakota, Caitlyn M. Hartig

Theses and Dissertations

Fracture stimulated enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) can be installed in both crystalline rocks and sedimentary basins. The Red River Formation (Ordovician), which lies between 3.6 and 4.2 km depth in the Williston Basin, is a viable site for installation of sedimentary EGS (SEGS). SEGS is possible there because temperatures in the formation surpass 140° Celsius and the permeability is 0.1-38 mD; fracture stimulation can be utilized to improve performance. The main objectives of this project were 1) to determine the spatial variation of the intrinsic properties of the Red River Formation across the study area, and 2) to understand the …

False Memories In Depression: Vulnerability Factor Or Symptom?, Samantha Kathleen Myhre

Psychology

False memories are sometimes generated when recalling words from lists in which the words are conceptually related. People think of concepts that are associated with the lists but which were never presented. Previous research has shown that sad mood reduces false memories whereas depression increases false memories, especially to negative information. It is possible that false memories represent a cognitive characteristic that is present prior to depression. I hypothesized that depressed individuals and those vulnerable to depression would falsely recall more negative critical lures than controls. Depressed and vulnerable individuals were not expected to perform differently from each other. The …

Sleep Quality And Sympathovagal Balance During Stress, David Andrew Reichenberger

Psychology

Sleep has been shown to be associated with the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system at rest and during stress. However, sleep has not been examined in the context of sympathovagal balance (the coupled relationship between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems) during stress. The current study investigated whether sleep quality was associated with sympathovagal activity and reactivity to stress. Female participants (N=59) underwent a psychosocial stress task and completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index while EKG and ICG data were collected. Sleep quality was associated with pre-ejection period at rest and during stress, ps<.05, but was not associated with high-frequency heart rate variability or with sympathovagal reactivity, ps>.05. These …

Crop Price And Land Use Change: Forecasting Response Of Major Crops Acreage To Price And Economic Variables In North Dakota, Abilio Barros Soares

Natural Resources Management

The objective of this study is to examine land use change for cropping systems in North Dakota. Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression with full information maximum likelihood estimation method, acreage forecasting models for barley, corn, oats, soybean, and wheat were developed to examine the extent to which farmers’ expectations of prices and costs affect their crop choices. The results of the study show that farmers’ decision for acreage allocation is varied across the crops depending on how responsive they are to price, cost and yield of its own and competing crops. Substitutability and complementarity relationship of crops in the production have …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Modeling Of New Molecule-Based Magnets, Christopher Samuel Olson

Materials and Nanotechnology

The chemical bond and its role as a mediator of magnetic exchange interaction remains an important aspect in the study of magnetic insulators and semiconductors. The M[TCNE] (M = transition metal, TCNE = tetracyanoethylene) class of organic-based magnets has attracted considerable interest since VII[TCNE]x (x ~ 2) exhibits one of the highest critical temperatures for its class – Tc ~ 400 K – in addition to highly spin-polarized conduction and valance bands (Eg ~ 0.5 eV), thus foreseeing potential spintronic application. The magneto-structural factors underlying this exceptional behavior remain elusive, however, due to the amorphous nature of the material. To …

The Free And Restricted Diffusion Of Silicon Nanocrystal Clusters, Ahmed Bahgat Elbaradei

Materials and Nanotechnology

Biological applications for silicon nanocrystals (SiNCs) have recently gained more attention because of silicon’s low toxicity. But, to be able to use SiNCs in applications such as biological sensors, labeling or drug delivery we need to understand their transport in different environments and their interaction with cell membrane. I will review some different methods for the synthesis of, and I will give an accounting of encapsulating SiNCs with PEGylated phospholipids to make them soluble in water. I also studied the free diffusion of these micelles in water, as well as their restricted diffusion and interaction with giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). …

Semidualizing Dg Modules Over Tensor Products, Hannah Lee Altmann

Mathematics

In this dissertation, we study rings: sets with addition, subtraction, and multiplication. One way to study a ring is by studying its modules: the algebraic objects the ring acts on. Since it is impractical to study all of its modules, I study its semidualizing modules. These modules have proven useful in the study of the composition of local ring homomorphisms of finite G-dimension and Bass numbers of local rings. Let R be a commutative, noetherian ring with identity. A finitely generated R-module C is semidualizing if the homothety map χ(R/C) : R → HomR(C,C) is an isomorphism and Ext(i/R)(C,C) = …