Digital Commons Network^™

Using Servqualto Identify Gaps In Quality Care For Patients With Cystic Fibrosis: A Hospital-Based Quality Improvement Project, Alisha M. Nadeau

Master's Theses and Capstones

Background: Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Care Centers were established to centralize and integrate the knowledge and skills of pulmonary medicine, nutrition, gastroenterology, nursing, respiratory therapy, social work, and genetics to efficiently provide care for people living with CF. The high quality, specialized care that is given at CF Care Centers has led to the improved length and quality of life for people living with CF.

Aim: The aim of this quality improvement project was to identify any gaps in providing effective, high quality care to patients with CF to reduce the variability in nursing practices and improve their quality …

Be Seen And Heard Being Clean: A Patient-Centered Approach To Hand Hygiene At Concord Hospital, Ashley Pinkham

Master's Theses and Capstones

Background: Regular hand washing is recognized as the most effective means to combat the spread of infectious illness; however hand washing behavior amongst health care workers (HCW’s) is inconsistent. Furthermore, measurement of hand washing behavior is subject to bias.

Aim: This quality improvement project aimed to remove the Hawthorne effect and improve the behavior of HH at Concord Hospital.

Methods: A quasi-experimental, pre-posttest design was used to evaluate HH rates on a 32 bed med-surge unit at Concord Hospital. Baseline data was collected for 30 days by asking patients if they had seen or heard staff cleaning their hands. Using …

Human–Felid Conflict In Corridor Habitats: Implications For Tiger And Leopard Conservation In Terai Arc Landscape, India, Manjari Malviya, Krishnamurthy Ramesh

Human–Wildlife Interactions

We use the Rajaji-Corbett corridor in the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) in India to examine the pattern of human–felid conflict in wildlife corridors and its implications for the long-term persistence of tigers (Panthera tigris) and leopards (Panthera pardus) in the landscape. We administered a questionnaire survey of people residing in and around the corridor and also examined forest department records. Results revealed that leopards caused more frequent losses, whereas tigers caused greater economic losses. Local communities perceived leopards as a bigger threat than tigers, due to the intrusive nature of leopards (i.e., entering villages and houses …

Assessing Gull Abundance And Food Availability In Urban Parking Lots, Dan Clark, Jillian J. Whitney, Kenneth G. Mackenzie, Kiana K. G. Koenen, Stephen Destefano

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Feeding birds is a common activity throughout the world; yet, little is known about the extent of feeding gulls in urban areas. We monitored 8 parking lots in central Massachusetts, USA, during the fall and winter of 2011 to 2013 in 4 monitoring sessions to document the number of gulls present, the frequency of human–gull feeding interactions, and the effectiveness of signage and direct interaction in reducing human-provisioned food. Parking lots were divided between “education” and “no-education” lots. In education lots, we erected signs about problems caused when people feed birds and also asked people to stop feeding birds. We …

Embodied Cognition And Circular Causality: On The Role Of Constitutive Autonomy In The Reciprocal Coupling Of Perception And Action., D Vernon, R Lowe, S Thill, T Ziemke

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The reciprocal coupling of perception and action in cognitive agents has been firmly established: perceptions guide action but so too do actions influence what is perceived. While much has been said on the implications of this for the agent's external behavior, less attention has been paid to what it means for the internal bodily mechanisms which underpin cognitive behavior. In this article, we wish to redress this by reasserting that the relationship between cognition, perception, and action involves a constitutive element as well as a behavioral element, emphasizing that the reciprocal link between perception and action in cognition merits a …

Creating Place For A Placeless Generation, Laura Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Making up one quarter of the current United States population, some 80 million Generation Y-ers are changing the ways in which we live, work and play. Dubbed “Millennials” this population is comprised of those individuals born between 1980 and 2000. This generation is the first to have been raised with cell phones, the internet, and reality television. The “Selfie” or “Me Generation” is snubbed for narcissism and an instant gratification attitude. Yet on the whole Millennials have progressive values, are well educated, are conscious of their health and are optimistic about the future despite coming of age during the Great …

Curiosity And Compassion: Curiosity And Attachment Security's Relationship With Empathic Responding To Hardship, Athena H. Cairo

Theses and Dissertations

Compassion requires both attention and motivation to engage with another person’s experience. Two studies examined whether curiosity—the interest and motivation to explore new or complex information—promotes empathic concern and suppresses personal distress. These studies also examined whether attachment insecurity moderates curiosity’s effect on empathy. Study 1 identified correlations among curiosity, attachment security, empathic concern, and personal distress traits. In Study 2, participants were primed with high or low curiosity before watching a video of a peer experiencing hardship, then reported state curiosity, empathic concern, personal distress, and prosocial motivation. Trait and state curiosity predicted greater empathic concern and prosocial motivation. …

"Whimsy Little Contracts" With Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis Of Consumer Understanding Of Arbitration Agreements, Jeff Sovern, Elayne E. Greenberg, Paul F. Kirgis, Yuxiang Liu

Faculty Publications

Arbitration clauses have become ubiquitous in consumer contracts. These arbitration clauses require consumers to waive the constitutional right to a civil jury, access to court, and, increasingly, the procedural remedy of class representation. Because those rights cannot be divested without consent, the validity of arbitration agreements rests on the premise of consent. Consumers who do not want to arbitrate or waive their class rights can simply decline to purchase the products or services covered by an arbitration agreement. But the premise of consent is undermined if consumers do not understand the effect on their procedural rights of clicking a box …

Using Principles From Cognitive Behavioral Therapy To Reduce Nervousness In Oral Argument Or Moot Court, Larry Cunningham

Faculty Publications

Sarah, a new attorney at a public defender’s office, is assigned to the appeals bureau. Ordinarily, Sarah spends her days researching and writing briefs, talking with clients, and brainstorming legal issues with colleagues. Today, however, she opened the mail to find a notice from the court setting a date for her first oral argument. She suffers the first of several anxiety attacks: rapid heart rate, racing thoughts, shortness of breath, sweaty palms, nausea, and feelings of panic and tension. As she reads the form letter, her hands tremble. This is the day she has dreaded. She loves to write and …

Nursing Care At The End Of Life: What Every Clinician Should Know, Susan E. Lowey

Milne Open Textbooks

Nursing Care at the End of Life: What Every Clinician Should Know should be an essential component of basic educational preparation for the professional registered nurse student. Recent studies show that only one in four nurses feel confident in caring for dying patients and their families and less than 2% of overall content in nursing textbooks is related to end-of-life care, despite the tremendous growth in palliative and end-of-life care programs across the country. The purpose of this textbook is to provide an indepth look at death and dying in this country, including the vital role of the nurse in …

Introduction To The Modeling And Analysis Of Complex Systems, Hiroki Sayama

Milne Open Textbooks

Keep up to date on Introduction to Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems at http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~sayama/textbook/!

Introduction to the Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems introduces students to mathematical/computational modeling and analysis developed in the emerging interdisciplinary field of Complex Systems Science. Complex systems are systems made of a large number of microscopic components interacting with each other in nontrivial ways. Many real-world systems can be understood as complex systems, where critically important information resides in the relationships between the parts and not necessarily within the parts themselves. This textbook offers an accessible yet technically-oriented introduction to the modeling and …

Prolonged Fatigue In Ukraine And The United States: Prevalence And Risk Factors, Fred Friedberg, Nathan L. Tintle, Jake Clark, Evelyn Bromet

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Background: Prolonged, severe, unalleviated fatigue may be disabling whether it occurs on its own or in conjunction with medical or psychiatric conditions. This paper compares the prevalence and correlates of prolonged fatigue in general population samples in Ukraine versus the US. Methods: Population surveys were conducted in 2002 in both Ukraine (Ukraine World Mental Health [WMH] Survey) and the US (National Comorbidity Survey-Replication; NCS-R). Both surveys administered the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI 3.0), which contained modules assessing: neurasthenia (prolonged fatigue); mood, anxiety, and alcohol/drug use disorders; chronic medical conditions; and demographic characteristics. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine …

The Contribution Of Phonological Knowledge, Memory, And Language Background To Reading Comprehension In Deaf Populations, Elizabeth A. Hirshorn, Matthew W G Dye, Peter Hauser, Ted R. Supalla

Articles

While reading is challenging for many deaf individuals, some become proficient readers. Little is known about the component processes that support reading comprehension in these individuals. Speech-based phonological knowledge is one of the strongest predictors of reading comprehension in hearing individuals, yet its role in deaf readers is controversial. This could reflect the highly varied language backgrounds among deaf readers as well as the difficulty of disentangling the relative contribution of phonological versus orthographic knowledge of spoken language, in our case ‘English,’ in this population. Here we assessed the impact of language experience on reading comprehension in deaf readers by …

Federal Civil Litigation At The Crossroads: Reshaping The Role Of The Federal Courts In Twenty-First Century Dispute Resolution, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were promulgated in 1938 to provide the “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination” of all civil actions. The underlying theme of the Federal Rules is that meritorious litigants should have their day in court. To that end, the Federal Rules eliminated procedural pitfalls, including highly technical forms of action inherited from common law, that rewarded mastery of pleading techniques over the substantive merits of claims. The Federal Rules also introduced a simplified pleading system, commonly denominated as “notice pleading,” thereby easing the heavy burden imposed on the parties. The factual details of the case could …

It's Alive!: How Early Common Law Changes In The Right Against Self-Incrimination Inform The Right's Continuing Relevance, Sheldon Evans

Faculty Publications

The intersection of the Self-Incrimination Clause and Miranda warnings has stemmed disagreement among courts on the scope and application of the right against self-incrimination. To aid in their dilemma, court's often embark on a historical inquiry to give insight into proper interpretations of the Clause. In light of a recent circuit split on one of the Clause's key terms—namely what constitutes a “criminal case”— this Article embarks on a historical inquiry that adds clarity to the topic. By highlighting the several ways the right against self-incrimination changed in its 200 year common law history before the Constitutional Convention, this Article …

Fitting The Forum To The Pernicious Fuss: A Dispute System Design To Address Implicit Bias And 'Isms In The Workplace, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This paper proposes a dispute system design to address workplace discrimination caused by implicit biases so that employees and employers involved in such disputes can secure a more responsive justice than existing legal processes are able to provide. Workplace discrimination caused by implicit bias continues to contaminate our work environment despite our focused legal efforts to combat such overt "isms" as sexism, racism, ageism, and ableism. Although overt expressions of bias have significantly decreased in recent years, expressions of implicit bias, the primary cause of workplace discrimination, persists.

This paper extends the research on implicit bias to dispute system …

A Mixed-Methods Investigation Of Factors And Scenarios Influencing College Students’ Decision To Complete Surveys At Five Mid-Western Universities, Kristin L. K. Koskey, Bryce Cain, Toni A. Sondergeld, Henrique G. Alvim, Emily M. Slager

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

Achieving respectable response rates to surveys on university campuses has become increasingly more difficult, which can increase non-response error and jeopardize the integrity of data. Prior research has focused on investigating the effect of a single or small set of factors on college students’ decision to complete surveys. We used a concurrent mixed-method design to examine (1) college students’ rationales for choosing to complete or not complete a survey presented to them and (2) their perceptions on the importance of multiple factors on their decision to complete or not complete surveys in a higher education setting. A total of 837 …

"Moocing" On Up? Experiences Of An Elusive Course Completer, Joel R. Malin

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

In this article, I apply autoethnography to recount and analyze my experiences as a recent enrollee and course completer of a massive open online course (MOOC). Research surrounding MOOCs heretofore has been predominantly quantitative in nature, whereas this research utilizes a qualitative approach and offers a student’s in-depth perspective. While participating in the course, and in its aftermath, I engaged in systematic observation and reflection. Generally, my experience was positive, prompting me to analyze consistencies and discrepancies between my vantage points and those stemming from emerging MOOC research and media discourse. Most significantly, my lived experience might provide a window …

High School Students' Perceptions Of The Relationship Between Music And Math, Jeff Cranmore, Jeanne Tunks

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

While there is little doubt that engaging in musical or mathematical activities stimulates brain activity at high levels and that increased student involvement fosters a greater learning environment, questions remain about whether musical ability and mathematics performance are related. This study took a qualitative approach that allowed 24 high school students to share their direct experiences with music and mathematics, as well as their perceptions of how the two fields are related. Participants were divided into four groups based on school music participation and level of mathematic achievement. Using a multiple intelligence lens, this study addressed the following question: How …

Tutoring Matters: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About How To Tutor, Romena M. G. Holbert

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

Book/Media Review

The Effects Of Rater Training On Inter-Rater Agreement, Lisa A. Pufpaff, Laura Clarke, Ruth E. Jones

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

This paper addresses the effects of rater training on the rubric-based scoring of three preservice teacher candidate performance assessments. This project sought to evaluate the consistency of ratings assigned to student learning outcome measures being used for program accreditation and to explore the need for rater training in order to increase rater agreement. There were three phases during this project: (1) authentic student work was rated by department faculty members in the absence of rubric training; (2) faculty were then trained to administer rubric scoring guides; and (3) additional student work was rated by faculty after training. Inter-rater agreement was …

The Time For Design-Based Research Is Right And Right Now, Jennifer K. Shah, David C. Ensminger, Kimberly Their

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

The science-to-service problem continues to taunt the field of education (Fixsen, Blasé, Naoom, & Wallace, 2009). As an academic discipline, the field requires knowledge generation that adds to or deepens theoretical understandings. As a profession, knowledge generation that solves local problems and supports continuous improvement is necessary. Using design-based research (DBR) provides a means of serving theoretical and practical needs in education, addressing the complexity of education by informing immediate practice while simultaneously contributing to theoretical understandings in the field of education. Using Stokes’ (1977) model of scientific research and knowledge generation, we situate DBR within Pasteur’s quadrant, describe how …

Q Methodology As A Tool For Program Assessment, Susan E. Ramlo

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

Program assessment is now commonplace at most colleges and universities and is required for accreditation of specific degree programs. Key aspects of program assessment include program improvement, improved student learning, and adequate student preparation for the workforce. Thus, program assessment is a key ingredient to program health. Although surveys are often used within program assessment in higher education, this study demonstrates the weaknesses of this method and, instead, introduces Q methodology as a means of program assessment especially in the area of needs assessment. In essence, Q offers an objective way to measure subjectivity about any topic. Unlike Likert-scale surveys, …

Reviewer Acknowledgments, Debra Miretzky, Sharon Stevens, Katrina Daytner, Sarah Schoper, Alisha White, Lora Wolff, Jessica Snowden

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

Reviewer Acknowledgments

Examining The Factors That Determine The Behavioural Intention Of E-Travel Sites In Egypt, Madiha Metawie, Reham Ibrahim Elseidi

Business Administration

The main purpose of this study is to explore external variables

that influence perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and in

turn influence the behaviour intentions of e-travel sites in Egypt. The

study is based on the original TAM constructs and postulated

relationships. The study hypothesized that four external variablesrelevant

information content, information quality, functionality and

perceived risk of e-travel sites influence perceptions of usefulness and

ease of use, which in turn affect behavioural intention to use the site.

The findings of this study contribute to enriching our understanding of

how tourists evaluate e-travel sites and the factors affecting …

The Effects Of Agomelatine And Melatonin On Ecog Activity Of Absenceepilepsy Model In Wag/Rij Rats, Hati̇ce Aygün, Duygu Aydin, Sema İnanir, Fati̇h Eki̇ci̇, Mustafa Ayyildiz, Erdal Ağar

Turkish Journal of Biology

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the melatonergic M1 and M2 receptor agonist and serotonergic 5-HT2C receptor antagonist agomelatine on the spike wave discharges (SWDs) seen in electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings of WAG/Rij rats with absence epilepsy. Twenty-one WAG/Rij male rats were used in this study. Tripolar electrodes were placed on skulls and control ECoG activities were recorded. Experimental groups received normal saline (Group I: 1 mL, intraperitoneally (i.p)), agomelatine (Group II: 40 mg/kg, i.p), and melatonin (Group III: 40 mg/kg, i.p) injections for 7 days. Following this period, 2-h ECoG recordings were repeated. The number …

Effects Of Photoperiod Variations And Alpha-Lipoic Acid Treatment On Melatonin,Cortisol, And Oxidative Stress Levels In The Blood Of Rats, Cahi̇de Çevi̇k, Recep Aslan

Turkish Journal of Biology

This study aimed to investigate the effects of frequently changing photoperiods and alpha-lipoic acid treatment on melatonin, cortisol, oxidative markers, and some blood parameters. Eighty-four rats were randomly and equally divided into 7 groups: a control group, 3 prolonged light groups, and 3 prolonged dark groups. The study was completed in 2 stages, with 1- and 4-week periods, respectively. Blood samples were obtained at the end of the first and fourth weeks, and at the end of the dark period for the first and second stages. Serum aspartate aminotransferase and creatinine levels were significantly elevated in the prolonged dark olive …

Filming The Gay Normal: An Exploration Of The Gay Closet And Its Portrayal In Film, Joseph Albert Marquette

Master's Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this thesis is to flesh out an understanding of the lived experience of the homosexual closet and ultimately how it is portrayed in film. It uses film, however, as a snapshot of potential realities that reflect the gay individual in society.

It relies heavily on the social theories and work of Edward T. Hall, Erving Goffman, Albert E. Scheflen, Judith Butler, and Gerschen Kaufman, among others, to build a framework for understanding the closet on both a macro and micro scale. It does not attempt to isolate the homosexual but rather to situate him or her within …

The Benefits Of Recreational Fishing In Adolescence, Sarah Elaine Leonard

Master's Theses and Capstones

Little attention has been given to how different leisure activities affect adolescents. The purpose of this study therefore was to investigate how one specific leisure activity, recreational fishing, can provide potential benefits to adolescents. Youth attending a one week fishing camp at the 4-H Barry Conservation Camp in July of 2014 were surveyed on multiple dimensions of well-being. Results indicate significant improvements in resilience, optimism, and self-esteem following the fishing camp experience. Youth reported that while fishing they engaged in a number of skillful activities (patience, self-discipline, etc.), many of which are beneficial to the positive development of youth. The …

Why Instrumentalism Matters, Kyron Huigens

Articles

No abstract provided.