Digital Commons Network^™

Medication Nonadherence, Health Care Utilization, And Safemed Care Transitions Model Impact In Super-Utilizers, Satya Surbhi

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

BACKGROUND: Super-utilizers are individuals with disproportionately high inpatient and emergency department (ED) use, and mostly have multiple chronic conditions and use multiple concurrent medications. They place a substantial burden on the U.S. healthcare system and have become the focus of policy initiatives aimed at reducing their disproportionate inpatient and ED use. Medication management is critical for these patients since nonadherence to essential chronic medications is associated with poor health outcomes, and higher health care utilization and costs. OBJECTIVES: This dissertation employed a three empirical research papers approach to study the following aims: (1) the prevalence and patterns of medication nonadherence …

Enhancing Engagement For Individuals With Physical Or Cognitive Decline Through The Use Of Multisensory Activities, Jodi Taylor

Dissertations - ALL

Traditional care models typically have a pre- schedule list of activities for elders to engage in, for the purpose of leisure, enjoyments and fun. However, there are questions remaining about the long term benefits of activities and how many residents participate. “RenewedMe” is a service design project with the goal of “Enhancing engagement in individuals with cognitive or physical decline through multi-sensory activities. This project was inspired by the Montessori method principles of education that foster development, engagement and relationships through developmentally appropriate activities. My approach was to create an “environment” that fosters/sustains individualism, builds confidence and sensorial input and …

Kinetics Of Ketone Hydrogenation Over Supported Ru Catalysts, Omar Abdelrahman Ali Abdelrahman

Dissertations - ALL

A kinetic investigation of the production of y-valerolactone (GVL) via the aqueous phase hydrogenation of levulinic acid (LA) over supported Ru catalysts was carried out, in order to understand how to better design a hydrogenation catalyst for such biomass catalytic strategies. At temperatures representative of biomass processing, the reaction proceeds first through the reduction of the LA ketone group to its corresponding alcohol, 4-hydroxypentanoic acid (HPA), which subsequently produces GVL via intramolecular esterification in solution. The governing kinetics of LA hydrogenation were found to be insensitive to the identity of the support material on which Ru catalysts were prepared. Conversely …

Brothers In Blood: The Significance Of Land And Loss In The Creation Of Jewish And Native American Ethnic And Religious Identity, Michael Eron Chaness

Dissertations - ALL

Volunteering at the Onondaga Nation School and collaborating with Chief Jacobs has exposed me to a new and subversive underbelly of American political and religious life. Working on sovereign Native land also provided valuable on the ground experience in Onondaga language and Haudenosaunee culture - food, humor, lacrosse, art, ceremony, government, education etc. Throughout my tenure at Onondaga I have used comparison as the backdrop for my experiences collaborating with Native peoples as well as the methodological backbone for this dissertation project.

My dissertation project, Brothers in Blood: the Significance of Land and Loss in the Creation of Jewish and …

Neuromorphic Learning Systems For Supervised And Unsupervised Applications, Qiuwen Chen

Dissertations - ALL

The advancements in high performance computing (HPC) have enabled the large-scale implementation of neuromorphic learning models and pushed the research on computational intelligence into a new era. Those bio-inspired models are constructed on top of unified building blocks, i.e. neurons, and have revealed potentials for learning of complex information. Two major challenges remain in neuromorphic computing. Firstly, sophisticated structuring methods are needed to determine the connectivity of the neurons in order to model various problems accurately. Secondly, the models need to adapt to non-traditional architectures for improved computation speed and energy efficiency. In this thesis, we address these two problems …

The Role Of Icts In Social Movements: The Case Of The Honduran National Front Against The 2009 Coup, Fatima K. Espinoza Vasquez

Dissertations - ALL

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement's emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes.

I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and …

Selective Dynamic Analysis Of Virtualized Whole-System Guest Environments, Andrew William Henderson

Dissertations - ALL

Dynamic binary analysis is a prevalent and indispensable technique in program analysis. While several dynamic binary analysis tools and frameworks have been proposed, all suffer from one or more of: prohibitive performance degradation, a semantic gap between the analysis code and the execution under analysis, architecture/OS specificity, being user-mode only, and lacking flexibility and extendability. This dissertation describes the design of the Dynamic Executable Code Analysis Framework (DECAF), a virtual machine-based, multi-target, whole-system dynamic binary analysis framework. In short, DECAF seeks to address the shortcomings of existing whole-system dynamic analysis tools and extend the state of the art by utilizing …

Parameters That Affect Parallel Processing For Computational Electromagnetic Simulation Codes On High Performance Computing Clusters, Hongsik Moon

Dissertations - ALL

What is the impact of multicore and associated advanced technologies on computational software for science? Most researchers and students have multicore laptops or desktops for their research and they need computing power to run computational software packages. Computing power was initially derived from Central Processing Unit (CPU) clock speed. That changed when increases in clock speed became constrained by power requirements. Chip manufacturers turned to multicore CPU architectures and associated technological advancements to create the CPUs for the future. Most software applications benefited by the increased computing power the same way that increases in clock speed helped applications run faster. …

A Mediterranean Connection: French Ambassadors, The Republic Of Venice, And The Construction Of The Louisquatorzien State, 1662-1702, Sherrod Brandon Marshall

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

Historians of Louis XIV’s reign have debated evolutions in the king’s administration. Such studies, despite heterogenous conclusions, better define our understanding of absolutist authority in the ancien régime as manifested through a process of so-called bureaucratic centralization. Scholars debate to what extent the monarchy achieved centralization amid the interests of individuals and corporations suspended in traditional hierarchies and socio-cultural expectations. Recently, scholars have posited that Louis’s government accommodated the concerns of its ministers through gratifications and social advancement compelling obedience to the Bourbon dynastic state. This dissertation considers for the first time how a politics of accommodation characterized the …

Vocational And Life Skills Quarterly Report: Quarter 2 (October-December 2016), Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson, Jordan Clark

Reports

The Vocational and Life Skills Program was created by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907 in 2014 with the goals of reducing recidivism and increasing employment for individuals who are incarcerated, who have been incarcerated within the prior 18 months or who are under parole or probation supervision. Participants must begin programming under these conditions, but they may continue programming as the program sees fit for his or her individual needs. Eight programs were funded in Grant Cycle 2 which runs from July 2016-June 2018. The NCJR evaluation was initiated in May 2016 with the primary goal of identifying types of programming …

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: December 2016, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to correct any data errors on an ongoing basis during monthly update calls and site visits.

Data presented below is from the monthly data pulls. Because this data comes for an active database with live data being entered and updated daily, data, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending on changes made …

Searches For The Exclusive Higgs And The Charged Higgs Bosons With The Atlas Detector At The Lhc, Last Feremenga

Physics Dissertations - Archive

In this thesis, searches for the exclusive Standard Model (SM) and charged hMSSM Higgs bosons are performed. While observations of the SM Higgs boson in 2012 by ATLAS and CMS collaborations were ground-breaking, several of the SM Higgs boson properties such as its coupling strengths and branching ratios of its decays still carry large systematic uncertainties. Higgs boson candidates from exclusive production could lower these systematic uncertainties due to their cleaner production environment, improving knowledge of the SM Higgs boson sector. Since the charged Higgs boson is not included in the SM, its evidence would clearly indicate physics beyond the …

Digital Citizenship In 21st Century Education, Aimee Green Logan

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Recent Federal Government initiatives have affected equitable public school funding, which prevents many schools from becoming compliant with the California Common Core Standards. Presently, public schools in California must adopt Common Core State standards, which require the integration of technology within the classroom, however, there are no specific standards and or guidelines within the CCCS that address how students should safely conduct themselves online. This has left students and teachers unprepared to adequately support the growing needs of students online, especially without standards addressing digital literacy. Students who go online face cyberbullying, predatory contact, identity theft and other consequences that …

Towards An Anthropometric History Of Latin America In The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century, Amílcar E. Challú, Sergio Silva-Castañeda

History Faculty Publications

We examine the evolution of adult female heights in twelve Latin American countries during the second half of the twentieth century based on demographic health surveys and related surveys compiled from national and international organizations. Only countries with more than one survey were included, allowing us to cross-examine surveys and correct for biases. We first show that average height varies significantly according to location, from 148.3 cm in Guatemala to 158.8 cm in Haiti. The evolution of heights over these decades behaves like indicators of human development, showing a steady increase of 2.6 cm from the 1950s to the 1990s. …

Mammographic Density Assessed On Paired Raw And Processed Digital Images And On Paired Screen-Film And Digital Images Across Three Mammography Systems, Anya Burton, Graham Byrnes, Jennifer Stone, Rulla M. Tamimi, John Heine, Celine Vachon, Vahit Ozmen, Ana Pereira, Maria Luisa Garmendia, Christopher Scott, John H. Hipwell, Caroline Dickens, Joachim Schüz, Mustafa Erkin Aribal, Kimberly Bertrand, Ava Kwong, Graham G. Giles, John Hopper, Beatriz Pérez Gómez, Marina Pollán, Soo-Hwang Teo, Shivaani Mariapun, Nur Aishah Mohd Taib, Martín Lajous, Ruy Lopez-Riduara, Megan Rice, Isabelle Romieu, Anath Arzee Flugelman, Giske Ursin, Samera Qureshi, Huiyan Ma, Eunjung Lee, Reza Sirous, Mehri Sirous, Jong Won Lee, Jisun Kim, Dorria Salem, Rasha Kamal, Mikael Hartman, Hui Miao, Kee-Seng Chia, Chisato Nagata, Sudhir Vinayak, Rose Ndumia, Carla H. Van Gils, Johanna O. P. Wanders, Beata Peplonska, Agnieszka Bukowska, Steve Allen, Sarah Vinnicombe, Sue Moss, Anna M. Chiarelli, Linda Linton, Gertraud Maskarinec, Martin J. Yaffe, Norman F. Boyd, Isabel Dos-Santos-Silva, Valerie A. Mccormack

Imaging & Diagnostic Radiology, East Africa

Background: Inter-women and intra-women comparisons of mammographic density (MD) are needed in research, clinical and screening applications; however, MD measurements are influenced by mammography modality (screen film/ digital) and digital image format (raw/processed). We aimed to examine differences in MD assessed on these image types.

Methods: We obtained 1294 pairs of images saved in both raw and processed formats from Hologic and General Electric (GE) direct digital systems and a Fuji computed radiography (CR) system, and 128 screen-film and processed CR-digital pairs from consecutive screening rounds. Four readers performed Cumulus-based MD measurements (n = 3441), with each image pair read …

Alaska Army National Guard Construction Planning Process Improvement, Jeremy Nielson

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

The Alaska Army National Guard (AKARNG) is a jointly funded agency run under a cooperative agreement between the federal and state governments. Recognized as a state agency, the AKARNG reports to the governor for domestic response and trains for federal missions. With this relationship, the AKARNG receives funds from the National Guard Bureau (NGB) and the Alaska State Legislature for the execution of construction projects. Under the cooperative agreement, the AKARNG follows state procedures and uses the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT/PF) to manage projects. The AKARNG Construction and Facilities Maintenance Officer (CFMO) ensures federal oversight of …

Assessing Data Quality In Citizen Science, Margaret Kosmala, Andrea Wiggins, Alexandra Swanson, Brooke Simmons

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Ecological and environmental citizen‐science projects have enormous potential to advance scientific knowledge, influence policy, and guide resource management by producing datasets that would otherwise be infeasible to generate. However, this potential can only be realized if the datasets are of high quality. While scientists are often skeptical of the ability of unpaid volunteers to produce accurate datasets, a growing body of publications clearly shows that diverse types of citizen‐science projects can produce data with accuracy equal to or surpassing that of professionals. Successful projects rely on a suite of methods to boost data accuracy and account for bias, including iterative …

Strengthening The Knowledge And Skills Of Community Midwives In Pakistan Through Clinical Practice Internships, Arusa Lakhani, Rafat Jan, Kiran Mubeen, Sadia Karimi, Shahnaz Shahid, Rozina Sewani, Marina Baig, Farzana Adnan

Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM)

Objective: On the-job training of Community Midwives (CMWs) is of critical importance in enabling midwives to provide services that meet standards of quality care. The objective of this study was to assess the intervention of an internship for CMWs that would increase their ability to provide quality maternal, newborn, and child health services.
Method: A pre and post-intervention design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of an internship of 32 working days. Validated questionnaire was used to assess the CMWs’ knowledge and skills before and after the intervention. Overall, 252 CMWs from 14 districts of the Sindh and …

‘Competent, But Not Allowed To Blossom’: Midwifery-Trained Registered Nurses’ Perceptions Of Their Service: A Qualitative Study In Sri Lanka, Sunethra Jayathilake, Vathsala Jayasuriya-Illesinghe, Rasika Perera, Himani Molligoda, Kerstin Samarasinghe

Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM)

Objective: To explore midwifery-trained registered nurses’ perceptions of their own profession as maternity care providers and how they identify their role, tasks, and responsibilities within a multi-professional team.
Design: An exploratory qualitative study using focus group discussions and qualitative content analysis.
Setting: Three selected tertiary care hospitals in the Capital Province in Sri Lanka.
Participants: Twenty-two midwifery-trained RNs working in intra-partum and postpartum units.
Findings: The overriding theme of the analysis was identified as ‘competent but not allowed to blossom fully in their practice’, based on two main categories: ‘provision of competent care’ and ‘working with disappointments’. Each main …

Effectiveness Of Video-Assisted Teaching On No-Scalpel Vasectomy On Knowledge And Attitude Of Married Men In Rural Nagaland, India, Arhoni Tungoe

Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM)

This study assessed whether video-assisted teaching increased the knowledge of,and resulted in a more favourable attitude among married men regarding No-Scalpel Vasectomy (NSV) in a selected village of 17,000 people,bordering Assam, in Nagaland, India. The study used a one group,before-and-after design. The participants were 30 married men who were selected through purposive sampling. Pre-tested and validated tools to assess knowledge and attitudes were used for data collection. The mean post-test scores, on both the knowledge and attitude scales,showed a significant increase from pretest scores (knowledge pre-test mean 11.53±3.41; post-test 21.23±2.18;attitude pre-test mean 20.87±2.64, post-test35.2±1.66).Thus we conclude that the video-assisted teaching …

Golf Putter Testing Mechanism, Christopher Cogswell, Roger Hathaway, John Voinovich

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Final Design Report: Allergen Mixing Assistant (Ama) Micro-Refrigeration Redesigning, Mitchell Parks, Minwoo (Michael) Suh

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Allergen Mixing Assistant (AMA) by Xtract Solutions is a device designed to more “effectively refrigerate, organize, and mix allergenic extracts”. Although Xtract Solutions intended the product to be fully automated, the company has decided against its automation and declared its current design as a minimum viable product whose components are too expensive, difficult to source and complex. Therefore, Cal Poly AMA design team - Mitchell Parks and Minwoo Suh - has decided to replace these expensive components with much more economical alternatives as shown below:

Stirling cooler

→

Thermoelectric (Peltier) cooler

Custom Arduino

Controller Card

→

TEC Thermostat *** …

Biofuel Gasification For Residential Heating, Bryan Duke, Courtney Mcintosh, Jeron Hogan

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Heroin Addiction And Recovery: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Julia C. Rossini

Social Work Theses - Archive

This study is an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the human experience of heroin addiction and recovery. Literature on heroin addiction suggests that those who struggle with addiction are likely to also struggle with impulsivity, self-efficacy, and mood. The literature also finds that group membership is a common factor in recovering from addiction, whether that be in an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous group or harm-reduction community. Two theories were explored, the social learning theory and self- medication theory. The study was shaped by the ideas and findings of previous literature and theories and narrowed down to one specific research question not yet …

Full Issue, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Fun, Fear, And Frustration: Experiences And Opportunities In The Classroom, Michelle Price

Lavery Library Faculty/Staff Publications

In lieu of an abstract, here is the article's first paragraph:

As the outreach and special collections librarian at a small liberal arts college, I also serve as the liaison to the Wegmans School of Nursing, the Wegmans School of Pharmacy, and the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. My formal training is in secondary education, with an undergraduate degree in Spanish. So when my liaison work brought me into a cellular biology course, I struggled with the content. Although I could think of great ways to engage the students in active learning, I was lacking enough basic science knowledge …

Guided Reading And How It Affects Reading Comprehension In Struggling, Middle Level, And High Level Readers, Kathryn E. Hansen

Education Masters

This action research study was conducted to determine the effects of guided reading on the reading comprehension of struggling, average, and accelerated readers. Twenty two 5th grade students in an Integrated Co-Taught class were involved. The student’s reading levels were assessed and they were placed into struggling, average, and accelerated reading groups. The three themes that emerged from the data were that educators are aware of the benefits of guided reading instruction but inconsistent application hinders student results, students need to be equal partners in their learning, and guided reading increased the reading comprehension in average readers, but not struggling …

The Right Stuff? Selective Exposure And Political Misinformation On Facebook, Amanda Jordan

Communication Theses - Archive

For a democracy to function optimally, its citizens must arrive at election booths armed with factual and complete information. If the voting public is equipped with misinformation, it is just as detrimental as if they are uninformed. Misinformation can be caused and exacerbated by a variety of causes but as online selective exposure increases along with political polarization, the possibility that individuals who gather news on their favorite Facebook platforms will be deceived by political misinformation increases. This false news has the ability to cause more and more voters to formulate beliefs and opinions based on false information. Expanding on …

Connected Vehicles At Signalized Intersections: Traffic Signal Timing Estimation And Optimization, S. Alireza Fayazi

All Dissertations

Summary: While traffic signals ensure safety of conflicting movements at intersections, they also cause much delay, wasted fuel, and tailpipe emissions. Frequent stops and goes induced by a series of traffic lights often frustrates passengers. However, the connectivity provided by connected vehicles applications can improve this situation. A uni-directional traffic signal to vehicle communication can be used to guide the connected vehicles to arrive at green which increases their energy efficiency; and in the first part of the dissertation, we propose a traffic signal phase and timing estimator as a complementary solution in situations where timing information is not available …

Autonomous Golf Cart Firmware, Gerik Kubiak

Computer Engineering

The Autonomous Golf Cart Project is a project sponsored by the Cal Poly Robotics Club. The multidisciplinary team is adding sensors and electronics to a regular golf cart with the goal to drive the golf cart around campus without and human input. This task requires a plethora of hardware and firmware to control that hardware. The firmware provides an interface for higher level software to then control the hardware and therefore drive the golf cart. This report is focused on the hardware modifications and the firmware used in order to drive the golf cart from a computer.