Digital Commons Network^™

An Experimental Determination Of The Quasi-Rest Potential Of Copper Indium Disulfide Utilizing The Novel Open-Circuit Voltage Transient, Michael Jason Newell

Student Theses and Dissertations

Environmental sustainability requires resource management that takes future generations into account. The present generation has witnessed changes across the planet, unprecedented in human history and disrupting communities and cities around the world, due to shifting global climate. This is primarily the result of fossil fuels, which powered modern civilization but dramatically increased levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and may be the least sustainable aspect of human civilization. Chapter 1 justifies the research from an environmental perspective and provides initial research parameters. Thin film photovoltaic (PV) modules are reported the most sustainable among energy production technologies currently available. Electrodeposited …

Optimizing The Management Of Emergency Department Patients With Atrial Fibrillation, Heather Tuttle, Zack Deyo, Terra Beek, Leah Hatfield, Philip Mendys, Kevin Biese, Anil Gehi

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Purpose: Atrial Fibrillation is the most common cardiac dysrhythmia in adults, with an annual cost of care estimated at $6.65 billion (3/4 of cost due to hospitalization), and greater than 70% of patients admitted with AF enter the system through the emergency department.

Design: By providing a multidisciplinary structured model of care, connecting Emergency Medicine and Cardiology practices, we hypothesized that a novel pathway from the ED to an Atrial Fibrillations Clinic to coordinate care, modify risk factors, and promote patient self-care could: reduce unnecessary AF hospital admissions, and improve quality of AF care. An Atrial Fibrillation Nurse Coordinator (AFNC) …

Neuro-Alert: Hemorrhagic Stroke Expedited Transfer Process From Ed To Nccu, Kaci Rainey

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Purpose: We sought to develop a Neuro-Alert process for non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhages in an effort to reduce transfer time from emergency department (ED) arrival to Neuro Critical Care Unit (NCCU) and bring the neurocritical care team immediately to the ED bedside.

Design: This project was designed as a performance improvement initiative between the ED and NCCU. This project aimed to decrease ED LOS, improve patient outcomes, increase patient safety and facilitate collaboration and communication across interdisciplinary departments.

Setting: Christiana Care Health System, located in suburban Newark, Delaware, is one of the country's largest health care providers, ranking 22nd in the …

Emergency Nurse-Initiated Brief Smoking Cessation Intervention, Darlie Simerson, Diana Hackbarth

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Poster presentation

Session C presented Thursday, September 14, 2017

Purpose: Smoking is the single most avoidable risk factor for many health problems. The ED provides care for many patients who smoke. Patients identifying as smokers and discharged from the ED do not customarily receive smoking cessation information. Emergency nurses routinely ask patients about their smoking status and are uniquely positioned to give smoking cessation advice and treatment referral for those patients who smoke. The objective of this project was to educate ED nurses about a brief smoking cessation intervention and have them initiate it for all adult ED patients who …

Teleneurology: Streamlining Care Of Stroke Patients In Emergency Rooms, Benjamin Mcpherson, Carri Carson, Debra Littlefield, Kelly Bernatene, Jessica Dyson, Leighann Wells, Joseph Zink

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Session A presented Thursday, September 14, 2017

Purpose: Patients in Emergency Departments (EDs) that are having strokes now have an opportunity to receive endovascular therapy(EVT) for improved outcomes.1,2,3 Unfortunately, most hospitals cannot provide this care. There is variability and inconsistency in practice among providers creating a need to use tele-medicine to help streamline care of patients in EDs so that the treatment can be consistently faster to appropriate facilities.

Design: This project was developed by a focus group that breated the tele-neurology team and disseminated the project to 21 hospitals to implement individually before a predetermined go live date. Stakeholder …

Improving Pain Medication Delivery For Fractures In The Emergency Department, Jim Sullivan, Fonda Green

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to decrease the average time for delivery of initial pain management for patients presenting with long bone fractures.

Design: This is a leadership development project to improve provider and staff awareness through education, establishing a standardized protocol related to ordering and administering eligible pain medication, and making pain medication more accessible to providers and staff in the areas where it is being administered to patients. The emergency department triage area was modified to allow for a private visit area for providers to quickly assess patients before they are brought back to the main …

Canadian Federalism In Design And Practice: The Mechanics Of A Permanently Provisional Constitution, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

This paper examines the interaction between constitutional design and practice through a case study of Canadian federalism. Focusing on the federal architecture of the Canadian Constitution, the paper examines how subnational units in Canada actually compete with the central government, emphasizing the concrete strategies and tactics they most commonly employ to get their way in confrontations with central authority. The evidence affirms that constitutional design and structure make an important difference in the tactics and tools available to subnational units in a federal system, but that design is not fully constraining: there is considerable evidence of extraconstitutional innovation and improvisation …

Investigations Of Model-Free Sliding Mode Control Algorithms Including Application To Autonomous Quadrotor Flight, Eric Schulken

Theses

Sliding mode control is a robust nonlinear control algorithm that has been used to implement tracking controllers for unmanned aircraft systems that are robust to modeling uncertainty and exogenous disturbances, thereby providing excellent performance for autonomous operation. A significant advance in the application of sliding mode control for unmanned aircraft systems would be adaptation of a model-free sliding mode control algorithm, since the most complex and time-consuming aspect of implementation of sliding mode control is the derivation of the control law with incorporation of the system model, a process required to be performed for each individual application of sliding mode …

Promoting Student Success: Bilingual Education Best Practices And Research Flaws, Lillian Fassero

Senior Honors Theses

This paper first determines the benefits which bilingual education offers and then compares transitional, dual-language, and heritage language maintenance programs. After exploring the outcomes, contexts, and practical implications of the various bilingual programs, this paper explores the oversight in most bilingual studies, which assess students’ syntax and semantics while neglecting their understanding of pragmatics and discourse structures (Maxwell-Reid, 2011). Incorporating information from recent studies which question traditional understandings of bilingualism and argue that biliteracy requires more than grammatical and vocabulary instruction, this paper proposes modifications in current research strategies and suggests best practices for transitional, dual-language, and heritage maintenance programs.

State V. Newell Appellant's Brief Dckt. 45267

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

Cole V. State Respondent's Brief Dckt. 44952

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Vesely Respondent's Brief Dckt. 45027

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Bristlin Respondent's Brief Dckt. 45075

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Anderson Respondent's Brief Dckt. 45155

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

St. Norbert College's Tom Conner To Be Knighted By France, St. Norbert College

Press Releases 2017

No abstract provided.

Nailing Jello To A Tree: A Christian Approach To Ethics In Intelligence, Melanie Scherpereel

Senior Honors Theses

This paper will discuss Christian involvement in the intelligence field in addition to the ethical issues inherent to intelligence, specifically deception, including lying and manipulation, and technology as a force multiplier. Many Christians believe that intelligence is fundamentally a field of extensive deception that should be avoided. Ethics and morality, what it means to tell the truth, and biblical examples of people who used deception and were commended, will be analyzed from a Christian worldview perspective. The arguments will be presented in order that Christians may be able to understand how to apply the two greatest commandments, to love our …

Aldeane Comito Ries Elementary School, Ashley Mullins

First-Year Seminar Posters (COE 102/103)

While I volunteered in a kindergarten classroom, the real problem is that Nevada doesn’t spend enough money on preschools which leads to children coming into kindergarten without the proper level of knowledge (Takashi). Part of this problem is that students come into kindergarten with delays in language and vocabulary (Rogers). I addressed this issue by helping the students with their letters and encouraging them to read the signs that the kindergarten teacher at Ries Elementary School had up around the classroom. Nevada has also only recently implemented standards for preschool (Gwertz). However, this doesn’t seem to make a difference as …

Boys & Girls Club, Alexandra Rivera

First-Year Seminar Posters (COE 102/103)

Family income is also relevant when it comes to parental stress.

Soda: Student Organizing Diversity Activities, Humberto Salmeron-Arreola

First-Year Seminar Posters (COE 102/103)

The Social Issue that my service learning was addressing was the importance of multiculturalism, and why discrimination should no longer be a problem.

Volunteer Work At The Nevada State Museum, Hannah Spreger

First-Year Seminar Posters (COE 102/103)

The State Museum addresses the issue of needing unique, interesting ways to learn, as well as an affordable way to access information to both children, adults, and people of all ages.

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Ben Brikman

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

According to J Stuart Elborn (2016), a medical professor from Queen’s University Belfast, youth that grow up with this disease “have shown a high prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients with cystic fibrosis and parent caregivers.” It greatly affects a person when they are feel like it is a burden to take care of themselves. Many affected by psychological distress allows this negativity to affect their adherence to their treatment and experience more frequent exacerbations, which leads to a poor quality of outlook on life.

J.T. Mcwilliams Elementary, Anthony Cano

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

According to Nevada Report Card, 287,550 students in the state of Nevada are identified as minorities.

John D. Jackie Gaughan Clubhouse, Dakyung Jung

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

“Alleviating urban poverty depends significantly on economic growth and the nation’s ability to provide more, and better-paying, jobs” (Lemons, 2015).

Project 150, Jacob Mcqueen

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

The social issue that Project 150 seeks to address is the issue of homeless and underprivileged youth.

Religion Declining, Oscar Pascual

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

As of today, compared to previous generations there are fewer people going to church or are affiliated with a religion that day practice daily. During my volunteering in my service site, where it was my job to basically teach, or enlighten youths from a Catholic family and show them what their religion means to them and its importance, my fellow teachers and I face the challenge of basically grabbing their interest even worse their attention to the topic.

Nurse Retention Strategy - Utilization Of Stay Interviews, Laura Leahey, Laura Samuel

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to identify the most prevalent reasons that nurses choose to leave their place of employment and to explore strategies to retain them. This author examined the nurse staff retention, vacancy, and turnover rates of a nursing department at a community hospital in southern Wisconsin. The financial impact that this problem has on the hospital's budget is discussed. An evidence-based protocol to improve retention of nurses was identified, and strategies to reduce nurse turnover were developed.

Design: Staff development project.

Setting: A 300-bed community hospital in southern Wisconsin.

Participants/Subjects: Nurse leaders.

Methods: Literature review …

Evaluating Ems Door-To-Ct Times Using An Emr Based Communication Tool, Christopher Rankin

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Session H presented Saturday, September 16, 2017

Purpose: Evidence-based standards of care in EMS and emergency nursing are well defined in clinical populations. Communication between pre-hospital and emergency departments (ED) required improvement by accrediting organizations at our hospital. The purpose of this IRB exempt quality improvement initiative was to compare the transcripts of calls with staff using an EMR evidence-based stroke template with those who using the template during calls to observe the effect on stroke-activation and door-to-CT times.

Design: This quality improvement process involved developing and implementing an EMR based stroke reporting template, facilitating evidence-based structured reports with EMS …

Accelerating Care Using A Standardized Protocol For Psychiatric Emergency Patients, Elizabeth J. Winokur, Jeannine Loucks

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Session D presented Friday, September 15, 2017

Purpose: Behavioral health (BH) complaints are a component in one out of every eight emergency department visits. With the closing of many inpatient psychiatric beds, emergency departments are the primary source care for many individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis. Often assessment and care for BH patients is delayed to provide care to medical patients who are perceived to be more acutely ill. Emergency nurses are frequent recipients of aggression and violence from this population. Research findings demonstrate that most acts of aggression and violence occur within one hour of arrival in ED. …

Blood Culture Contamination In The Emergency Department, Sharon Winters, Patricia Mcclure

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Purpose: Current best practice for collecting blood cultures is to divert the first 1-2ml of blood, so to send the micro-organisms away from the blood culture tubes that will be tested. Residing in the deeper dermis layer of skin, are still 20% of common contaminate organisms such as MRSA and VRE, that do not go away even after scrubbing for 30 seconds with chlorahexadine and allowing it to dry completely. Drawing into syringes is not best practice, as we have found alongside with our micro department, that contaminates are being resulted in both the aerobic and anaerobic bottles from mixing …

An Education Program To Reduce Violence Against Emergency Department Nurses, Michael Ii Zielinski

General Submissions: Presentations (Oral and Poster)

Session A presented Thursday, September 14, 2017

Purpose: An Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) change project was designed to educate nurses in the ED on how to recognize, de-escalate, and mitigate violence encountered while working. This will enhance their daily practice, make the workplace environment safer, and improve patient outcomes. The financial benefit to the institution is intended to increase job satisfaction, decrease staff injuries, call outs and staff turnover. Educating nurses to maintain a safe and secure work environment is beneficial to all; the nurses, their patients, patient families and visitors.

Design: The EBP change project consisted of the implementation of …