Digital Commons Network^™

Factors Affecting Transit Ridership And The Impact Of Intelligent Transit Information Systems (Itis) - Case Study Of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (Dart), Ahmed Ismail Daqrouq

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Transit ridership is at the heart of transportation policy making and the success of any transit system. Urban planners have been focusing on the need to reduce car dependence and promote more sustainable transportation alternatives. Automobile dependence is a concern for many reasons including congestion in urban areas, pollution, and environmental damages. Switching to more sustainable and environmentally friendly transportation modes such as public transit is likely to be an effective solution to most of these problems. As an alternative to the private car, public transit is an effective means to move large numbers of people within cities, and transit …

Rational Design And Synthesis Of Biodegradable Polyurethane Based Biomaterials, Cancan Xu

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Biodegradable polyurethanes have been applied in biomedical field since 1960s. In recent years, biodegradable polyurethanes have been widely investigated for tissue repair and regeneration because of their good mechanical properties, elasticity, biodegradability, biocompatibility and processability. Compared with some commonly used biodegradable polymers, such as poly(glycolide) (PGA), poly(lactide) (PLA), poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), the favorable aspects of biodegradable polyurethane are its mechanical, physicochemical and biological properties can be tailored by varying the three blocks in polyurethane backbone, diisocyanate, diol and chain extender. In this thesis, we focus on the development of different functional biodegradable polyurethanes to study their structure-property relationships …

Stimuli-Responsive Nanoparticles For Treatment Of Lung Cancer, Roshni Iyer

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Despite extensive research and progress in anti-cancer therapeutics, an effective treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains elusive, resulting in poor 5-year patient survival rate. Towards this end, we have explored a therapeutic regimen to improve the effects of local concurrent chemo-radiation-therapy (CRT), by utilizing multifunctional stimuli-responsive nanoparticles (NPs) as drug carriers. We have also utilized lung cancer targeting strategies for site-specific drug delivery, mainly antibodies against the Ephrin-transmembrane receptor kinase (EphA2), that is over-expressed mainly on lung cancer cells, to promote the targeted delivery of drugs to only cancer cells, and eventually reduce the toxicity to healthy tissues. …

Development Of Particle Platforms For Delivery Of Angiogenic Reagents To Treat Peripheral Arterial Diseases, Duong Quang Le

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a disease that one or several peripheral arteries are narrowed or blocked. PAD is an emerging disease that cost annually 10-20 billions of US dollars for health care in America. PAD patients suffer high risk of limb loss, amputations and mortalities. At 5 years, the amputation rate for PAD is 40%-70% while the 5-year survival rate is less than 30%. For PAD patients undergoing acute and critical limb ischemia, surgery bypass and endovascular balloon/stenting are applied as standard treatments. However, surgical bypass is subject to patients’ readiness of autologous veins and the depth of arteries …

A Staring Contest With The Self: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Linguistic Inquiry And Word Count, And Explanatory Style, Colton Tyler Royle

English Theses - Archive

Shame as an emotional response in the late 2010s has been discussed in both high and low sectors, from a high level of shame with social media use in high school classrooms, to the lack of shame by the president of the United States. My thesis addresses this question by analyzing Karl Ove Knausgaard’s two autobiographical works, My Struggle and his Seasonal Quartet. Readers, critics, and Knausgaard himself have described his work as a focus on the shameful moments of his life. Using positive psychology’s term “explanatory style,” coined by Martin E.P. Seligman, I do a structural reading of explicit …

Society Does Not R-E-S-P-E-C-T Black Mothers: Historically Racialized Representations And Black Women’S Compromised Obstetrical Care, Ashleigh Riley

English Theses - Archive

This thesis explores the correlation between racialized representations of Black women with the disparities in the level of healthcare they receive and the resulting outcomes. I argue racialized representations of Black women throughout history and into the modern-era compromise Black women’s obstetrical care, affect their reproductive freedom, and contribute to their disproportionately higher maternal mortality rates. By citing pivotal historical events and the resulting racialized tropes from the antebellum, reconstruction, and civil rights time-periods, I identify the modern-era manifestations of those representations. Using theoretical lenses associated with Black Feminist Theory, Intersectionality, and Scripting, I analyze how historically racialized representations of …

Truth And Strength In Vulnerability: Using Topoanalysis To Reveal The Need For Expanding The Modernist Literary Canon, Misty Dawnmarie Falkenstein

English Theses - Archive

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the public role of women shifted dramatically. Women asserted themselves in politics, education, and work in a way foreign to their Victorian predecessors. Although these “New Women” altered the gender landscape and set in motion a new path for women that would continue even into the twenty-first century, their writing still goes largely unnoticed in the current study of the Modernist literary canon. This project makes a case for expanding the current Modernist literary canon to include more of these women, especially women of disenfranchised racial, ethnic, cultural, and economic groups. Writers …

The Politics Of Abortion And Maternal Health: A Discussion Paper, Ihsan Ullah, Ayaz Ayub, Edwin Van Teijlingen

Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM)

Abortion should be legally allowed for women because it can save mothers from childbirth-related complications and death. Legal abortion is one of the safest methods to terminate a pregnancy when there is a risk to the mother’s health by childbirth or severe deformity of the fetus or it is unwanted. Unfortunately, approximately half of all abortions worldwide mostly in nations where abortion is severely restricted and are performed in dangerous settings. These risky abortions are a significant contributor to maternal morbidity and disability. Limiting a woman's access to an abortion does not stop abortion; rather, it just encourages more risky …

Self-Monitoring Checklists: A Tool For Connecting Training To Practice, M. Courtney Hughes, Emaley B. Mcculloch, Elise G. Valdes

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

A limitation of training is the gap between the knowledge learned in training and the behavior put into practice. Skills checklists are helpful for reducing errors and increasing adherence to safety and may be one tool useful for bridging that gap. There is little research examining the role of skills checklists with self-reflection completed independently, or “self-monitoring checklists,” for increasing knowledge and improving skills in areas requiring attentional behavior in healthcare. Two randomized controlled studies incorporated self-monitoring checklists along with online training in cultural competence and integrated care, respectively, for health professionals. At least ninety percent of participants in both …

Creativity And Budgeting: Improving The Budget Process With Creativity, Janet K. Stormes

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

In this master’s project I explore ways to improve a budget process by integrating the principles and tools of creativity and Creative Problem Solving. I do this by prototyping, testing, and revising a creativity-budget model. The creativity-budget prototype model was based on my professional experience in federal budgeting and a literature review on topics including governance, the budget process, stakeholders, collaboration, the impact of the budget process on the creativity of an organization, and the principles of creativity and creative problem solving. In July 2018, I tested the prototype model by conducting creativity-budget workshops in Myanmar. Based on my experience …

Between The Facts And Norms Of Police Violence: Using Discourse Models To Improve Deliberations Around Law Enforcement, Franciska Coleman

Hofstra Law Review

Police violence and protests of police violence have become a common feature of today's news cycles and have led to widespread critique and distrust of the law enforcement apparatus and police practice. States and municipalities have responded to the delegitimization of police practice with community-police dialogues. This Article argues that such dialogues can only restore the legitimacy of the police practice if they are deliberative in the Habermasian sense and also address the entrenched power asymmetries between communities and the police. This Article uses the community listening sessions of the Minnesota Governor's Council on Law Enforcement and Community Relations to …

The Monadnock Volume 60, December 2018, Clark University Geographical Society

The Monadnock (Clark Geographical Society)

Volume 60 of The Monadnock. The Monadnock was the alumni magazine of the Clark University Geographical Society (1927-1985) (2014-present).

A Gis-Based Framework Creating Green Stormwater Infrastructure Inventory Relevant To Surface Transportation Planning, Xiaofan Xu, Dylan S. P. Schreiber, Qing Lu, Qiong Zhang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The stormwater runoff that carries pollutants from the land adjacent to road transportation systems may impair the water environment and threaten the ecosystem and human health. A proper management approach like green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) can help control flooding and the runoff pollutants. One barrier for GSI analysis relevant to system-level surface transportation planning is the lack of the inventory of GSI in many U.S. cities. This study aims to develop a GIS-based framework for creating GSI inventory in a time and labor efficient way, different from the traditional survey-based method. The new proposed framework consists of three steps, including …

Epidemiological Evidence And Health Risks Associated With Agricultural Reuse Of Partially Treated And Untreated Wastewater: A Review, Anthony A. Adegoke, Isaac D. Amoah, Thor A. Stenström, Matthew E. Verbyla, James R. Mihelcic

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The use of partially treated and untreated wastewater for irrigation is beneficial in agriculture but may be associated with human health risks. Reports from different locations globally have linked microbial outbreaks with agricultural reuse of wastewater. This article reviews the epidemiological evidence and health risks associated with this practice, aiming toward evidence-based conclusions. Exposure pathways that were addressed in this review included those relevant to agricultural workers and their families, consumers of crops, and residents close to areas irrigated with wastewater (partially treated or untreated). A meta-analysis gave an overall odds ratio of 1.65 (95% CI: 1.31, 2.06) for diarrheal …

Discretionary Trusts: An Update, Richard C. Ausness

ACTEC Law Journal

In the past, settlors tended to limit a trustee's discretion by setting forth a specific formula for the distribution of trust assets. Nowadays, however, settlors often prefer to vest more discretion in their trustees. This is partly due to the fact that beneficiaries tend to live longer and, therefore, trusts inevitably last longer, thereby requiring trustees to respond to changing conditions. In addition, settlors often believe that vesting increased discretion on the part of trustees will discourage beneficiaries from bringing expensive and disruptive challenges to their decisions.

Nevertheless, the trend toward increased discretion is not without its problems. First of …

The Banner - V. 153, No. 11 - (December 2018), Christian Reformed Church In North America

The Banner

No abstract provided.

December 2018, Pope Francis

Marian Thoughts of Pope Francis

No abstract provided.

Characterizing Young Adult Exposure And Engagement With Social Media Tobacco And Nicotine Product Marketing And Messaging, Stephanie L. Clendennen

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Tobacco use remains a critical public health issue in the United States. Young adults are disproportionately affected by high rates of tobacco use and heavily targeted by tobacco marketing. Social media has become an important source of exposure to tobacco and nicotine product marketing and messaging for young adults. This dissertation examined the prevalence and socio-environmental characteristics associated with young adults’ exposure to and engagement with tobacco-related social media (paper 1); the prospective associations between young adults’ exposure and engagement and tobacco and nicotine product use (paper 2); and young adults’ experiences with tobacco and nicotine product messaging on social …

Live Load Distribution Factors And Uhpc Shear Key Performance Of Scdot Next-D Beam, Samuel Edward Hess

All Theses

Several of the adjacent precast concrete bridge girders (APCBG) that the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) currently use experience shear key cracking within their intended design lives. This leads to a decrease in the transverse load sharing capabilities of these sections. Shear key cracking also leads to reflective cracks developing on the bridge deck, which allows water and other corrosive agents access to the girder reinforcement. APCBGs are often used by SCDOT for short to medium span, accelerated bridge construction (ABC) applications. Thus, SCDOT teamed up with Clemson University (CU) to seek an APCBG section that does not lead …

White-Nose Syndrome Detected In Bats Over An Extensive Area Of Russia, Veronika Kovacova, Jan Zukal, Hana Bandouchova, Alexander D. Botvinkin, Markéta Harazim, Natália Martínková, Oleg L. Orlov, Vladimir Piacek, Alexandra P. Shumkina, Mikhail P. Tiunov, Jiri Pikula

KIP Articles

No abstract provided.

Integrating Crash, Hospital, And Roadway Data To Investigate The Effect Of Cable Median Barriers On Injury Severity, Michael D. Singleton, Eric R. Green, William Nicholas Staats, I-Chen Chen

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Executive Summary

• In median-involved crashes, the odds of a police-reported injury were estimated to be 42% lower on road segments with a cable median barrier (CMB) than on road segments with a concrete median barrier, and the difference was statistically significant [odds ratio 0.58, 95% confidence interval (0.43, 0.78)].
• In median-involved crashes, the odds of having an injury severity score of 8 or greater were estimated to be 34% higher on road segments with a CMB than on road segments with a concrete median barrier; however, the difference was not statistically significant [odds ratio 1.34, 95% confidence interval (0.67, 2.66). …

Weighted Least Squares Estimation Of The Effect Of Wastewater Pollution Of Tigris River / Wasit Governorate, Omar Abdulmohsin Ali, Khaled Jamal Kadhim

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

The analysis of Least Squares: LS is often unsuccessful in the case of outliers ​​in the studied phenomena. OLS will lose their properties and then lose the property of Beast Linear Unbiased Estimator (BLUE), because of the Outliers have a bad effect on the phenomenon. To address this problem, new statistical methods have been developed so that they are not easily affected by outliers. These methods are characterized by robustness or (resistance). The Least Trimmed Squares: LTS method was therefore a good alternative to achieving more feasible results and optimization. However, it is possible to assume weights that take into …

Incorporating Waist Circumference Screenings To Initiate Preventative Lifestyle Modification Education: A Feasibility Study For A Clinical Practice Change, Tracy Stahl

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Project

INCORPORATING WAIST CIRCUMFERENCE SCREENINGS TO INITIATE PREVENTATIVE LIFESTYLE MODIFICATION EDUCATION: A FEASIBILITY PILOT STUDY FOR A CLINICAL PRACTICE CHANGE

An Abstract of the Scholarly Project by

Tracy Stahl MSN, FNP-C

The purpose of this study was to evaluate provider perceptions and willingness to incorporate adult gender-specific waist circumference screenings as a clinical practice change. The project was conducted at the 4-State Advanced Practice Nurses (APN) conference in March 2018. The study consisted of a two-part study that utilized a pretest, educational PowerPoint presentation, posttest, and eight-week posttest to determine self-reported provider practices. Part one of the study analyzed the pretest …

Empathetic Computing For Inclusive Application Design, Kenny Choo Tsu Wei

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The explosive growth of the ecosystem of personal and ambient computing de- vices coupled with the proliferation of high-speed connectivity has enabled ex- tremely powerful and varied mobile computing applications that are used every- where. While such applications have tremendous potential to improve the lives of impaired users, most mobile applications have impoverished designs to be inclusive– lacking support for users with specific disabilities. Mobile app designers today haveinadequate support to design existing classes of apps to support users with specific disabilities, and more so, lack the support to design apps that specifically target these users. One way to resolve …

The Impact Of Whoop Technology On Sleep, Recovery, And Performance In Naia Baseball Players, Nolan Harms

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

Many key factors – including but not limited to – sleep, nutrition, travel, stress, and practice influence the optimization of athletic performance. Although previous studies have investigated the use of wearable technology in sport to track several such factors, peer-reviewed research specific to WHOOP technology is limited at best. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of WHOOP technology on sleep, recovery, and batting performance in healthy NAIA baseball players. Data was collected over the course of 4 weeks of in-season play on 10 varsity NAIA baseball players (20.40 ± 0.97 years). All games – 18 total …

Detection Of Multiple Flaws In Concrete Bridge Decks Using Ultrasonic Wave Propagation, Ece Erdogmus, Eric Garcia, Michael Schuller, Donald Harvey, Kelsey Stithem, Monica Houck

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Acute High-Intensity Exercise Impairs Skeletal Muscle Respiratory Capacity, Gwenael Layec, Gregory M. Blain, Matthew J. Rossman, Song-Young Park, Corey R. Hart, Joel D. Trinity, Jayson R. Gifford, Simranjit K. Sidhu, Joshua C. Weavil, Thomas J. Hureau, Markus Amann, Russell S. Richardson

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Purpose

The effect of an acute bout of exercise, especially high-intensity exercise, on the function of mitochondrial respiratory complexes is not well understood, with potential implications for both the healthy population and patients undergoing exercise-based rehabilitation. Therefore, this study sought to comprehensively examine respiratory flux through the different complexes of the electron transport chain in skeletal muscle mitochondria before and immediately after high-intensity aerobic exercise.

Methods

Muscle biopsies of the vastus lateralis were obtained at baseline and immediately after a 5-km time trial performed on a cycle ergometer. Mitochondrial respiratory flux through the complexes of the electron transport chain was …

Powers Of Attorney Under The Uniform Power Of Attorney Act Including Reference To Virginia Law, F. Philip Manns Jr.

ACTEC Law Journal

The Uniform Power of Attorney Act (UPOAA), approved in 2006, slightly amended in 2008 and more significantly amended in 2016, has been adopted by 27 U.S. jurisdictions. The UPOAA promotes uniformity in language delineating an agent's powers and mandates that third parties accept notarized powers of attorney. Under the UPOAA, an instrument simply granting an agent authority to do "all acts that a principal could do," vests that agent with broad powers: the precise delineation of those powers is produced by about a dozen pages of UPOAA text automatically incorporated by reference into such "all acts" instruments. However, the UPOAA …

Intestacy, Wills, And Intent: A Short Comment On Wright & Sterner, David Horton

ACTEC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Nursing News & Views - December 2018, Christine Klucznik Rn

Nursing Newsletters

No abstract provided.