Digital Commons Network^™

Pinch Testing Positions Among Certified Hand Therapists: A Cross-Sectional Survey, Sueann R. Woods, Christa Lilly

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background: Pinch strength is indicative of later functional hand use following injury to hand. However, we believe clinicians (and more specifically CHTs) currently do not use a consistent measurement of pinch grip, despite availability of a “gold standard” of current (2015) ASHT standards for measuring pinch grip.

Methods: This cross-sectional survey (N = 175, 35% response) was designed to determine whether CHTs adhere to the standardized testing position for palmar pinch strength as recommended by the ASHT.

Results: Results determined that only 5.7% (n = 10) of the CHTs surveyed complete the entire ASHT standardized testing …

Effects Of Signal Bandwidth And Noise On Individual Speaker Identification, Jeremy C. Schwartz, Ashtyn T. Whyte, Mohanad Al-Nuaimi, Jeremy J. Donai

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of increasing spectral bandwidth from 3 to 10 kHz on individual speaker recognition in noisy conditions (þ5, 0, and 5 dB signal-to-noise ratio). Experiment 1 utilized h(Vowel)d (hVd) signals, while experiment 2 utilized sentences from the Rainbow Passage. Both experiments showed significant improvements in individual speaker identification in the 10 kHz bandwidth condition (6% for hVds; 10% for sentences). These results coincide with the extant machine recognition literature demonstrating significant amounts of individual speaker information present in the speech signal above approximately 3–4 kHz. Cues from the highfrequency region for speaker identity …

Cluster-Based Network Proximities For Arbitrary Nodal Subsets, Kenneth S. Berenhaut, Peter S. Barr, Alyssa M. Kogel, Ryan L. Melvin

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The concept of a cluster or community in a network context has been of considerable interest in a variety of settings in recent years. In this paper, employing random walks and geodesic distance, we introduce a unified measure of cluster-based proximity between nodes, relative to a given subset of interest. The inherent simplicity and informativeness of the approach could make it of value to researchers in a variety of scientific fields. Applicability is demonstrated via application to clustering for a number of existent data sets (including multipartite networks). We view community detection (i.e. when the full set of network nodes …

Communication Surrounding Estrangement: Stereotypes, Attitudes, And (Non)Accommodation Strategies, Christine Rittenour, Stephen Kromka, Sara Pitts, Margaret Thorwart, Janelle Vickers, Kaitlyn Whyte

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

To address Americans’ general attitudes and behavioral intentions toward adult children who are estranged from their parents, the current study employed online survey data from 151 Americans recruited through Amazon MTurk. Their responses revealed negative stereotypes (e.g., childish, ungrateful) and positive stereotypes (e.g., independent, strong) of the adult child who is estranged, as well as negative assessments of the parent who is estranged. Generally, participants perceived the adult children as more competent than warm. Compared to other participants in this sample, those participants who were estrangers or estrangees themselves held more positive attitudes overall, including more positive perceptions of estranged …

Essays On Measuring Dynamic Community Responses To Environmental Events, Patrick Prendergast

Open Access Dissertations

One of the things that makes economics such an interesting social science sub-field to study is the analysis of unintended or unforeseen consequences. In order for policies to be efficient and equitable, it is important to first understand how endogenous policy decisions and exogenous events can affect communities either directly or indirectly. In this dissertation research, I examine how communities react to discrete environmental events over time. I do so in the context of tropical storm and hurricane activity in U.S. counties and media markets as well as land conservation spending decisions in Massachusetts and New Jersey municipalities. Using micro-level …

Nurse Practitioners’ And Certified Nurse Midwives’ Experiences Providing Comprehensive Early Abortion Care In New England, Katherine Elisabeth Simmonds

Open Access Dissertations

Access to safe abortion care has been linked to better maternal and child health outcomes (Sedgh et al., 2012) and identified as essential for advancing women’s economic and social equality (Bengsch, 2015; Lang, 2013). Around the world, nurses, including nurse practitioners (NPs) and certified nurse midwives (CNMs), are integral members of the health care teams that provide care to women considering or electing to have an abortion. Evidence supports NPs and CNMs as safe and effective providers of comprehensive early abortion care, and acceptable to patients (Barnard, Kim, Park, & Ngo, 2015; Kopp Kallner et al., 2015; Weitz et al., …

Economic Burden And Mortality Associated With Prescription Opioid Use, Hilary A. Aroke

Open Access Dissertations

Prescription opioid use and misuse poses a significant public health challenge to the United States. In this dissertation we use the three-manuscript format to address some the areas of unmet research. Each manuscript has an abstract, introduction, background, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions sections.

Manuscript 1: We used a retrospective cohort design to examine the association between the patterns of initial prescription opioid use for non-cancer pain and risk of all-cause mortality among an insured opioid-naïve patient population in the U.S. Multivariable Cox regression model was used to estimate the association of initial pattern of opioid use with all-cause mortality, …

Phytochemical Investigation Of A Native North American Species, “Acer Saccarinum” And An Endemic Saudi Arabian Species, “Euphorbia Saudiarabica”, Abdullatif Bin Muhsinah

Open Access Dissertations

The objectives of this work are the isolation, purification, structure elucidation, and biological evaluation of bioactive secondary metabolites, primarily tannins and diterpenoids, of two plant species: silver maple (Acer saccharinum) and Euphorbia saudiarabica, respectively.

Based on the ethnopharmacological literature, Acer saccharinum is a traditional medicinal plant that has been used by the people of North America. According to previous phytopharmacological studies by our group, over 70 phytochemicals, primarily tannins and flavonoids, have been discovered from three different maple species, including sugar (Acer saccharum), red (Acer rubrum), and sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) maples. …

Three Essays On Corporate Asset Growth, Bond Pricing, And Implicit Government Guarantees, Yifei Li

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of my dissertation is to identify factors driving corporate bond pricing and government guarantees on corporate liabilities. In the first manuscript, I identify the driving sources of asset growth from the perspective of debt financing and examine the asset growth effect on bond pricing. There are competing views on potential drivers for corporate asset growth. Researchers in favor of optimal investment attributes a higher asset growth rate to lower cost of capital and richer investment opportunities. Alternatively, the agency problem argument attributes high asset growth to over-investments. Building on that firms often heavily rely on debt to grow …

Assessing Groundwater Quantity And Quality Variations In Arid Regions Due To Climate Changes And Anthropogenic Factors: Case Study Saudi Arabia, Othman Abdulrahman Fallatah

Open Access Dissertations

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), water resources are limited in hyper-arid regions, which are dependent on groundwater (88 percent), desalination water (8 percent) and wastewater treatment (4 percent). The management and development of these resources are essential to sustain population growth and grow the agricultural, industrial, and tourism sectors. Since the groundwater is the most valued water resource in the country, the majority of researchers are focused on the water quantity and water quality in this region in order to find the best solution to face this issue. In 1953 the Ministry of Agriculture and Water was established …

Cardiovascular And Retinal Vascular Changes In Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease, Cláudia Yang Santos

Open Access Dissertations

One in three adults over 85 years old suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or other forms of dementia. This already widespread condition is expected to increase further in both incidence and prevalence in coming years. As a result, the need to understand the etiology and pathogenesis of dementia becomes ever more urgent. AD, in addition to its steep cost of care, is the most common form of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It is a complex disease and its mechanisms are poorly understood. The more we learn about AD, the more questions are …

Neonatal Readmission In Term Infants: Maternal, Infant, Provider And Institutional Factors, Angelita M. Hensman

Open Access Dissertations

Hospital readmissions are a patient safety and quality concern. Readmission rates in term-born infants in the past decade have been < 1.3% in the United States and < 8% globally. Most readmissions have been for jaundice/hyperbilirubinemia. Changes in exclusive breastfeeding rates, healthcare/institutional policies and demographics may have influenced the rate of neonatal readmission. Most literature on term-born neonatal readmission (within 28 days of birth) is conflicting and outdated. This study aimed to quantify the risk of maternal, infant, provider and institutional factors associated with neonatal readmission to the birth hospital in healthy term infants. Secondary aims estimated the incidence of neonatal readmission and characterized birth length of stay (in hours), readmission diagnosis, birth weight loss > 7% and breastfeeding quality ([LATCH score] ≤ 6). A nested case-control study (N=390) was conducted at a Level III hospital in the Northeastern United States. There were 11, 958 infants delivered between January 1, 2016 through May 8, 2017. A cohort of in-state domicile, healthy term (370/7 - 416/7 weeks gestation) infants (n = 5,940) admitted directly to the well-baby nursery were identified. Cases (n =130) were infants from the cohort readmitted within 28 days of …

The Impact Of The 2014-2016 Ebola Epidemic On Sierra Leonean Immigrants In The United States, Daphne J. Cole

Open Access Dissertations

The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic represented the largest outbreak in the history of the disease and it took a tremendous toll on the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone who were impacted by a disease that had never been seen in their part of the world. While the epidemic significantly impacted those three nations, reported cases also spread to African countries such as Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal, as well as countries in the western world, such as Spain and the U.S. prior to the West African epidemic. Ebola was perceived in the U.S. as a distant threat dramatized …

Transtheoretical Model Development For Retail Health Clinic Utilization, Stephen V. Matsko

Open Access Dissertations

Primary Care is considered to be in a crisis in the U.S. related to increasing rates of chronic disease, increasing numbers of patients, less physicians, and less money. This dilemma has led to the rise of what could be a disruptive innovation in the form of retail health clinics, health clinics located within retail settings like pharmacies and large retail stores. The core aim of this study was to use a sequential approach to measurement development to develop TTM measures for the Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, and Self-Efficacy for patients’ readiness to utilize retail health clinics using split half …

Effect Of A Technology-Integrated, Nutrition Education Program On Low-Income Youths’ Dietary Intake, Kate Balestracci

Open Access Dissertations

Childhood obesity is an important public health problem as it relates to several chronic diseases and continues to be high, particularly among low-socioeconomic (SES) and racial and ethnic minority populations. In 2011-2014, 25.0% of Hispanic 6-11-year-old school-aged children were considered to be obese or extremely obese, followed by 21.4% of non-Hispanic black children and 13.6% of non-Hispanic white children. When compared to higher-SES children of the same ethnicity and race, low-SES Hispanic, white, and black children were 2.7, 1.9 and 3.2 times more likely to be obese, respectively. Contributing to the obesity epidemic among children is the excess consumption of …

Understanding The Connection Between The Hydro-Climatic Extremes And Diarrheal Diseases Over Bengal Delta: The Vulnerability Assessment Of Past, Present And Future, Mohammad Alfi Hasan

Open Access Dissertations

Living in the age of space exploration and nanotechnology, the significant portion of human population still have threatened by diarrheal diseases throughout the globe. Being a major contributor of the global mortality, the diarrheal diseases account for an estimated 3.1% of the total burden of disease in terms of Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) where cholera and rotavirus diarrhea comprise more than two-thirds of the diarrheal morbidity in developing countries of South Asia.

Alongside with many more challenges like climate change or civil war, the capability to resolve the diarrheal disease burden in developing countries remains questionable. As the primary reasons …

Exploring The Treatment Experiences Of African American Substance Using Women And Perceptions Of Culturally Competent Care, Janan Patrice Wyatt

Open Access Dissertations

Research continues to suggest that substance use treatment retention and completion presents an ongoing problem, especially among marginalized groups. In particular, African American women have the lowest rates of treatment retention and completion across all substance using groups. While gender and ethnoracial identities continue to be examined in their relation to substance use treatment, these identities are often studied in isolation offering limited information about how intersecting identities impact substance use treatment for African American women. Researchers have commented on the immediate need for research aimed at describing, understanding, and improving treatment for this population. Research using the voices of …

Stimuli-Responsive Biomaterials For Drug Delivery To Improve Cancer Immunotherapy And Chronic Wound Healing, Anita E. Tolouei

Open Access Dissertations

Sequential delivery of biomolecules is very important as many biologics underlying injury and disease follow an orderly and sequenced series of events. Here we developed and introduced for the first time a dual compartment biomaterial system with an outer compartment made of gelatin and inner compartment that is a ferrogel which can be magnetically stimulated in order to provide on-demand, sequential delivery of multiple bio-instructive payload. We studied the potential application of this dual-compartment biomaterial system in different therapeutic contexts that may benefit from on-demand sequential deliveries, such as in cancer immunotherapy and in chronic wound healing.

Chronic wounds can …

Eastern Oyster Larval Transcriptomes In Response To Probiotic And Pathogenic Bacteria, Tejashree Modak

Open Access Dissertations

Oysters are described as keystone species serving an important ecological role. As filter-feeders they help in maintaining water quality. Oyster reefs provide refuge and support to different organisms. The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, native to the East Coast of United States and Gulf of Mexico is a part of the rapidly growing aquaculture industry. Aquaculture production depends on a healthy and constant supply of oyster larvae that are provided by hatcheries. Several hatcheries on the east coast that provide C. virginica seed to oyster farms face significant losses owing to Vibrio infections causing massive larval mortalities. Use of antibiotics …

Compassion: Can Service Learning Make A Difference, And If So, How?, Edward Goldberg

Open Access Dissertations

The future of education is often framed in terms of bringing education into the second half of the 21^st century. Technology and along with it, faster and better ways to bring content to our students are important topics for discussion; but how our students treat each other and other members of their community is equally, if not more, important.

This study takes a look at how we may be able to encourage and foster compassion among our students. I wanted to know how compassionate thoughts and feelings develop following a service-learning experience focused on compassionate behavior. In this qualitative …

The Admissibility Of Sampling Evidence To Prove Individual Damages In Class Actions, Hillel J. Bavli, John Kenneth Felter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The 2016 Supreme Court decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo revived the use of “representative” or sampling evidence in class actions. Federal courts are now more receptive to class plaintiffs’ efforts to prove classwide liability and, occasionally, aggregate damages, with sampling evidence. However, federal courts still routinely deny motions for class certification because they find that calculations of class members’ individual damages defeat the predominance prerequisite of Rule 23(b)(3). As a result, meritorious classwide claims founder. In this paper, we combine legal and statistical analyses and propose a novel solution to this dilemma that adheres to the Tysondecision …

The U Visa's Failed Promise For Survivors Of Domestic Violence, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Recognizing the unique vulnerabilities of immigrants who become victims of crime in the United States, Congress enacted the U visa, a form of immigration relief that provides victims, including survivors of domestic violence, a path to legal status. Along with this humanitarian aim, the U visa was intended to aid law enforcement in efforts to investigate and prosecute crime, based on the notion that victims without legal status might otherwise be too fearful to “come out of the shadows” by reporting offenses to the police. Although these two goals were purportedly coequal, in practice, by requiring survivors to cooperate with …

The Duty To Disobey Illegal Nuclear Strike Orders, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article argues there is a legal duty to disobey illegal nuclear strike orders. Failure to carry out this duty may result in criminal and civil liability.Because nuclear weapons are quantitatively and qualitatively different from conventional weapons, typical legal calculations regulating their use under the laws of war or humanitarian law, as well as human rights law, change along with the change in weaponry. At least five “unique characteristics” of nuclear weapons ominously distinguish them from conventional weapons in ways that promise only to increase civilian death and suffering. First, quantitatively, the blast power, heat, and energy generated far outstrip …

Collective Struggles: A Comparative Analysis Of Unionizing Temporary Foreign Farm Workers In The United States And Canada, Robert Russo

All Faculty Publications

The use of temporary foreign migrant workers in the labor sector is part of a vibrant political and legal discussion in both the United States and Canada. Current reforms of temporary foreign worker programs in both countries call for an analysis of this workforce. This article focuses on documented temporary foreign workers performing agricultural labor in both countries. It is a comparative study of alleged violations of documented temporary foreign farm workers' rights relating to unionization in the United States and Canada.

Devalued Liberty And Undue Deference: The Tort Of False Imprisonment And The Law Of Solitary Confinement, Efrat Arbel

All Faculty Publications

The law and practice of solitary confinement continues to be a source of rights violations in Canadian prisons. The practice, formally known as administrative segregation, isolates prisoners for 23 hours a day in dehumanizing conditions of confinement. In this paper, I examine the extent to which the tort of false imprisonment can compensate prisoners for unlawful or excessive segregation placements. This analysis is new: while some scholars have examined how other branches of tort law can address harms caused by segregation none have examined the application of this tort. I argue that because of its focus on liberty, dignity, and …

Analysis Of Atp-Dependent Chaperone Protein Interactions With Misfolded Proteins, Amyloids, And Aggregated Proteins, Shannon May

Open Access Dissertations

Protein aggregation occurs when proteins adopt non-native conformations, exposing hydrophobic surfaces due to misfolding. The exposed regions of two or more proteins associate to form amorphous deposits or highly ordered, stable fibrillar structures called amyloid aggregates. Within the cell, a robust network of proteins safeguard against protein misfolding and aggregation. This network is referred to as the proteostasis network and includes molecular chaperone proteins, co-chaperone proteins, and the ubiquitin proteasome system. Molecular chaperone proteins function in various cellular processes including intracellular transport, oligomeric assembly, and efficient protein folding. Moreover, molecular chaperones are required for folding denatured, misfolded, and de novo …

Mechanisms Of Individual Variation In Glucuronidation, Sulfonation, And Amidation: Bisphenol A And Bile Acids, Adam Michael Auclair

Open Access Dissertations

The role of conjugation of chemicals and endogenous compounds is an important mechanism in detoxification and metabolic signaling. Specifically, amidation, sulfonation, and glucuronidation are necessary functions of the human body. Exposure to environmental toxins such as bisphenols must be conjugated in order to be excreted from the body. Bisphenol A was originally developed as a synthetic estrogen, however later found use as a monomer within the plastics industry allowing for wide-spread exposure to BPA through food and drink containers. While most healthy individuals are capable of metabolizing and excreting bisphenol A, this metabolism can be impacted by diet and disease. …

Refining The Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Screening: Is There A Distinct Role For Anxiety?, Meada R. Daly-Cano

Open Access Dissertations

Anxiety and depressive symptoms were investigated using the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS) in a convenience sample of 371 mothers who were referred to a maternal mentoring program for mothers with, or at risk for, postpartum depression. Social support is considered a protective factor for postpartum mothers at risk for depression but there is less research about the connection between postpartum anxiety and social support.

A factor analysis of the EPDS provided evidence of a two-factor correlated model with a three-item anxiety subscale and six-item depression subscale. Comparisons, using chi-square tests, were done of risk factors, associated with postpartum depression …

Securing The Internet Of Healthcare, Michael Mattioli, Scott J. Shackelford, Steve Myers, Austin Brady, Yvette Wang, Stephanie Wong

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Cybersecurity, including the security of information technology (IT), is a critical requirement in ensuring society trusts, and therefore can benefit from, modern technology. Problematically, though, rarely a day goes by without a news story related to how critical data has been exposed, exfiltrated, or otherwise inappropriately used or accessed as a result of supply chain vulnerabilities. From the Russian government's campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election to the September 2017 Equifax breach of more than 140-million Americans' credit reports, mitigating cyber risk has become a topic of conversation in boardrooms and the White House, on Wall Street and …

The Ethical Practice Of Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, Victor D. Quintanilla, Haley Hinkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the past two decades, legal professionals have increasingly engaged in a new form of professional activity: civil justice design. In the past, legal professionals handled cases and transactions for clients or served as neutrals, including mediators and arbitrators, who helped to resolve disputes between parties. Today, legal professionals increasingly play a principal design role in creating systems that resolve streams of conflicts, disputes, and grievances between parties. Lawyers regularly now create internal grievance procedures, procedures for companies to resolve disputes with customers, and court-annexed alternative dispute resolution systems. The emergence of this new role raises difficult questions about the …