Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Considerations At End Of Life In A Geriatric Inpatient Rehabilitiation Setting, Melissa J. Bloomer, Mari Botti, Fiona Runacres, Peter Poon, Jakqui Barnfield, Alison M. Hutchinson

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Aim: To explore the impact of cultural factors on the provision of end-of-life care in a geriatric inpatient rehabilitation setting.

Background: Australia’s ageing population is now also one of the most culturally diverse. Individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds may have specific care needs at the end of life according to various aspects of their culture.

Design: A mixed method approach using a retrospective audit of existing hospital databases, deceased patients’ medical records, and in-depth interviews with clinicians.

Findings: Patients’ and families’ cultural needs were not always recognised or facilitated in end-of-life care, resulting in missed opportunities to tailor …

'Death Is Difficult In Any Language': A Qualitative Study Of Palliative Care Professionals' Experiences When Providing End-Of-Life Care To Patients From Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds, Anna Green, Natalia Jerzmanowska, Marguerite Green, Elizabeth Lobb

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Ethnic minority patients have unique challenges in accessing health services. These include language difficulties, unfamiliarity with the health system, lower rates of cancer screening and survival, higher rates of reported side effects from cancer treatment and poorer quality of life. Little is known about this patient group when transitioning to palliative care.

Aim: To elicit the experiences of palliative care health professionals when providing care for patients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds which differ from mainstream Australian language and culture.

Design: An emergent qualitative design, informed by theoretical and procedural direction from grounded theory research.

Setting/participants: Four focus …

Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Palliative Care Patients' Journeys At The End-Of-Life, Anna Green, Natalia Jerzmanowska, Marguerite Green, Elizabeth Lobb

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Objective: To understand the clinical and psychosocial journey of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) palliative care patients.

Method: This study was conducted at a subacute hospital with a specialist palliative care unit and a community palliative care service in a metropolitan region of New South Wales, Australia. Medical records of 100 deceased patients from CALD backgrounds over a 12-month period from 2014 to 2015 were recorded on a data mining tool. The cohort had transitioned to either community or inpatient palliative care services with a life-limiting illness. We used descriptive statistical analyses to identify the patients’ end-of-life journeys in the …

Protocol To Develop Sustainable Day Care For Children Aged 1-4 Years In Disadvantaged Urban Communities In Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mahua Das, Helen Elsey, Riffat A. Shawon, Joseph Hicks, J Ferdoush, Rumana Huque, Fariza Fieroze, Shammi Nasreen, Hilary Wallace, Saidur R. Mushreky

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Introduction: Lack of safe, stimulating and health promoting environments for children under-5 hinders their physical, social and cognitive development, known as early childhood development (ECD). Improving ECD impacts on children, and can improve educational attainment for girls, who often care for younger siblings, and employment prospects for mothers. Developing and evaluating the impacts of ECD programmes within childcare needs to assess a range of social, health, educational and economic impacts, including women’s empowerment. Children living in slums are at high risk of poor early development and holistic, sustainable interventions are needed to address ECD in these contexts. This study will …

Antenatal Influenza And Pertussis Vaccination In Western Australia: A Cross-Sectional Survey Of Vaccine Uptake And Influencing Factors, Donna Mak, Annette K. Regan, Dieu T. Vo, Paul V. Effler

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Influenza and pertussis vaccines have been recommended in Australia for women during each pregnancy since 2010 and 2015, respectively. Estimating vaccination coverage and identifying factors affecting uptake are important for improving antenatal immunisation services.

Methods: A random sample of 800 Western Australian women ≥18 years of age who gave birth between 4th April and 4th October 2015 were selected. Of the 454 (57%) who were contactable by telephone, 424 (93%) completed a survey. Data were weighted by maternal age and area of residence to ensure representativeness. The proportion immunised against influenza and pertussis was the main outcome measure; multivariate …

The General Motor Ability Hypothesis: An Old Idea Revisited, Beth Hands, Fleur Mcintyre, Helen Parker

Health Sciences Papers and Journal Articles

While specific motor abilities have become a popular explanation for motor performance, the older, alternate notion of a general motor ability should be revisited. Current theories lack consensus, and most motor assessment tools continue to derive a single composite score to represent motor capacity. In addition, results from elegant statistical procedures such as higher order factor analyses, cluster analyses, and Item Response Theory support a more global motor ability. We propose a contemporary model of general motor ability as a unidimensional construct that is emergent and fluid over an individual’s lifespan, influenced by both biological and environmental factors. In this …

Adolescents' Self-Reported Motor Assessments May Be More Realistic Than Those Of Their Parents, Fleur Mcintyre, Beth Hands

Health Sciences Papers and Journal Articles

Introduction: Adolescents' motor competence influences their physical, social and emotional development. Parent-reported assessments may not be truly representative of their adolescent's motor difficulties. This study examined the congruency between parent- and self-reported motor competence in 133 parent-adolescent dyads.

Method: The adolescent-reported Adolescent Motor Competence Questionnaire (AMCQ; ≤83) and the parent-reported Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire 2007 (DCDQ-07; ≤57) cut scores classified 133 (M_age = 14.5 years) adolescents into high and low motor competence. Parents also completed the Swanson, Nolan and Pelham IV (SNAP-IV) for descriptive purposes.

Findings: A moderate correlation (r = 0.56, P < 0.001) was found between the AMCQ and the DCDQ-07 scores. Overall, 42 low motor competence cases were identified by both measures (AMCQ and DCDQ-07). Parents identified more boys (11) than girls (9) with low motor competence, whereas more female adolescents (22) self-reported low motor competence than boys (18). A high proportion agreement (0.82) was seen, which was principally due to the 91 (68.4% of sample) high motor competence case agreements.

Conclusion: Parents identified fewer motor …

Proximate Composition And In Vitro Protein Digestibility Of Extruded Aquafeeds Containing Acheta Domesticus And Hermetia Illucens Fractions, F. G. Irungu, C. M. Mutungi, A. K. Faraj, H. Affognon, S. Ekesi, D. Nakimbugwe, K. K.M. Fiaboe

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Major protein sources for feed manufacture have become costly, and this has led to increased cost of products such as aquafeeds. This has dampening effect on fish production especially in developing countries, and has necessitated a search for alternative protein sources in processed feeds. The effects of extrusion on aquafeed blends containing fractions of adult cricket (Acheta domesticus) meal (ACM) or black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) pre-pupae meal (BSFM) on proximate composition and in vitro protein digestibility were investigated. Extrusion resulted in higher contents of protein and nitrogen free extract, and lower contents of ether extract and crude fibre as …

International Student Participation In Postsecondary U.S. English Language Programs, Valeriana Colon

Theses and Dissertations

Postsecondary English language education is a growing industry in the United States. While there has been considerable research on international student mobility in higher education, there is limited research on the population’s participation in U.S. English language programs (ELPs). The purpose of the study was to apply existing theories and data analysis to understand postsecondary English language program participation and create a foundation for future studies. This exploratory study examined the characteristics of international students enrolled in U.S. postsecondary ELPs. The researcher investigated the relationship between ELP enrollment with U.S. higher education enrollment as well as the relationship between ELP …

An Exploration Of Identity Negotiation In Adult English Learners’ Communities Of Practice, Kathleen D. Rolander

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilizes Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice (COP) model to explore how ELLs navigate their positions within and between their many language learning communities. Drawing on Norton’s (1995, 2013) work on ELLs’ identity negotiation and Wenger’s 1998 work on the reinforcing impacts of identities between multiple COPs, this study explores what adults consider to be their COPs, how they perceive themselves within and between them, and how past, current, and imagined or possible COPs impact each other.

A constructivist, multiple case study design was used to focus on participants’ perceptions of their identity negotiation processes through their …

Structured Poetic Expressions For Emerging Adults Experiencing Bereavement, Kelcie D. Willis

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has produced heterogeneous findings regarding the effectiveness of expressive writing in reducing grief symptomatology among the bereaved (e.g., Collison, 2016; Lichtenthal & Cruess, 2010; Stroebe et al., 2006). The purpose of this study was to address these mixed results by exploring the effects and linguistic characteristics of a novel writing task (i.e., the acrostic poem) among bereaved undergraduates, using an innovative data analysis technique (i.e., Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). The current study recruited 68 undergraduates who had lost a loved one. Participants were randomly assigned to write over multiple days using the acrostic poem, emotional disclosure prompt, …

Good Game, Greyory Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic …

Scan & Scansion: An Urban Residency For Poets & Artists Working In Collaboration, Heather A. Overby

Theses and Dissertations

Scansion is the act of discerning a poem’s meter and measure to discover its overall meaning. To achieve beauty in poetry, just as in interior design, content must continually be in conversation with form. And, just as a building must be scaled against the human figure to determine its final shape, a poem is scaled against human breath, the breadth of our sounds.

Scan & Scansion is a Richmond-based residency with a six-month term providing a work, living and exhibition space to poets and artists who wish to work collaboratively across disciplines. As the program is essentially about applied poetics …

Parent-Implemented Communication Intervention For Preschool-Aged Children With Autism, Heather M. Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

Exploring the interventions that promote expressive, verbal language for preschool-aged children with autism is essential. When a child is lacking the ability to communicate, parents express that they would like their child to speak. B.F. Skinner (1957) proposed that the mand repertoire (communicative requests) should be an initial focus of language training. Mand training has been shown to be effective for teaching children with autism to communicate. However, many studies exploring mand training utilize highly trained instructors for intervention implementation. Early childhood best practices recommend the use of family-centered interventions and teaching within the natural environment. This study followed these …

She Inches Glass To Break: Conversations Between Friends, Liang Xia Luscombe

Theses and Dissertations

She inches glass to break: conversations between friends is a project that aims to manifest, through research and practice, my own feminist language within the videos I have produced in my final year of my Masters of Fine Arts. My feminist language is Australian and intersectional, invested in combating sexism, racism and in deepening language and representation around sexuality in relation to Asian women. This project discusses my video She inches glass to break (2018) in length, which created intersectional feminist dialogue in response to feminist filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger’s film Ticket of No Return (1979) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). …

Quotations Like The Sharpest Claws, Johanna Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Quotations like the Sharpest Claws describes a multimedia installation composed of paintings and sound that explores the theory of cognitive dissonance, a controversial psychological model that attempts to explain how we deal with inconsistency in incompatible beliefs. Imagination is given primacy as a source for truth-seeking and world-building. The uncanny and surreal are used as entry points into this topic.

The title is derived from a description of Eileen Myles’ poetry I once read in an anonymous review. Their writing was described as beyond poetry in a way that it could only be described as such when surrounded by “quotations …

United States-Mexico Border: Rights Of The Dead, Forensic Anthropologists, And Families Of The Victims, Diana A. Newberry

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

From 1998-2018, over 6,000 migrants have been found dead after attempting to cross into the United States through its southern border; most of the deaths are due to harsh environmental conditions found through the crossing areas. Migrant remains are often found with no belongings or evidence to use to identify the deceased. Forensic anthropologists, medicolegal examiners, and non-governmental organizations such as Humane Borders, Águilas del Desierto [Eagles of the Desert], and the Colibrí Center for Human Rights have worked to recover, identify, and repatriate these remains. To understand the many facets of this process, this thesis explored the relationships between …

License To Ill: Slang And Uncertainty As Motivational Accounts For Group Identification, Benny Chu

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

People use verbal communication with other group members as unique social identity markers. Individual’s word choices adjust and change based on the group to which the individual belongs. For example, regional slang allows for people to view themselves as a distinct group represented in a particular geographic location (e.g., Northern Californians and the term “hella”). As a result, when individuals recognize the informal language (slang) of their fellow group members, they should feel confident and included in their group. However, when individuals hear their peers communicate norms by using slang with which they are unfamiliar, it should create …

Words To Cook By: Changing Meanings Of Eating Local In Humboldt County, Nora E. Mounce

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Humboldt County has an active food system of small, sustainable farms and a vibrant cottage food industry. Yet, this system fails to address the needs of a diverse population that struggles with a disproportionate degree of poor health outcomes. In order to understand the unique challenges facing the region’s food system – and how local government and advocacy groups should begin to address healthy food policy - this research thesis analyzes key texts about food, which illustrate the language and ideologies of eating local in Humboldt County. This research thesis found that the concept of eating local – consuming foodstuffs …

Playing And Learning Through Text And Images: Examining Features Of Adolescent Literacy And The Potential Of Graphic Novels As A Supportive Tool, Emily Ann Bushta

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Graphic novels have been making their way into the classroom steadily during the past two decades. Whether their use is for a pedagogical purpose or pleasure, graphic novels are grabbing the attention of adults and youth alike. As general interest arises surrounding graphic novels, increased scholarship discussing their purpose, structure, and use has appeared across a variety of disciplines. Educators, especially those with younger students, are drawn to the genre. Their interest has produced a growing body of literature; however, these publications often lack quantitative data and typically offer qualitative conclusions about the benefits of graphic novels in classroom contexts. …

Café Para Todos: A Critical Narrative Of Bilingual Education Policy And Practice In Monolingual Spain, Grant A. Skoglund

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research presents an ethnographic account of English bilingual programs in public Spanish high schools, exploring not only how such programs currently function in the eyes of stakeholders, but also the significance of bilingualism in the context of an English Imperative perspective. This perspective, shown to be widely adopted by research participants, sees English as a practical necessity in contemporary Spanish society for future success in a globalized world. The objective of this research is to situate bilingual policy and programing within a larger socio-economic and political context and elucidate the attitudes and opinions of key policy actors – students …

The Historical Evaluation And Significance Of The Old Joerger Ranch, Martis Valley, California, Hope Caroline Schear

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

United States history is full of adventure and pioneering but building the regional histories of the nation allows one to dig deeper into what it took to make this country develop socially and economically. In the mid 1800’s California experienced a boom like never before. In 1848, mill workers found gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, which led to a huge influx of people and population spike that changed California forever. Once the Gold Rush subsided, agriculture replaced gold in California as a wealth generator. Early settlers discovered that the mild climate of the region allows a wide variety …

The Psychometric Evaluation Of The Turkish Version Of The Mann Assessment Of Swallowing Ability In Patients In The Early Period After Stroke, Ebru Karaca Umay, İbrahi̇m Gündoğdu, Eda Gürçay, Erhan Ari̇f Öztürk, Volkan Yilmaz, Özgür Zeli̇ha Karaahmet, Yasemi̇n Eren, Güleser Saylam, Fatma Aytül Çakci

Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

Background/aim: The Mann Assessment of Swallowing Ability (MASA) is an efficient tool that allows physicians to determine the alertness, cooperation, and respiration of patients, which are important factors when assessing swallowing . This study aimed to translate the MASA into Turkish (T-MASA) and to assess its reliability and validity in patients during the early period after a stroke . Materials and methods: The scale was administered to 141 patients in the early period after a stroke. For reliability, both internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha and corrected item-to-total correlations) and interrater reliability were analyzed. The procedures were scored by two blinded independent …

Ius Soli, Ius Sanguinis, Ius Linguae, Or Ius Mundi: Living, Understanding, And Building Transnational Citizenship In A Transnational Multilingual Family In The U.S, Natalya Kuznetsova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Through the case of a multilingual Estonian family of sojourners in the U.S., this ethnographic study examines the ways in which a multilingual family lives, understands, and constructs their transnational experiences, negotiating their language practices and identities in the context of their family space and globally. With an intention to respond to and to reflect the complexity of the phenomenon of language ecology in a multilingual transnational family, the study draws on and merges three conceptual frameworks: language socialization, family language policy, and transnational social spaces. Through the analysis of ethnographic observations, recordings of naturally occurring conversations, interviews with family …

A Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network For Improved Twins' Voice Differentiation, Stallone Bruno-Ray Sabatier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Although successfully implemented in certain situations, the reliability of speaker recognition (SR) decreases due to speaker and channel variability present between enrollment and evaluation samples, as well as the available length of speech utterances. The issue of speaker variability becomes more pronounced when the number of speakers in the evaluation set increases, as there is a higher probability that two voices may sound more alike. The differentiation of intra-twin pairs' voices can be beneficial to general SR because inclusion can simulate this effect. This is due to the fact that their shared voice similarities are comparable to the potential inter-speaker …

Pursuing Justice In Africa: Competing Imaginaries And Contested Practices, Jessica Johnson, George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

Pursuing Justice in Africa focuses on the many actors pursuing many visions of justice across the African continent—their aspirations, divergent practices, and articulations of international and vernacular idioms of justice. The essays selected by editors Jessica Johnson and George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane engage with topics at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship across a wide range of disciplines. These include activism, land tenure, international legal institutions, and postconflict reconciliation.

Building on recent work in sociolegal studies that foregrounds justice over and above concepts such as human rights and legal pluralism, the contributors grapple with alternative approaches to the concept of justice …

Classifying Facts And Opinions In Twitter Messages: A Deep Learning-Basedapproach, Ronghua Shan, Swayambhu P. Chatterjee, Shuyuan Deng, Jun Liu, Wu Jiao

Research & Publications

Massive social media data present businesses with an immense opportunity to extract useful insights. However, social media messages typically consist of both facts and opinions, posing a challenge to analytics applications that focus more on either facts and opinions. Distinguishing facts and opinions may significantly improve subsequent analytics tasks. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based algorithm that automatically separates facts from opinions in Twitter messages. The algorithm outperformed multiple popular baselines in an experiment we conducted. We further applied the proposed algorithm to track customer complaints and found that it indeed benefits subsequent analytics applications.

It For Diabetes Self-Management - What Are The Patients' Expectations?, Omar El-Gayar, Tareq Nasralah, Ahmed Elnoshokaty

Research & Publications

Diabetes is a debilitating chronic condition that is touted to inflict 9% of adults. Despite the information technology (IT) solutions for the self-management of diabetes, there is a gap between user expectations, and what the IT solutions are offering. To understand these expectations, this research investigates the topics shared by a diabetic community on Twitter as an instant day-to-day micro-blogging platform and TuDiabetes as a social media forum for the community. We focus on studying personal experiences related to diabetes through adapt and apply text mining techniques to tweets of self-identified diabetic patients on Twitter and TuDiabetes. Through the analysis …

Physico-Chemical Properties Of Extruded Aquafeed Pellets Containing Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia Illucens) Larvae And Adult Cricket (Acheta Domesticus) Meals, F. G. Irungu, C. M. Mutungi, A. K. Faraj, H. Affognon, N. Kibet, C. Tanga, S. Ekesi, D. Nakimbugwe, K. K.M. Fiaboe

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Fish farming is faced with the challenge of high cost of feeds because of the cost of high quality protein needed for formulation of the feeds. Thus, there is urgent need for alternative protein sources. The effects of substituting freshwater shrimp meal (FWSM) with black soldier fly larvae meal (BSFM) or adult cricket meal (ACM) on physico-chemical properties of hot-extruded fish feed pellets were investigated. The FWSM protein in a 26 g/100 g protein fish feed formulation was substituted at 0, 25, 50 and 75%, and moisture content of the formulated blends adjusted to 10, 20 or 30 g/100 g …

Educational Leadership Development In Saudi Arabia: Experiences Of Participants Of The Saudi Oxford Program For Educational Leaders, Azizah Fhad Alogali

Theses and Dissertations

Given the recent surge of interest in educational leadership development in Saudi Arabia, a qualitative study was undertaken to evaluate the perspectives of participants in one intensive leadership training program called the Saudi Oxford Program for Educational Leaders (SOPEL). Using interview data with SOPEL participants and an analysis of their final projects, a holistic understanding of the participants’ experiences emerged. Findings included a confusion/conflation of concepts of leadership and management; a desire for more responsiveness and sensitivity to feedback on the part of the participants; logistical, linguistic, and administrative hurdles; quality control concerns; and a need to evaluate programs’ effectiveness …