Digital Commons Network^™

Exercise Adherence And Depression, Cory Reed Sullins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In this study, exercise adherence levels were examined from archival data collected from 2004 to 2006 to determine if an association existed with the levels of depression among individuals over 49 in 3 rural community centers. Abundant research has shown that exercise is effective in alleviating depression but has not shown how levels of exercise adherence may impact the efficacy of exercise in the treatment of depression. The focus of the study was to determine if an increase in exercise adherence may be associated with a decrease in the symptoms of depression. An ANCOVA was used to determine if differences …

Mentor Teachers' Perceptions Of Effective Mentoring Strategies, Paula Tomlinson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Educators at a public high school in Southeastern United States depend on mentor teachers to minimize the attrition rate among beginning teachers, yet the strategies implemented by mentors lack definition and clarity. The purpose of this study was to explore mentor teachers' perceptions of effective mentoring strategies and their needs when mentoring new teachers. Maslow's humanistic learning theory guided this bounded basic qualitative study. The research questions focused on the mentoring strategies mentor teachers perceived as effective and the needs of the mentors. Ten high school mentor teachers, who currently mentor new teachers, were purposefully selected to participate in individual …

Psychological Effects Of Training In Martial Arts After Interpersonal Trauma, Alexandro Garcia Vargas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals who experience a traumatic event may have an adverse emotional reaction that negatively impacts their quality of life. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the influence of training in the martial arts as an intervention in the treatment of interpersonal trauma. The biopsychosocial model provided the framework for the study. The research questions addressed the effects of training in the martial arts and the biological, psychological, and social functioning of individuals who had sustained a form of interpersonal trauma. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 9 participants. Data were analyzed using Moustakas's modified van …

Financial Investment Advisor Professional Arrogance And Performance, Cranla Warren

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Arrogance in the workplace is a growing area of interest within industrial-organizational psychology. Arrogant employees tend to lack positive interpersonal work relationships, act superior yet have a lower level of cognitive abilities, and have poorer job performance than their less arrogant counterparts, leading to challenging work relationships and overall impact on an organization's ability to meet its objectives. The present study examined professional arrogance measured by the Workplace Arrogance Scale (WARS), a 26 question survey, in relation to the objective outcome measure of a Financial Investment Advisor's (FIA) ranking on the firm's leader board based on total assets under management …

A Quantitative Assessment Of Empathy After An Art Prime With Counseling Students, Annette Lisa Coletta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Empathy skills are necessary to form therapeutic relationships. Previous research showed that participating in the arts engaged similar neuropathways as those needed to produce empathy. The theoretical framework for this study was art therapy relational neuroscience. The purpose of this pretest, posttest quantitative research study, using the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire, was to examine if a single art session could effectively prime for empathy. Using nonprobability, convenience sampling method, 74 graduate counseling students completed online surveys. Four findings are of note: (a) a t-test showed a significant difference between mean values of pre-post test scores, (b) an independent groups t-test indicated …

The Correlation Between Manager Work-Life Balance And Employee Engagement, Euart Keith Murvin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Globalization, 24-hour connectivity, and the expectation that members of the organization commit increasingly more time to work are the reality in an ever-changing environment. Research shows, however, that these demands have resulted in a significant work-life imbalance that produces the opposite effect of reducing productivity. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between work life balance satisfaction of front-line managers and the engagement of employees whom they supervise. The variables of these study were: work life balance satisfaction of frontline managers measured by Work life Balance and Emotional Support Scale and engagement perception employees measured by Employee …

Attaining And Sustaining Competitive Advantage In Dubai's Real Estate Industry, Qais Alfaraj

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Real estate business leaders who fail to attain and sustain competitive advantage to increase profitability during periods of unstable or declining markets, experience either lost profits or bankruptcy. In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the brokerage market is saturated with over 5,000 active brokers and more than 2,000 registered real estate offices. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that successful leaders of Dubai medium-sized real estate businesses implemented to attain and sustain competitive advantage to increase profitability during periods of unstable or declining markets. The population for the study included business leaders of 4 medium-sized …

The Small Publisher’S Guide To Audiobooks, Stephanie Anderson

Book Publishing Final Research Papers

While audiobooks have been around since the invention of the phonograph, the invention of streaming technologies, combined with our increasingly fast-paced, multitasking culture, has caused audiobooks to become the fastest growing market in the publishing industry in recent years. In fact, since 2013 the audiobooks market has seen sales growth of an average of 20% per year, according to studies done by the Audio Publishers Association. However, many small publishers are not entering into the vital “new” frontier and reaching greater markets because of assumptions about the cost-prohibitive nature of creating audiobooks, and a lack of knowledge of the industry …

How Do The Exercise Practices Of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Affect Their Exercise Recommendations To Their Patients/Clients?, Ledy Ann Cordero, Kristen Muzio, Ian Karundeng

Loma Linda University Research Reports

Background: Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs) are experts in food and nutrition serving to advance the profession and nation's health. As the population becomes increasingly aware of how nutrition and exercise can positively impact one's quality of life and prevent many chronic diseases, they may seek guidance from nutrition and exercise professionals for assistance in developing their personal health strategies.

Objective: To determine the exercise practices of RDNs across the United States and how their perceptions and habits of their exercise practices may affect their exercise recommendations to their patients and/or clients.

Design: This mixed methods study gathered …

Awareness Of The Recent Change In The Nutrition Label, Olivia Meza, Michael Moh, Molly Camarena

Loma Linda University Research Reports

Background: The Nutrition Facts panel as it is recognized today was developed by Dr. David Kessler in 1994 during his tenure as the commissioner of the FDA. A new label was announced on May 20, 2016 to increase awareness about food content, clarify the amount of food in a package, and to present information that has been recently and scientifically updated. Several studies have researched the food label and the association between knowledge and dietary intake. However, these studies examined the 1994 version of the label and results fell short of desired outcomes. Since the announcement of the new …

A Network Analysis Of The Singapore Court Of Appeal’S Citations To Precedent, Jerrold Tsin Howe Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article presents findings from an empirical network analysis of citation practices in Singapore's highest court.A network of all 987 reported Court of Appeal judgments handed down from 2000 to 2017 is constructed. Networkcentrality algorithms are used to rank judgments by centrality. Judgments on contract law, particularly on contractual interpretation and terms, emerge as the most central. Based on this, this article argues that more attention can be paid to interpretation per se as a legal skill. More generally, this article establishes a framework for applying network analysis to Singapore jurisprudence on a larger scale.

I'D Blush If I Could: Closing Gender Divides In Digital Skills Through Education, Mark West, Rebecca Kraut, Han Ei Chew

Research Collection Office of Impact

This publication seeks to expose some of these gender biases and put forward ideas to begin closing a digital skills gender gap that is, in most parts of the world, wide and growing. Today, women and girls are 25 per cent less likely than men to know how to leverage digital technology for basic purposes, 4 times less likely to know how to programme computers and 13 times less likely to file for a technology patent. At a moment when every sector is becoming a technology sector, these gaps should make policy-makers, educators and everyday citizens ‘blush’ in alarm. The …

How Do You Perpetuate It-Enabled Change When Top Management Participation And Involvement Diminish?, Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Adrian Yong Kwang Yeow, Christina Wai Lin Soh

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Background: Research has demonstrated that sustained top management participation and involvement are important for IT-enabled change. However, this is not always possible. How IT-enabled change can succeed when top management participation and involvement diminish is an unsolved, but important research question. Method: We perform a 5-year exploratory longitudinal case study. Results: Our data is presented in two parts. We first present the contextual elements (goals, people, structures/processes, and artifacts) during the two years top management was actively participating and involved. For the three-year period where top management participation and involvement diminished, we present the contextual elements, and middle management's enactment …

The U.S. - Mexico Border Wall - A Sentiment Analysis, Jeffrey Easter, Qiuyue Yang, Choji Daches, Wen Bin Yu, Craig C. Claybaugh

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

The central focus of our study is to apply a computer-based sentiment analysis on twitter data on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. we want to be able to validate the results from traditional polling method and also create a pointer for decision making. From our results, we were able to show that a computer-based sentiment analysis is as valid as a traditional base method on topics such as the considered for the study. Our results compared favorably with the results obtained by organizations who did a polling survey on the issue. Also, we were able to visualize our results to present …

Effects Of Mixing Methods Of Bifunctional Catalysts On Catalyst Stability Of Dme Synthesis Via Co₂ Hydrogenation, Shoujie Ren, Shiguang Li, Naomi Klinghoffer, Miao Yu, Xinhua Liang

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The effects of three different mixing methods of CuO/ZnO/Al₂O₃ (CZA) and HZSM-5 bifunctional catalyst on the stability for dimethyl ether (DME) synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO₂) hydrogenation were investigated. When the bifunctional catalyst was prepared by method A (mixing powder without pelletization), there was no significant change in DME production and catalyst stability when the HZSM-5 loading was varied between 0.1 g and 0.5 g with a fixed CZA loading of 0.5 g,. When the bifunctional catalysts were prepared by method B (pressed into pellets of CZA and pellets of HZSM-5 and then mixed) and …

Facile Synthesis Of Reduced Graphene Oxide-Supported Pd/Cuo Nanoparticles As An Efficient Catalyst For Cross-Coupling Reactions, Hany A. Elazab, M. A. Sadek, Tamer T. El-Idreesy

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The present communication reports a scientific investigation of a simple and versatile synthetic route for the synthesis of palladium nanoparticles decorated with copper oxide and supported on reduced graphene oxide (rGO). They are used as a highly active catalyst of Suzuki, Heck, and Sonogashira cross coupling reactions with a remarkable turnover number of 7000 and a turnover frequency of 85000 h-1. The Pd-CuO nanoparticles supported on reduced graphene oxide nanosheets (Pd-CuO/rGO) exhibit an outstanding performance through a high catalytic activity towards cross coupling reactions. A simple, reproducible, and reliable method is used to prepare this efficient catalyst using microwave irradiation …

Bare Mountaintops And Thirsty Cities: On California And Its Snowpack, Sayd Randle

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Figuring how to represent the oncoming effects of climate change is a common challenge faced by whistleblowers and policymakers attempting to alert populations. Sayd Randle shows how the state of California is trying to mobilize the monitoring of snow in the Sierra Nevada as a harbinger of a durable state of drought in the coastal cities.

Crowdsourcing Bike Share Station Locations: Evaluating Participation And Placement, Greg P. Griffin, Junfeng Jiao

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Planners increasingly involve stakeholders in co-producing vital planning information by crowdsourcing data using online map-based commenting platforms. Few studies, however, investigate the role and impact of such online platforms on planning outcomes. We evaluate the impact of participant input via a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS), a platform to suggest the placement of new bike share stations in New York City (NY) and Chicago (IL). We conducted 2 analyses to evaluate how close planners built new bike share stations to those suggested on PPGIS platforms. According to our proximity analysis, only a small percentage …

Predictive Analysis Of Real-Time Strategy Games Using Graph Mining, Isam Abdulmunem Alobaidi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Machine learning and computational intelligence have facilitated the development of recommendation systems for a broad range of domains. Such recommendations are based on contextual information that is explicitly provided or pervasively collected. Recommendation systems often improve decision-making or increase the efficacy of a task. Real-Time Strategy (RTS) video games are not only a popular entertainment medium, they also are an abstraction of many real-world applications where the aim is to increase your resources and decrease those of your opponent. Using predictive analytics, which examines past examples of success and failure, we can learn how to predict positive outcomes for such …

Study Of Optical Propulsion Concepts And Techniques For Small-Satellites, Jaykob Neil Maser

Doctoral Dissertations

"The first objective of this research is to manufacture and investigate the characteristics and use of asymmetric, metallic, nanostructures for plasmonic force propulsion, a developing method of nano-/picosatellite thrust generation. This project developed a higher-fidelity model of a recently envisioned small spacecraft propulsion system for precision pointing and proximity control. Plasmonic force propulsion harnesses solar light focused onto plasmon reactive sub-wavelength nanostructures to generate polarized oscillations of electrons on the surface of metallic nanostructures which accelerate and expel nanoparticle propellant via strong optical forces. This research also explores how material selection affects the electromagnetic response of the closely positioned asymmetric …

Is The Court Of Justice Of The European Union Finding Its Religion?, Philippa Watson, Peter Oliver

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Dynamical Interference In The Vibronic Bond Breaking Reaction Of Hco, Shanyu Han, Xianfeng Zheng, Steve A. Ndengue, Yu Song, Richard Dawes, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

First-principles treatments of quantum molecular reaction dynamics have reached the level of quantitative accuracy even in cases with strong non-Born-Oppenheimer effects. This achievement permits the interpretation of puzzling experimental phenomena related to dynamics governed by multiple coupled potential energy surfaces. We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the photodissociation of formyl radical (HCO). Oscillations observed in the distribution of product states are found to arise from the interference of matter waves-a manifestation analogous to Young's double-slit experiment.

Industry 4.0 Opening Statement, Keng Siau

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Magnetic Composite Biomaterials For Neural Regeneration, Jessica L. Funnell, Bailey Balouch, Ryan J. Gilbert

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nervous system damage caused by physical trauma or degenerative diseases can result in loss of sensory and motor function for patients. Biomaterial interventions have shown promise in animal studies, providing contact guidance for extending neurites or sustained release of various drugs and growth factors; however, these approaches often target only one aspect of the regeneration process. More recent studies investigate hybrid approaches, creating complex materials that can reduce inflammation or provide neuroprotection in addition to stimulating growth and regeneration. Magnetic materials have shown promise in this field, as they can be manipulated non-invasively, are easily functionalized, and can be used …

The Work Of The Living, D'Addario, Thomas J. D'Addario

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Use Of Computer Software To Do Mathematics And The Mathematics Achievement Of Students In Puerto Rico Using Restricted 2015 Naep, Ricela Feliciano-Semidei

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This quantitative study explored the relationship between the mathematics achievement patterns of eighth grade students in Puerto Rico and their use of computer software application programs for doing mathematics. The theoretical framework used is the educational production function, which allowed the use of a function to analyze this relationship. The researcher analyzed 2015 restricted National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics data. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistical analysis and multilevel modeling analysis. Control variables to measure socioeconomic status and absenteeism were included in the multilevel model. Results of this study showed that average scores on NAEP 2015 were higher …

Probing Denatured State Conformational Bias In 3-Helix Bundles With Foldable Or Intrinsically Disordered Domains, Moses Joseph Leavens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Protein misfolding is associated with several life threatening diseases – Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Cystic fibrosis, Sickle cell anemia, and the Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, to include Chronic Wasting disease, Scrapie, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. To provide insight into protein misfolding, it is beneficial to understand how an amino acid sequence encodes structure. Once thought to behave as random coil polymers under denaturing conditions, an abundance of recent evidence suggests denatured proteins retain ‘non-random’ or residual structure, which may bias a protein chain to fold efficiently to its native conformer. Probing energetics of residual structure in denatured proteins is challenging, given the shortage of …

“Out Of The Mother . . . And Home To The Mother”: Essays On Medieval Literature And Climate Crisis, Rachel Kuhr Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Methods For Analyzing High Dimensional Data With Applications To The Wearable And Microbiome Data Analysis, Quy Xuan Cao

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Modern studies in medicine, epidemiology, pharmacy and other fields generate high dimensional data. We developed statistical analysis methods for two types of such data: activity and microbiome data. Specifically, reliable measures of the frequency, duration and intensity of physical activity provided by wearable technology were used in the analysis of activity data. Accelerometry-derived measures of physical activity were compared with established predictors of 5-year all-cause mortality in older adults, aged between 50 and 85 years from the 2003- 2006 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, in terms of individual, relative, and combined predictive performance. A total of 33 predictors of …

Theme Park Experience: Factors Explaining Amount Of Pleasure From A Theme Park Visit, Time Allocation For Theme Park Activities, Perceived Value, Queuing Quality, Satisfaction, And Loyalty, Maksim Godovykh, Ady Milman, Alsi D.A. Tasci

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A considerable amount of literature describes concepts that predict theme park visitor behavior. Although previous studies made an effort to measure the impact of several variables on theme park visitors’ loyalty, there is a lack of empirical attention on the impact of some consumption variables such as previous experience, perceived queuing quality, waiting time, using of virtual queuing, and the role of anticipating and remembering the visit. The current study introduces several new experience concepts that were not previously discussed in the literature: the amount of pleasure from anticipation, visiting, and remembering the experience, and time allocation for waiting in …