Digital Commons Network^™

Smoking Cessation Within The Federal Employee Population, Brenda Ross Swilley

Nursing Dissertations - Archive

This article-based dissertation consists of two complete manuscripts related to smoking cessation within the federal employee population. In the first manuscript, the self-determination theory was described and evaluated using Walker and Avant’s criteria. A demonstration of how the theory has been used in previous research, as well as the application of the theory to federal employees who smoke was also presented in the article. There was no theoretical framework for administrators or clinicians to use when developing, implementing, or evaluating smoking cessation. Manuscript one addresses the need for a theoretical framework. As theory creates the foundations of nursing practice, occupational …

The Association Between Caffeine Intake And Cardiovascular Mortality: An Analysis Of The National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (Nhanes) 1999-2014 Database, Juan Feng

Nursing Dissertations - Archive

Sixty-four percent of adults in America drink coffee daily and 71% of caffeine intake comes from coffee in the United States (US) diet. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of death in the US. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between caffeine intake and CVD mortality in a nationally representative sample of the US civilian non-institutionalized population. The association between caffeine intake and CVD mortality among 21,938 participants (age ranging from 20 to 85 years) in the NHANES 1999-2014 database was examined by multivariate Cox’s proportional hazards regression model. Daily caffeine intake was assessed …

Autonomous Landing Of Quadrotor On A Moving Ugv With The Optimal Control Policies, Suhas Priyatham Manda

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis proposes an offline method that uses an integral reinforcement learning (IRL) technique along with the system identification to determine the optimal control of a system with completely unknown dynamics. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that are particularly deployed to track and land on an arbitrarily moving unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), demand a high performance controller to perform precise tracking. One way of designing an optimal tracking controller is developing linear quadratic integrators (LQI) with a quadratic type of cost function that solves Riccati equation. However, this approach requires prior knowledge of the linearized UAV system dynamics. We overcome this …

Car Plate Detection Using Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks, Shengyi Luan

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) comprise a deep learning technology which is widely used to perform image classification. In this research, we review CNN structures and explain how they can be used for finding license plates in vehicle images. We summarize how the standard CNN processes images into features and compare it to Region-Based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNN). After comparing their pros and cons, we decide to design a R-CNN to train our dataset for this project. We find that the one trained with the most training data has the highest testing accuracy. The first training network detector leads to the …

Generalized Algorithmic Frameworks For Optimizing Distance Calls In Generalized Metric Space Proximity Problems And Methods For Realizing Efficient Signal Reconstruction, Jees Augustine

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The exponential rise in data, along with its heterogeneity and complexity, helped individuals, businesses, hospitals, enterprises and even governments to thrive on data-driven decision making. However, as the size and complexity of the data surged, challenges in searching for similar objects within databases (proximity search) compounded. As is well known, proximity search is the key and successful method used in Information Retrieval (IR) in vast databases including, Genomics Databases, Image Databases, Video Databases, Text databases, etc. The objective is to retrieve contents from the database, similar to a given object in the database. This dissertation revisits a suite of popular …

Disproportionate Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Racial And Ethnic Minorities, Brad Boserup, Mark Mckenney, Adel Elkbuli

All publications

Background: Health disparities are prevalent in many areas of medicine. We aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial/ethnic groups in the United States (US) and to assess the effects of social distancing, social vulnerability metrics, and medical disparities.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted utilizing data from the COVID-19 Tracking Project and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Demographic data were obtained from the US Census Bureau, social vulnerability data were obtained from the CDC, social distancing data were obtained from Unacast, and medical disparities data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. …

Characterizing The Unmet Hiv Prevention Needs And Hiv Risk Vulnerabilities Of Adolescent Girls And Young Women In Ethiopia, Carly A. Comins, Sheree Schwartz, Stefan Baral, Andargachew Mulu

HIV and AIDS

Although the disparity in HIV prevalence among young women and their male counterparts is not new, there is increasing recognition that addressing the unmet HIV prevention needs among AGYW is necessary to achieve epidemic control. In Ethiopia, data characterizing unmet HIV prevention needs and HIV risk vulnerabilities among AGYW, particularly out of school AGYW, have been limited. Armauer Hansen Research Institute and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health through Project SOAR conducted an integrated HIV biobehavioral survey (IBBS) focused on out-of-school adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 15–24 years to assess AGYW HIV risk vulnerability. The purpose of …

What Is Environmental Consciousness? A Thematic Cluster, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay serves as the introduction to this issue of Ecocene (December 2020, volume 1, issue 2).

First two paragraphs:

For its second issue Ecocene welcomed cross-disciplinary contributions on what it means to be environmentally conscious in the world today, what it might have meant in diverse social-environmental pasts, or indeed what it may mean in our shared futures. The ambition of the cluster has been to engage with some key reassessments of the ways in which ecologies, identities, communities, temporalities, heritage, spatiality, risks, or agencies have been rethought in recent years, or in new waves of research, scholarship, theory, …

Disaggregating Within- And Between-Person Variation In The Prospective Relations Between Acculturation Gap-Distress And Psychological Adjustment, Savannah Pham

Psychology Theses and Dissertations

According to acculturation gap-distress theory, parent-offspring differences in cultural orientations set the stage for intergenerational cultural conflict, which may contribute to poor psychological adjustment among Asian American offspring. Although cross-sectional research has demonstrated robust links between intergenerational cultural conflict and poor psychological adjustment, a small number of longitudinal studies have yielded mixed evidence for the theorized pathway of acculturation gap-distress. To address limitations of existing research, I aimed to examine between- and within-person associations between intergenerational cultural conflict and psychological adjustment in a three-wave longitudinal panel study. Participants were Asian American first-year college students (N = 475; 55.6% women; …

Road Map Generation And Feature Extraction Algorithms From Gps Trajectories And Trajectories Data Warehousing, Tariq Alsahfi

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Advanced technologies in location acquisition allow us to track the movement of moving objects (people, planes, vehicles, animals, ships, ..) in geographical space. These technologies generate a vast amount of trajectory data (TD). Several applica- tions in different fields can utilize such trajectory data, for example, traffic control management, social behavior analysis, wildlife migrations and movements, ship tra- jectories, shoppers behavior in a mall, facial nerve trajectory, location-based services (LBS) and many others. Fortunately, there are now many trajectory data sets avail- able that collected from moving objects such as cars with enabled GPS devices. Two main challenges arise when …

Adaptive Graph Convolutional Neural Network And Its Biomedical Applications, Ruoyu Li

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

As the rise of graph neural networks, many deep learning frameworks have been extended to graph-structured data. The research in many diverse regimes have been tremendously reshaped, especially in areas like medical image understanding. When input data reach the scale of whole slides images (WSIs), the modeling becomes more challenging and we have to balance the trade-off between performance and efficiency. Furthermore, the theory of existing graph convolution has its own constraints which prevent learning robust graph representation on data that has diverse topological structure and are infeasible for graph sampling or coarsening. To tackle the problems we introduced a …

The Political Ecology Of Vladimir Arsen'ev, Sergey Glebov

History: Faculty Publications

The article describes the life and work of Vladimir Klavdievich Arsen'ev in the context of the development of settler colonial project in the Far East. The article argues that Arsen'ev, a military officer and a self-taught geographer and ethnographer, shared in a political ecology, which combined “defense” of native peoples and the nature of the Russian Far East with racialized views of Chinese and Korean immigrants. This political ecology, in particular, led Arsen'ev to take part in military operations designed to cleanse remote parts of the Ussuri region of the Chinese and to develop administrative proposals on the governance of …

The Utilization Of Close Observation In Acute Psychiatric Inpatients, Sean Farley

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

Close observation is a psychiatric interventional method implemented for individuals who are displaying self-injurious or aggressive behaviors. This is a widely used intervention within the field of mental health Close observation is also regulated by The Joint Commission and the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services for accreditation purposes. A review of the current literature was conducted and revealed that frequently psychiatric patients are placed on inappropriate levels of close observation, that revisions to the close observation policy/practice improve both psychiatric patients and staff safety outcomes, and can overall decrease hospital costs associated with observation intervention. The purpose of this …

171st Commencement, Fall

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Effective Use Of Hearing Aids For Acquisition Of Spoken Language For Learners With Hearing Impairement: Case Of Kisumu County, Kenya, Alice Anyango Auma

Master of Education

The world is waking up to resolve the need to ensure broad-based inclusivity and equity for the hearing impaired. Kenya, a developing nation, is taking deliberate and conscious efforts towards this desired inclusive end, very much in line with Sustainable Development Goals. This study investigated the effective use of hearing aids for the acquisition of spoken language for learners with hearing impairment at St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf in Kisumu County Kenya. The study site was chosen purposively as it was a public primary school for the HI with sufficient access to appreciable governmental and non-governmental investments of HAs …

International Travel: A Quantitative And Qualitative Analysis About How Study Abroad Opportunities Enhance One’S Global Perspective And Self-Awareness, Kristen Zink

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

As the world is becoming more interconnected, the importance of having a well-rounded, global education is necessary. To meet those needs, many students are electing to study abroad during their time in college. Although research has been done to examine the direct benefits of studying abroad, there has been little research done to differentiate the impacts of short-term and long-term study abroad. This research looked at how students reflected on both their short-term and long-term study abroad experiences and it examined the benefits of both lengths of travel. A quantitative analysis was done to analyze the benefits of short-term study …

North Dakota--Dealing With Dubious Contracts For Conveying Land Statute Of Limitations Or Reformation For Mutual Mistake?, William P. Pearce

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The topic of this Article arose from a recent opinion by the North Dakota Supreme Court: Western Energy Corporation v. Stauffer. The case dealt with how the law handles changes in ownership of property, specifically land including underlying mineral interests, that come into dispute after substantial periods of time have passed, resulting in a need for the parties involved in the dispute to turn to the courts for a solution. The passing of a substantial amount of time often becomes the issue in resolving the dispute in these types of situations.

The opening paragraph in the Court’s opinion in Western …

Documenting Social Media Engagement As Scholarship: A New Model For Assessing Academic Accomplishment For The Health Professions, Kimberly D. Acquaviva, Josh Mugele, Natasha Abadilla, Tyler Adamson, Samantha L. Bernstein, Rakhee K. Bhayani, Annina Elisabeth Büchi, Darcy Burbage, Christopher L. Carroll, Samantha P. Davis, Natasha Dhawan, Alice Eaton, Kim English, Jennifer T. Grier, Mary K. Gurney, Emily S. Hahn, Heather Haq, Brendan Huang, Shikha Jain, Jin Jun, Wesley T. Kerr, Timothy Keyes, Amelia R. Kirby, Marion Leary, Mollie Marr, Ajay Major, Jason V. Meisel, Erika A. Petersen, Barak Raguan, Allison Rhodes, Deborah D. Rupert, Nadia A. Sam-Agudu, Naledi Saul, Jarna R. Shah, Lisa Kennedy Sheldon, Christian T. Sinclair, Kerry Spencer, Natalie H. Strand, Carl G. Streed Jr., Avery M. Trudell

Respiratory Therapy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The traditional model of promotion and tenure in the health professions relies heavily on formal scholarship through teaching, research, and service. Institutions consider how much weight to give activities in each of these areas and determine a threshold for advancement. With the emergence of social media, scholars can engage wider audiences in creative ways and have a broader impact. Conventional metrics like the h-index do not account for social media impact. Social media engagement is poorly represented in most curricula vitae (CV) and therefore is undervalued in promotion and tenure reviews.

Objective: The objective was to develop crowdsourced guidelines …

An Unfair Cross Section: Federal Jurisdiction For Indian Country Crimes Dismantles Jury Community Conscience, Alana Paris

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, federal jury pools must reflect a fair cross section of the community in which a crime is prosecuted and from which no distinct group in the community is excluded. The community in which a crime is prosecuted varies widely in Indian country based on legislative reforms enacted by Congress to strip indigenous populations of their inherent sovereignty. Under the Major Crimes Act, the federal government has the right to adjudicate all serious crimes committed by one American Indian against another American Indian or non-Indian within Indian country. American Indian defendants under …

Human Capital Leadership Insights: Solving Human Capital Challenges From The Business Perspective, Singapore Management University

Student Publications

In 2016, the Lee Kong Chian School of Business launched the Master of Human Capital Leadership (“MHCL”) program with the strategic objective of growing leaders to champion evidence-based human capital practices. The 2019 MHCL cohort took this a step further with their quest to share insights gained from studies and projects with industry stakeholders. This goal resonates with our mission -- to create and disseminate knowledge.

How Does How We Learn Influence What We Learn And From Whom We Learn: The Case Of Igen, Twitter, Bts Army, And Learning With Technology, Yuliya Dmitriyevna Goss

Dissertations and Theses

Digital information is omnipresent, and access is almost unavoidable. Technology advances and comes at us in waves that take over and then tend to linger. iGen is the first generation to be born into this advanced technology and the state of constant “plugged-inness” to the Internet. iGen has not experienced a different, predominantly analog, world, but baby boomers, generation X, and millennials – many of whom now use Internet-connected technology heavily – can attest to how they have changed as it integrated into their lives. Along with many other areas of life, learning has also changed with technological progress. From …

Autonomous Health Movements: Criminalization, De-Medicalization, And Community-Based Direct Action, Naomi Braine

Publications and Research

This paper proposes the concept of autonomous health movements, drawing on an analysis of harm reduction in the United States and self-managed abortion globally. Harm reduction and self-managed abortion appear in the professional literature largely as evidenced-based public health strategies, more than as social movements. However, each began at the margins of the law as a form of direct action developed by activists anchored in social justice movements and working in community contexts independent of both state and institutional control according to a human rights perspective of bodily integrity and autonomy. An analysis of the history and dynamics of harm …

The Importance Of Play: Identification With Video Game Characters' Intersectional Effects On Bias, Marie A. Jarrell

All Dissertations

Video games are steadily becoming one of the largest and most influential forms of media in history. Today, video games are so popular that the Nintendo mascot Mario from the Mario Brothers video game series is more recognized than Disney's Mickey Mouse. The reach and influence of video games is cause for celebration and concern. After all, just like other forms of media video games can influence audiences far beyond their play sessions. Media can influence everything from how individuals treat others, to governmental policies. With such a large scope of influence over who they reach and how they affect …

2020 National Survey Of Military Affiliated Entrepreneurs: Research Report, Rosalinda V. Maury, Mirza Tihic, Kicia Sears, Alexander Mckelvie, Najla Almissalati

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This report belongs to the National Survey of Military-Affiliated Entrepreneurs (NSMAE) series, an annual and longitudinal study of veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs. The research seeks to gain better insights into and understanding of military-affiliated entrepreneurs, and identify economic, political, and socio-cultural factors that serve as barriers to entrepreneurship for military-affiliated individuals. Helpful for a better awareness of military entrepreneurs.

$14 Million Ian R. Taylor Memorial Fund Fosters Talent Development At Smu, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

Past and present staff of Vitol Asia have come together to make an endowed gift of $14 million to set up the Ian R. Taylor Memorial Fund (IRT-MF) at the Singapore Management University (SMU) in honour and memory of the late Mr Ian Roper Taylor (7 February 1956 – 8 June 2020). Mr Taylor was the former chief executive and chairman of the Vitol Group who transformed the small Dutch fuel merchant into the global commodities powerhouse that it is today.

Implementation Of Nurse-Led Multidisciplinary Rounds In A Critical Care Unit, Sandra Champagne

Master's Projects and Capstones

The nature of this project is to improve communication, within the interdisciplinary team, the patients and families by establishing nurse-driven daily multidisciplinary rounds (MDR). The intensive care environment is quite frightening and disorienting for the patients and families due to the technology used, the constant care involved and the delirium that often ensues. The large number of professionals involved in care due to the complexity of the health issues the critically ill patients face also intensifies the amount of information the patients and families need to process.

Coordination of care can be complex and difficult. The social issues observed in …

A Systematic Review Of Home-Based Dietary Interventions During Radiation Therapy For Cancer., Taylor H Allenby, Megan L Crenshaw, Katlynn Mathis, Colin E Champ, Nicole L Simone, Kathryn H Schmitz, Leila T Tchelebi, Nicholas G Zaorsky

Department of Radiation Oncology Faculty Papers

Purpose: Our objectives are to assess (1) the acceptability and feasibility of dietary interventions for patients undergoing radiation therapy (RT), and (2) the impact of dietary interventions on patient reported outcomes, toxicities, and survival.

Methods: A PICOS/PRISMA/MOOSE selection protocol was used to include articles that evaluate adding dietary interventions to patients receiving RT. Acceptability was defined as (# accepting/# approached); feasibility was (# completing/# approached). Patient-reported outcomes were reported based on questionnaires used in each study and survival was measured from the date of diagnosis until death in each study. Level of evidence was assessed with Center for Evidence-Based Medicine …

Military Life Narratives And Identity Development Among Black Post-9/11 Veterans, Deon Marcell Hall

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenological experience of veteran identity development in post-9/11 veterans who identify within the Black diaspora. Given that current research suggests that behavioral health providers lack the sufficient training necessary to meet the unique clinical needs of post-9/11 veterans, this study aimed to examine military culture and experience in the context of intersecting cultural identities so as to more effectively frame the services offered by counseling psychologists working with Black military veterans and service members. More specifically, this study strengthens the existing empirical framework for addressing the behavioral health needs of post-9/11 …

Performance Guide And Recording Of Three Twenty-First-Century Compositions For Solo Cello, Katarina Majcen Pliego

Dissertations

The twenty-first century boasts a vast repertoire of solo cello pieces. While many editions might feature phrase markings and other performance indications by the composer, they rarely include bowing indications, fingerings, and other practical advice. Due to the diversity and sometimes technical difficulty of the twenty-first-century solo cello repertoire, most new works now include guidelines or performance guides written by the composer or first performer. I have selected three pieces according to the following criteria: no performance guide is currently available; the published score lacks editorial guidance on performance issues such as bowing and fingering; and no commercially available recording …

A Preliminary Analysis Of Project Ag Aware: Sbirt In Agricultural Work Settings, Rachel L. Rutt

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Background: An increasing number of individuals are being negatively affected by substance abuse in the U.S. and Nebraska communities. These communities are seeing immense increases in opioid prescribing rates, especially in rural areas. The aims of this study are to 1) describe the study population of agricultural workers in Nebraska; 2) estimate the prevalence of alcohol misuse, illegal drug use, and anxiety among agricultural workers in Nebraska; and 3) examine factors associated with alcohol misuse among agricultural workers in Nebraska.

Methods: Adult agricultural workers (N=1,206) completed a paper or online survey for Project Ag Aware. Alcohol misuse, illegal drug use, …