Digital Commons Network^™

A Remarkable Response Of Granulomatous Hypophysitis To Infliximab In A Patient With A Background Of Crohn's Disease-A Case Report, Bahar K Force, Tiphanie P Vogel, Dang M Nguyen, Kent A Heck, Sherly Sebastian, Mas Takashima, Daniel Yoshor, Susan L Samson

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Associated Data

Shrub Management Handbook For Utah Rangelands, Rebecca Mann, Tom Monaco, Kari E. Veblen, Eric Thacker, Elizabeth A. Burritt

All Current Publications

This handbook is a guide to developing realistic project plans and implementing appropriate management strategies by enhancing your understanding of basic shrub biology, ecological concepts,and management principles.

University Of San Diego Graduate Course Catalog 2020-2021, University Of San Diego

Graduate Course Catalogs (1971-)

315 pages

A Mixed Method Study On Nursing Graduate Support Programs In Rural And Remote Areas Of Western Australia, Amanda Clair Graf

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Aim: To determine if the current rural graduate programs in Western Australia adequately support new graduate nurses transitioning into rural and remote practice.

Background: Graduate nurse transition to employment is a time of significant change and challenges often results in periods of transition shock. These challenges are magnified in rural areas when graduates have limited rural nursing experience and move to commence their career. Supportive graduate nursing programs are essential for enabling nursing transition to practice and assist in reducing attrition rates. Graduate programs were developed to smooth the transition for university trained bachelor’s degree registered nurses into the …

Infants’ Relationship With Drop-Offs And Water Environments, Carolina Burnay Rodrigues De Morais

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Underpinned by the ecological approach to perceptual-motor development, this Thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of the organization of infants’ behaviour during encounters with drop-offs and water environments. Previous studies have linked locomotor experience to infants’ avoidance of falling from heights. Using the Real Cliff / Water Cliff apparatus, Burnay and Cordovil (2016) confirmed the effect of locomotor experience on crawlers’ avoidance of drop-offs and linked locomotor experience to infants’ avoidance of falling into the water for the first time. However, the effect of other specific locomotor experiences on infants’ approach to aquatic environments has not been addressed. This …

Application Of Advanced Algorithms And Statistical Techniques For Weed-Plant Discrimination, Saman Akbar Zadeh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Precision agriculture requires automated systems for weed detection as weeds compete with the crop for water, nutrients, and light. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of machine learning methods to classify weeds/crops in agriculture. Statistical methods, support vector machines, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are introduced, investigated and optimized as classifiers to provide high accuracy at high vehicular speed for weed detection.

Initially, Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms are developed for weed-crop discrimination and their accuracies are compared with a conventional data-aggregation method based on the evaluation of discrete Normalised Difference Vegetation Indices (NDVIs) at two different …

Wildfire Suppression – An International Analysis Of Operations, Strategy And Firefighter Safety, Greg Peter Penney

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Wildfire suppression remains an inherently dangerous yet increasingly frequent task for fire services throughout Australia and the world. Each year firefighters from career and volunteer agencies respond to wildfires that impact the urban interface. When such an event occurs during a period of intense fire behaviour the conditions are often incompatible with life for persons either caught in the open or those seeking refuge in a vehicle. In order to improve firefighter safety and operational effectiveness at the rural urban interface (RUI) during landscape scale wildfires, this dissertation serves to examine critical components of wildfire response, most notably wildfire suppression …

Proactive Content Caching In Future Generation Communication Networks: Energy And Security Considerations, Muhammad Ishtiaque Aziz Zahed

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The proliferation of hand-held devices and Internet of Things (IoT) applications has heightened demand for popular content download. A high volume of content streaming/downloading services during peak hours can cause network congestion. Proactive content caching has emerged as a prospective solution to tackle this congestion problem. In proactive content caching, data storage units are used to store popular content in helper nodes at the network edge. This contributes to a reduction of peak traffic load and network congestion.

However, data storage units require additional energy, which offers a challenge to researchers that intend to reduce energy consumption up to 90% …

Usd President's Report 2020 Financial Operations, University Of San Diego

President's Reports (1985- )

Dear Toreros, President's Report 2019-20 Financial Operations, Giving to the University, Leadership

Cultural Variability In The Association Between Age And Well-Being: The Role Of Uncertainty Avoidance, Smaranda Lawrie, Kimin Eom, Daniela Moza, Alin Gavreliuc, Heejung S. Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Past research has found a mixed relationship between age and subjective well-being. The current research advances the understanding of these findings by incorporating a cultural perspective. We tested whether the relationship between age and well-being is moderated by uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension dealing with society’s tolerance for ambiguity. In Study 1 (N = 64,228), using a multilevel approach with an international database, we found that older age was associated with lower well-being in countries higher in uncertainty avoidance but not in countries lower in uncertainty avoidance. Further, this cultural variation was mediated by a sense of control. In Study …

Singapore In The Global Value Chains, Pao-Li Chang, Tran Bao Phuong Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this chapter, we analyze the participation of Singapore in the global value chains (GVC): how much of its gross exports are GVC-related trade, how downstream it is, and which countries are its key upstream and downstream trade partners. This is done at both the country aggregate and at the sector level. New formulas are proposed in the gross export decomposition framework of Koopman, Wang and Wei (2014) and Borin and Mancini (2017), to characterize a country/industry’s downstreamness in the GVC and the importance of each trade partner in its backward/forward linkages. Singapore is found to start off with a …

Efficient Child Care Subsidies, Christine Ho, Nicola Pavoni

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the design of child care subsidies in an optimal welfare problem with heterogeneous private market productivities. The optimal subsidy schedule is qualitatively similar to the existing US scheme. Efficiency mandates a subsidy on formal child care costs, with higher subsidies paid to lower income earners and a kink as a function of child care expenditure. Marginal labor income tax rates are set lower than the labor wedges, with the potential to generate negative marginal tax rates. We calibrate our simple model to features of the US labor market and focus on single mothers with children aged below 6. …

Investigating Communicative Dissonance Within Relationships Of Adults With Asperger’S Syndrome (Asd Level 1), Bronwyn Maree Wilson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The key features of Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) include marked and lifelong impairments in social interaction. Social interaction is a fundamental component of relationships. Despite the momentum of worldwide research on ASC, there is insufficient empirical study on adults with ASC and their relationships. Therefore, numerous myths, misunderstandings and confusion exist, especially in the area of adults with ASC, and autism-based impacts on the adults with ASC themselves, their relationships, and on the people who are in relationship with them.

Relationships that involve people with an ASC are often described as neurodiverse. Neurodiverse relationships that include one person with an …

Primary School Teachers’ Experience Of Mathematics Education: A Phenomenological Study, Sarah Jane Tamburri

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Researchers and policymakers agree that all children can learn mathematics, and research has shown that teaching practices have a significant impact on student learning and achievement. Therefore, it is important that teachers are supported in their development as professionals and mathematics educators. This research gives a voice to a small number of primary school mathematics teachers, providing insight into their experience of mathematics education, from their perspective. In-depth interviews form the basis of data collection and these have been analysed through a transcendental phenomenological approach. The insights gained into teachers’ experiences and perspectives provide a deeper understanding of their role …

Determining Ground-Level Composition And Concentration Of Particulate Matter Across Regional Areas Using The Himawari-8 Satellite, Miles Sowden

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Speciated ground-level aerosol concentrations are required to understand and mitigate health impacts from dust storms, wildfires and other aerosol emissions. Globally, surface monitoring is limited due to cost and infrastructure demands. While remote sensing can help estimate respirable (i.e. ground level) concentrations, current observations are restricted by inadequate spatiotemporal resolution, uncertainty in aerosol type, particle size, and vertical profile. One key issue with current remote sensing datasets is that they are derived from reflectances observed by polar orbiting imagers, which means that aerosol is only derived during the daytime, and only once or twice per day.

Sub-hourly, infrared (IR), geostationary …

No Happy Accident: Defining The Factors Contributing To The Success And Longevity Of A Long-Running Community Engagement Program, Jennifer Irvine

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The Kalamunda Community Learning Centre (‘the Centre’) was established in 1977 by a group of four women, following their attendance at a conference held by the Women’s Electoral Lobby. Originally named the Kalamunda Women’s Learning Centre, it was established with a charter to improve the status of women, whilst providing a place to alleviate isolation and boredom for ‘stay at home’ mothers. Through its structure, underpinned by feminist ideology, the Centre also provided a place for women to practice skills that would build their confidence with respect to returning to the workforce. From its beginnings with a predominant focus on …

Heritability Enrichment Of Immunoglobulin G N-Glycosylation Relevant Genes In Specific Tissues, Xingang Li

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified over 60 genetic loci associated with IgG N-glycosylation; however, the causal genes and their abundance in relevant tissues are uncertain. In this study, firstly, I leveraged data from GWAS summary statistics for 8,090 Europeans, and large-scale expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data from the genotype-tissue expression of 53 types of tissues (GTEx v7), to derive a linkage disequilibrium score for the specific expression of genes (LDSC-SEG) and conduct a transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS). I identified 55 genes whose predicted levels of expression were significantly associated with IgG Nglycosylation in 14 tissues with regard to …

The Importance Of Telehealth In The Implementation Of Best Practice In Paediatric Burn Management By Non-Burn Specialist Clinicians, Tania Mcwilliams

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Introduction: Burns are a leading cause of injury worldwide, yet the initial assessment and management of patients following burn injury is often performed by non-burn specialist clinicians. Using the Gilbert Behaviour Engineering Model as a framework, strategies were introduced to support these clinicians. A better understanding was needed, however, of the effectiveness of these strategies, and the experiences of clinicians who provide this initial care.

Aims: This study aims to contribute new knowledge related to paediatric burn care through the evaluation of a state-wide burns telehealth program in Western Australia; specifically, develop a deeper and more relevant understanding of a …

Injury Surveillance In Community Cricket And The Exploration Of Insurance Claims Systems, Geordie Mcleod

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The aims of this industry funded PhD thesis were 1) To understand the injury causes, trends and burden in community cricket and 2) To examine the Cricket Australia National Club Risk Protection Program (NCRPP) insurance scheme for suitability as an injury surveillance tool for community cricket.

This thesis sought to identify and understand the injury profile of community cricketers through existing literature and injury datasets, being, Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit (VISU) hospital data, Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and NCRPP insurance claims data. This thesis also undertook a novel assessment of data validity and completeness from various sources, against industry standards …

Improving Processes For Implementing Evidence-Based Practice In Midwifery: Development Of An Etool(Kit) For Midwives, Annemarie June De Leo

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is well-established as the gold standard for service delivery of quality healthcare around the world, yet there remains a significant gap between best available evidence and its everyday use in maternity services. The numerous benefits of EBP are therefore never realised and although a considerable body of knowledge has evolved on how to promote the uptake of new EBPs, little is known about midwives’ experience of implementing EBP or leading practice change projects in clinical areas.

The aim of this study was to work collaboratively with midwives towards the co-development of an evidence implementation resource, designed to …

Debt In Just Societies: A General Framework For Regulating Credit, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Debt presents a dilemma to societies: successful societies benefit from a substantial infrastructure of consumer, commercial, corporate, and sovereign debt but debt can cause substantial private and social harm. Pre- and post-crisis solutions have seesawed between subsidizing and restricting debt, between leveraging and deleveraging. A consensus exists among governments and international financial institutions that financial stability is the fundamental normative principle underlying financial regulation. Financial stability, however, is insensitive to equality concerns and can produce morally impermissible aggregations in which the least advantaged in a society are made worse off. Solutions based only on financial stability can restrict debt without …

Physician Attitudes Towards-And Adoption Of-Mobile Health, Tracie Kong, Mary Morgan Scott, Yang Li, Cynthia Wichelman

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: Smartphone apps and mobile devices are an emerging method of healthcare data collection. This study sought to understand how physicians currently view mobile health (mHealth) technologies and use them in patient care.

METHODS: A total of 186 physicians affiliated with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, USA completed a survey in 2016 regarding their current implementation of mHealth technologies for patient care and support for further development.

RESULTS: More than half of respondents were willing to discuss health apps and mobile devices with patients. However, most were not currently recommending them to patients. Apps/devices that encouraged …

How Do Subjective Health Literacy Measures Work In Young Adults? Specifying "Online" Or "Paper-Based" Forms Impacts Results, Mary C Politi, Courtney M Goodwin, Kimberly A Kaphingst, Xuechen Wang, Angela Fagerlin, Lindsay N Fuzzell, Sydney E Philpott-Streiff

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Ultrasonic-Based Condition Assessment Of Wooden Utility Poles, Yishi Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More than 300 million utility poles shoulder the utility grid in the United States. However, the ineffectiveness of the current inspection process causes roughly a third of utility poles removed from the service deemed suitable for reuse. Due to the utterly essential role of the power infrastructure, budget shrinkage, and the structural degradation of the modern distribution grid, this Ph.D. dissertation addresses the challenges by proposing a physics-based signal analysis method with a jointly developed ultrasonic UB1000 system c to enhance the objectivity in ultrasonic-based nondestructive evaluation (NDE). The proposed methodology has been deployed commercially in the field and featured …

Patent Eligibility And Investment, David O. Taylor

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Have the Supreme Court’s recent patent eligibility cases changed the behavior of venture capital and private equity investment firms, and if so how? This Article provides empirical data about investors’ answers to those important questions. Analyzing responses to a survey of 475 investors at firms investing in various industries and at various stages of funding, this Article explores how the Court’s recent cases have influenced these firms’ decisions to invest in companies developing technology. The survey results reveal investors’ overwhelming belief that patent eligibility is an important consideration in investment decisionmaking, and that reduced patent eligibility makes it less likely …

Histopathologic Findings In Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor Predict Response To Radiotherapy And Overall Survival, Calixto-Hope G Lucas, Harish N Vasudevan, William C Chen, Stephen T Magill, Steve E Braunstein, Line Jacques, Sonika Dahiya, Fausto J Rodriguez, Andrew E Horvai, Arie Perry, Melike Pekmezci, David R Raleigh

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) is an aggressive and poorly understood malignant neoplasm. Even in the setting of multimodal therapy, the clinical course of MPNST is frequently marked by metastatic conversion and poor overall prognosis, with optimal treatment paradigms for this rare tumor unknown.

METHODS: We reviewed the medical records and histopathology of 54 consecutive patients who were treated at University of California San Francisco between 1990 and 2018.

RESULTS: Our cohort consisted of 24 male and 30 female patients (median age 38 years). Fédération Nationale des Centres de Lutte Contre Le Cancer (FNCLCC) sarcoma grading criteria segregated …

Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes For Advanced Optical Materials, Wearable Biosensing, And Bioimaging, Mohammad Moein Safaee

Open Access Dissertations

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) functionalized with synthetic or natural polymers are a class of advanced optical nanomaterials that have recently found applications in a wide range of molecular diagnostics platforms as biosensors and bioimaging agents. Despite their widespread applications, there is an urgent need to develop standard characterization assays to evaluate their optical, physical, and interfacial properties in vitro and in complex biological environments. The results from such assays are essential for defining general design principles for nanotube-based optical probes and biosensing devices. Moreover, to fully exploit the nanotube's unique properties for health monitoring, it is essential to employ micro- …

College Student Engagement In Coursework: Investigating Assessment Scaling And Feedback Utility, Bonita S. Basnyat

Open Access Dissertations

Student engagement is a multifaceted construct in the field of education. Despite the immense attention and financial investment given to student engagement and dropout prevention programs at colleges, attrition rates have not improved in over two decades (Caruth, 2018). In addition, there has been little research on providing feedback to college students on self-improvement strategies to increase their engagement in college. Information collected from this study evaluates the extent to which student classroom engagement, as measured by the modified Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ-M) varies within subcategories of measured engagement and across different subgroups of students (i.e., variability by gender, …

Regulating Quiescence And Division In Escherichia Coli, Eric Charles Dibiasio

Open Access Dissertations

The decision for a bacterium to grow and divide may seem like a simple process, but in reality, there are many factors that influence and regulate this choice. Bacteria have been known to respond to many environmental signals or cues that represent either favorable or non-favorable growth conditions, as well as cues, secreted from other bacteria or, in the case of a pathogen, the host. It is not uncommon for bacteria that find their environment unfavorable, to alter their growth, and in some cases, even enter into a type of non-proliferative state, which we term, dormancy. Bacterial dormancy has many …

Distribution Of Novel And Legacy Organic Pollutants In Seabirds From Contrasting Marine Environments, Anna Ruth Robuck

Open Access Dissertations

Despite their ubiquity in the environment, large data gaps exist surrounding the distribution, biotic accumulation, and possible impacts of many high priority organic pollutants, particularly those considered emerging contaminants. Emerging pollutants, or contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), represent a dynamic and rapidly evolving group of substances, some of which have been extant for decades. Chapter 1 provides background about CECs covered in this dissertation, and highlights key data gaps explored within this work.

The first three manuscripts of this dissertation (Chapters 2 – 5) focus on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are a family of CECs that demonstrate …