Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Telehealth Services Offered By Home Care Agencies On Patient Safety, Moyna Temple

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is little available research about how home care agencies attempt to address patient safety during the nurse virtual healthcare visit. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine, during the delivery of telehealth care by a home care agency, to what extent the level of education of the registered nurse, the level of education of the director of the home care agency, and the clinical decision support system (CDSS) impact patient safety. The framework for the study was the complex sociotechnological systems model. Data from the 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey were analyzed using logistic …

Clinical Practice Guidelines For Community-Based Resources For Substance Abuse Patients In An Emergency Department, Julie Ann Thompson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Substance use disorder (SUD) has plagued the United States for decades and has been an ongoing issue in a Midwest hospital emergency department where SUD patients were provided discharge information that did not include SUD specific recovery and rehabilitation resources available in the community. The purpose of this project was to develop a clinical practice guideline (CPG) for nurses to use when discharging a SUD patient with an accompanying evidence-based recovery and referral resource list including Narcan, medication-assisted treatment, crisis hotlines, needle exchange programs, and treatment options. The Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice framework was used to grade the levels …

Community College Student Persistence In The Online Learning Environment, Lori Tucker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Online course enrollment at community colleges has increased in recent years. Student persistence rates in online courses are lower than in traditional face-to-face courses. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore student perceptions of the external and internal factors that contribute to students’ persistence in online learning. Rovai’s composite persistence model was the conceptual framework used to explore the perceptions of eight students who were 18 and older and had completed a minimum of two online courses within the past 2 years at a Midwest community college in the United States. Findings from inductive coding analysis of …

Employee Retention Strategies In The Fast Food Industry, Patrick C. Umezurike

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe annual employee turnover rate in the fast-food industry is 73%, resulting in significant financial losses to the fast-food industry across the United States. The fast-food managers who lack strategies to improve employee retention; risk reduced organizational performance and effectiveness. Grounded in the eight motivational forces of voluntary employee turnover, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to identify strategies managers in the fast-food industry used to improve employee retention. The participants were five senior fast-food managers in Baltimore, Maryland, who successfully improved restaurant employee retention. Data were collected through semistructured interviews; and documents (e.g., employee handbook, training …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Literacy Instruction With Autistic Students During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Heather Ann Marzenski

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Families and educators have voiced concerns about the literacy skills of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the situation. Pandemic era studies have demonstrated the ramifications that students with ASD have faced, including regression of literacy skills, lower grades, lack of support services, and subpar instruction. Teachers' perceptions remained unexamined in the pandemic era studies. The purpose of this basic qualitative dissertation was to examine teachers’ perceptions about the materials and strategies used to deliver literacy instruction during the pandemic for students with ASD. The conceptual frameworks that underpinned this study were self-determination theory …

Educators' And Parents' Perceptions Of Family Engagement In A Head Start Program, Sondeania Marie Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Family engagement benefits children’s development and contributes to student academic success. However, educators feel that they are unprepared to engage families in the educational process, although they are encouraged to do so. The purpose of this basic qualitative study with interviews was to explore educators’ and parents’ perceptions of family engagement. The conceptual framework for this study was supported by Epstein’s ecological framework. A basic qualitative study and purposeful sampling were used to conduct semistructured interviews with 10 educators who were currently employed as teachers and with five parents who had a child enrolled in the Head Start program who …

Local Government Agencies Constraints With 5% Management Cost Allocation From Fema, Mike Lalbachan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Local government agencies have deviated from federal hazard mitigation contractual requirements despite been paid by the federal emergency management agency (FEMA) to accomplish these requirements. Noncompliance with meeting federal requirements can result in returning part or all the financial award to the federal government. The current literature does not address the causations of the deviations. The purpose of this case study research was to gain the perceptions from local government employees in the state of Florida that are managing the hurricane IRMA hazard mitigation grant program (HMGP) projects on the effectiveness of the 5% management costs allocation. The theoretical framework …

Principal Servant Leadership Effects On Relationships With Teachers In Underperforming Schools, Marta Georgina Vasquez-Mcnamara

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has shown that a leaders’ behavior can impact employee organizational outcomes and how employees engage at work. The primary purpose of this qualitative, interpretive, phenomenological study was to interview a purposeful sample of teachers and a principal at an underperforming school to examine and understand their lived experiences and the meaning of principal–teacher relationships in underperforming schools using a servant leadership framework. The goal was to describe principals/teachers’ experiences, perceptions, and meanings associated with servant leadership in building relationships. Data were collected by conducting semistructured interviews. Following an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach, the data were transcribed and coded for …

Evidence-Based Hospice Care Education For Healthcare Clinicians, Nonie E. Weir

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Vulnerable populations with a terminal illness, who reside in a nursing home setting, continue to experience psychological, physical, and emotional effects that lead to end-of- life (EOL) suffering and discomfort. Globally, millions of individuals receive care from a hospice provider. By 2030, this figure will triple due to the increased lifespan of the geriatric population. The literature review has revealed that the practical problem is the lack of hospice care education received by healthcare clinicians. It is, therefore, important to prepare and educate healthcare clinicians about a peaceful death through an individualized plan-of-care (POC) from a holistic approach. The purpose …

Middle School Teachers' Perceptions Of Administrator Support, Teacher Retention, And Attrition, Tonya Kabia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Teacher attrition has been an issue in the local urban area resulting in students being taught by teachers and substitutes who may not be knowledgeable about the content. The attrition of experienced teachers is a concern for administrators, fellow teachers, parents, and students. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of administrator support, teacher retention, and teacher attrition. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory served as the conceptual framework that guided this study. A basic qualitative research design was used to capture the insights of 10 middle school teachers in an urban district in the eastern United States through …

Mathematics Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge And Its Relation To Student Achievement, Michelle Emmalyn Peters-George

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students' performance in national assessments of mathematics at Grades 2, 4, and 6 has been a cause for concern in the Eastern Caribbean. Researchers have called for studies to focus on primary mathematics teachers' pedagogies rather than on laptops and curriculum; however, it is unclear how primary mathematics teachers' pedagogical knowledge influences these student’s achievement. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between primary mathematics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (mathematical knowledge for teaching, quality of instruction, and pedagogical qualifications) and student achievement, measured by national assessment scores in Grenada, controlling for teachers’ age, gender, and experience. …

Strategies For Implementing A Successful Customer Relationship Management System, Samuel Adebayo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Customer relationship management (CRM) software implementation fails in thepackaging industry because of ineffective CRM implementation strategies. Effective strategies for CRM software implementation are essential to CRM managers for improving CRM project success rates. Grounded in Kano’s customer satisfaction theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the strategies CRM managers in the packaging industry used to operate a profitable business. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documents of CRM strategies. Participants were four CRM managers located in Illinois who had a minimum of 10 years of successfully managing CRM systems with high success rates. Data …

Microfinance For Smallholder Farmers: The Lived Experience Of Borrowers In Akaki, Ethiopia, Amsalu Alemayehu Gutema

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Microfinance was intended to help smallholder farmers (SHFs), but the results have been disastrous for some individuals who have been unable to repay loans, often displacing them from their land. A lack of understanding of the lived experiences of borrowers complicates a full analysis of microfinance as a tool for poverty alleviation. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of SHF borrowers in Akaki District, Ethiopia, related to microfinance loan repayment decisions. Habermas's critical social theory, which divides the social world into lifeworld and system, was the conceptual framework for the study. The …

Relationship Between Cultural And Religious Practices And Ebola Virus In Freetown, Sierra Leone, Richmond Samuel Kpange

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in the West Coast of Africa was a historically unprecedented epidemic with a sustained spread in multiple West African nations, including Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified Sierra Leone as a high Ebola-affected country as it reported the highest number of deaths (14,124) during the last Ebola outbreak compared to other Ebola-affected countries. Public health experts have given little attention to the impact of sociocultural factors on infectious diseases, especially Ebola. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether there is a relationship between the spread of EVD and a patient’s gender, …

Mss0495. Vertical Files Finding Aid

Special Collections Finding Aids

The collection is composed of items collected by Special Collections on a wide variety of subjects including clippings, brochures, booklets, pamphlets and other publications.

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Metal Discovery By Highly Sensitive Microwave Multi-Band Metamaterial-Inspired Sensors, Ghaleb Al-Duhni, Nantakan Wongkasem

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A simple, compact, contactless, and high sensitivity metamaterial-inspired sensor has been developed to detect and classify precious transition metals in the S- and C-band regime, using reflection coefficients. A multi-band metamaterial, quadruple concentric circular split ring resonator, is specifically designed as a sensing enhancer, where the additional bands can effectively trigger the electromagnetic properties, as well as enhance the differentiation between the testing metal samples. The proposed sensor was tested on precious transition metals, silver, platinum, and gold thin slabs of various thicknesses, from 0.5 µm to 3 mm. Five resonances were established in the frequency range of 2–8 GHz. …

Future Solutions To Improve Comfort During Radiotherapy: Patient & Radiation Therapist Interviews, S Goldsworthy, S Palmer, J Latour, H Mcnair, M Cramp

School of Nursing and Midwifery

No abstract provided.

Reducing Energy Demand In China And The United Kingdom: The Importance Of Energy Literacy, D. R.E. Cotton, J. Zhai, W. Miller, L. Dalla Valle, J. Winter

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

As the impacts of climate change become increasingly visible across the globe, awareness of the need for cleaner energy and demand reduction is growing. Energy literacy offers a strong potential for explaining and predicting energy-related behaviours, yet research and policies focused on this topic remain limited. In this study, energy literacy was measured in a sample of 2806 university students in the United Kingdom and China, in addition to their wider environmental attitudes using the New Ecological Paradigm scale. Findings indicate that energy literacy was relatively high overall, but there were significant differences between the knowledge, attitudes and behavioural intentions …

A Novel Method Based On Long Short Term Memory Network And Discrete-Time Zeroing Neural Algorithm For Upper-Limb Continuous Estimation Using Semg Signals, Yuanyuan Chai, Keping Liu, Chunxu Li, Zhongbo Sun, Long Jin, Tian Shi

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In this paper, a novel closed-loop model based on surface electromyography (sEMG) comprised a long short term memory (LSTM) network and discrete-time zeroing neural algorithm called zeroing neural network (ZNN), which is developed to estimate joint angles and angular velocities of human upper limb with joint damping. The dynamic model of human upper limb with joint damping is set up as the initial equation. Then, the LSTM network is proposed as an open-loop model which described the input-output relationship between the sEMG signals and joint motion intention. Besides, a novel closed-loop model is built via ZNN for eliminating the predicted …

On Keystroke Pattern Variability In Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, I Kuzminykh, B Ghita, A Silonosov

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Cyber Ranges In The Maritime Context: Assessing Maritime-Cyber Risks, Raising Awareness, And Providing Training, Kimberly Tam, Kemedi Moara-Nkwe, Kevin D. Jones

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

A good defensive strategy against evolving cyber threats and cybercrimes is to raise awareness and use that awareness to prepare technical mitigation and human defense strategies. A prime way to do this is through training. While there are already many sectors employing this strategy (e.g., space, smart buildings, business IT), the maritime sector has yet to take advantage of the available cyber-range technology to assess cyber risks and create appropriate training to meet those risks. Cyber security training can come in 2 forms; the first is so security professionals can raise their awareness on the latest and most urgent issues …

The Effectiveness Of Partially Protected Marine Areas For Ecosystem Based Management, Bede Ffinian Rowe Davies

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The oceans provide highly important benefits to humans, ranging from sustenance and travel to livelihoods and spiritual wellbeing to climate stabilisation. Yet, globally the use of the marine environment has been unsustainable with extensive pressure being applied either directly or indirectly. This has led to the degradation of almost all marine ecosystems, with no system considered pristine from the depths of the Marianas trench to the inshore seas.Destabilisation of the ocean systems is jeopardising their ability to slow down the effects of climate change. This destabilisation is being driven in part by unsustainable and destructive human practises, such as: overfishing, …

Drivers And Dynamics Of Commercial Coral-Reef Fisheries Footprint Expansions And Implications For Stocks, Ecosystems, And Societies, Javier Cuetos Bueno

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Coral-reef fisheries have provided food security and recreation for societies across the tropics for countless generations, and are also estimated to provide nearly $6 billion USD in net benefits to the world annually while supporting the livelihood of over 6 million fishers and their families. Yet, unsustainable fisheries regimes with ensuing impacts to coral-reefs and societies that depend on them have been reported over the last decades across most tropical regions. Alongside, management frameworks continue to struggle to ensure sustainable fishing regimes in the face of limited evidence-based guidance and the prevalent context of limited capacity and resources. This thesis …

Deep-Sea Discovery - Mining Marine Environments For Novel Biologics., Poppy Jessica Hesketh-Best

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Global antimicrobial resistance will change the face of modern medicine, and the discovery of novel antimicrobials is one of the many solutions to this challenge. Furthermore, expanding antimicrobial natural product discovery to poorly explored ecological habitats may lead to the identification of novel compounds. In this body of work, deep-sea sponges are investigated as a source for bacterially derived antibiotics. Both cultivation dependent and independent strategies were employed to isolate and identify promising bacterial candidates, in addition to further understanding the sponge host microbiome. Pheronema carpenteri was identified during cultivation efforts as a sponge from which multiple active bacterial strains …

Do Abiotic Environmental Drivers Disrupt The Biotic Response Of Marine Larvae?, Stanley Butt

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Phenotypic plasticity, the ability of a given genotype to express different phenotypes in response to altered environmental conditions has been identified as a means by which organisms may be able to cope with environmental change. While significant progress has been made in the study of phenotypic plasticity in response to both individual and combined abiotic environmental drivers, very few studies have investigated the effects of abiotic and biotic drivers in combination. In this thesis, I investigate the combined effects of increased temperature (15 °C versus 20 °C) and the presence of predation threat in the form of predatory kairomones (skin …

Generation Of A Conjoint Surface Plasmon By An Infrared Nano‐Antenna Array, T Allsop, C Mou, R Neal, V Kundrát, C Wang, K Kalli, D Webb, X Liu, P Davey, P Culverhouse, Ania-Castañón J Diego

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Localized surface plasmons (LSP) excited by optical fields have many potential applications resulting from their ability in detecting ultra-small, ambient refractive index change. Current methods using surface nano-patterning by means of lithography have given rise to LSP of limited propagation and interaction lengths, meaning that practical applications remain challenging. This article describes a new all-optical method of generating LSP by means of a carefully fabricated low-dimensional nano-structured material using a direct-write photochemical lithography. It is shown that the resulting array of localized SPs combine or “Conjoin” to have an unprecedented large interaction length, via coupled evanescent fields, giving rise to …

A Review Of Bast Fibres And Their Composites: Part 4 ~ Organisms And Enzyme Processes, John Summerscales

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Distribution Ecology Of The Harpy Eagle: Spatial Patterns And Processes To Direct Conservation Planning, Luke James Sutton

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Accurately demarcating species distributions has long been at the core of ecology. Yet our understanding of the factors limiting species range limits is incomplete, especially for tropical species. Human-driven threats to the survival of many taxa are increasing, particularly habitat loss and climate change. Identifying distributional range limits of at-risk species can thus inform spatial conservation planning to mitigate these threats. The harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a large raptor distributed across Neotropical lowland forests, from southern Mexico to northern Argentina, currently threatened by habitat loss and persecution. Coupled with climate change, harpy eagle distribution may contract or shift leading …

The Role Of Environmental Temperature In Immunocompetence And Disease Susceptibility In Bivalves, George Mason

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Disease outbreaks and mass mortality events affecting marine species and ecosystems during periods of high temperature have increased in frequency and intensity over the past several decades. Accordingly, understanding the causes of such thermally-induced outbreaks is increasingly important, particularly in the context of global climate change and predictions of increased pathogen prevalence and disease incidence. Whilst our understanding of immune functions and their adequate energetic provisioning for disease resistance is well developed, little is known on how temperature affects immunological and energetic status in bivalves. Furthermore, even less is known on the potential combined effects between thermal and pathogenic stressors …

Disentangling The Roles Of Social And Physical Environment In Driving Reproductive Plasticity, Emily Rose Churchill

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Resource patchiness results in spatially fluctuating population densities and thus variable levels of competition. If different traits are favoured in different population densities, individuals should adjust their physiology and behaviour in response, to maximise their fitness. In this thesis I manipulate resource distributions to investigate the implications this has on the social environment, and the sex differences in subsequent reproductive responses. Under high levels of perceived sperm competition, male Drosophila melanogaster will lengthen copulation durations. Despite this being a well established responses, little is known about the biological mechanism that facilitates this behaviour, as most of the studies that have …