Digital Commons Network^™

Veterans Health Administration's Whole Health System Of Care: Supporting The Health, Well-Being, And Resiliency Of Employees, Kavitha P Reddy, Tamara M Schult, Alison M Whitehead, Barbara G Bokhour

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is implementing a Whole Health System (WHS) of care that empowers and equips Veterans to take charge of their health and well-being and live their lives to the fullest, and increasingly leaders recognize the need and value in implementing a similar approach to support the health and well-being of employees. The purpose of this paper is to do the following: 1) provide an overview of the WHS of care in VHA and applicability in addressing employee resiliency; 2) provide a brief history of employee well-being efforts in VHA to date; 3) share new priorities from …

Development Of A Digital Toolkit To Improve Quality Of Life Of Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Jerik Leung, Laura Kloos, Alfred H Kim, Elizabeth A Baker

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this manuscript is to detail development and initial usability testing of an e-toolkit designed to provide skills and knowledge around self-management behaviors for individuals living with systemic lupus erythematosus.

METHODS: Researchers worked with a steering committee of patients and providers to (1) develop a clickable prototype of an e-toolkit and (2) conduct alpha (individuals not affiliated with an academic clinic as patient or provider) and beta (individual patients with systemic lupus erythematosus as well as members of the clinic healthcare team and individuals who work in patient advocacy organizations) usability testing through semistructured interviews.

RESULTS: During …

Immunotherapy As A Treatment Strategy In Advanced Stage And Recurrent Endometrial Cancer: Review Of Current Phase Iii Immunotherapy Clinical Trials, Ramez N Eskander, Matthew A Powell

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The treatment of advanced stage, metastatic or recurrent endometrial cancer remains a clinically difficult scenario. Although combination carboplatin and paclitaxel is an effective standard-of-care regimen, alternate strategies have shown promise, particularly in biomarker select populations. In an effort to improve oncologic outcomes, investigators are exploring novel immunotherapy combinations. In this review, we discuss the clinical rationale and design of current phase III immuno-oncology clinical trials in patients with advanced stage or recurrent endometrial cancer.

Exploring The Experiences Of One Team Of Teachers: Well-Being And Navigating The Demands Of The Education Profession, Abby Weiland

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Much is changing in K-12 education contexts, including an emphasis on performativity and accountability (Au, 2016; Connell, 2009). Against this backdrop, teacher burnout and attrition have been the focus of numerous studies, including examination of organizational structures and factors contributing to burnout (Buckley et al., 2005; Konu et al., 2010). Insufficient attention has been given to how teachers are able to navigate the demands of this profession (Matteucci et al., 2017; Wilcox & Lawson, 2018). Efforts to retain teachers should not only emphasize factors associated with burnout or attrition, but also how they are affected by the systems in place, …

Recommender Systems In Higher Education: The Effectiveness Of Meta-Data Analysis In Predicting Academic Success, Michael J. Holmes

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

A recommender system is: “a software technology that proactively suggests items of interest to users based on their objective behavior or their explicitly stated preferences” (Pu et al., 2011, p. 157).

Whether we realize it or not, much of our lives are influenced by recommender systems. These systems may recommend where we eat, what movie we watch, what music we listen to, what products we buy, or even what news and social media content we see.

Recommender systems have been effectively utilized in higher education to recommend courses as well as customizing content within an online course to meet specific …

Association Between Physical Activity And Stress In A National Cohort Of Undergraduate Students From The Spring 2019 National College Health Assessment Ii, Melissa Lee

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

A national cohort of undergraduate college students who participated in the spring 2019 National College Health Assessment II (NCHA) reported stress as their number one academic impediment. While stressis a complex phenomenon, there is evidence that describes physical activity as a small but significant predictor of stress levels. The dissertation was a correlational study of retrospective, de-identified, secondary data from a national cohort of 43,756 undergraduate students, aged 18-24 who participated in the spring 2019 NCHA. The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between physical activity, including aerobic and strength, and self-reported stress within the cohort. Chi-square …

Relationship Between Electronic Health Literacy, Locus Of Control, Trust In Physicians, Attitudes Towards Providers, And Medication Adherence, Donrie Purcell

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Health literacy is related to a variety of health outcomes, including diseases, quality of life, and even death. Few studies have investigated the relation of e-health literacy to outcomes or the mechanism by which they may be related. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relation of e-health literacy to patients' attitudes toward health care providers, trust in physicians, and medication adherence as well as theextent to which these relations were mediated by locus of control. Data were collected on participants 40 years and older having at least one chronic health condition from the Fostering Literacy for Good …

Job-Related Attitudes And Burnout Amongst Medical Physicists In The United States, Deborah L. Schofield

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In the last forty-five years, burnout has evolved from a psychological fad to a validated syndrome included in both the 10th and 11th editions of the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the prevalence and toll of burnout within the health care sector including within the field of oncology. However, the impact of this syndrome on medical physicists has been largely unevaluated. This dissertation study aims to fill the gap in the literature by examining job-related attitudes and burnout amongst medical physicists in the United States. Themulti-dimensional theory of burnout …

Analysis Of Secondary Data To Determine The Relationship Between Age And Power Toothbrush Use, Kimberly Milleman

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between power toothbrush use and a person's chronological age. Additionally, the relationship between the gingival bleeding index (GBI) scores with relation to manual and electronic toothbrush use based on age group was determined. The Diffusion of Innovation and Social Cognitive theories were used to predict and interpret the study results. After approval was received from the Institutional Review Board at Nova Southeastern University, a retrospective de-identified data set was assembled and analyzed. Secondary data was analyzed to look for a relationship betweenchronological age and power toothbrush use and GBI scores. …

Applying An Ecological Perspective To Interprofessional Education: Attitude Changes In Students Of The Tri-Alliance, Angela M. Cecil

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In spring 2020, three partnering academic programs of the "tri-alliance"—occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology—immediately transitioned from hybrid interprofessional education(IPE) to uniprofessional, online learning experiences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This transition presented opportunity to compare attitude changes and understand student perceptions about interprofessionalcollaboration between two tri-alliance student groups: Case 2018, N = 119 and Case 2020, N = 95. By incorporating the Bioecological Theory of Human Development (BTHD) and the Ecology of Human Performance (EHP), a comparative mixed methods case study merged quantitative results from a natural experiment and qualitative findings from a case study to learn about …

In Silico And In Vitro Tudies For Identification Of Novel Egfr Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors, Duangjai Todsaporn

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been identified as a promising target in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Mutations, including L858R/T790M double and L858R/T790M/C797S triple mutations, in the TK domain of EGFR have been linked to the severity of several cancers, especially NSCLC. A combination of comprehensive molecular modeling and in vitro kinase inhibition assay was used to unravel the mutational effects of EGFR on the susceptibility of five commercial drugs (erlotinib, gefitinib, afatinib, dacomitinib, and osimertinib) from each generation of EGFR in comparison with the wild-type EGFR. The binding affinity of five-FDA-approved drugs towards the L858R/T790M …

Arthropod Fauna Of Plains Pocket Gopher (Geomys Bursarius) Burrow Systems, Brett Lyle Gourley

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Pocket gophers are among the most asocial mammals, living a solitary existence except for mating and the rearing of offspring. They create expansive burrow systems underground while foraging for food and rarely surfacing above ground. As gophers burrow, excess soil is pushed to the surface or placed in older tunnels. This behavior creates a cave-like ecosystem where pocket gophers and associated arthropods live.

Few studies have been done on the arthropod fauna cohabitating with pocket gophers in these burrows. Most of these studies have focused on a family of arthropods over several sites. Many have focused on the southern United …

Financial Literacy On College Campuses And Its Relationship To Student Retention, Completion, And Debt, Jaclyn K. Smith

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study asked Directors of Financial Aid Office at colleges and universities in Iowa to complete a questionnaire and share how they were implementing collaborative financial literacy programs at their institution. The study sought to answer three questions: (1) To what extent are institutions in Iowa working cross-departmentally to incorporate financial literacy into programming on their campus?, (2) What is the connection between cross-departmental financial literacy programming and student graduation and retention?, and (3) How is cross-departmental financial literacy programming reflected in federal student loan data?

The study found that each of the institutions that participated collaborated with at least …

The Zones Of Regulation In Schools, Kyle Andrew-Kelly Wiebers

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Emotion regulation is a concept that has existed within the literature for decades, but the presence of emotion regulation programs in schools is a relatively new concept in research (Durlak et al., 2011). Research suggests that emotional regulation skills are related to improved peer relationships and academic success (Denham & Brown, 2010; Durlak et al., 2011). Students who exhibited well-adjusted, or adaptive, emotion regulation had better peer relationships and were more productive and accurate when completing academic tasks (Denham & Brown, 2010; Dvir et al., 2014; Kim & Cicchetti, 2010; Kim‐Spoon et al., 2013; Lereya et al., 2015). For this …

Front Matter

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

From Critical Self Reflection To Cultivating Equitable Literacy Classrooms: Educators Creating Pd As They Move Forward With Hope, Elisabeth Spinner, Emily Sommer, Naitnaphit C. Limlamai, Anna J. Roseboro, Lynne Lesky, Kim Stein, Rick Kreinbring, Shelley Esman

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Though teaching has felt discouraging at times throughout the past year, this article looks at how a group of educators used a book club to not only maintain a hopeful outlook, but also learn more about antiracist teaching. Their work has benefited not only their personal journeys, but also their classrooms and school districts.

Back Matter

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

3d-Printed Adsorbents For Gas Separations: A Material Development, Kinetic Assessment, And Process Performance Investigation, Shane Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations

“Adsorbent materials are promising for various gas purification processes, however, forming them into structured contactors is paramount in enhancing mass transfer properties and reducing pressure losses. In this research, various adsorbents were engineered into structured contactors with 3D printing. The overall goal of this research was to improve the formulation methods of 3D-printed adsorbents and understand their performances in gas separation processes. The specific objectives were to 1) develop new adsorbent 3D-printing strategies, 2) understand the kinetic properties of printed adsorbent monoliths, and 3) assess their process performances. Objective one was addressed by developing five 3D printing techniques: i) oxide …

Theoretical Study Of Magnetic Particles In A Shear Flow Subjected To A Uniform Magnetic Field, Christopher A. Sobecki

Doctoral Dissertations

"Magnetic manipulation of non-spherical magnetic microparticles is important for applications in shape-based and magnetic-based separations such as waste management, disease diagnostics, drug delivery, and mining. Manipulations of magnetic microparticles also include chain formation to assemble compositions for electronics, drug loading designs, and magnetorheological fluids for smart armor, hydraulic brakes, and dampers. In microfluidic devices, separation-formation-effectiveness depends on the shape of the channel, the shear rate, and the magnetic field strength and direction.

Particle separation and chain formation involved highly complex and computational expense-demanding studies in microfluidic devices, magnetic fields, and particle- particle/wall interactions. This research took complex experimental studies and …

Pdn Modeling For High-Speed Multilayer Pcb Boards And Decap Optimization Using Machine Learning Techniques, Ling Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

"In power distribution networks (PDN), there are two main challenges nowadays. One challenge is how to efficiently model and calculate the impedance for arbitrary-shape and multi-layer PDN systems. The second challenge is the optimization of decoupling capacitors in the pre-layout stage. This dissertation proposes novel solutions to these two challenges. To tackle the first challenge, a boundary element method (BEM) is utilized to calculate the quasi-static inductances between vertical vias for arbitrary-shape planes. Then a specialized circuit solver is developed to solve the equivalent circuit of inductances and capacitances for multi-layer PDN structures. Also, a contour integral method (CIM) is …

Receiver Function Imaging Of The 410 And 660 Km Discontinuities And Seismic Azimuthal Anisotropy Revealed By Shear Wave Splitting Beneath The Australian Continent, Kailun Ba

Doctoral Dissertations

"The Australian continent is composed the of Precambrian cratons in the west and Phanerozolc orogens in the east. Despite numerous seismological studies, controversies remain regarding the structure, evolution, and dynamics of the crust and mantle beneath Australia. In this study, we used two techniques, receiver functions and shear wave splitting analyses, to investigate the topography of the mantle transition zone (MTZ) discontinuities and mantle seismic azimuthal anisotropy, respectively. We utilized P-to-S receiver functions to map the 410 and 660 km discontinuities bordering the MTZ. The discontinuity depths obtained show a systematic apparent uplifting for both discontinuities in central and western …

Gis And Remote Sensing Groundwater Potentiality Investigation Of Gulu District, Uganda Using Synthetic Aperture Radar And Magnetic Geophysics, Rachel Ann Jones

Doctoral Dissertations

“Developing countries have few resources for ground-based hydrological investigations to determine optimal placement of boreholes for community water access. Remote sensing data are available at a variety of resolutions and sense different parameters, and are useful inputs for hydrologic models, but these data are rarely obtainable in developing countries with the parameters or resolutions necessary for hydrologic applications. This research seeks to use and improve existing remote sensing and GIS techniques to identify areas of optimal water supply in locations with limited geologic or hydrologic information, such as Gulu District, Uganda. Fusing different remotely sensed data sets can produce higher …

Improving The Data Quality In Gravitation-Wave Detectors By Mitigating Transient Noise Artifacts, Kentaro Mogushi

Doctoral Dissertations

“The existence of gravitational waves (GWs), small perturbations in spacetime produced by accelerating massive objects was first predicted in 1916 as solutions of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (Einstein, 1916). Detecting and analyzing GWs produced by sources allows us to probe astrophysical phenomena.

The era of GW astronomy began from the first direct detection of the coalescence of a binary black hole in 2015 by the collaboration of the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) (Aasi et al., 2015) and advanced Virgo (Abbott et al., 2016a). Since 2015, LIGO-Virgo detected about 50 confident transient events of GW signals (Abbott et …

Multi-Fidelity Modeling For Aerothermal Analysis Of Deployable Planetary Entry Technologies, Mario J. Santos

Doctoral Dissertations

“NASA is developing deployable entry technologies in the form of the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) and the Adaptable Deployable Entry Technology (ADEPT) vehicles to support human exploration of Mars. To ensure that these technologies are reliable under uncertain entry conditions and extreme aerothermal environments, uncertainty quantification must be integrated into the design process which typically requires large number of high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with prohibitively high computational cost. To address this challenge, construction of multi-fidelity aerothermal response predictions which combine low-fidelity correlations with fewer high-fidelity CFD models in a way that produces highly accurate surrogates with reduced …

Mantle Flow Systems Associated With Slab Subduction And Absolute Plate Motion In Alaska Constrained By Shear Wave Splitting Analyses, Yuchen Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Alaska has long been recognized as a geologically complex region with a sharp contrast in tectonic activity between southern and northern Alaska. While the former is characterized by the subduction of the geometrically varying Pacific-Yakutat plate beneath the North American plate, the latter has a mostly stable cratonic setting. To investigate the mantle flow fields beneath Alaska and understand the influence of the subduction process on regional mantle dynamics, a total of 2790 pairs of well-defined teleseismic shear wave splitting (SWS) measurements recorded from 379 stations are obtained and analyzed. In addition, 247 pairs of SWS results from local earthquake …

Reveal Wind Loading Of Tornadoes And Hurricanes On Civil Structures Towards Hazard-Resistant Design, Ryan Honerkamp

Doctoral Dissertations

"Extreme winds impacting civil structures lead to death and destruction in all regions of the world. Specifically, tornadoes and hurricanes impact communities with severe devastation. On average, 1200 tornadoes occur in the United States every year. Tornadoes occur predominantly in the Central and Southeastern United States, accounting for an annual $1 billion in economic losses, 1500 injuries, and 90 deaths. The Joplin, MO Tornado in 2011 killed 161 people, injured more than 1000, destroyed more than 8000 structures, and caused $2.8 billion of property loss. Hurricanes occur predominantly on the United States East coast regions and along the coast of …

Cooperative Navigation Of Small Satellites In The Deep Space Environment, Jill Christine Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

“The continued development of small satellites (SmallSats) has made them an increasingly viable mission alternative to traditional monolithic spacecraft. Constellations, swarms, and formations of these small spacecraft have the potential to fill unique gaps in the space systems architecture, while reducing overall mission costs and increasing mission redundancy. Cooperative navigation between spacecraft within swarms and formations is critical to mission success, but poses many challenges for SmallSats due to their size, mass, power, and computing constraints. While Earth orbiting missions can rely on GNSS data for high-accuracy inertial and relative navigation, deep space missions require new navigation techniques. In this …

Semi-Empirical Modeling Of Liquid Carbon's Containerless Solidification, Philip C. Chrostoski

Doctoral Dissertations

“Elemental carbon has important structural diversity, ranging from nanotubes through graphite to diamond. Previous studies of micron-size core/rim carbon spheres extracted from primitive meteorites suggest they formed around such stars via the solidification of condensed carbon-vapor droplets, followed by gas-to-solid carbon coating to form the graphite rims. Similar core/rim particles result from the slow cooling of carbon vapor in the lab. The long-range carbon bond-order potential was used to computationally study liquid-like carbon in (1.8 g/cm³) periodic boundary (tiled-cube supercell) and containerless (isolated cluster) settings. Relaxations via conjugate-gradient and simulated-annealing nucleation and growth simulations using molecular dynamics were …

Investigating The Focusing Effect Of Charge Geometry With Computer Simulations, Witness Plates, And High-Speed Videography, Kelly Ray Williams

Doctoral Dissertations

"Scaled distance is used to calculate a safe standoff radius from the detonation of a known mass of an explosive. It has been shown that varying only the geometry of the charge significantly overdrives regions of the blast wave potentially resulting in hazardous overpressure levels at scaled distance safe radii. Pressure transducers are used to measure overpressure surrounding spherical, cylindrical, and cubic charges to determine if bridge waves were formed at the edges between flat sides as seen in published studies of cylindrical charges. In the fireball field a witness plate is used to evaluate radial energy distribution with a …

Cyclic Sequential Adsorption Desorption/Thermal-Catalytic Oxidation Of Volatile Organic Compounds: Material Development, Process Advancement/Improvement, And Numerical Modeling, Simulation And Optimization, Busuyi Ojo Adebayo

Doctoral Dissertations

"Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a group of useful organic chemicals but when emitted have contributed to air pollution. They affect human health, cause environmental degradation and contaminate our waters and soils, so they need to be controlled. When they exist in dilute concentrations, abatement becomes challenging, thus requiring advanced abatement methods, e.g., sequential adsorption desorption/thermal-catalytic oxidation process. The overall goal of this research was to abate dilute streams of VOCs via the process. The specific objectives were to 1) develop novel adsorbent/catalyst dual-function materials (DFMs) for the process, 2) improve the operability of a one-bed-one-column reactor configuration for the …