Digital Commons Network^™

Principles Of Financial Accounting, Steelman Library, Natasha Ware

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Dimensionality Reduction And Nearest Neighbors For Improving Out-Of-Distribution Detection In Medical Image Segmentation, Mais Al Taie, Mohamed Eltaher, Joshua P Yung, Tucker J Netherton, Tiffany L Calderone, Jessica I Sanchez, Darrel W Cleere, Ahmed Elsaiey, Nakul Gupta, David Victor, Laura Beretta, Ankit B Patel, Kristy K Brock

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Clinically deployed deep learning-based segmentation models are known to fail on data outside of their training distributions. While clinicians review the segmentations, these models tend to perform well in most instances, which could exacerbate automation bias. Therefore, detecting out-of-distribution images at inference is critical to warn the clinicians that the model likely failed. This work applied the Mahalanobis distance (MD) post hoc to the bottleneck features of four Swin UNETR and nnU-net models that segmented the liver on T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography. By reducing the dimensions of the bottleneck features with either principal component analysis or uniform …

Fluoxetine And Sertraline Inhibit Height Growth And Growth Hormone Signaling During Puberty, James A Mills, Sridevi Devaraj, Griselda Barba-Villalobos, Jacqueline Nguyen, Jose M Garcia, Stephanie Sisley, Fida Bacha, Babette Zemel

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of fluoxetine and sertraline on height growth and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) during puberty.

Methods: In this 6-month cohort study, electronic medical records were used to identify 8- to 15-year-old participants, within 1 month of starting fluoxetine (n = 39) or sertraline (n = 27), and sexual maturation stages 2 to 4 were confirmed. Conditions that interfere with height growth led to exclusion. Participants underwent anthropometric assessments and phlebotomy. Healthy, unmedicated children (n = 36) also provided anthropometric data.

Results: After the baseline height Z-score, sex, Tanner stage, daily …

The Impact Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Inhibitory Control Among Emerging Adults, Lindsay Zavislak

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) include household dysfunction, abuse, and neglect, which can significantly impact mental, emotional, and physical health. 61% of the US population have experienced at least one ACE, and one in five adults have endured at least three or more ACEs before the age of 18 (Felitti et al., 1998, CDC, 2021). ACEs may also impact cognitive processes such as executive functions, attention, problem-solving, and language (Dye, 2018). Inhibition as an executive function supports self-control and impulse control, which can range from blocking an unwanted thought, to stopping oneself from engaging in a risky, potentially dangerous behavior (Diamond, …

Cognitive Functioning In Well-Controlled Asthma, Erin Walsh

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Asthma is a common lung disease that impacts lung functioning through inflammatory based mechanisms. Past research suggests that decreased blood oxygenation due to asthma attacks may impair cognitive capabilities (Irani et al., 2017). Moreover, the observed differences in cognition between those with and without asthma may be associated with disease severity or asthma control respectively in asthma populations. The current study explored differences in cognitive functioning between college students with and without self-reported asthma. Sociodemographic data, self-reported asthma severity, and measures of asthma control were collected. The current study did not find significant differences in measures of cognitive efficiency between …

Information Impact On Home-Based Palliative Care Admissions, Donna Rugh

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Patients appropriate for Home-Based Palliative Care services are fragile with increased risk for mortality and hospital readmissions. Utilization of Home-Based Palliative Care skilled nursing services have been proven to decrease these risks and improve quality of life. Information deficits negatively impact nurse clinical decision making during the admission process, potentially misguiding the nurse resulting in a non-admission to service. This project focused on the impact of both nurse education and clinical information sharing at admission. Pre and post data was compared to examine the impact of these interventions on non-admissions rates for the reasons of “no skilled need” or “not …

The Impact Of Early Screening For Severe Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome On Delirium Tremens And Hospital Length Of Stay, Erin Lopes

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a prevalent condition and is a leading cause of death for adults aged 20 to 64 (Esser et al., 2022). Patients with AUD who present to acute care hospitals seeking medical treatment are at risk for alcohol withdrawal. Undertreated alcohol withdrawal can progress to delirium tremens, which can result in increased transfers to ICU level of care, increased need for sedative medications, and has been shown to prolong hospital length of stay. Early screening with the validated Predictors of Alcohol Withdrawal Severity Scale (PAWSS) tool has been shown to be both reliable and effective for …

Screening For Postpartum Depression In Mothers Whose Newborns Are Admitted To The Nicu: A Quality Improvement Project, Megan Mustachio

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Women whose newborns are admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are at an increased risk to experience feelings associated with Post-partum Depression (PPD) than women whose newborns are not. The screening of this population is imperative for early identification and dissemination of community resources as a source of early intervention. The purpose of this project is to increase the number of screenings performed on the new mothers at the bedside of their NICU admitted newborn and deliver the screen to the NICU Social Work department for early intervention, and resources. This quality improvement project used a six-week retrospective …

Community Integration Experiences Of Formerly Homeless Persons With Serious Mental Illness (Smi) Housed In Washington Dc Using The Housing First Model, Gwendolyn Harter

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Two interventions which have been successful in housing and maintaining housing for individuals who have serious mental illness and are classified as chronically homeless are the Housing First Model and community integration. Currently existing models of community integration were created using dated information and definitions, created from a medical model and not a social framework. Therefore, this dissertation used a phenomenological approach to define community and whether, by that definition, the participants feel integrated into the community. This included the interviewees’ experiences with Pathways to Housing DC and transitioning from homeless to housings and the Housing First Model.

Outcomes from …

Educators' Experiences Of Childhood Trauma Infiltrating The Classroom: A Mixed Methods Study, Paige Dea

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study investigated the attitudes, perceptions, and understanding of education professionals toward trauma-related behaviors of kindergarten through 12th-grade students in public school districts throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. The purpose of this study was to identify underlying themes surrounding trauma to determine the best training and support options for teachers. Research has investigated teachers’ common perceptions of trauma and their attitudes toward students’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors demonstrated across various educational settings. The study focused on determining teachers’ efforts to support students in developing social-emotional learning skills to manage the behaviors and feelings students develop as a result of …

Optional Depression Screening In College Health, Brittany Schugsta

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Many people living with depression are not receiving treatment. College students are a population particularly affected by depression, which has negative implications for future academic and personal success. U.S. organizations have recommended universal depression screening to identify those in need of treatment, to improve outcomes and minimize depression's effects. Primary care is a key access point for health services, including depression screening and management. Critics of depression screening cite concerns with the recommendation, specifically weak evidence of the overall benefits, potential for overdiagnosis, and overutilization of scarce primary care resources.

The project site is a large southeastern Pennsylvania public research …

Stories Of Dismantling Whiteness In Social Work Educational Spaces, Jeanean Mohr

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Social work and higher education are rooted in systems of racism and exclusion and continue to operate as racialized spaces. As the social work profession grapples with its past and calls upon social work educators to support efforts to undo structural racism, paying attention to what is happening in educational spaces is essential. In this study, I examined the stories and tensions of White Social Work faculty engaged in efforts to dismantle whiteness in their classrooms, departments, and universities. Using narrative inquiry, I interviewed nine White faculty from different universities representing five regions across the United States. I explored their …

To Be Tutored: Exploring How Female-Identifying Undergraduates Experience Tutoring, Samantha Barbara Weiss

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

Tutoring, an academic support offered by colleges to their students, has been shown to increase academic grades (Allen & Chavkin, 2004; Fryer & Howard-Novack, 2020; Nelson-Royes, 2013), improve attitudes toward school (Arco-Tirado, 2020; Elbulok-Charcape et al., 2019; Nadia et al., 2023), and support retention (Primary Research Group, 2020). Some of these benefits can be traced to the individualized attention and flexibility that tutoring offers (Chin et al., 2011; Nadia et al., 2023). However, this research lacks detailed, qualitative data that focuses on how students experience tutoring. In addition to a lack of attention to lived experiences, in general, there is …

Enhancing Commercial Driver Safety Screening For Obstructive Sleep Apnea Through Educational Intervention, Wendy Mortimer

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This quality improvement project aimed to identify if an educational intervention will increase obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) screening in commercial medical drivers over six weeks. Eight healthcare providers certified as commercial medical examiners from a national occupational company in central Pennsylvania engaged in an optional educational poster for two weeks. A pre-and post-educational retrospective chart review was performed on 80 charts, 40 from pre-educational and 40 from post-educational. Each chart was reviewed to determine if the commercial driver was at risk for OSA and, if so, if the commercial medical examiner performed an obstructive sleep apnea screening. The educational intervention …

Pseudomonas Mosselii Improves Cold Tolerance Of Asian Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) In A Genotype-Dependent Manner By Increasing Proline In Japonica And Reduced Glutathione In Indica Varieties, Nasim Maghboli Balasjin, James Maki, Michael Schläppi

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Cold stress is an important factor limiting rice production and distribution. Identifying factors that contribute to cold tolerance in rice is of primary importance. While some plant specific genetic factors involved in cold tolerance have been identified, the role of the rice microbiome remains unexplored. In this study, we evaluated the influence of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) with the ability of phosphate solubilization on rice cold tolerance and survival. To reach this goal, inoculated and uninoculated 2-week-old seedlings were cold stressed and evaluated for survival and other phenotypes such as electrolyte leakage (EL) and necessary elements for cold tolerance. …