Planning And Implementing A Large-Scale Covid-19 Vaccination Clinic Recommendations, Reflections And Lessons Learned & A Guide For Maine Communities, Melissa Fochesato

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

In November 2020, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) requested assistance from Maine hospitals to dispense COVID-19 vaccines. Mid Coast Hospital became a point of dispensing for Sagadahoc and Northern Cumberland Counties. Mid Coast Hospital became a MaineHealth member in January 2021, and benefitted from policies, procedures, and support of the larger MaineHealth system but did not adopt the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system used by MaineHealth to schedule appointments, register patients and document vaccination until November 2021. The inability to use the EMR system required and allowed Mid Coast Hospital to make adaptations to the …

Running Head: Increasing Access To Telehealth Services In Maines Healthcare System, Kaylee Leclerc

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Telehealth is an effective method of communicating and visiting with your healthcare provider along with other redundant use of medical and professionals. Telehealth has become increasingly prevalent in the United States healthcare system over the past couple of years, particularly during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019) (CDC) telehealth is “the application of electronic information and telecommunication technologies in support of and promotion of long-distance clinical healthcare and professional education in healthcare” (Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), 2020). A key component of reforming the U.S. healthcare system is the use of telehealth to improve …

The Association Between Chronic Diseases And Cigarettes' Smoking In Maine 2013-2017, Ishmael Thadal

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Tobacco use and chronic disease have a well-established relationship. Tobacco has a direct causal link to cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, and diabetes, among other chronic conditions (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). The relationship between chronic diseases named in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and tobacco use calls for further analysis, but some studies have already defined the parameters of such relationships. In a recent meta-analysis, Rodrick et al. (2019) quantified the global prevalence of tobacco use in patients diagnosed with diabetes and found that 1 in 5 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were …

Comparing Maine Maternal Health Characteristics To The Us Average, Laciann Gilblair

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Maternal health characteristics are commonly discussed topics in communities. Although some may not know exactly how in-depth data is collected on women that give birth, these characteristics are still discussed in education, healthcare, socially, and in the media. With each state collecting their own data on these characteristics, a large portion are depicted collectively, as a ‘national average’. One of the most common characteristics is mortality of both the mother and the infant. This Capstone project will dive deeper into maternal characteristics and highlighting specific data to broaden the scope of commonly discussed maternal health characteristics. It will also dive …

In The Well A Social Media Communication Pilot To Engage And Educate The Public On Health Care Systems And Policies, Debra Dunlap

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The purpose of this capstone project was to engage the general public to think and learn about health care systems and the policies and public opinions that influence them. The project developed a method of public engagement and education by establishing a new social media blog titled In the Well, and piloting four posts and companion recordings. A brief impact study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of this communication method, and to answer the key question: are the project’s social media posts an effective method for engaging and educating people to think about health care systems and policies?

No Pass Zone: A Quality Improvement Project, Casey St. John

DNP Projects

Introduction: Patient call-bell lights are a means for communication from a hospitalized patient's room to staff members. This DNP project involves staff and patients on a 28-bed pediatric medical-surgical unit. The aim was to implement a No pass Zone for patient call bell lights. Additionally, this project served to aid in increasing staff responsiveness to answer patients' questions and concerns.

Methods: Staff completed a Cornerstone education on the No Pass Zone. Data was collected from pre/post-implementation staff surveys and pre/post-implementation Press Ganey scores. Weekly staff audits on direct observation of staff response to patients' call-bell lights.

Results: A total of …

Improving The Quality Of Burn Care Through Implementation Of The American Burn Association Competencies, Laura Ritter

DNP Projects

Background and Significance: Specialty certification is an important method to demonstrate that nurses possess training, expert knowledge, and skill in a specialty field. The American Burn Association (ABA) and the Burn Nurse Competency Initiative (BNCI) developed 11 competencies that specify the training, expert knowledge, and skills that nurses require for all aspects of burn nursing practice. The ABA and Board of Certification of Emergency Nurses are in the process of developing a burn certification for nurses. They suggest that all burn units begin to adopt these competencies to ensure consistent and competent care.

Purpose: To adopt the ABA …

Evaluating The Use Of A Mobile App In High School Seniors To Monitor Cellphone Use While Driving: A Quality Improvement Project, Kristen Mankus

DNP Projects

Background: Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in teenagers in the United States. Driver distraction is responsible for more than 58% of teen crashes. Evidence from 9 critically appraised articles including two systematic reviews support the need to reduce distracted driving among teenagers; mobile applications along with education can impact behavioral change to encourage teens to refrain from this unsafe practice.

Purpose: The use of the mobile application “Safe2Save” that financially rewards users for not unlocking their cellphone while driving may motivate teenagers to reduce this high-risk behavior. The global aim for this project is …

The Character Of Jury Exclusion, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Encounters with the legal system are unevenly distributed throughout the American population, with Black and poor citizens targeted as disparate subjects of surveillance, arrest, and criminal conviction. At the same time, these encounters, as well as a stated belief in the unfairness of the legal system, are commonly viewed as legitimate grounds for excusal from jury service. This follows from an understanding of juror bias that assumes that people with negative experiences with legal actors—police and prosecutors, for example—will be less likely to trust and more likely to discount the contributions of those actors within the context of the jury …

Multiple Intelligence Theory Activities In The Middle School English As A Second Language (Esl) Classroom And The Impact On Student Perception And Engagement, Allison M. Horner

International Graduate Program for Educators Master's Projects

In 1983, Howard Gardner published his Theory of Multiple Intelligences and detailed seven distinct intelligence areas. He extended his theory into the classroom and asserted that every student has their own unique gifts and talents which they bring to the classroom. Despite these contributions to pedagogy, schools continue to mainly focus on teaching curriculum standards concerned with matriculating pupils to the next grade level or getting them ready for the next standardized test.

Authentic educational experiences accommodated to student needs are infrequently used in the modern classroom. Educational institutions largely cater to verbal-linguistic and mathematical intelligence profiles, despite many students …

Can Listening And Performing Music Reduce Stress In The Classroom During The Pandemic?, Francisco Moreno Jr.

International Graduate Program for Educators Master's Projects

This research searches into the questions of whether listening and performing music can have an impact on stress during the pandemic. Over 200 participants were in this study and most of the students were attending the American School Foundation in grades 2 and 3. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected to show sentiment of how music affected the moral and reduced stress in both the homeroom classroom and music classroom. Findings through the data proved to be proved to be show a trend of a general sentiment of happiness when performing music. Overall, this study could serve as a …

Examining The Experiences That Motivate High School Students To Read For Leisure, Umair Farooq

International Graduate Program for Educators Master's Projects

In my role as a high school principal, I feel that reading is an essential tool for gaining a better grasp of the world around us and enhancing one's academic skills. As is the case with many others in my area, and before starting this research, I was worried about the decline in motivation to read for leisure that generally begins in the high school years (Brozo et al., 2014). Students' enjoyment of reading can be stifled by schools' use of forced reading practices, the selection of texts that do not match their identity, and a lack of knowledge of …

The Correlation Between Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness, And Phonics Skills And Effective Readers In First Grade., Olivia N. Didio

International Graduate Program for Educators Master's Projects

The purpose of this study was to get insight related to the literacy instruction and the connection between phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics for fluent reading. The research includes examinations of students' prior knowledge of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics decoding skills, along with their ability to read grade level text. Students received daily instruction in literacy through modified Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study in reading, writing, and phonics. Some adaptations and supplemental resources were used to support this curriculum. As the data was collected the instructor made adjustments to the instruction to fill gaps in phonological awareness, …

The Impact On Student Learning Outcomes And Mastery Of The Unit When Guided Feedback Is Added To The Instructional Design, Majida Timimi

International Graduate Program for Educators Master's Projects

Providing feedback after an assessment is a method used to communicate to students that the desired learning outcomes of a unit taught have been met or not. Typically, feedback provided to students is brief and not integrated in the lesson plan. With the disruption that COVID-19 pandemic brought to teaching and learning in educational institutions during the 2020-2021 academic year, there was a gap in the learning outcomes being met by the majority of the students. In this Action Research, I investigated the role feedback had in achieving the desired learning outcomes and mastery of the unit by integrating Guided …

Recipe For Good: Analyzing The Authenticity Of Csr Commitments Among The Leadership Of A Parent Company To Global Restaurant Brands., Lauren E. Reuss

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of private self-regulation conducted by businesses; CSR aims to contribute to societal goals of philanthropy, activism, and ethics by improving society, policy, and or the environment. Corporate social responsibility is becoming a greater aspect of modern business, but as it becomes part of the modern discourse, it is right to question whether its efforts are authentic to those driving these initiatives? This case study seeks to understand how the leadership within the parent company of a global foods brand depicts authenticity and communicates its social and environmental efforts to stakeholders. Building on existing …

The Impact Of Political Systems On Addiction Policy In Industrialized Democracies., Lexi Renee Raikes

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Drug use is a global problem that impacts every country around the world. Although this issue is international in nature, there is no one shared response to addiction globally. The approach utilized by each country can generally be characterized as punitive or rehabilitative. Rehabilitative approaches, which center around the employment of harm reduction services, focus on reducing the negative consequences of drug use, while punitive approaches respond to substance use with prison sentences. Considering this lack of commonality in response, I sought to better understand potential causes for this disparity and was especially curious if government structure impacts the policy …

An Evaluation Of Covid-19 Vaccination Rates Of The Patients At The Kentucky Racing Health Services Center., Aditya Mehta

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

COVID-19 vaccines have been widely available to the U.S. public since early 2021. However, vaccination rates still vary considerably across geographical areas and different populations. The objective of this study was to research overall vaccination rates against COVID-19 for Latinx patients at the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center (KRHSC). Vaccination and booster data was collected from June to December 2021 for all unique patients visiting the center. It was initially hypothesized that these rates of vaccination and booster doses for the KRHSC patients would be lower than the data reported by Kentucky and Jefferson County. After a retrospective review, the …

Influences Of Drosophila Circadian Clock On Sugar-Mediated Physiological Changes, Erica E Hassoun

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

It is widely known that high sugar consumption and poor sleep are detrimental to human health. Both are risk factors for obesity, which can lead to conditions such as heart disease. Despite this connection between sugar and sleep, little is known about how circadian clock dysfunction affects the physiological changes caused by increased sugar consumption. In this thesis, a mutant line of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster (Clk^Jrk, which contains a nonfunctional circadian rhythm gene known as Clk) that leads to circadian dysfunction, was exposed to a high sugar diet to observe how Clk affects sugar-related changes to …

Greetings From Eureka!: A Story Quartet And Critical Afterword., Roman Sauls

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This project details the narrative decisions made within a quarter of my own stories, with special attention paid to cross-story relationships, the dynamics of linked short story collections, and the elements of craft I have honed while at the University of Louisville. The nature of narrative structure and narrative time is discussed in the first story; the crafting of dialogue and the narrative texture conjured from that dialogue in the second; the interaction between a character's psychology and a story's setting in the third; and the relevance of both sensorial and visual motifs in the fourth. This thesis also discusses …

Using Fluorescent Microscopy To Follow Mitochondrial Inheritance Through Tagged Alternative Oxidase In Sporisorium Reilianum., Luke Schroeder

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Sporisorium reilianum is a dimorphic fungus that inhabits and infects a host corn plant (Zea mays). In order for the fungus to reproduce sexually, compatible haploid mating types must form a dikaryon that goes on to cause infection in the host. This infection causes leaf chlorosis and gall formation, while ultimately allowing for the dispersal of fungal teliospores in the later stages of infection. To grow, the fungus requires energy production in the form of ATP from its mitochondria. As a countermeasure to infection, host plants release harsh reactive oxygen species that may damage DNA, lead to apoptosis, …

Early Mathematical Abilities Of 48-Month-Old Children With Williams Syndrome., Jenna N. Tinnell

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder associated with relative strengths in concrete vocabulary, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal short-term memory and considerable weaknesses in visuospatial construction and relational language. While the cognitive profile of WS has been studied extensively, there have been few studies of the early mathematical abilities of children with WS and the cognitive predictors of these abilities. The purpose of this study was to describe the early mathematical abilities of 48-month-olds with WS and determine the concurrent cognitive predictors of these abilities. The Differential Ability Scales–second edition (DAS-II) was used to determine cognitive and mathematical abilities …

Evaluating Sex-Dependent Changes In The Gut Microbiome Caused By Polychlorinated Biphenyl (Pcb) Exposure., Zayna Qaissi

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants that have been associated with fatty liver disease, cardiovascular diseases, and other metabolic dysfunctions. Our laboratory group previously demonstrated that exposures to PCBs led to sex-dependent liver outcomes with female mice showing higher susceptibility to PCB- induced liver toxicity. Some of the underlying mechanisms driving these sex-dependent outcomes that were identified included PCB-modulated endocrine disruption. However, the PCB effects on the gut microbiome and the gut liver axis have not been investigated. Therefore, the objective of the current study is to identify PCB-induced changes in the gut microbiome and identify if this could …

The Madwoman In The Refrigerator And A Song Of Ice And Fire., Alex Herm

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

There is an existing trope in the fantasy genre I call the madwoman in the refrigerator—in which a female character is killed, maimed, raped, depowered, and/or made to go mad or insane when she is no longer able to uphold the conventional genre expectations of her role in the narrative, such as the angel, monster, or angelic monster. It is a combination of the theory from Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that women are demure angels when they are fulfilling stereotypical feminine roles in a narrative and when desire or agency is found, the woman is a monster, portrayed as …

What's Your Research Personality? A New Way Of Engaging Students In Resource And Service Discovery Through A Homegrown Quiz App, Troy Walker, Veronica Bielat

Library Scholarly Publications

How can libraries push resource and service information to students in engaging ways? Influenced by social media personality quizzes, we designed a questionnaire-style app that uses learning preferences and personality traits to connect students with the library resources they need most. This LOEX 2022 session will demonstrate how libraries can use innovative approaches with their existing resources to draw students in. We will use our Research Personality Quiz as a starting point to discuss design approaches for similar projects and explore the technical challenges that may be encountered (and overcome) in creating and launching similar types of quiz apps.

Participants …

Broadband Access: Assessing The Digital Divide In East Texas, Manuel Reyes-Loya, Marilyn Young, Joshua Menhennett

Hibbs Newsletter

It is widely known that different individuals have different access to broadband and technology based on their geographic location, which is frequently called “the digital divide”. Broadband is the access to high-speed internet that is alwayson and faster than dial-up access; this can include fiber, wireless, digital subscriber line (DSL), satellite or cable.1 Broadband access does not mean that the homes have completely adopted a broadband service program, but that if they were looking to adopt or purchase a program, it would be available to them. Whereas a household who has a subscription has access to broadband technology, decided to …

The Labor Of Mary: A Comparative Analysis Of The Virgin Birth In The Qur’An And The Gospels, Jessica Leu

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

Mary has been called a bridge between Christians and Muslims for centuries. Both religions revere her as the mother of Jesus (Isa) and for her status as a virgin when she conceived him, and both traditions have within them devotees who venerate Mary. But despite this shared adoration for the blessed mother, there are a variety of differences between their understanding of Mary’s role in salvation and of her virginity. While the New Testament Gospels make some mention of Mary in their texts, the Qur’an dedicates an entire surah (chapter) to her story and mentions her with more frequency than …

Synthesis Of Allylic Synthons And Application Of Pyrrole Thiocarboxylic Acids In The Synthesis Of Pyrrole-Imidazole Alkaloids, Olatunji Seyi Ojo

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The first part of this dissertation describes the synthesis of allylic compounds from terminal alkenes without the use of any catalysts or oxidants. One of the most versatile molecules in organic chemistry is allylic compounds. Their importance arises from their miscellaneous reactivity which makes them attractive to organic chemists. They are found in several molecules that have medicinal and synthetic utilities. The preparations of allylic compounds have been majorly through transition metal catalyzed process. The second part describes the formation of pyrrole-carboxamide in pyrrole-imidazole alkaloids. Pyrroleimidazole alkaloids have gained attention of synthetic chemists due to their potential therapeutical applications and …

The Usefulness Of Yoga Towards Interconnected Environmental Liberation, Gayatri Sehgal

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

There are a great number of interpretations of the term Yoga today, often being an elusive term. Yet we must recognize the importance of questioning which interpretation can provide us with a clear lens into its meaning, given the legacy of colonialism which has warped our understanding of it. Yoga has a great deal to offer us, and some of its imperative offerings for us today are its ethical principles, particularly the dissolution between the opposition of self and other. This paper employs the principles of nonviolence, non-stealing, and moderation from the yamas (external ethics) of Patanjali’s eight-fold path, as …

Visionary Account Of Purgatory, Alexandra Paradzick

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

This paper is a recreation of a visionary journey that was popular around the 14th century, with the protagonist specifically travelling to the realm of Purgatory. The story has the same tropes as other stories in their genre. Specifically, the protagonist is not fully dead when they enter the realm, they are explained the “rules” of this realm by an angelic guide, they witness others suffering before suffering themselves, and are then sent back to the physical world affected by their journey. The story itself is a tool to show how the living and the dead were linked, with prayers …

Biting Time: Stories Reflecting A Changing Horror Genre, Landon Mckay

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

The horror genre is one of the most versatile forms of literature. Over the last two and a half centuries, horror writers have altered tropes to appeal to certain audiences, utilize different themes, and adhere to current writing trends. “Biting Time: Stories Reflecting a Changing Horror Genre” consists of four short stories that reflect horror tropes of different time periods. From the psychological horror of Edgar Allen Poe to Lovecraftian fear of the cosmos to comedic relief seen in horror cinema, these stories draw attention to the multifaceted nature of the horror genre.