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Potential Causes of Stigma Toward Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Hispanic/Latin Community
Get PDFThe goals of this study were to (a) examine if stigma against ASD is predicted by high levels of acculturation, low socioeconomic status, low levels of education, and the lack of intention to seek help from a mental health professional, and (b) examine potential differences between Hispanics and Non-Hispanics on these predictors. I predicted higher levels of acculturation and lower levels of education among Hispanic/Latin individuals than non- Hispanic/Latin individuals, and that mature Hispanic/Latin individuals will have higher levels of acculturation and lower levels of education compared to their younger counterparts.
The data were collected via a Qualtrics survey distributed through social media and SONA, a mechanism at the University of Texas at Tyler that connects students to research. The survey included The Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (ASK-Q; Harrison et al., 2017), the Mental Help Seeking Intention Scale (MHSIS; Hammer & Spiker, 2018), a Likert scale to assess acculturation, and a demographic questionnaire. The results suggest that (a) only acculturation and education predicted stigma toward ASD, (b) Hispanics reported higher levels of acculturation and lower levels of education than non-Hispanics, and (c) mature Hispanics reported higher levels of acculturation and lower levels of education than younger Hispanics. Implications and directions for future research are discussed
Panel Presentation: Research, Innovation, Entrepreneurship in Education Sciences
No full textMichael Barnett, PD - Using Virtual Reality to Improve Neuropsychological Assessment Older Adults
Jo Ann Simmons, PhD - Mental Health and the Growing Needs in K-12
Chris Thomas, PhD - COVID-19 and University Enrollmen
DNP FINAL REPORT: SANE FINDER: A WEB-BASED MOBILE SOLUTION TO IDENTIFY THE LOCATION OF CURRENTLY AVAILABLE SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINERS (SANE) FOR FIRST RESPONDERS
Get PDFSociety views sexual assault as one of the most horrific crimes committed by one human being against another, but the “rescue” has the potential to make the experience even more difficult for the victim, in essence re-traumatizing them (Nugent-Borakove et al., 2006). In the United States in 2018, almost 140,000 victims reported being sexually assaulted (U.S. Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2019). In Texas, over 6 million individuals have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime (Busch-Armendariz et al., 2015). Getting victims to a specially trained sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) as quickly as possible improves outcomes. SANEs provide physical, mental, and emotional care and improve the odds of a successful conviction of the attacker (Clowers, 2018). However, SANE availability is limited for several reasons. There are not enough of them for the number of sexual assaults; not every emergency department (ED) has them; there may not be one on-duty at the closest ED. The SANE Finder app was designed to provide a quick, easy-to-use mobile app that first responders at a sexual assault incident could use to identify the location of an on-duty SANE immediately
DNP Final Report: SKILLED NURSING FACILITY READMISSIONS: AN EVIDENCE-BASED TELEMEDICINE INNOVATION PROJECT
Get PDFBackground: Nationally, 20% of patient readmissions occur within the first 48 hours after arrival to a skilled nurse facility (SNF), and 40-68% of these readmissions are potentially avoidable. Since 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid penalized SNFs when their return to hospital (RTH) percentages was above national benchmarks. The four SNFs in this project experienced rising transfer rates and diminished RTH percentages since 2017, despite using in-house providers Monday through Friday. Furthermore, there was no provision to address patients’ changes in conditions after hours.
Purpose: This evidence-based practice (EBP) project aimed to standardize the care provided to SNF patients with a change of condition, resulting in less traumatic transfers to higher levels of care.
Methods: Using the EBP process, an evidence-based intervention was derived from the synthesized body of evidence. The standardized protocol called Call Us First (CUF) was implemented when a change in resident condition and included a telemedicine (TM) component. Contacting a TM provider enabled real-time care for residents with the expected outcome of reduced transfers to the emergency department (ED) and subsequent reduction of RTH.
Results: Two of the four SNFs met or exceeded the expected reduction in RTH of 4-11%; however, they did not reduce transfers to the ED. Sustainability of Call Us First requires an onsite champion, collaborative presence, and clear communication of the implementation plan. Call Us First has continued as a care standard to help staff nurses reduce transfer trauma, improve patient outcomes, and increase facility reimbursement
EFFICIENT ENERGY HARVESTING WITH APPLICATIONS IN VIBRATION AND IMPLANTABLE BIOSENSORS
Get PDFThe world has stepped into the fourth industrial revolution in many ways such as using the internet of things (IoT) in various applications, and removing the rechargeable power sources seeking for batteryless systems. Since energy is widely abundant around us and it is going to waste, numerous of recent studies have been conducted to propose sustainable solutions to harvest the free ambient power from the surrounding and convert it into electricity. Heat energy, kinetic energy, and radio waves are examples of these potentially harvestable energy sources. Mechanical vibrations represent one of the most plentiful forms of kinetic energy that can be scavenged by different techniques, such as electromagnetic and piezoelectric energy harvesters. As an application, utilizing the human body to harvest energy for wireless autonomous medical applications is under investigation. Therefore, developing safe, efficient, and biologically-compatible energy harvesters to be implanted inside the human body motion is critical to the success of such applications. Triboelectric generators to be installed inside the knee implant in the Total Knee Replacement (TKR) and the hip implant in Total Hip Replacement (THR) for self-powered load monitoring have been proposed.
Duo to the inability of traditional scavenging techniques to generate enough energy from low-frequency ambient vibrations, a frequency up-converter vibration energy harvester is proposed. The harvester converts low-frequency vibrations to high-frequency self-oscillation through a mechanical frequency up-converter using a magnetic coupling, thus providing more efficient energy conversion at low frequencies. The harvester consists of two cantilever beams with tip magnets facing each other at the same polarity. The low-frequency beam is made of polymer, while the high-frequency beam is made of Aluminum. The high-frequency beam is a bimorph fully covered with piezoelectric layers. A lumped parameter of the two degrees of freedom model (2DOF) is utilized to simulate the dynamic behavior and the generated voltage signal. The static response of the resonators shows a threshold distance of 15mm between the two magnets where the system has monostable oscillations above the threshold and bistable oscillations below the threshold. Furthermore, the dynamic behavior of the resonators is investigated at monostable, threshold, and bistable regions for different excitation levels. The harvester’s output voltage at different resistance values is extracted from the model. The frequency up-converter was found to effectively scavenge energy from low-frequency external vibrations by mechanically up-converting the ambient vibrations to high-frequency self-oscillations.
Validating the proposed frequency up-converter experimentally has been done with modifying some of the simulation parameters such as the physical dimensions and converting the high frequency beam (HFB) into a unimorph fully covered with a single piezoelectric layer. The static analysis of the system reveals a threshold distance of 15mm that divides the system into a monostable regime for weak magnetic coupling and a bistable regime for strong magnetic coupling. Hardening and softening behaviors were observed at the low-frequency range for the mono and bistable regimes, respectively. In addition, a combined nonlinear behavior of softening and hardening behaviors was captured for low frequencies at the threshold distance. Furthermore, the proposed system generates voltage showing 100% increment at the threshold compared to the monostable regime. Lowering the separation distance to reach the bistable range, d ≤ 8mm, will increase the generated voltage compared to the voltage generated in the monostable and threshold. The simulated and experimental results were in good agreement. Moreover, the effect of changing the external resistance was investigated, and setting the external resistance to 25MΩ was found to maximize the generated voltage.
To satisfy biomedical implants continuous need for improvement; triboelectric energy harvesters continue to show promising and efficient performance in transferring mechanical energy into electrical energy, making them a prime candidate for biomedical implants. TKR is a widely used surgery worldwide and, more so, in the United States. Therefore, Triboelectric harvester performance in biomedical applications was investigated in TKR. In this study, performance of two new configurations a triboelectric energy harvester in TKR were compared as self-powered implanted sensors for load measurement. The first configuration is a full knee harvester, covering the whole area of the tibial tray. The second configuration consists of two harvesters at the lateral and medial locations. Both configurations are to be fit in the knee implant. Performance of both configurations experimentally was evaluated while subjected to an axial cyclic load applied by a dynamic tester at different frequencies. Also, the lateral and medial generators were tested for load imbalance detection producing promising results. Findings from this study would contribute to the improvement of TKRs by transforming them from passive to smart TKRs using the proposed energy harvesters, which will lead to better health monitoring.
Similarly, Total Hip Replacement (THR) involves a conventional medical implant where many interacting factors could cause patient dissatisfaction, sometimes leading to lengthy and risky procedures based on guesses. Energy harvesting from natural human motion is being investigated to create a reliable source that will power smart implants and monitor performance simultaneously without any replacement or exchanges. A novel Triboelectric Energy Harvester (TEH) design was proposed to retrofit a TEH to the THR implant, making it a smart implant. A custom femoral head was designed to incorporate grooves onto the THR femoral head, maximizing energy production without increasing the overall size of them.
The TEH consists of two Titanium layers separated by a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) insulator. The Finite Element Analysis shows that the mechanical spring maintains the contact separation motion which is the working cycle of the of the TEH for voltage generation. A theoretical model of a single-degree-of-freedom system with piece-wise functions was proposed based on the FEA results to model the contact and release modes and voltage estimations. This study can open the door and lead to new research in load monitoring for total hip replacement
A PLACE IN THIS WORLD: MINORITY NATION-BUILDING IN INTERWAR CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Get PDFAn in-depth analysis of Slovak, German, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Jewish minority struggles with the Czech majority within the First Czechoslovak Republic. Each minority faced their own unique set of issues with both the new government and each other due to long-standing historical grievances. These issues hindered the overall development of the new nation-state and helped usher in the Munich Crisis on the eve of WWII, which effectively ended the short life of the First Republic
Palliative Care in the ICU
Get PDFDeath and dying is an evident part of being admitted to the intensive care unit. However, too many times, the end-of-life conversations and palliative care team introduction are done when it is too late. The PICOT question is “In ICU patients (P), how does early palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (I) compared to later palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (C) affect positive patient outcomes (O) within the ICU hospital stay (T)?” The objective of this change project is to instill a sense of urgency in providing palliative consults upon admission as this is vital to each patient’s well-being
Using Extreme Pedagogy toEnhance Entrepreneurship Education
Get PDFWe address the ongoing concern that entrepreneurship education (EE) is not preparing students sufficiently well for jobs in the 21st-century. We argue that many criticisms leveled against EE for not effectively addressing the entrepreneurial skills gap are due in part to EE’s emphasis on the roles of specific stakeholder groups separately (i.e., universities and their leaders, instructors, students, potential employers) rather than a shared focus on developing valuable graduates. Stated differently, there are competing and conflicting “ownerships” over the entrepreneurial skills gap. We enhance current pedagogical methods by offering a learning innovation called extreme pedagogy. Extreme pedagogy takes place when all stakeholders have a collective intention and ownership in producing graduates with relevant entrepreneurial skills. We describe extreme pedagogy’s conceptual foundation based on psychological ownership theory, the effective of use of extreme ownership in military contexts, and the role of universities and their leaders, instructors, students, and potential employers in the implementation of extreme pedagogy. We then summarize themes from a workshop involving entrepreneurial leaders across industries on EE challenges and the role of extreme pedagogy in addressing them. We close by describing anticipated benefits of extreme pedagogy for all EE stakeholders
Alterations to Sphingomyelin Metabolism Affect Hemostasis and Thrombosis
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Our recent studies suggest that sphingomyelin levels in the plasma membrane influence TF (tissue factor) procoagulant activity. The current study was performed to investigate how alterations to sphingomyelin metabolic pathway would affect TF procoagulant activity and thereby affect hemostatic and thrombotic processes. METHODS: Macrophages and endothelial cells were transfected with specific siRNAs or infected with adenoviral vectors to alter sphingomyelin levels in the membrane. TF activity was measured in factor X activation assay. Saphenous vein incision-induced bleeding and the inferior vena cava ligation-induced flow restriction mouse models were used to evaluate hemostasis and thrombosis, respectively. RESULTS: Overexpression of SMS (sphingomyelin synthase) 1 or SMS2 in human monocyte-derived macrophages suppresses ATP-stimulated TF procoagulant activity, whereas silencing SMS1 or SMS2 increases the basal cell surface TF activity to the same level as of ATP-decrypted TF activity. Consistent with the concept that sphingomyelin metabolism influences TF procoagulant activity, silencing of acid sphingomyelinase or neutral sphingomyelinase 2 or 3 attenuates ATP-induced enhanced TF procoagulant activity in macrophages and endothelial cells. Niemann-Pick disease fibroblasts with a higher concentration of sphingomyelin exhibited lower TF activity compared with wild-type fibroblasts. In vivo studies revealed that LPS+ATP-induced TF activity and thrombin generation were attenuated in ASMase--/-- mice, while their levels were increased in SMS--/--mice. Further studies revealed that acid sphingomyelinase deficiency leads to impaired hemostasis, whereas SMS2 deficiency increases thrombotic risk. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our data indicate that alterations in sphingomyelin metabolism would influence TF procoagulant activity and affect hemostatic and thrombotic processes