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Phyto-Remediation: A Nature-Based Solution Against Poor Air Quality
Full text linkWildfires, escalating in intensity each year, have plunged California into a crisis of
indoor air quality, particularly during the wildfire season. This thesis dives into a potential
solution: the use of exterior green walls as a respiratory system, employing phytoremediation.
Phytoremediation harnesses the plant's natural ability to cleanse soil, water, and air of
contaminants. The prevalence of heavy smoke, composed with particulate matter 2.5, from these increasingly fierce fires poses a significant health risk in California. This research advocates for a plant-based biological filtration system as a promising alternative to conventional methods
Benefiting Youth and the Natural Environment: Integration of Biophilic Design in a Youth Center
Full text linkThis thesis will entertain the idea of integrating biophilic design principles into a youth
center. First there is a discussion of biophilic design, community centers, and youth centers with
the intent to understand what they are and the benefits of each. Seven case studies are examined next to provide examples of how biophilic design has been applied to community centers, youth centers, and preschools. The design of a youth center that uses biophilic design principles to foster a relationship with children and nature is presented as a solution. The created youth center is titled Elk River Community Center. There is a detailed description of the youth center along with plans and renderings that show Elk River Community Center. Lastly, steps that could make the youth center even more integrated with nature are stated
The Future of Our Future: Designing Early Education for All
Full text link?Disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right
of individuals to participate in or contribute to society? (?About IDEA,? n.d.). Starting from a
young age, children strive to be wanted, accepted and included. Elementary schools serve as a
launching pad for the rest of everyone's lives. Making sure students, in all capacities, are thought of from the beginning is crucial to successful design.
Often, students with learning disabilities are sent to different rooms with different
teachers to learn at different rates. What if there was a way to keep all students together and give them equal opportunities? Students with physical disabilities might be given different resources in certain classes because they ?cannot? do specific tasks. What if building design helped all students receive the same resources? No one wants to be isolated. Solving the problem of inclusion can be undertaken by understanding universal design
Automating the design of deep learning models using neural architecture search for medical image classification
Full text linkDesigning Deep Learning (DL) models for medical image classification tasks poses significant challenges, demanding substantial expertise owing to the intricate nature and critical importance of the undertaking. Creating a DL model tailored for such purposes entails iterative processes of designing, implementing, and fine-tuning algorithms to achieve optimal performance. To mitigate these difficulties, Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has risen as a key field to generate the most effective DL models automatically. However, much of the previous studies involving NAS focus on automating the design of DL models for well-established datasets such as CIFAR-10 and ImageNet. This technique should also be extended to medical image datasets where detecting crucial features accurately in medical images is essential to detect specific illnesses correctly. Therefore, in this study, we investigate NAS to autonomously design best performing DL models for skin lesion detection, thereby demonstrating its usefulness for additional medical image classification endeavours
Adolescent obesity pathway: Updating clinical practice guidelines in primary care
No full textObesity has become a public health crisis with the prevalence of pediatric obesity being one in five children in the United States. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and widening social disparities are driving obesity rates up. Preventing obesity in children should be priority but despite our society?s best efforts, children are crossing the BMI threshold and entering an obese BMI range. Advances in medication options are showing promising results for adolescents with obesity when combined with a healthy diet and exercise. Additionally, surgical options are proving to be safe and sustainable options for children 14 years and older.
Clinicians who care for adolescents have received minimal education on treatment guidelines for adolescents with severe obesity. This evidence-based practice improvement project sought to find out if providing education on assessment and treatment of obesity in adolescents and providing a sample of clinical practice guidelines to reflect the 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics practice guidelines would adequately provide knowledge to increase clinician confidence in treating adolescents with obesity. The primary goal of this project was to increase the knowledge of clinicians about effective weight loss treatments for adolescents, including bariatric surgery, increase clinician confidence in treating adolescents with obesity, and decrease weight bias barriers. An education session was presented which comprised of education on reducing weight bias perceptions, treating pediatric obesity with lifestyle changes and medications, and when to refer to bariatric surgery. Of the 40 healthcare providers that attended the education, five clinicians filled out the pre- and post-survey. The surveys included six questions asking about confidence in discussing, assessing, and treating obesity in adolescents, the Beliefs About Obese Persons tool, and three questions to assess the quality and effectiveness of the education as a whole. The education was found to increase clinician?s confidence in bringing up the subject of obesity, formulating a treatment plan, and using professional language. More education is needed to adequately educate clinicians on when an adolescent should be referred to the bariatric surgery clinic. Additionally, the education decreased the participants? belief that an individual is solely responsible for their obesity
A Curriculum of Tobacco and Nicotine Dependence Treatment for DNP Programs: A Summary of Bhattarai's 2023 Practice-Improvement Project
No full textThis tool is a brief summary of Bhattarai?s 2023 practice-
improvement project improving tobacco and nicotine dependence
treatment curriculum in North Dakota State University?s (NDSU)
Doctor of Nursing Practice-Family Nurse Practitioner program. This
tool is intended as a guide for educational institutions or providers to
incorporate into their curriculums to improve provider competencies
and patient outcomes.
Few providers assess, refer, and provide treatment to the patient consistently and effectively. Lack of skills, training, and inadequate knowledge were identified as barriers why providers were not providing regular counseling or pharmacologic intervention. Therefore, incorporating formal tobacco and nicotine treatment education into the curriculum of DNP programs is imperative to curb tobacco epidemic.
After completion of the intervention, significant increases in students? knowledge, confidence, and comfort were observed in helping patients quit, in providing information about cessation medications, programs and services, and in making referrals for tobacco and nicotine dependence treatment
Distribution of paycheck protection program funding during the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThis thesis investigates the distribution of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, focusing on racial disparities in loan allocation and the differential effects on rural businesses. Employing a Cragg-Hurdle regression model, I extend previous methodologies to explore the influence of a community's racial composition on PPP loan distribution, particularly in the previously unexamined third tranche. I also assess the program comprehensively. My results reveal that majority-minority communities, particularly those with a higher Black population share, received drastically more funding in the third tranche compared to earlier rounds. Additionally, I analyze the impact of nontraditional lenders and policy changes introduced by the Biden-Harris Administration, uncovering nuanced variations in loan distribution concerning urban and rural demographics. Ultimately, my findings indicate substantial shifts in racial disparities in PPP loan distribution across the third tranche and the entire program, underscoring the necessity for an updated understanding of this issue in the existing literature
Social Factors in Healthy Aging: Strain as Risk and Support as Resilience
Full text linkSocial factors are an important contributor to the healthy aging of older adults. Previous research has investigated the effects of social strain and social support on older adults? health separately and jointly. However, most previous work was limited to special populations or single time points. The current study examined indicators of social support and strain as predictors of six physical and mental health outcomes among a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling older adults in the United States, above and beyond sociodemographic factors. Changes in the outcomes were investigated with three waves of data spanning a ten-year period. Results from longitudinal multilevel models indicated that social support significantly predicted higher levels of self-rated health; lower levels of negative affect, loneliness, and unhappiness; and a slower decline in loneliness over time. Social strain significantly predicted higher levels of negative affect, loneliness, and unhappiness, as well as increased daily living difficulties over time
Applying a modern situational measure to improve the reliability, validity, and outcome predictability of dream assessment
Full text linkDreams are hallucinatory activity occurring during sleep that nearly everyone experiences. To understand and research dreams, the field needs a reliable and valid dream assessment tool. The current, most used, measure (Hall and Van de Castle measure) has presented with various reliability and validity issues since its development in 1966. I propose adapting the DIAMONDS taxonomy for situational characteristics to assess dream content. The validation process of this adapted measure has begun with foundational work informing the development of dream-specific subscales. In two preliminary studies I provide some evidence for substantive and structural validity of the adapted measure. Interim data analysis (n=53) in a larger study begins to establish its external validity as it relates to the measure?s ability to predict next-day affect. The completion of this study should present some evidence of all phases of the validation process, therefore providing the field with a novel validated dream assessment tool
Development of Novel Environment-Friendly Materials Using Experimental and Computational Methods
No full textThe environmental issues stemming from the production and use of fossil-based and environmentally hazardous materials are of great concern. Therefore, environment-friendly materials need to be pursued which can either be achieved by improving the production and performance of conventional materials or by replacing conventional fossil-based materials with renewable environment-friendly materials.
The first part of this dissertation covered the synthesis and characterization of novel coatings for ice and biofouling release applications. Conventional systems for ice removal are time, energy, and chemical-intensive posing issues related to greenhouse gas emissions, soil and water contamination, and other environmental pollution. Similarly, conventional systems for preventing marine biofouling involve the use of biocide-containing coating which is detrimental to marine ecosystem. The goal here was to develop potentially environment-friendly ice and biofouling release coatings. To achieve this goal, a polyurea-siloxane base coating was synthesized and modified with silicone oils. The first set of coating formulations used different non-reactive silicone oils as additives while the second set of coating formulations grafted different carbinol functional polydimethylsiloxane into the base coating. These coatings were characterized for their surface properties and tested for ice adhesion, interfacial toughness, and a range of laboratory bioassays. They showed low ice adhesion strength and low interfacial toughness making them a promising candidate for ice-shedding applications.
The second part of this dissertation covered the use of sustainability assessment tools such as techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) for different early-stage technologies. TEA and LCA were performed for scaled-up production of lignin-based foam from laboratory scale data to determine its selling price and environmental impacts. Factors contributing to higher cost and environmental impacts along with the potential advantage of lignin-based foam compared to conventional rigid polyurethane foams were discussed. Similarly, LCA was performed for salt hydrate cellulose nanocrystal composites for thermochemical energy storage applications and molten salt biomass torrefaction system to identify environmental impact hotspots from the processes and input raw materials. The results from the analyses suggested potential areas for improvement to reduce the environmental impacts of these new technologies.
Overall, this dissertation contributes to the advancement of eco-friendly and sustainable materials development