UTSA Runner Research Press (Univ. of Texas at San Antonio)
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COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on Nursing Homes Financial Performance
No full textNursing homes expressed concern about potential severe adverse financial outcomes of COVID-19, with worries extending to the possibility of some facilities facing closure. Maintaining a strong financial well-being is crucial, and there were concerns that the pandemic might have significantly impacted both expenses and income. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the financial performance of nursing homes during COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we examined the impact of the pandemic on nursing home operating margins, operating revenue per resident day, and operating cost per resident day. The study utilized secondary data from various sources, including CMS Medicare cost reports, Brown University’s Long Term Care Focus (LTCFocus), CMS Payroll-Based Journal, CMS Care Compare, Area Health Resource File, Provider Relief Fund distribution data, and CDC’s NH COVID-19 public file. The sample consisted of 45 833 nursing home-year observations from 2018 to 2021. Fixed-effects regression analysis was employed to assess the impact of the pandemic on financial performance while controlling for various organizational and market characteristics. The study found that nursing homes’ financial performance deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Operating margins decreased by approximately 4.3%, while operating costs per resident day increased by 17. Occupancy rates, payer mix, and staffing intensity were found to impact financial performance. The study highlights the significant financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing homes. While nursing homes faced substantial financial strains, the findings offered lessons for the future, underscoring the need for nursing homes to improve the accuracy of their cost reports and enhance financial transparency and accountability.Public Healt
Current Progress in the Science of Novel Adjuvant Nano-Vaccine-Induced Protective Immune Responses
No full textVaccinations are vital as they protect us from various illness-causing agents. Despite all the advancements in vaccine-related research, developing improved and safer vaccines against devastating infectious diseases including Ebola, tuberculosis and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) remains a significant challenge. In addition, some of the current human vaccines can cause adverse reactions in some individuals, which limits their use for massive vaccination program. Therefore, it is necessary to design optimal vaccine candidates that can elicit appropriate immune responses but do not induce side effects. Subunit vaccines are relatively safe for the vaccination of humans, but they are unable to trigger an optimal protective immune response without an adjuvant. Although different types of adjuvants have been used for the formulation of vaccines to fight pathogens that have high antigenic diversity, due to the toxicity and safety issues associated with human-specific adjuvants, there are only a few adjuvants that have been approved for the formulation of human vaccines. Recently, nanoparticles (NPs) have gain specific attention and are commonly used as adjuvants for vaccine development as well as for drug delivery due to their excellent immune modulation properties. This review will focus on the current state of adjuvants in vaccine development, the mechanisms of human-compatible adjuvants and future research directions. We hope this review will provide valuable information to discovery novel adjuvants and drug delivery systems for developing novel vaccines and treatments.Molecular Microbiology and Immunolog
ChemAIstry: A Novel Software Tool for Teaching Model Training in K-8 Education
No full textMachine learning (ML) systems are increasingly in use in society. For young learners to be informed citizens and have full career potential it is important for them to understand these concepts. To support this learning, we created "ChemAIstry,'' an interactive software tool for children which demonstrates training and classification in machine learning. Students select which everyday items are safe to bring into a chemistry lab (e.g., a lab coat is safe; pizza is not). These selections serve as training input for a decision tree classifier. After training, students see how the trained model performs in classifying new objects. ChemAIstry was tested with 40 students aged 7 to 14 years at a public K?8 school. The software captured student selections during training. We analyzed these interactions to yield a "Correspondence Score,'' a measure of student understanding of the classification task. We screen-recorded student use of the software and audio-recorded our conversations with them during this use. Our analysis of these data indicates that students were able to understand the concept of model training, including that items were subsequently classified based on their training input. More than half of the student trials indicated that students correctly understood the task. This suggests ChemAIstry was effective in introducing students to these ideas in machine learning. We recommend continued development of related tools for curriculum integration of AI in K-8 education.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant IIS-2112633.Computer Scienc
An Iterative Procurement Combinatorial Auction Mechanism for the Multi-Item, Multi-Sourcing Supplier-Selection and Order-Allocation Problem under a Flexible Bidding Language and Price-Sensitive Demand
No full textThis study addresses the multi-item, multi-sourcing supplier-selection and order-allocation problem. We propose an iterative procurement combinatorial auction mechanism that aims to reveal the suppliers' minimum acceptable selling prices and assign orders optimally. Suppliers use a flexible bidding language to submit procurement bids. The buyer solves a Mixed Integer Non-linear Programming (MINLP) model to determine the winning bids for the current auction iteration. We introduce a buyer's profit-improvement factor that constrains the suppliers to reduce their selling prices in subsequent bids. Moreover, this factor enables the buyer to strike a balance between computational effort and optimality gap. We develop a separate MINLP model for updating the suppliers' bids while satisfying the buyer's profit-improvement constraint. If none of the suppliers can find a feasible solution, the buyer reduces the profit-improvement factor until a pre-determined threshold is reached. A randomly generated numerical example is used to illustrate the proposed mechanism. In this example, the buyer's profit improved by as much as 118% compared to a single-round auction. The experimental results show that the proposed mechanism is most effective in competitive environments with several suppliers and comparable costs. These results reinforce the importance of fostering competition and diversification in a supply chain.Mechanical Engineerin
The Dupatta and the Rod: Two Cases of Femicide in Modern India
No full textFemicide in India is frequently addressed on a systems level at the intersections of caste and gender. Sexual and caste-based violence are persistent problems in modern India, with tens of thousands of new cases reported annually. Prejudicial attitudes have been slow to change and continue to influence authorities? responses to these tragic events. Despite calls from activists and modifications to law, cases of femicide continue to occur unabated, particularly against women from the Dalit class, a historically marginalized group. Using a case study method, this project will do a deep dive into two high profile cases of femicide: the Delhi bus gang rape case of 2012, and the Hathras village gang rape case of 2020. These cases are often linked together in sexual violence discourse despite their strikingly different outcomes. Details of the cases highlight the effects of structural violence, but structural factors alone do not fully explain the different outcomes. Victimhood is not neutral, but it is socially and politically charged. The goal of this thesis is to show how the concept of ?victim? is constructed based on personal details about the victim that are not confined to a systems level like caste and gender, but also on the individual level. The ?Ideal Victim? paradigm provides a lens of analysis to show the impact that unconscious bias and stakeholders have on victims of femicide. Case-specific details, such as the relationship between the victim and perpetrator, can influence the investigation, adjudication, and public perception of the case. A violent sexual attack that appears random, perpetrated by a stranger, is deemed more a threat to public safety than a sexual attack that is perpetrated by a man known to the victim. The case studies show how victims who are deemed the most ?ideal? will not only be more likely to receive justice but will also be powerful enough to spur major social and political change. There is the inverse to this, however, because ?non-ideal? victims will be less likely to receive justice and inspire social and political change.Global Affair
Interactive Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Sport Participation, and Sex on Anxiety and Depression During Adolescence
No full textAdverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are well-documented risk factors for developing mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Sport participation has been identified as a potential protective factor that, by fostering resilience, could mitigate the negative effects of ACEs on mental disorders. Unfortunately, sex differences have been identified, with females generally exhibiting higher rates of anxiety and depression, more ACEs, and lower levels of sport participation. Cross-sectional evidence suggests that sport participation may be particularly influential for adolescent females; however, existing studies have failed to examine how ACEs, sport participation, and sex interact. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to determine if sport participation moderates the relationship between ACEs, and whether these effects vary by sex. This study is a secondary analysis of four cycles of data (2016-2019) from the National Survey of Children’s Health. A total of 47,683 adolescents (49% females) between the ages of 12 to 17 years were included in the sample. Survey-weighted logistic regression models were computed. Significant main effects were found for sex, sport participation, and ACEs exposure. Specifically, females, those who did not participate in sports in the past year, and adolescents with high ACEs had higher odds of depression and anxiety disorders. None of the two- and three-way interactions were significant within the depression and anxiety models, with the exception of significant two-way interactions for sport participation by ACEs and sport iv participation by sex within the depression model. However, the sport participation by ACEs result was in the opposite direction of Hypothesis 1 in that those exposed to high ACEs and participating in sport had the higher odds of depression compared to those who reported low ACEs exposure and did not participate in sports, which may ultimately be a product of Simpson’s Paradox. Collectively, this study suggests that sport may have similar beneficial effects for protecting against depression and anxiety among males and females as well as for those exposed to high or low ACEs. Moving forward, public health strategies should continue promoting increased sport participation as a population-level means to protect against the development of mood disorders during adolescence.Psycholog
Heat Stress Prevention in Construction: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Risk Factors and Control Strategies
No full textIn hot and humid work environments, construction workers can experience heat stress and heat-related illnesses (HRIs). While several studies have investigated engineering and administrative control methods to prevent certain heat stress risk factors, a comprehensive understanding of all existing risk factors and their corresponding control strategies is still lacking. It is crucial to identify gaps in current control strategies and develop a safety management framework for effective heat stress control by implementing existing measures. In addition, the effectiveness of the most common control strategies must be rigorously evaluated to ensure their efficacy and to guide future research aimed at enhancing these strategies or developing more effective ones. This study employed a mixed literature review methodology to address this knowledge gap. A structured literature review investigated and synthesized heat stress risk factors and control methods to find the gaps in control options to address underestimated risk factors. Furthermore, a comprehensive systematic literature review, including trend analysis, scientometric analysis, and meta-analysis, determined research foci and evaluated the effectiveness of the heat stress control methods. The scientometric analysis identified 11 clusters, encompassing key research themes such as environmental risk factors (e.g., high-temperature environments, climate change), administrative controls (e.g., work–rest schedules, climate change risk assessment), and personal interventions (e.g., cooling vests and sleep-related strategies). These findings highlight that the most commonly studied control methods are cooling vests, work–rest schedules, and cooling interventions. According to these results and the availability of quantitative results, the meta-analysis evaluated nine datasets of reductions in core body temperature by using types of cooling vests and anti-heat-stress uniforms and established the significant effectiveness of this control strategy in mitigating heat stress with a medium effect size. Moreover, five potential research studies have been identified to address gaps in control strategies for certain underestimated risk factors, including leveraging sensor technologies, conducting control training, dynamic work–rest schedules, using cutting-edge PPE, and governmental initiatives. Insights gained from this study enhance decision making for resource allocation, selection of control options, and intervention prioritization within a heat-stress-control framework based on the safety management system. The findings also highlight the effectiveness of cooling vests and areas that need to be developed, and evaluate potential heat-stress-control methods in construction.Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Construction Managemen
A Two-Phase and Bi-Level Spatial Configuration Methodology of Shelters Based on a Circular Assignment Model and Evacuation Traffic Flow Allocation
No full textWith the continued recognition of the devastating effects of natural hazards, the construction of shelters has become essential in urban disaster preparedness planning systems. After analyzing the deficiency of the conventional spatial allocation model of shelters and the hierarchy of evacuation assignments, this study proposes a bi-level and two-phase spatial configuration methodology of shelters. The first hierarchy aims to evacuate refugees from demand blocks to both emergency shelters and resident emergency congregate shelters. The second hierarchy aims to transfer refugees from selected shelters in the first hierarchy to resident emergency congregate shelters. Each hierarchy contains two phases of optimizing calculations. The optimization objects for the first phase and second phase are minimizing the number of new shelters and the evacuation time, respectively. A genetic algorithm and exhaustive approach are programmed to determine the solution of the model in the first and second phases, respectively. The evacuation assignment rule is proposed based on the gravity model, which distributes evacuees proportionally to nearby shelters. This study uses the deterministic user equilibrium problem to present the evacuation traffic flow allocation, which improves the scientificity of the location model of shelters. The refuge demands differentiate the population between daytime and nighttime through mobile signaling data and improve the accuracy from the plot scale to the building scale. Using mobile signaling data to differentiate refuge demands between day and night populations enhances the model’s precision. Finally, to validate the proposed methodology, this study selected the main area of Changshu City, Jiangsu Province, China, which has a population of 1.6 million, as a case study area.Architecture and Plannin
Build Issue Resolution from the Perspective of Non-Contributors
No full textOpen-source software (OSS) often needs to be built by roles who are not contributors. Despite the prevalence of build issues experienced by non-contributors, there is a lack of studies on this topic. This paper presents a study aimed at understanding the symptoms and causes of build issues experienced by non-contributors. The findings highlight certain build issues that are challenging to resolve and underscore the importance of understanding non-contributors' behavior. This work lays the foundation for further research aimed at enhancing the non-contributors' experience in dealing with build issues.Computer Scienc
Resilience Generation: Exploring the Experiences of Midlevel Administrators of the Global Majority with Navigation of Turnover Factors at an HSI Community College
No full textThe full text of this item is not available at this time because the author has placed this item under an embargo until December 12, 2025.The purpose of this study was to examine how midlevel administrators of the Global Majority experience the process of navigating turnover factors within a community college designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution. Using a phenomenological approach, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the unique challenges faced by these administrators, including covert racism, retaliation, and leadership changes. The findings led to the development of a tentative Resilience Generation Model, offering initial insights into how resilience is generated in this context. This proposed model requires further research to assess its broader applicability and refine its elements. The study's findings emphasize the importance of institutional support, mentorship, and advocacy in fostering resilience, contributing to the ongoing discourse on diversity, equity, and inclusion within higher education, while suggesting practical strategies for supporting administrators of the Global Majority.Educational Leadership and Policy Studie