Undergraduate nursing students’ attitudes toward mental illness and mental health nursing

Historically, nurses have lacked recognition for the work they do, especially in the area of mental health. There is a shortage of qualified mental health nurses to meet the demand for services. Many rural areas in the United States have few or no mental health services to offer communities. Encouraging positive attitudes toward mental health nursing is an important step in the recruitment of new nurses into the specialty. This study used Colaizzi’s method of phenomenology to explore the beliefs held by undergraduate BSN students towards mental health nursing and how undergraduate nursing education affected those attitudes. The purpose of the research was to understand undergraduate nursing students’ attitudes toward mental health, to understand the impact that content and clinical experiences and experiences with non-mental health faculty have on attitudes toward mental health nursing, and to understand how undergraduate nursing education can contribute to the de-stigmatization of mental health nursing. Guided by Goffman’s (1963) stigma theory, 20 participants were interviewed. Data analysis revealed three major themes: a) student nurses had varied attitudes toward mental health nursing, b) students had varied understanding of mental illness and mental health nursing at the end of the course rotation and c) clinical experiences and teaching strategies produced attitudinal changes in undergraduate nursing students. The two subthemes extracted from the first theme were students attitudes ranged from favorable to unfavorable and attitudes were based on experience and exposure to mental illness and mental health nursing. Subthemes from the second theme included students did not comprehend content as presented and they compartmentalized illnesses as medical or mental. Subthemes from the third theme included students had concerns over loss of technical skills and they did not comprehend the role of the mental health nurse even after clinical experiences. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Luigi Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero and Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul: a comparative study

As art reflects life, so too does it hold a mirror to the lives of the people who create it. The turbulent events of the first decades of the twentieth century, including two World Wars and the rise of Italian Fascism and German Nazism in the 1920s and 30s, affected millions of lives across several continents. This document explores the ways in which Luigi Dallapiccola (1904–1973) and Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–2007) voice their reactions to these events in their operas, Il Prigioniero (1948) and The Consul (1950). Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola spent twenty months in internment during the First World War, and would be forced on several occasions to go into hiding during the Second World War. His opposition to Mussolini and the Italian Fascists, coupled with his quasi–obsession with internment and freedom, led to his composition of three works of “protest music,” of which Il Prigioniero is the second. Il Prigioniero tells the story of a prisoner of the Inquisition, his attempt at escape and eventual capture. Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti emigrated to the United States in 1928, at age seventeen, and spent a great much of his time traveling and working in various countries. Having friends and family in many nations, and being of “alien” status in the United States, Menotti was very aware of the processes of immigration and the plight of refugees. The Consul is the story of a woman attempting to obtain an exit visa to escape persecution in her home country. She is met by bureaucratic “red tape” at every turn, and is unable to flee, resulting in her suicide. Although Dallapiccola and Menotti did not know each other, nor do they appear to have been familiar with each other's work, both composers drew the same conclusions about the nature of freedom due to their life experiences through shared historical events. Both Il Prigioniero and The Consul explore themes of hope, prayer, accessibility to freedom, and the culpability of both action and inaction in perpetuating oppression. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Investigating the effectiveness of safety day boosters in reducing soda consumption among rural youth: an application of the theory of planned behavior

The current project had two main objectives. The first objective was to test the impact of a set of five supplemental boosters that were sent to children’s homes after participation in a Progressive Agriculture Safety Day®. The boosters were based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and were designed to emphasize components of the TPB in an attempt to determine which TPB construct was most effective for enhancing and extending the impact of safety day lessons. The second objective was to test the ability of the TPB to predict soda consumption in a sample of school-aged children. Three safety days in Alabama were selected for participation in this project, and data were collected from participants at three times: pretest, posttest, and three months after participation. The type of booster participants received did not have a differential impact upon intentions to reduce soda consumption or actual soda consumption at three-month follow-up. However, there was an overall effect of time. Intentions to reduce soda consumption improved at three-month follow-up compared to pretest and posttest. Although the Theory of Planned Behavior’s predictive power varied at each time point, it explained a small to medium amount of variance (ranging from 7% to 43%) in intentions to reduce soda consumption and actual soda consumption. Recent studies show that rural youth are 25-30% more likely to be overweight or obese than metropolitan youth, and soda consumption is likely a contributing factor. This study contributes to the knowledge base for effectively addressing rural overweight and health concerns through educational interventions. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Clams and climate: implications for measuring seasonality in the marine bivalve, saxidomus gigantea

Sclerochronological and sclerochemical analysis of shellfish remains from archaeological sites afford the opportunity to understand environmental change and its impacts on human populations through time. During the Late Holocene in the Gulf of Alaska, the paleoenvironmental record reflects fluctuating marine conditions throughout the region. The effects of changes in regional climate patterns, as well as human responses to such change, however, can exhibit great variability locally. In the Kodiak archipelago in the Gulf of Alaska, changing environmental conditions, population growth, technological transitions, and contact with other communities likely promoted the transition from needs based maritime hunting and gathering to surplus-based, semi-permanent villages. The precise role of climate in this transition is understudied. Few paleoclimate reconstructions are available for the Kodiak archipelago and while climate reconstructions for the Gulf of Alaska are not uncommon, regional climate reconstructions are often insufficient for archaeological research. Many climate reconstructions lack sub-annual resolution and cannot produce a detailed understanding of seasonal behaviors in human populations. Sclerochronological and sclerochemical analysis of shellfish remains from archaeological sites in the archipelago may provide additional paleoenvironmental information. Measuring and comparing the length of seasonal shell growth in select species of bivalves may complement stable oxygen isotope analysis, together providing a more precise paleoclimate reconstruction. This research utilizes the growth of Saxidomus gigantea, abundant both on modern and ancient coastlines to provide information about the length of its growing seasons. To measure seasonality, a total of 25 modern samples were collected from Alaska and British Columbia and the number of circalunidian growth lines were counted between annual winter growth lines confirmed by oxygen isotope analysis. Clams collected from Alaska grew a total of 143±34 days while the Canadian clams grew 273±14 days. Additionally, oxygen isotope values were more positive from annual winter growth lines from Alaskan samples than Canadian samples. This method was then applied to three archaeological samples collected from the Rice Ridge site (KOD-363), the Uyak site (KOD-145), and the Settlement Point site (AFG-105), which grew an average of 166±22, to confirm that these methods can be applied to archaeological samples through time to detect spatial and temporal changes in seasonality. These results suggest that changes in sea surface conditions and seasonality are detectable both spatially and temporally through detailed sclerochronological and sclerochemical analysis of shellfish remains from archaeological sites and offer the potential to reconstruct marine environmental conditions throughout the Holocene. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Collider phenomenology of heavy neutrinos

The existence of the neutrino mass has been established by the neutrino oscillation experiments. The so-called seesaw extension of the Standard Model is probably the simplest idea to naturally explain the existence of tiny neutrino mass through the lepton number violating Majorana mass term. There is another alternative way, commonly known as the inverse seesaw mechanism, where the small neutrino mass is obtained by the tiny lepton number violating parameters. In this work we investigate the signatures of such heavy neutrinos, having mass in the Electroweak scale at the high energy colliders. Based on a simple realization of inverse seesaw model we fix the model parameters to reproduce the neutrino oscillation data and to satisfy the other experimental constraints. We assume two flavor structures of the model and the different types of hierarchical light neutrino mass spectra. For completeness we consider the general parameterization for the model parameters by introducing an arbitrary orthogonal matrix and the nonzero Dirac and Majorana phases. Due to the smallness of the lepton number violating parameter this model can manifest the trilepton plus missing energy at the Large Hadron Collider(LHC). Using the recent LHC results for anomalous production of the multilepton events at $8$ TeV with a luminosity of $19.5$ fb$^{-1}$, we derive the direct upper bounds on the light-heavy neutrino mixing parameter as a function of the heavy neutrino mass. Using a variety of initial states such as quark-quark, quark-gluon and gluon-gluon as well as photon mediated processes for the Majorana heavy neutrinos we obtain direct upper bounds on the light-heavy neutrino mixing angles from the current LHC data at $8$ TeV. For the pseudo-Dirac heavy neutrinos produced from the various initial states using the recent anomalous multilepton search by the LHC at $8$ TeV with $19.5$ fb$^{-1}$ luminosity, we obtain upper bounds on the mixing angles. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Negative ion mass spectrometry studies of non-traditional deprotonation sites in peptides: gas-phase acidities of amino acid analogs and fragmentation of model phosphopeptides

Studying biomolecule deprotonated anions (amino acids, amino acid amides, phosphorylated amino acids, phosphorylated amino acid amides, and phosphorylated peptides) can further negative ion mode mass spectrometry work in the field of proteomics, the sequencing of human proteins. Traditionally, amino acids are considered to have acidic sites on their C-terminus and carboxylic acid-containing side chains. However, several non- traditional sites capable of deprotonation should be considered when examining peptides and proteins by mass spectrometry. A new deprotonated tyrosine conformer was found by electrospraying (ESI) tyrosine from aprotic solvents. Ion/molecule (I/M) reactions determined that tyrosine made by ESI from protic solvents is less acidic. The gas-phase acidity (GA) value for the low-energy structure is 324.7 ± 3.6 kcal/mol experimentally and 330.4 kcal/mol computationally. The ESI conditions and hexapole trapping can affect the deprotonation site of tyrosine. The GAs for the common amino acid amides, phosphorylated amino acids, and phosphorylated amino acid amides were determined experimentally and computationally. Two ion populations were observed via I/M reactions for the amino acid amides deprotonating on the C-terminal amide group that vary in energy by ~5 kcal/mol . Tyrosine, cysteine, tryptophan, and histidine amides undergo side chain deprotonation and are more acidic. Phosphorylated amino acids and their amides were found to be ~20 kcal/mol more acidic than their non-phosphorylated counterparts. Phosphorylated compounds deprotonate on the phosphate side chain, except phosphotyrosine (pTyr), which deprotonates at the C-terminal carboxylic acid. The acidity of pTyr can be affected by ESI conditions. Collison-induced dissociation (CID) was used to examine model phosphorylated peptides in the negative ion mode. The CID of singly charged deprotonated precursor ions produced the least amount of sequence informative fragmentation when the phosphorylated residue was located centrally in the peptide. Diagnostic ions and losses were found indicating the phosphate group. Phosphothreonine (pThr) and phosphoserine (pSer) undergo the loss of the phosphate group and side chain aldehyde to produce unique marker ions. Fragmentation of doubly charged precursor anions yielded little sequence informative fragmentation, however; diagnostic product ions indicating loss of the phosphate group allowed for differentiation between pThr, pSer, and pTyr. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Expanding the beauty spectrum: a case study of Lupita Nyong’o as the brand ambassador for Lancôme cosmetics

In 2014, Lupita Nyong’o became the first black spokeswoman for Lancôme Paris cosmetics, the first in the company’s 80-year history. Previously, the advertising industry took issue with using models outside of the European standard of beauty for various reasons including perceptions of consumer relatability and response, but Nyong’o’s contract is a direct challenge to this notion. The intent of this study to explore news coverage of the first year (April 2014 – April 2015) of Nyong’o’s contract with Lancôme to determine why Nyong’o was chosen as the first black ambassador, how the decision was received, and what the implications are for the beauty standards, especially the black beauty standard. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

A single site study on the implementation of change in higher education

This study was designed to share information on the perspectives of those tasked with implementing change initiatives on campus. The study sought to better understand the academic personnel’s perceptions of change at the focus institution. This study was designed to gain information from the perceptions of academic personnel who have been through change initiatives so that future change initiatives can be more sensitive to these perspectives. Understanding how leaders perceive the event and how it affects them and their institution should provide administrators with the information they need to serve their employees during the next initiative. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. How do academic personnel perceive their roles in the process of institutional change initiatives? 2. How do academic personnel perceive academic restructuring to affect them? 3. How do academic personnel perceive academic restructuring to affect their institution? The research findings provided insight into the perceptions of academic personnel concerning institutional change. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The lived experience of transition to practice for the new graduate licensed practical nurse working in long term care

For the past decade, the role of licensed practical nurse (LPN) has been a topic of discussion among the National League for Nursing (NLN) and the National Council for State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). The NLN recently called for nurse educators to examine the LPN role in the current healthcare system. Transition to practice issues experienced by the new graduate licensed practical nurse (NGLPN) are important issues that reflect nursing education. This study explores the lived experience of transition to practice for the NGLPN working in the long-term care (LTC) setting. The study will open the conversation about NGLPN transition to practice among practical nursing educators and nursing administrators of LTC facilities. Van Manen’s and Benner’s use of interpretive phenomenology informed the study design. The researcher interviewed three new graduate LPNs, graduating from one school in a state community college practical nursing program. The graduates were interviewed three times for no more than 60 minutes each in an effort to learn about experiences of transition to practice in long-term care. Themes that emerged from the negative experiences include intimidating, disrupting behaviors, death and dying. Subthemes that emerged from the intimidating and disruptive behaviors include integrity, human dignity, and self-determination. The subtheme unprepared emerged from the death and dying theme. Themes that emerged from the positive experiences are relationships and feeling supported. Caring emerged as a subtheme of relationships. Personal growth and human flourishing (HF) emerged as a theme of the positive and negative experience. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Essays on public pension reform

In my first essay, we examine the financial impact of states’ legislative response regarding pension reforms since 2008 recession. Since 2001 the combined funded ratio of the 115 state level public systems in our data set has fallen from being fully funded in 2001 to roughly 72% as of 2013. In absolute dollars this translates to a shortfall of almost $1 trillion. We found that 49 of 50 states passed pension reform legislation during this period; however, the impact of these reforms on funded ratios has been minimal due to the inability of most states to apply reforms to existing employees. In short, we don’t expect funded ratios to improve without significant increases in plan contributions. This result is likely due to the issue mentioned above regarding existing employees, amortization elections previously made by plans and unrealistic investment return assumptions. In my second essay, we use asset allocations and investment returns from the same data set to address the issue of pension plans taking on additional investment risk for the purpose of reducing annual plan contributions. We examine changes in portfolio allocations over a fourteen-year period paying special attention to responses to market downturns. We then examine investment returns on an actual and risk-adjusted basis. We find no evidence of moral hazard related to the asset allocations of public pension plans. In fact, we find that public pension plans outperformed the markets on an actual and risk-adjusted basis in many cases. We confirmed our findings described above using several models including the Capital Asset Pricing Model, Fama French three-factor and five-factor models and the Carhart four-factor model. We regress our equal-weighted and value-weighted pension investment return data against each of the models. All of our regressions produced positive and significant alphas. We then perform panel fixed effects regression on the same set of models. We find positive and significant alphas using all five models confirming the previous results. Finally, we employ a bootstrapping procedure to confirm the alphas in our time series regressions were positive and significant. We find that state level pension plans do generate positive alphas. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries