Directional Stability Issues of a Three Lifting Surface Aircraft

This paper deals with the evaluation of the interference effects among aircraft components in a three lifting surface configuration, an innovative layout for a high-capacity turboprop (130 pax), which is supposed to be competitive with respect to short/medium haul regional jets. The feasibility study of such a configuration is framed within the Innovative turbopROp configuratioN (IRON) project. An experimental wind tunnel test campaign has been performed on a 1:25 scaled model at the main subsonic wind tunnel facility of the Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Naples Federico II. Beside the well-known detrimental effects of the angle of attacK on the sidewash, the experimental tests have highlighted a strong directional stability reduction due to the canard interference with both the fuselage and the vertical tail. Results have shown that the canard increases the fuselage instability of about 14%. The canard wake displacement also affects the aircraft directional stability. Results collected in this work have been useful to perform a redesign of the aircraft empennage and to schedule numerical high-fidelity analyses as well as a second wind tunnel test campaign on the updated aircraft model to get further insights on the aerodynamic interference, including propulsive effects

Simulation in Nursing Education: a tool for Program Evaluation

The identified area of interest for this outcomes research project was high fidelity simulation as clinical experience within the nursing educational process in a rural setting. Teaching students in a rural setting poses many challenges regarding access to clinical sites. The high fidelity simulation experience occurs in a controlled environment in which students practiced safely and gained knowledge they might not receive in random learning experience in a clinical practice site. This research project was undertaken in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree at Regis University. The instruments used for this study will also become a part of overall program evaluation at West Virginia Wesleyan College (WVWC) School of Nursing through their use in embedded course assessment. WVWC has begun to address the challenges of limited clinical placements in the rural area by providing two simulation experiences for each student per semester from sophomore year to senior year. These experiences were designed to provide students with opportunities to gain confidence in their clinical skills and assessment abilities. Faculty in the School of Nursing familiarized themselves with the literature on simulation experiences as adjuncts to clinical teaching. However, formal evaluations of these pedagogies in this setting have not been undertaken within the School of Nursing

IMPACT OF AN EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION ON PROVIDER PERSPECTIVES ABOUT THE USE OF PHENOBARBITAL IN THE MANAGEMENT OF ALCOHOL WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME

Twaddell, Kimberly. Impact of an educational intervention on provider perspectives about the use of phenobarbital in the management of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Published Doctor of Nursing Practice scholarly research project, University of Northern Colorado, 2023. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome (AWS) is a clinical diagnosis that occurs when an individual who regularly consumes alcohol either reduces or stops consumption. Complications of AWS include admission to the intensive care unit, prolonged hospitalization, and increased risk of infection and mortality. These complications might lead to poor patient outcomes and increased healthcare costs. Currently, the standard of care in managing this inpatient population includes supportive and pharmacological interventions with sedatives such as benzodiazepines. However, recent research found that a long-acting barbiturate, phenobarbital demonstrated superiority in reducing both hospital length of stay and progression of AWS symptoms when compared to benzodiazepines. Healthcare providers, such as advanced practice providers and physicians, are responsible for prescribing medications to manage AWS. However, without education about the recent research findings of phenobarbital, healthcare providers might be underutilizing phenobarbital in the management of this serious condition. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice scholarly project was to evaluate if an evidence-based educational intervention delivered to advanced practice providers and physicians at a level one trauma center would influence their knowledge, attitudes, and intention to use an existing phenobarbital order set for the management of AWS among the adult inpatient population. As guided by the knowledge attitude practice model, this study had a pre-posttest design with a virtually delivered iii educational intervention based upon an integrated literature review that discussed the safety of phenobarbital and its superiority in the management of AWS among the inpatient population. The impact of the intervention was measured using a modified version of the Continuing Professional Development Reaction questionnaire

A Trauma informed Intervention Using Mindfulness to Improve Early Childhood Classroom Environments.

abstract: Research has shown adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have a lifelong negative impact on a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. ACEs refer to experiences related to abuse, household challenges, or neglect that occur before the age of 18. Some of the effects of ACEs include anxiety, depression, increased stress, increase in high-risk behaviors, and early death. Mindfulness practices have been shown to be an effective tool in reducing some of these symptoms. In looking for ways to prevent or mitigate the effects of ACEs, it is important to provide tools and resources to the adults taking care of children including; parents, guardians, and teachers. The purpose of this evidence based project (EBP) was to evaluate mindfulness and classroom environments after the implementation of a mindfulness intervention. The intervention consisted of a three day training followed by four weeks of mindfulness practice prior to beginning the school day. Ten preschool and Early Head Start teachers from seven classrooms at a school in inner city Phoenix participated in the project. Utilizing the Five Factors Mindfulness Questionnaire pre and post intervention, a paired sample t-test showed a significant increase in two factors of mindfulness. The CLASS tool was used to assess classroom environment pre and post intervention and showed significant improvement in five classes. These findings support ongoing mindfulness training and practice for preschool and Early Head Start teachers to improve classroom environments

Troubleshooting Strategies in a Complex, Dynamical Domain

In this paper, we present results ftom two empirical studies in which subjects diagnosed faults that occurred in a computerbased, dynamical simulation of an oil-fired marine power plant, called Turbinia. Our results were analyzed in the framework of dual problem space search (DPSS), in which non-routine diagnosis was characterized as a process of generating hypotheses to explain the observed faults, and testing these hypotheses by conducting experiments. In the first study, we found that the less-efficient subjects conducted significantly more experiments, indicating a strong bottom-up bias in their diagnostic sU-ategy. In tiie second study, we examined the effects of imposing external resource bounds on subjects' diagnostic strategies. Results indicated that constraints on diagnosis time led to a reduction in the number of actions performed and components viewed, without appearing to affect diagnostic performance. Constraints on the number of diagnostic tests reduced search in the experiment space, which appeared to negatively affect performance. Taken together, these suggest results that subjects' diagnostic strategies were sensitive to consti-aints in tiie external task environment. We close with a sketch of how DPSS might be augmented to include effects due to external resource bounds

Impact of Nursing Certification on Patient Perception, Satisfaction, and Outcomes

Increased responsibilities for patient care within the nursing profession leads one to examine the correlation between nursing care and patient satisfaction. Current evidence indicates that higher levels of nursing education are associated with better patient outcomes. The literature further demonstrates that increased expertise and certification within a nursing specialty leads to increased nursing empowerment, improved intrinsic value and better collaborative relationships. However, the relationship between certification status and patient satisfaction remain unclear. This systematic review sought to understand the relationship between nursing certification and patient satisfaction. Guided by Rogers\u27 diffusion of innovation theory this project examined the peer-reviewed literature using the databases PubMed, CINAHL and Cochrane Reviews. Keywords used were patient satisfaction, nursing certification and patient perception of certification. The Cochrane methodology and Melnyk\u27s levels of evidence were used to analyze the articles identified. Articles published prior to 2002 were excluded from the review as were those not in English; 17 articles were included in the review. Ten articles met Melnyk\u27s criteria for Evidence Levels V-VII, 6 met the criteria for Levels III-IV, 1 was Level II. The analysis of evidence supported a positive relationship between nurse certification, patient satisfaction and patient outcomes. This project is important for nurses who are considering certification and those who seek to improve patient satisfaction. The information discovered is hoped to impact social change by providing a better understanding of the relationship between certification and improved patient satisfaction

Development of a probabilistic perception system for camera-lidar sensor fusion

La estimación de profundidad usando diferentes sensores es uno de los desafíos clave para dotar a las máquinas autónomas de sólidas capacidades de percepción robótica. Ha habido un avance sobresaliente en el desarrollo de técnicas de estimación de profundidad unimodales basadas en cámaras monoculares, debido a su alta resolución o sensores LiDAR, debido a los datos geométricos precisos que proporcionan. Sin embargo, cada uno de ellos presenta inconvenientes inherentes, como la alta sensibilidad a los cambios en las condiciones de iluminación en el caso delas cámaras y la resolución limitada de los sensores LiDAR. La fusión de sensores se puede utilizar para combinar los méritos y compensar las desventajas de estos dos tipos de sensores. Sin embargo, los métodos de fusión actuales funcionan a un alto nivel. Procesan los flujos de datos de los sensores de forma independiente y combinan las estimaciones de alto nivel obtenidas para cada sensor. En este proyecto, abordamos el problema en un nivel bajo, fusionando los flujos de sensores sin procesar, obteniendo así estimaciones de profundidad que son densas y precisas, y pueden usarse como una fuente de datos multimodal unificada para problemas de estimación de nivel superior. Este trabajo propone un modelo de campo aleatorio condicional (CRF) con múltiples potenciales de geometría y apariencia que representa a la perfección el problema de estimar mapas de profundidad densos a partir de datos de cámara y LiDAR. El modelo se puede optimizar de manera eficiente utilizando el algoritmo Conjúgate Gradient Squared (CGS). El método propuesto se evalúa y compara utilizando el conjunto de datos proporcionado por KITTI Datset. Adicionalmente, se evalúa cualitativamente el modelo, usando datos adquiridos por el autor de esté trabajoMulti-modal depth estimation is one of the key challenges for endowing autonomous machines with robust robotic perception capabilities. There has been an outstanding advance in the development of uni-modal depth estimation techniques based on either monocular cameras, because of their rich resolution or LiDAR sensors due to the precise geometric data they provide. However, each of them suffers from some inherent drawbacks like high sensitivity to changes in illumination conditions in the case of cameras and limited resolution for the LiDARs. Sensor fusion can be used to combine the merits and compensate the downsides of these two kinds of sensors. Nevertheless, current fusion methods work at a high level. They processes sensor data streams independently and combine the high level estimates obtained for each sensor. In this thesis, I tackle the problem at a low level, fusing the raw sensor streams, thus obtaining depth estimates which are both dense and precise, and can be used as a unified multi-modal data source for higher level estimation problems. This work proposes a Conditional Random Field (CRF) model with multiple geometry and appearance potentials that seamlessly represents the problem of estimating dense depth maps from camera and LiDAR data. The model can be optimized efficiently using the Conjugate Gradient Squared (CGS) algorithm. The proposed method was evaluated and compared with the state-of-the-art using the commonly used KITTI benchmark dataset. In addition, the model is qualitatively evaluated using data acquired by the author of this work.MaestríaMagíster en Ingeniería de Desarrollo de Producto

Reducing Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection Project

Practice Problem: Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are prevalent and responsible for an estimated 13,000 deaths annually in the United States. Reported cases of CAUTIs remain disproportionately high at a rehabilitation center located in South Texas. PICOT: This evidence-based project answered the following question: In rehabilitation patients, what is the effect of a nurse-driven protocol (NDP) CAUTI bundle on the number of indwelling urinary catheter-related infections, compared to the current practice, over a 12-week time period? Evidence: Twenty high-quality studies that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria recommended using an NDP CAUTI bundle, education, and champions to round the unit to decrease the number of catheter-associated urinary tract infections. Intervention: The evidence-based intervention utilized the implementation of an NDP CAUTI bundle. The intervention bundle included catheter indication, hand hygiene, an insertion technique, maintenance, ongoing assessment to evaluate catheter need, and documentation. Outcome: The evaluation of the outcome measures demonstrated that the CAUTI rate decreased from six incidences in 2019 to two from January to May 2020. There were zero incidences during the project implementation from June to August 2020, and the number of catheter days decreased from 59% at baseline to 41% post-intervention. Conclusion: The implementation of a nurse-driven protocol CAUTI bundle, education, and champions in the unit were successful interventions that decreased the catheter-associated urinary tract infection rates in the rehabilitation center. Keywords: catheter-associated urinary tract infections, nurse-driven protocol CAUTI bundle, quality improvemen