Franklin Enterprises: The New Division

Franklin Enterprises, a leading supplier of industry plumbing, heating and cooling equipment, decided to set up an eBusiness division, Franklin Online (FOL), to develop online services for corporate account holders. Cody Lewis, an exemplary inside sales person, was appointed a Regional Business Development Manager (RBDM) for the newly established eBusiness division. With his sales skills, he created a team of sales people in his region that helped increase sales significantly through much quicker market penetration activities. He also worked closely with the other RBDM’s in order to maximize the success of each territory. The very significant growth of the eBusiness division for corporate accounts led Franklin Enterprises to subsequently extend the service to the non-account consumer market as well

Constructing Threat and Vulnerability in Climate Change Geopolitical Narratives: A View from Critical Geopolitics

This research examines the dominant representation of climate change as a dystopian serial narrative. Defined by no present length or ending, a serial narrative requires continuity so that a body of knowledge becomes linked by prior events. In a two-part discourse analysis that examines the ways in which science has been used to turn a crisis into a social norm, this thesis applies a Critical Geopolitics perspective to go beyond the climate change binary of “denial or doomsday.” Shown to be a reproduction of Malthusian scarcity narratives, climate change as an existential threat to modern civilization has direct connections to Cold War security practices supported by scientific and state security discourse. The quantitative research of climate change science is not questioned in this work. This thesis considers the ways in which types of science and state security inform the geopolitical culture of climate change threat and vulnerability

Juntas in the ℓ1\ell^{1}-grid and Lipschitz maps between discrete tori

We show that if $A \subset [k]^n$, then $A$ is $\epsilon$-close to a junta depending upon at most $\exp(O(|\partial A|/(k^{n-1}\epsilon)))$ coordinates, where $\partial A$ denotes the edge-boundary of $A$ in the $\ell^1$-grid. This is sharp up to the value of the absolute constant in the exponent. This result can be seen as a generalisation of the Junta theorem for the discrete cube, from [E. Friedgut, Boolean functions with low average sensitivity depend on few coordinates, Combinatorica 18 (1998), 27-35], or as a characterization of large subsets of the $\ell^1$-grid whose edge-boundary is small. We use it to prove a result on the structure of Lipschitz functions between two discrete tori; this can be seen as a discrete, quantitative analogue of a recent result of Austin [T. Austin, On the failure of concentration for the $\ell^{\infty}$-ball, preprint]. We also prove a refined version of our junta theorem, which is sharp in a wider range of cases.Comment: 29 pages. A mistake in Example 2 (pointed out by an anonymous referee) has now been correcte

Redefining Creativity: A New Approach To Understanding Divergent And Convergent Thinking And Personality

Researchers and practitioners have long been interested in understanding creativity and related aspects of thinking. For example, studies have focused on the ways in which convergent and divergent thinking and personality factors relate to creativity (Guilford, 1950). Traditionally, convergent thinking involves finding the correct answer to a problem; in contrast, divergent thinking involves generating a creative response through spontaneous exploration of different ideas, perhaps via associative processes (Guilford, 1950). Past research shows that divergent thinking and openness to experience, an aspect of personality that involves imagination and exploration, are related (e.g., Chamorro-Premuzic, 2008; MacKinnon, 1962, 1965; Silvia et al., 2009). The goal of our study is to further explore the relations between various measures of convergent and divergent thinking and openness to experience. Participants will be 100 ISU students 18 years or older recruited through the Department of Psychology online sign-up system. They will complete our measures via an online survey methodology that will include the Remote Associates Test (RAT), the Unusual Uses Test, a vocabulary test, the 10-item TIPI Personality questionnaire, and a demographic survey. The RAT is a well-known test of convergent thinking, where three unrelated words are shown, and participants must relate the fourth word. The Unusual Uses Test is a popular test of divergent thinking, where participants must come up with creative and uncommon uses for an object. But, according to Gabora (2019), the RAT may be more suitably classified as a divergent thinking test, especially when insight is involved. If the RAT relies on divergent thinking, then we would expect to observe strong, positive correlations between the RAT and Unusual Uses Test and openness to experience measures from the personality questionnaire. However, we would expect to observe no correlations with vocabulary, a convergent thinking measure. These results would provide a better understanding of creativity processes.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/urs2021psych/1004/thumbnail.jp

Trauma-informed Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative symptoms are regarded as forms of disconnection from external stimuli, internal experiences, and interpersonal relationships. The Contextual Trauma Treatment (CTT) model for survivors of prolonged childhood abuse integrates Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) treatment. DBT enhances capacities for skillful interactions with others, and identifying and tolerating emotional experiences through the use of didactically-taught skill-based groups that balance encouraging acceptance of difficulties with the recognition of the need for change. This presentation will provide an overview of CTT for conceptualizing dissociation in the context of family of origin environment and development, and describe how TRIP integrates trauma-informed and DBT-informed treatment

Co-design of the EMBED-Care Framework as an intervention to enhance shared decision-making for people affected by dementia and practitioners, comprising holistic assessment, linked with clinical decision support tools: A qualitative study

Introduction: Shared decision-making intends to align care provision with individuals’ preferences. However, the involvement of people living with dementia in decision-making about their care varies. We aimed to co-design the EMBED-Care Framework, to enhance shared decision-making between people affected by dementia and practitioners.// Methods: A theory and evidence driven co-design study was conducted, using iterative workshops, informed by a theoretical model of shared decision-making and the EMBED-Care Framework (the intervention) for person-centred holistic palliative dementia care. The intervention incorporates a holistic outcome measure for assessment and review, linked with clinical decision-support tools to support shared decision-making. We drew on the Medical Research Council (MRC) guidance for developing and evaluating complex interventions. Participants included people with dementia of any type, current or bereaved family carers and practitioners. We recruited via established dementia groups and research and clinical networks. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to explore how and when the intervention could enhance communication and shared decision-making, and the requirements for use, presented as a logic model.// Results: Five co-design workshops were undertaken with participants comprising people affected by dementia (n = 18) and practitioners (n = 36). Three themes were generated, comprising: (1) ‘knowing the person and personalisation of care’, involving the person with dementia and/or family carer identifying the needs of the person using a holistic assessment. (2) ‘engaging and considering the perspectives of all involved in decision-making’ required listening to the person and the family to understand their priorities, and to manage multiple preferences. (3) ‘Training and support activities’ to use the Framework through use of animated videos to convey information, such as to understand the outcome measure used to assess symptoms.// Conclusions: The intervention developed sought to enhance shared decision-making with individuals affected by dementia and practitioners, through increased shared knowledge of individual priorities and choices for care and treatment. The workshops generated understanding to manage disagreements in determining priorities. Practitioners require face-to-face training on the intervention, and on communication to manage sensitive conversations about symptoms, care and treatment with individuals and their family. The findings informed the construction of a logic model to illustrate how the intervention is intended to work

Co-design of a theory-based implementation plan for a holistic eHealth assessment and decision support framework for people with dementia in care homes

Background: Despite positive findings around the use of eHealth in dementia care, it is rarely translated into routine practice. This can be facilitated by early involvement of end-users in the development of an implementation plan. This study aimed to co-design strategies to implement an eHealth intervention, the EMBED-Care Framework, to support assessment and decision-making for people with dementia in care homes.// Methods: A qualitative co-design method was applied through a series of workshops. Participants included family carers and health and social care practitioners. People with dementia were included through a series of stakeholder engagement meetings. The workshops focused on co-developing strategies in response to identified determinants of implementation. A codebook thematic analytic approach was taken, guided by the Normalisation Process Theory (NPT).// Results: Three workshops were conducted from July 2021 to November 2021, attended by 39 participants. Three overarching phases of implementation were identified which aligned with the constructs of the NPT: (a) incentivising adoption of the Framework, which requires promotion of its benefits and alignment with recommendations for good quality dementia care to engage stakeholders, relating to ‘coherence’ and ‘cognitive participation’ constructs; (b) enabling its operation, which requires ensuring compatibility with care home processes, provision of training and support from ‘champions’, relating to ‘collective action’; (c) sustaining use of the Framework, which requires monitoring of implementation and appraisal of its effects, relating to ‘reflexive monitoring’.// Conclusions: We have developed a multi-strategy, theoretically driven plan to implement eHealth to support assessment and decision-making for people with dementia in care homes. Successful implementation requires incentivisation to adopt, ability to operate and motivation to sustain use of eHealth. The plan is strengthened through collaborating with end-users to increase its value, credibility and real-world relevance. The theoretically informed strategies target mechanisms of the NPT, demonstrated to shape the implementation process and outcomes, ready for testing

(S)quark Masses and Non-Abelian Horizontal Symmetries

We present a model of quark and squark masses which is based on a non-Abelian horizontal symmetry. It leads to order of magnitude relations between quark mass ratios and mixing angles and to the successful exact relation $\sin \theta_C=\sqrt {m_d\over m_s}$ to better than $20\%$ accuracy. The non-Abelian symmetry also ensures the necessary squark degeneracy to suppress FCNC mediated by loops with squarks and gluinos, in the neutral meson systems.Comment: 9 pages, RU-93-3