Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder at a Pediatric Hospital: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This review of literature describes the behaviors of hospitalized children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that health care providers find challenging. It also identifies strategies used to address these challenging behaviors. The systematic review of literature identified 34 articles from databases on health care of challenging behaviors of children with ASD. The review identified four categories of challenging behaviors (non-compliance, hyperactivity, sensory defensiveness, self-injury) and several strategies for reducing these behaviors. Partnering with parents to develop strategies is important for children with ASD to deliver timely and safe care

Empirical study of QS-9000 using principal components analysis and robust regression

In 1994, the automotive industry took the lead in the development of industry-specific standards to introduce QS-9000 (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors 1998). the study presented in this article addresses the impact of organizational variables on both operational and business performance measurement of automotive suppliers completing QS-9000. A study completed by Curkovic, Vikery, and Droge (1999) focused on different aspects of business performance an competitive dimensions of quality as compared to this discussion. Because there is little empirical research regarding QS-9000 (Johnson 2001), the literature review included quality management systems, ISO 9000 studies, and organizational variables that impact quality initiatives, and served as a basis for the development of a mail questionnaire. A database with more than 6200 U.S.-based QS-9000 registered locations was used to randomly select 1000 individual location to receive the mail questionnaire. This study was completed during the summer of 2000 with 153 respondents. final results suggest that companies are focusing on a few organizational variables from a high-level perspective to predict operational and business performance. Management supports the QS-9000 change effort by empowering employees through the use of team-based problem-solving methodologies

What Will You Do Here? Dignified Work and the Politics of Mobility in Serbia

Serbia is said to have one of the highest rates of brain drain in the world. For the generation glossed as the “children of the 1990s,” stances toward mobility and migration have shifted along with geopolitics. Following nearly two decades of wartime entrapment, in 2009 the conditions of possibility for mobility fundamentally changed for Serbian citizens. Of both symbolic and material consequence, the country’s return to respectable geopolitical standing also marked a shift toward more nuanced stancetaking in relation to mobility and migration. Namely, by the time of my research, the expectations of youth—not only of “normal mobility” but of “normalcy” more generally—had become more and more often calibrated against personal experiences of real-life travel. Based on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Belgrade, Serbia from October 2014–December 2015, this dissertation tracks some of the consequences of this shift for young potential migrants in Serbia. I explore how the problem of skilled migration is constituted, the discourses produced, and the practices prompted. I analyze the mobility narratives of young potential migrants as proxies for commentary on a host of other socioeconomic issues. My focus is on the real and symbolic geographies invoked in talk of leaving and staying in Serbia; on how young potential migrants narrate their everyday navigations in the “here and now” and give moral weight to migratory aspirations for, and experiences of, lives lived in the “then and there.” I argue that the foundational motif of these varied imaginaries is a deep investment in meritocracy--a value-laden register called upon to articulate aspiration as well as critique. Engaging the politics of mobility holistically, I also excavate what it means to stay in a context so many others leave. I explore the growth of social entrepreneurship and the digital economy as recent efforts to coax dignified work from an inhospitable climate of precarity (and as key to governmental “solutions” to brain drain). I untangle how entrepreneurialism is promoted as a project of reforming values while also serving as a realm of authenticity and “apolitical activism” for some. Training attention on work in the digital economy I illuminate how economic subjectivities are cultivated in complex relation to place and belonging in ways that muddy the dichotomy between staying and leaving. Finally, I show how both promoters of entrepreneurship and Serbia’s digital transformation harness the dominant discourse on brain drain to cast themselves as certain social types and legitimize their agendas. This dissertation demonstrates how contemporary stances toward mobility and migration articulate aspirations to dignify the conditions of life and work, are implicated in a reconfiguration of middle-classness, and reveal how postsocialist subjects understand themselves and construct life projects in the context of ongoing political and socioeconomic change

A Cage of Ovulating Females : Mary Breckinridge and the Politics of Contraception in Rural Appalachia

Mary Breckinridge and the Frontier Nursing Service have been the focus of intense scholarly effort over the last twenty years. Scholarship on Mary Breckinridge has centered on her healthcare reform work in Appalachia and its effects on the local residents and culture. This thesis examines the oral contraceptive trial that the FNS performed in Leslie County in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although Breckinridge and the FNS maintained a restrictive contraceptive stance, they paradoxically permitted the contraceptive trial to be conducted on their patients in Leslie County. The decision to participate in the contraceptive trial resulted from a complex interaction of politics, personal relationships, prior beliefs, and pressure from outside forces. These influences combined to lead Mary Breckinridge to a decision that would have been unimaginable earlier in her career

The Promise of Abortion Pills: Evidence on the Safety and Effectiveness of Self-Managed Medication Abortion and Opportunities to Expand Access

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health Organization ruling, medication abortion pills have received an enormous amount of attention. The two medication abortion pill regimens, mifepristone used with misoprostol, or misoprostol used by itself, have been the subject of extensive public health research. Less discussed in the legal scholarship are the differences between the two regimens and their uses for self-managed medication abortion. In the United States, when people refer to medication abortion pills, they are often referencing mifepristone used with misoprostol. But in other parts of the world, when people refer to medication abortion pills, they often mean misoprostol alone. Public health researchers have examined the safety, effectiveness, and acceptability of self-managed abortion using both medication abortion regimens. This Article draws on this evidence base and provides opportunities for expanding access to medication abortion pills. This is especially important now that some states have legal climates similar to countries where abortion has long been restricted and researchers anticipate that people will increasingly seek access to medication abortion pills and turn to self-managed medication abortion

Drivers of patient satisfaction in medical clinics

Prior research was extended to model patient perceptions of behavioral dimensions of service quality and its impact on patient satisfaction in a rural health care organization. SEM was applied for three years of data and each individual year. Results suggest improved patient satisfaction and statistically significant differences existed between years.https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/techtalks/1054/thumbnail.jp

Heterotrimeric coiled-coils as viral fusion protein mimics

2010 Spring.Includes bibliographic references.Covers not scanned.Print version deaccessioned 2022.The a-helical coiled-coil, formed by the association and supercoiling of two or more a-helices, is a ubiquitous protein structure that mediates a wide range of biological activity. It is characterized by a heptad repeat of amino acids that serve to form both the hydrophobic core and electrostatic interfaces of the coiled-coil. Previous work in our lab showed the viability of designing a self-assembling heterotrimeric coiled-coil by sole manipulation of the hydrophobic core. This technique utilized a steric matching approach whereby one large side chain packed against two small ones. An added benefit to this type of control is that it allowed the freedom to explore additional interactions specific to the electrostatic interface. Many enveloped viruses, including HIV-1, incorporate trimeric coiled-coils in their fusion proteins, and, consequently, are involved in the pathway to infection. Through interactions at the electrostatic interfaces of the coiled-coils, these fusion proteins form a six-helix bundle called a trimer-of-hairpins. The formation of this structure is a precursor to membrane fusion of the viral and host cells, and, as a result, it has become a therapeutic target. The steric matching technique developed in our lab allows us to graft key contacts from the native 111 sequences onto a stable, heterotrimeric system and construct a mimic of the trimer-of-hairpins, as was done with HIV-I previously in our lab. The work that follows shows that a viable mimic of the Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus is also possible. A stable, self-assembling mimic was designed, synthesized and validated through various spectroscopic methods. Additionally, a mutant study was conducted to further refine our knowledge of the importance of the residues thought to be key to the formation of the trimer-of-hairpins. Other work was performed extending the process to the Human T-cell Leukemia Virus, bringing the possibility of a complete and stable mimic ever closer