No More Sticky Notes: The Early Implementation of an Ovarian Cancer Survivorship Care Plan

Background: Over the past 10 years, the number of people diagnosed and living with cancer has increased exponentially. In 2006, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report targeting survivorship care as an area that was not being appropriately addressed. Since then, the majority of research has focused on breast, colon, and prostate cancers, the three most common cancer types. Historically, survivorship care plans (SCPs) have been identified as important tools that can aid a patients transition from acute survivorship to extended and permanent survivorship and from oncologist to primary care provider. Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive qualitative pilot study was to focus on the cancer survivorship of women with ovarian cancer. In attempt to meet the specific needs of this population, this study implemented an ovarian cancer specific SCP (O-SCP) with women who have been newly diagnosed. The O-SCP was implemented at the beginning of treatment rather than at completion in order to address survivorship needs at the onset of patients\u27 survivorship journey, rather than at the completion of treatment. Because uncertainty begins at diagnosis, the O-SCP may be a tool to address this state from the onset of diagnosis and during and after treatment. Methods: Purposive sampling was used to recruit seven women newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Data were collected at two different meetings with the participant: first, when the O-SCP was implemented, and second, approximately six weeks later, when an open-ended, semi-structured interview was conducted with each patient. Thematic analysis was carried out on the seven digitally-recorded interviews. Results: Three categories of themes emerged during analysis: resource, communication, and negative emotional response. Themes were interrelated with each other. Discussion: New information was identified regarding the usefulness of a disease-specific SCP for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer when the O-SCP was implemented at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment. While this study was small is size, it produced positive preliminary findings that the early implementation of an O-SCP provides a benefit to patients and may reduce uncertainty. Notably the early implementation of the O-SCP provided patients with a good resource and facilitated improved communication with outside providers. Future Research: Further research is necessary to explore if the early implementation of an O-SCP can reduce specific negative emotional responses (such as fear, anxiety, and anger) exhibited by women with ovarian cancer. In addition, to distinguish the needs of women newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer and those whose cancer reoccurs and whether O-SCP should exist specific to each population. Finally, further content analysis of the O-SCP would also be worthwhile to determine usability in the target population, including cultural acceptability, visual appeal, and ease of understanding

#CongressTweets: Who Uses Twitter the Most in the Senate

Honors (Bachelor's)Political ScienceUniversity of Michiganhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147385/1/caphil.pd

Juvenile Delinquency in Four Selected New Mexico Counties in Relation to the School Year

If the schools of New Mexico are proved, by the monthly fluctuations of juvenile delinquency offenses, to be one of the major contributing factors to juvenile delinquency, through the lack of a flexible academic program, misunderstanding teachers, or for other reasons, it will be of deep interest and concern to school administrators to know this in order to try to make provisions and to better the guidance necessary for each individual case

Self Assembly Problems of Anisotropic Particles in Soft Matter.

Anisotropic building blocks assembled from colloidal particles are attractive building blocks for self-assembled materials because their complex interactions can be exploited to drive self-assembly. In this dissertation we address the self-assembly of anisotropic particles from multiple novel computational and mathematical angles. First, we accelerate algorithms for modeling systems of anisotropic particles via massively parallel GPUs. We provide a scheme for generating statistically robust pseudo-random numbers that enables GPU acceleration of Brownian and dissipative particle dynamics. We also show how rigid body integration can be accelerated on a GPU. Integrating these two algorithms into a GPU-accelerated molecular dynamics code (HOOMD-blue), make a single GPU the ideal computing environment for modeling the self-assembly of anisotropic nanoparticles. Second, we introduce a new mathematical optimization problem, filling, a hybrid of the familiar shape packing and covering problem, which can be used to model shaped particles. We study the rich mathematical structures of the solution space and provide computational methods for finding optimal solutions for polygons and convex polyhedra. We present a sequence of isosymmetric optimal filling solutions for the Platonic solids. We then consider the filling of a hyper-cone in dimensions two to eight and show the solution remains scale-invariant but dependent on dimension. Third, we study the impact of size variation, polydispersity, on the self-assembly of an anisotropic particle, the polymer-tethered nanosphere, into ordered phases. We show that the local nanoparticle packing motif, icosahedral or crystalline, determines the impact of polydispersity on energy of the system and phase transitions. We show how extensions of the Voronoi tessellation can be calculated and applied to characterize such micro-segregated phases. By applying a Voronoi tessellation, we show that properties of the individual domains can be studied as a function of system properties such as temperature and concentration. Last, we consider the thermodynamically driven self-assembly of terminal clusters of particles. We predict that clusters related to spherical codes, a mathematical sequence of points, can be synthesized via self-assembly. These anisotropic clusters can be tuned to different anisotropies via the ratio of sphere diameters and temperature. The method suggests a rich new way for assembling anisotropic building blocks.Ph.D.Applied Physics and Scientific ComputingUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91576/1/phillicl_1.pd

The zero forcing polynomial of a graph

Zero forcing is an iterative graph coloring process, where given a set of initially colored vertices, a colored vertex with a single uncolored neighbor causes that neighbor to become colored. A zero forcing set is a set of initially colored vertices which causes the entire graph to eventually become colored. In this paper, we study the counting problem associated with zero forcing. We introduce the zero forcing polynomial of a graph $G$ of order $n$ as the polynomial $\mathcal{Z}(G;x)=\sum_{i=1}^n z(G;i) x^i$, where $z(G;i)$ is the number of zero forcing sets of $G$ of size $i$. We characterize the extremal coefficients of $\mathcal{Z}(G;x)$, derive closed form expressions for the zero forcing polynomials of several families of graphs, and explore various structural properties of $\mathcal{Z}(G;x)$, including multiplicativity, unimodality, and uniqueness.Comment: 23 page

Self Assembled Clusters of Spheres Related to Spherical Codes

We consider the thermodynamically driven self-assembly of spheres onto the surface of a central sphere. This assembly process forms self-limiting, or terminal, anisotropic clusters (N-clusters) with well defined structures. We use Brownian dynamics to model the assembly of N-clusters varying in size from two to twelve outer spheres, and free energy calculations to predict the expected cluster sizes and shapes as a function of temperature and inner particle diameter. We show that the arrangements of outer spheres at finite temperatures are related to spherical codes, an ideal mathematical sequence of points corresponding to densest possible sphere packings. We demonstrate that temperature and the ratio of the diameters of the inner and outer spheres dictate cluster morphology and dynamics. We find that some N-clusters exhibit collective particle rearrangements, and these collective modes are unique to a given cluster size N. We present a surprising result for the equilibrium structure of a 5-cluster, which prefers an asymmetric square pyramid arrangement over a more symmetric arrangement. Our results suggest a promising way to assemble anisotropic building blocks from constituent colloidal spheres.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Tumbled Identities: Negotiating Invisible Disabilities and Sexual Orientation

Produced by The Center on Disability Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i, The Frank Sawyer School of Management, Suffolk University, Boston, Massachusetts, and The School of Social Sciences, The University of of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas for The Society for Disability Studies

Optimal Filling of Shapes

We present filling as a type of spatial subdivision problem similar to covering and packing. Filling addresses the optimal placement of overlapping objects lying entirely inside an arbitrary shape so as to cover the most interior volume. In n-dimensional space, if the objects are polydisperse n-balls, we show that solutions correspond to sets of maximal n-balls. For polygons, we provide a heuristic for finding solutions of maximal discs. We consider the properties of ideal distributions of N discs as N approaches infinity. We note an analogy with energy landscapes.Comment: 5 page