The Tower of Babel Articulate

First prize, poetry contes

Mitigating the Risk of Financial Distress and Closure in Rural Hospitals: A Multiple Case Study

Few studies have explored strategies rural hospitals have implemented to lower the risk of financial distress and closure. The objective of this doctoral project is to explore factors rural hospital stakeholders consider when determining the most appropriate business model for their organization. A multiple case study design was utilized to explore key factors considered in the decision-making processes at three rural hospitals in the southeastern Unites States with varying business models and characteristics. Nine rural hospital stakeholders including administrators, clinician, and community leaders participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using an inductive coding process. Seven themes emerged: 1) Align hospital with community needs, 2) Rightsize services to address community needs, 3) Leverage collaboration and partnership, 4) Access to financial resources, 5) Leadership and governance, 6) Community awareness and engagement, and 7) Challenges with recruiting healthcare professionals. Findings suggest when determining the most appropriate business model to implement, rural hospital stakeholders should identify the specific needs of their surrounding community and redesign services to meet the needs while leveraging resources within and outside the community. Additionally, stakeholders should assess leadership and governance competencies and determine how to engage the community as active partners in the decision-making process

Stress Levels and Development: A Phenomenology of Autistic Children and Their Parents

Being a parent means taking on both the joys and struggles that come with it. When a parent discovers that his or her child has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the level of stress changes. It could be helpful to discover the severity of change that the stresses involved in parenting a child with ASD brings to the parent/child relationship and what effect this has on a child’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual development. To attempt to answer these questions, six parents were interviewed. Findings suggested that structure in daily living improves the quality of the child/parent relationship as well as stress relief to the parent

Tomographic separation of composite spectra. The components of Plaskett's Star

The UV photospheric lines of Plaskett's Star (HD 47129), a 14.4 day period, double lined O-type spectroscopic binary were analyzed. Archival data from IUE (17 spectra well distributed in orbital phase) were analyzed with several techniques. A cross correlation analysis, which showed that the secondary produces significant lines in the UV, indicates that the mass ratio is q = 1.18 + or - 0.12 (secondary slightly more massive). A tomography algorithm was used to produce the separate spectra of the two stars in six spectral regions. The interpolated spectral classifications of the primary and secondary, 07.3 I and 06.2 I, respectively, were estimated through a comparison of UV line ratios with those in spectral standard stars. The intensity ratio of the stars in the UV is 0.53 + or - 0.05 (primary brighter). The secondary lines appear rotationally broadened, and the projected rotational velocity V sin i for this star is estimated to be 310 + or - 20 km/s. The possible evolutionary history of this system is discussed through a comparison of the positions of the components and evolutionary tracks in the H-R diagram

Cost and fuel consumption per nautical mile for two engine jet transports using OPTIM and TRAGEN

The cost and fuel consumption per nautical mile for two engine jet transports are computed using OPTIM and TRAGEN. The savings in fuel and direct operating costs per nautical mile for each of the different types of optimal trajectories over a standard profile are shown

Hybrid Magnetospheric Modelling at the Outer Planets using Python

Modelling planetary magnetospheres is essential to develop understanding of how these dynamic regions of space respond to forcing from both internal and external sources of mass, momentum and energy. Obtaining an exact solution for the governing equations describing these complex systems is very difficult. Therefore, simplified models are required for investigation. The size of planetary magnetospheres presents additional complications when creating models of them as important dynamics occur on spatial scales ranging from planetary radii down to the kinetic ion and electron levels. Such challenges are present in simulating bulk plasma transport in Jupiter's inner and middle magnetosphere, where plasma flows from Io's plasma torus radially outwards. The process of radial transport is attributed to the centrifugal-interchange instability. A hybrid kinetic-ion/fluid-electron approach is taken to modelling these magnetospheric plasma flows. Hybrid techniques are able to capture large-scale flow dynamics as well as interactions between particles. Whilst most models of this type are written in C/C++ or Fortran, the aim in this project is to provide a Python codebase that allows for prototype physical effects to be examined before incorporation into an optimised implementation. Writing a version in a modern accessible language also has pedagogical value

The benefits of psychoeducation for improving sleep quality

With large numbers of students reporting difficulties with sleep, Claire Gregor, Luci Wiggs and Aileen Ho set out to explore whether psychoeducational input on sleep hygiene might help them achieve improved quality of rest. Their research produced some interesting results

A Hybrid Decomposition Parallel Implementation of the Car-Parrinello Method

We have developed a flexible hybrid decomposition parallel implementation of the first-principles molecular dynamics algorithm of Car and Parrinello. The code allows the problem to be decomposed either spatially, over the electronic orbitals, or any combination of the two. Performance statistics for 32, 64, 128 and 512 Si atom runs on the Touchstone Delta and Intel Paragon parallel supercomputers and comparison with the performance of an optimized code running the smaller systems on the Cray Y-MP and C90 are presented.Comment: Accepted by Computer Physics Communications, latex, 34 pages without figures, 15 figures available in PostScript form via WWW at http://www-theory.chem.washington.edu/~wiggs/hyb_figures.htm