“Power” is a concept that has been discussed by nurse scholars and leaders within the nursing literature. The literature surrounding power concurs that power is necessary within the practice of nursing so that nurses are able to support patients and move the profession of nursing forward. There is a scarcity of research, however, regarding nurses’ perception of power within their own practices. Advanced practice nurses (APNs) are in positions in which they apply graduate education, specialized knowledge, and expertise to improve health care outcomes. Therefore, a qualitative study using an interpretive hermeneutic phenomenological approach was undertaken to discover APNs’ lived experience of power within their practices. In-depth, tape-recorded interviews were conducted with eight APNs from a large tertiary care facility. All of the participants agreed to a follow-up interview to review the summary of the study results. van Manen’s (1990) approach was used to analyze the data by subjecting the transcripts to a thematic analysis and reflective process. The overarching theme of the interviews is “building to make a difference” and the APNs’ perceived that this happened by “building on,” building with,” and “building for.” The APNs built on their knowledge and expertise, built with others in relationships and built for the capacity to make a difference. Power was a part of the everyday practices of these APNs and was described as “soft power,” a power that they shared to bring about change for the better. This shared power was reflected back on them resulting in increased power within their practices, a process described by the APNs as power creep.

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Fornax Cluster Survey is a Hubble Space Telescope programme that imaged 43 early-type galaxies in the Fornax cluster, using the ACS F475W (~g) and F850LP (~z) bandpasses. We use this data set, which spans a range of ~600 in blue luminosity down to M_B ~ -16 mag, to study and characterize the properties of central galactic nuclei by fitting ellipses to the galaxy isophotes and examining their 1-dimensional surface brightness profiles. To test the robustness of this method, we perform a similar analysis with 2-dimensional surface brightness profile fitting using GALFIT, and find acceptable agreement between the derived structural parameters from the two techniques. We determine 72% of our sample (31 galaxies) to be nucleated, a significant increase from 28% found in the ground-based study of Ferguson et al. (1989). This high frequency of nucleation suggests that the creation of a compact nuclear component is a common outcome in early-type galaxy formation. Only three of the nuclei (10%) are observed to be significantly offset (by > 0.5") from their host galaxy photocentres, and a trend of increasing offset in fainter galaxies is observed, which indicates that nucleus formation timescales and/or pathways may vary with host luminosity. The nuclei are found to be larger and approximately 50 times brighter than typical globular clusters from our Fornax sample, and to follow different half-light surface brightness versus magnitude scaling relations. The colours of the nuclei are characteristic of intermediate to old stellar populations, and those residing in galaxies with B_T > 13 mag are observed to correlate with the nucleus luminosities. Both nucleus and galaxy colours become redder with increasing host luminosity, although the trend with the nuclei is steeper, and the nuclei in the brightest galaxies are found to be redder than their hosts. However, the majority of nuclei are bluer than their hosts, having an average colour difference of 0.27 +/- 0.25 mag. Comparison of our results to the complementary ACS Virgo Cluster Survey (ACSVCS) study of nuclei Côté et al. (2006), which examined 100 early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster, yields strikingly similar results. Both samples show similar frequency of nucleation (68% in the ACSVCS), a constant nucleus-to-galaxy luminosity ratio (with a mean value of 0.41% +/- 0.04% derived from the combined samples), as well as excellent agreement in the nucleus luminosity functions and sizes (with median values of 6 pc in g and 7 pc in z in both studies). Since the Fornax cluster presents a much denser environment than Virgo, such consistency between the properties of the nuclei indicates that their formation and evolution may be influenced by local factors more than environmental ones. In particular, a constant nucleus-to-galaxy luminosity ratio suggests that a host galaxy's luminosity (or, more likely, mass) may be a key element in determining the properties of its nucleus. Since simulations have found the two main theorized nucleus formation pathways to be effective on different mass scales (with dissipationless infall of star clusters being more efficient in lower-mass galaxies, and in-situ gas accretion in higher-mass hosts), we propose that both processes may both in fact be responsible for nucleus formation, but varying in relative importance along the galaxy luminosity function. / Graduate

Hazardous and recalcitrant pollutants in the environments have led to a great many environmental issues these days. Many researchers have focused on the approaches to treatment of these pollutants which contaminate environments such as soil, surface and groundwater. As an advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), sonolysis which is the oxidation technology involving the use of ultrasonic irradiation, has proven to be successful for the treatment and remediation of contaminated environments. In this thesis, hydrogen peroxide formation and formic acid degradation by ultrasonic irradiation of well-characterised solutions are described under various conditions in order to determinate reaction mechanism by which peroxide degradation and contaminant degradation occur. The effect of gas properties and frequency on hydrogen peroxide and formic acid degradation are examined. Experimental results obtained are analyzed in light of the reactions occurring. Successful mathematical modeling of the result s obtained confirms that, for the most part, hydrogen peroxide and formic degradation occur by free radical generation within bubbles with subsequent transfer of these radicals to the bubble-water interface where the majority of the degradation occurs. The effect of Fe(II) addition which can lead to Fenton reactions in the bulk solution are also investigated. Experimental and model results show that the heterogeneous reactions can enhance the degradation of formic acid in the presence of Fe(II). Oxidation of phenol by ultrasonic irradiation under a variety of initial conditions and solution environments is also described and validated by a simple kinetic model. The model developed will be useful for improving our understanding of free radicals behaviour and the interplay between free radical generation and contaminant degradation.

Zugl.: Zürich, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2006 / Auch im Internet unter der Adresse http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/ecol-pool/diss/fulltext/eth16351.pdf verfügbar

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Liberty University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1997. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-103). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Jena, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Thesis (M.A.)--California State University Channel Islands, 2006. / Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Education. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed August 29, 2008).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-171). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. / Prepared for: Dept. of Educational Studies. Title from title-page of electronic thesis. Bibliography: leaves 114-122.