The aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States resulted in the introduction of the National Fusion Center Network. This effort seeks to empower National Security by effectively sharing information between various law enforcement organizations. Since the establishment of the Network, information that addresses the Networks' standard operating procedures and existing barriers to share information effectively has been lacking. This caused many criticisms as to whether the network is in fact effective in fulfilling its mandate to effectively share information between the various law enforcement agencies. Utilizing Bandura's cognitive theory of behavioral change, this phenomenological study identifies the strategies utilized by the Fusion center Network to share information while addressing the barriers that arise during the process. Qualitative data consists of interviews conducted with a purposive sample of N=8 employees at two Fusion Centers in the Network. Data were inductively coded, analyzed, and summarized to answer the research questions and illustrate relevance to the framework. Findings made it clear that staff respondents believe that the Fusion Center Network has a tangible impact on Information Sharing between law enforcement, government, and non-government agencies. This expanded the field of knowledge regarding the Fusion Center Network and made room for future researchers to expound on. Recommendations offered by this study are geared towards assisting policy makers, partner organizations and the public at large to make better decisions toward protecting the Homeland from future acts of terror. This study carries implications for creating positive social change by providing recommendations to assist legislators develop effective policies and to increase national security measures of the United States.

In this study, I examine the ways in which undergraduate students acquire the discourses of their chosen major. In particular, I focus on the complementary contributions of faculty members and academic librarians in students' acquisition of disciplinary discourses. Grounded in genre theory and Gee's (1996) notion of primary and secondary discourses, the study highlights the complex processes that students undergo to acquire and internalize the discourse of an academic discipline. Using a qualitative case-study approach, I consider the interrelated experiences of five undergraduate students, three faculty members, and two librarians at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Data sources include students' written assignments gathered from their major coursework throughout their college careers; interviews with student participants, faculty members, and librarians; observational notes and transcripts of lectures in courses taught by professors from four courses; and course artifacts, including course syllabi and assignment sheets from the four courses. Data from this study highlight the complex matrix of influences undergraduate students experience as they acquire the specialized language of an academic discipline. My data provide insight into the ways in which some students are positioned to take up disciplinary discourses with ease while other students struggle to develop the same level of acquisition and academic fluency. I bring to light the instructional and institutional practices that facilitate student learning and document those instances where instructional opportunities were missed and where unwarranted assumptions compromised student learning. I conclude this study with series of recommendations, most notably, a greater participation by academic librarians in order to enhance the acquisition of disciplinary discourses for undergraduate students. Further, my data suggest that collaborative opportunities between and among faculty members and academic librarians are likely to enhance the effective teaching of disciplinary discourses. Because of librarians' role as simultaneous insiders and outsiders to the academic disciplines, they are uniquely well-positioned to assist students in acquiring the disciplinary discourses. This dissertation suggests that by making visible the cultural expectations and practices of academia, faculty members and librarians can collaborate to assist undergraduate students gain entry into the academic discourse community.

As the topic of sustainability is gaining a lot of importance, organizations in the aviation industry are coming together to form networks. The purpose of the study is to understand the concept of inter-organizational networks as potential learning organizations and find out how facilitating processes that enable these inter-organizational networks like collaboration, communication and knowledge management operate within networks. Further research will explore processes of learning in networks to investigate alignment and resemblance with the concept of sustainable learning organization and provide an insight on organization structure and culture as enablers of learning. The basic design of the study consists of semi-structured interviews of two networks in the aviation industry as primary data in order to support research questions with empirical analysis. In addition, systematic review of academic literature and official websites of various network stakeholders was used as a secondary data collection source to discover track record of current research study in this field and identify knowledge gaps and areas for further study. Major findings include impact of formal and informal structure of networks on learning processes and objective setting for the network. It also depicts a need for a holistic and systematic approach at interorganizational level in order to form a learning organization. In the end culture was also identified as a learning enabler in networks that tend to be sustainable learning organizations.

This study aims to examine the project efforts and activities that are being carried out as a part of a larger integration project in Sweden. Furthermore, the study discusses the contributions of these project efforts and activities in relation to creating better conditions for newly arrived participants, and also how the group of participants describe the projects and activities. The empirical data has been collected through the use of four project evaluations from selected integration projects. The empirical data was analysed using a qualitative text analysis. Previous research relevant to this study, the human capital theory and the signal and filter theory have formed my theoretical framework. The two theories are used to increase understanding of the mechanisms behind immigrants 'problems in the labor market and immigrants' integration into Swedish society as well as the opportunity to improve the situation. The result of my study shows that the project efforts and activities have created better conditions for the newly arrived participants in the integration projects. The group of participants feel that the integration efforts they have participated correspond to their needs, circumstances, as well as increasing their competence when entering the labor market. The result of my study shows that integration should not be defined only by the entrance into the labor market, but also through other forms of participation in the Swedish society.

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<p>Care of patients with chronic conditions is complicated and usually includes large number of healthcare providers. Understanding the team structure and networks of healthcare providers help to make informed decisions for health policy makers and design of wellness programs by identifying the influencers in the network. This work presents a novel approach to assess the collaboration of healthcare providers involved in the care of patients with chronic conditions and the impact on patient outcomes. </p> <p>In the first study, we assessed a patient population needs, preventive service utilization, and impact of an onsite clinic as an intervention on preventive service utilization patterns over a three-year period. Classification models were developed to identify groups of patients with similar characteristics and healthcare utilization. Logistic regression models identified patient factors that impacted their utilization of preventive health services in the onsite clinic vs. other providers. Females had higher utilizations compared to males. Type of insurance coverages, and presence of diabetes/hypertension were significant factors that impacted utilization. The first study framework helps to understand the patient population characteristics and role of specific providers (onsite clinic), however, it does not provide information about the teams of healthcare providers involved in the care process. </p> <p>Considering the high prevalence of diabetes in the patient cohort of study 1, in the second study, we followed the patient cohort with diabetes from study 1 and extracted their healthcare providers over a two-year period. A framework based on the social network analysis was presented to assess the healthcare providers’ networks and teams involved in the care of diabetes. The relations between healthcare providers were generated based on the patient sharing relations identified from the claims data. A multi-scale community detection algorithm was used to identify groups of healthcare providers more closely working together. Centrality measures of the social network identified the influencers in the overall network and each community. Mail-order and retail pharmacies were identified as central providers in the overall network and majority of communities. This study presented metrics and approach for assessment of provider collaboration. To study how these collaborative relations impact the patients, in the last study, we presented a framework to assess impacts of healthcare provider collaboration on patient outcomes. </p> <p>We focused on patients with diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia due to their similar healthcare needs and utilization. Similar to the second study, social network analysis and a multi-scale community detection algorithm were used to identify networks and communities of healthcare providers. We identified providers who were the majority source of care for patients over a three-year period. Regression models using generalized estimating equations were developed to assess the impact of majority source of care provider community-level centrality on patient outcomes. Higher connectedness (higher degree centrality) and higher access (higher closeness centrality) of the majority source of care provider were associated with reduced number of inpatient hospitalization and emergency department visits. </p> <p>This research proposed a framework based on the social network analysis that provides metrics for assessment of care team relations using large-scale health data. These metrics help implementation experts to identify influencers in the network for better design of care intervention programs. The framework is also useful for health services researchers to assess impact of care teams’ relations on patient outcomes. </p> <br> <p> </p>

abstract: Students seldom spontaneously collaborate with each other. A system that can measure collaboration in real time could be useful, for example, by helping the teacher locate a group requiring guidance. To address this challenge, the research presented here focuses on building and comparing collaboration detectors for different types of classroom problem solving activities, such as card sorting and handwriting. Transfer learning using different representations was also studied with a goal of building collaboration detectors for one task can be used with a new task. Data for building such detectors were collected in the form of verbal interaction and user action logs from students’ tablets. Three qualitative levels of interactivity were distinguished: Collaboration, Cooperation and Asymmetric Contribution. Machine learning was used to induce a classifier that can assign a code for every episode based on the set of features. The results indicate that machine learned classifiers were reliable and can transfer. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2020

This is a scholarly essay in which I examine and reflect on issues related to collaborationbetween teachers and parents and also inclusion of students with special needs. In the firstpart of the essay a story is presented that describes the problems followed by a lack ofconsensus between parents and school regarding a student with special needs. In which waycan a good collaboration between teachers and parents be promoted? I have used the“partnership model” and the “Overlapping Spheres of Influence”-theory to problematize andreflect on collaboration between teachers and parents. Are we as teachers able to changeparental attitudes? Or should we as teaches try to reach a deeper comprehension about whyparents have different attitudes towards the school? In this essay I will also introduce different perspectives within the special education field andalso the meaning of inclusion and including pedagogy. What does it mean that school shouldbe for everyone? In which way can I as a leisure-time teacher make sure that all students areinvolved regardless of their needs? These issues are problematized and discussed not onlyfrom my perspective but also from students and teachers perspectives.

In this thesis, I seek to answer if applying the art of mindfulness to my directorial process can provide a greater experience of satisfaction and promote stronger effectiveness in the level of communication and cooperation amongst the collaborative artists in our theatremaking process, compared to previous departmental productions. This thesis will explore my journey and cultivation of mindfulness from both a personal and artistic perspective. I define the mindfulness-based principles of Mindful Decision Making, Mindful Listening & Loving Speech, and Shifting Negatives to Positives, and provide case studies of their application in my two production processes William Finn’s A New Brain and Sarah Ruhl’s Dead Man’s Cell Phone, which were a part of UMass Amherst Theatre’s 2014-2015 season.