No description available.

The purpose of the thesis is to explore and find ways in making architecture part of the healing process within the specific healthcare setting of ambulatory care. To do so, the project aims at not only serving as a clinic for patients, but also to playing a role to make clinics a more human place by integrating healthcare and community. Understanding that architecture can be an important factor in long- and short-term healthcare and healing processes, the thesis focuses on ambulatory care facilities in rural areas. The project’s goal is to explore, understand and solve some of the problems that characterize outpatient clinics; such as waiting time and quality of healthcare delivery. Also, it focuses on studying indoor-outdoor spaces and treating them as environments that will improve the productivity of staff in work as well as designing a friendly patient and family environment. Through the lens of architecture, this research attempts to elaborate on the complex relationship between doctors, staff, patients, and community. The project argues that ambulatory care facilities should not be limited to only provide clinical space, but they should be flexible to account for future expansion and accommodate new technologies and to take into a high consideration the human scale. By introducing natural light, adding supportive programs and improving wayfinding in the clinic, this thesis will try to answer the following questions: How to design places for improved patient experience? How to lower the stress and confusion on a medical appointment? How to make ‘one-day’ patients’ part of a more integrated and wholesome experience? The site selected for this thesis is located in a historic district in Claremont, NH. This design is serving as a model that can be applied in rural towns with similar history and architecture.

The Massachusetts Green Communities Grant Program (GCP) was created by passage of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act in 2008, which provides funding, tools and technical support to assist local communities in achieving the goal of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction. With the growing number of communities designated as GCP participants over the past two years, public focus has increasingly turned towards assessing the relative effectiveness of the GCP compared to other programs. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the relative effectiveness of the Green Communities Grant Program in supporting participating local governments to mitigate and adapt to climate change, especially in the areas of energy efficiency and emissions reduction. The findings are based on comparative case study analysis between participant Green Communities and non-Green Communities with comparable population size. The results of the qualitative analysis indicated that the communities with relatively strong regional planning agency assistance, relatively large planning departments, completed master/comprehensive plans, and memberships in other climate change protection and sustainable development organizations tend to have much better performance in energy efficiency and GHG emissions reduction. The research also provides suggestions for future research and recommendations for other Massachusetts communities that plan to implement energy-efficiency projects and emissions reduction strategies, whether or not through GCP membership.

For agencies in the health and human services field, data reporting is the primary source of information from which progress and organizational outcomes are measured. Often, front-line staff are responsible for collecting these data and yet are often ill-equipped to collect data accurately and consistently leading to a performance deficit affecting the strength and success of the program. Evaluating and addressing performance issues in the human services field has long been a challenge due to limited resources. Finding an effective and efficient method of evaluation that leads to a function-based intervention would improve performance and ultimately improve organizational outcomes. This study evaluated the Performance Diagnostic Checklist – Human Services (PDC-HS) as means of assessing the performance deficit of inaccurate data reporting in a community-based adult autism services program. A multiple-baseline design was used across four participants to evaluate the effects of the interventions indicated by the PDC-HS. Two participants received performance feedback and two received additional training following the behavior skills training model. Results indicated that both interventions were effective in increasing accurate data reporting across participants. Social validity measures also indicated the PDC-HS was easy to use and could be completed in a timely manner. / Applied Behavioral Analysis

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:24:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1487573 bytes, checksum: a347feb678b175dbda01504d0b8c9e59 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-10-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The Local Development Integrated and Sustainable - DLIS represented in the 1990s in Brazil, a strategic investment in the design and operation of public policies to combat poverty and social exclusion, sought to promote involvement and participation of civil society, building partnerships, establishing a vision of development more inclusive and integrated, surveillance and social control in the process of setting priorities in allocation of public resources in order to initiate a nationwide process of development more sustainable. This study focused on the theoretical debate, historical facts and conceptual categories relevant to understanding the new meaning that space takes place before an international context of economic globalization of capital and strong influence of neoliberalism in the planning of public policies of the Brazilian state. We attempted to ascertain the perceptions of implementing agents (governmental and non governmental organizations) the methodological strategy concerned about the efficiency of the process of community organization through the political role of civil society in local space. This was an analytical research of a qualitative approach, carried out through field study. As procedures, cite the literature, analysis of official documents, specific legislation. As a tool for data collection was used semi-structured interviews, participant observation and oral history. The interviews were conducted between November 2005 and January 2006, together with research subjects in the municipalities of Pedro Régis (forest area) and Nova Olinda (interior). The sample (n = 14) was intentional because it encompassed only professionals who have direct or indirect link with the municipalities that joined the expansion of the Active Community Program, the state of Paraíba. It was concluded that there was a dissociation between the principles and objectives of the strategy of the DLIS government with the intention of effecting an articulated process and sustainable development, which is useful in principle the rationalization of public resources and strengthening of visions of hegemonic power which showed a fragmented conception of development. / O Desenvolvimento Local Integrado e Sustentável DLIS, representou no Brasil dos anos 90 uma inversão estratégica na concepção e operacionalização de Políticas Públicas voltadas ao enfrentamento da pobreza e exclusão social. Buscou promover envolvimento e participação da sociedade civil, constituir parcerias, instituir uma visão de desenvolvimento mais abrangente e integradora e promover a fiscalização e controle social no processo de definição de prioridades na alocação de recursos públicos desencadeando em âmbito nacional um processo de desenvolvimento mais sustentável. O foco do presente estudo foi o debate teórico, fatos históricos e categorias conceituais relevantes para a compreensão da ressignificação que o espaço local adquire diante de um contexto internacional de globalização econômica do capital e forte influência do neoliberalismo no planejamento das políticas públicas do Estado brasileiro. Buscou conhecer as percepções dos agentes implementadores (governamentais e não governamentais) da metodologia em questão sobre sua eficácia no processo de organização comunitária, por meio da atuação política da sociedade civil, no espaço local. Tratou-se de uma pesquisa analítica, de cunho qualitativo, realizada através de estudo de campo. Como procedimentos aplicados citam-se a pesquisa bibliográfica, análise de documentos oficiais e legislação específica. Como instrumento de coleta de dados foram utilizadas entrevista semi-estruturada, observação de participante e história oral. As entrevistas foram realizadas entre os meses de novembro de 2005 a janeiro de 2006, junto aos sujeitos da pesquisa nos municípios de Pedro Régis (zona da mata) e Nova Olinda (sertão). A amostra (n=14) foi intencional porque englobou apenas profissionais que tiveram vinculação direta ou indireta com os municípios que aderiram à expansão do Programa Comunidade Ativa, no Estado da Paraíba. Concluiu-se que existiu uma dissociação entre os princípios e objetivos da metodologia do DLIS com a intenção governamental de efetivar um processo articulado e sustentável de desenvolvimento, sendo útil a princípio a racionalização dos recursos públicos e reforço de visões hegemônicas de poder, o que evidenciou uma concepção fragmentária de desenvolvimento.