Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Knowledge base completion is an important task that allows scientists to reason over knowledge bases and discover new facts. In this thesis, a patient-centric knowledge base is designed and constructed using medical entities and relations extracted from the health forum r/cancer. The knowledge base stores information in binary relation triplets. It is enhanced with an is-a relation that is able to represent the hierarchical relationship between different medical entities. An enhanced Neural Tensor Network that utilizes the frequency of occurrence of relation triplets in the dataset is then developed to infer new facts from the enhanced knowledge base. The results show that when the enhanced inference model uses the enhanced knowledge base, a higher accuracy (73.2 %) and recall@10 (35.4%) are obtained. In addition, this thesis describes a methodology for knowledge base and associated inference model design that can be applied to other chronic diseases.

North West Nigeria has the lowest vaccination rate of the geopolitical regions of the country. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine associations between the parents'/caregivers' biological, cultural, and socioeconomic factors and the completion or noncompletion of routine immunization schedules. Andersen's behavioral model provided the framework for the study. Data were obtained from the 2013 National Demographic Health Survey. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables. Chi-square tests were used for categorical predictor variables, simple logistic regression models were used for the age variable, and multiple linear regression models were used for the biological, cultural, and socioeconomic variables to assess the relative importance of factors within each category. Findings indicated a statistically significant association between 4 factors (education, wealth index, religious affiliation, and cost of healthcare) and completion of immunization schedules. Findings may be used to improve the likelihood of immunization of children in North West Nigeria and reduce the levels of childhood morbidity and mortality. Policy makers and immunization programmers can strengthen social services such as women's education, income generation, especially in the agricultural sector and other culturally sensitive interventions with community collaboration to bring the required social change.

Objective: The study assesses the impact of dual enrollment participation on remediation and completion for traditional first time, full-time freshmen at a community college in Northeast Tennessee. Method: This study began with the full population of 1,232 students who enrolled between 2008 and 2012 at a community college in northeast Tennessee the fall semester after finishing high school. The population was required to have American College Testing (ACT) scores, completely fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), enroll full-time as a degree-seeking student, and complete the first fall semester. Propensity score matching was utilized to eliminate self-selection bias and enable parametric comparisons using optimal matching of dual enrollment participants and non-participants while controlling for a range of covariates. Results: The analyses showed that community college students who participated in dual enrollment were (a) 9% or nearly 3.4 times less likely to take remediation, (b) 26% or nearly 2.5 times more likely to graduate in 2 years, and (c) 28% or nearly 1.5 times more likely to graduate in 3 years. Contributions: This study contributes to the literature showing that dual enrollment reduces remediation rates and assists in timely completions for community college students. Policy recommendations are to increase equitable participation, normalize dual enrollment for students academically able to do college coursework, align state terminology with the nation, and improve data for future research.

There are several tools for creating online surveys. However, guidance is lacking for some of the decision-making regarding the survey design. This study aims to investigate if one of these choices, navigation, has an impact on the surveys completion rate. We developed our own tool that gave every other respondent one of two different designs. This lets us gather more information than tools such as Google Forms and SurveyMonkey. A qualitative approach was used and we let the students of a course at KTH answer questions about that course without having knowledge of this project. No conclusions could be made due to some unexpected behaviours which will be explained later in this paper. / Det finns ett antal verktyg online för att skapa undersökningar. Det saknas dock riktlinjer för formgivning och val av komponenter. Med denna studie undersöks om en av dessa komponenter, navigation, har någon inverkan på en undersöknings svarsfrekvens. Vi utvecklade ett eget verktyg som distribuerade varannan svarande en utav två olika designer. Detta tillåter oss att samla in mer information än de verktyg som finns online. Exempel på sådana verktyg är Google Forms och SurveyMonkey. Ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt användes där vi lät aktiva studenter i en kurs på KTH svara på frågor angående kursen. De svarande visste inte om att de deltog i en studie. Ingga avgörande slutsatser kunde tas på grund av oväntat beteende.

While people sleep, the brain replays the same neural firings that resulted from waking activities that day. This results in greater memory strength following a sleeping delay than a waking delay. The current project built upon this fact in a series of three experiments. Experiment 1. Although previous research has demonstrated a benefit of sleep to memory strength, the literature has not established the impact of sleep on memory specificity. Computational models of medial temporal lobe function posit that discrimination and generalization across similar memories are accomplished through processes known as pattern separation and pattern completion, respectively. To discover whether sleep predisposes people toward pattern separation or pattern completion, participants studied pictures of common objects. After a 12-hour delay, during which participants either slept or stayed awake, participants indicated whether “lure” images were exactly the same or merely similar to those they studied. There was better memory discrimination in those who slept, consistent with a bias toward pattern separation following sleep. Experiment 2. In order to discover whether the pattern of memory demonstrated in Experiment 1 would carry over to semantic memories, participants studied textbook material and took a true/false test 12 hours later. There was a shift in the response trends following sleep, such that participants were more likely to mistakenly endorse highly similar false statements as “true” but were also more likely to correctly endorse more dissimilar false statements as “false.” However, we did not detect evidence of an increased bias toward pattern separation or pattern completion following sleep for this material. Our findings appear consistent with the prediction that memory specificity is benefitted by sleep. Experiment 3. Previous research has demonstrated that memories encoded later in the day are consolidated better than memories encoded earlier in the day. However, these studies have not controlled for the differential decay that memories suffer across these two elapsed periods. In this study, we attempted to show the degree of improvement afforded by sleep using a before-sleep comparison group. However, post hoc analyses revealed a significant interaction between the proposed outcomes and whether participants had napped during the day. These preliminary findings may suggest that napping differentially affects the consolidation of information studied before and after napping.

This study attempted to determine if a low-cost, minimally time consuming intervention could increase document completion – specifically end of shift reports. Using a concurrent multiple baseline design, automated phone calls reminded staff to complete their end of shift reports. Participants were the staff members at 16 group homes. All participants were trained Direct Support Professionals. The dependent variable was completion of end of shift reports as a percent of opportunities. There was a measurable response to the intervention. Overall, the percent of completion increased from 4% in baseline to 22% during intervention. The agency desired a much higher response level so a future research opportunity could address the limitations of this study by exploring the motivating operations impacting document completion and identifying individual staff rather than using aggregate data.

In the state of Utah, adult education students often leave their programs before 100 hours of instruction. This can leave students without the necessary academic knowledge, skills, and credentials to move forward with postsecondary education and training or employment opportunities. This phenomenological study examines the key factors of persistence in non-traditional students ages 25 and over in an urban adult education program who continued beyond 100 hours of instruction. Fourteen students were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol to identify factors that caused them to stay in an adult education program. The interviews with students examined dispositional, institutional, situational, and motivational factors through a student involvement lens. Findings of this study indicate that students who persist generally have high degrees of involvement. While students had fears and concerns about engaging with adult education, the personnel and culture of the program helped them overcome their unease. Students also had a growth mindset that created expectations of discomfort and effort. Institutional factors such as allowing students to choose the modality of instruction and schedule, having focused and relevant instruction, feeling seen, being treated with respect, communicating regularly with students, tracking progress, and providing quality instruction all helped students persist in the program. Students were motivated to persist because of family and a personal desire to move forward. As programs intentionally impact the institutional factors identified in this study, students will be more likely to persist in adult education programs long enough to build the knowledge and skills necessary to find personal success and sustainable employment.

Half of the students who begin college do not complete a degree or certificate. The odds of completing a degree are decreased if a student has a low socio-economic status (SES), is the first in a family to attend college (first-generation), attends multiple institutions, stops out multiple times, reduces credit loads over time, performs poorly in major-specific coursework, has competing family obligations, and experiences financial difficulties. Stopping out of college does not always indicate that a student is no longer interested in pursuing an education; it can be an indication of a barrier or several barriers faced. Institutions can benefit themselves and students by utilizing person-centered statistical methods to re-engage students they have lost, particularly those near the end of their degree plan. Using demographic, academic, and financial variables, this study applied latent class analysis (LCA) to explore subgroups of seniors who have stopped out of a public four-year Tier One research intuition before graduating with a four-year degree. The findings indicated a six-class model was the best fitting model. Similar to previous research, academic and financial variables were key determinants of the latent classes. This paper demonstrates how the results of an LCA can assist institutions in the decisions around intervention strategies and resource allocations.

The purpose of this study was to explore the postsecondary education transition experiences of graduates of Choctaw Central High School (CCHS) who received support from the Tribal Scholarship Program (TSP) to better understand the barriers to successful postsecondary completion and the means to overcoming those barriers. Successful transitions are key for students to persist to academic completion. Studies show that American Indian students have low rates of college completion and experience a variety of factors attributed to withdrawal from college. This study provided insight into college success experienced by American Indian students and an understanding of the opportunities for a college education their scholarship program provides. Suggestions for improving the preparation of students and operation of the scholarship program are offered. The participants in this study were CCHS graduates who received support from the TSP for postsecondary education. A case study with a survey component research design was used in this study. Data from a cross-sectional survey, interviews, and observations were collected. A total of 87 past and present TSP supported students participated as survey respondents. Purposeful sampling in the form of maximum variation was used to select 6 respondents for researcher conducted interviews. The findings of this study documented four themes that characterized the transition experience of respondents to postsecondary education. Additionally, within these themes three general barriers to successful postsecondary completion were revealed. The general barriers included: (a) racial conflict with peers or faculty, (b) being overwhelmed academically, and (c) having to care for a legal dependent. The themes and barriers are discussed in the context of three primary factors related to postsecondary completion for American Indian students: sociocultural, academic, and personal factors. Recommendations included: (a) assessing and addressing the unique needs of nontraditional students in the Tribal Scholarship program, (b) arranging for an after hour study and tutoring facility for Tribal Scholarship Program students who commute from the reservation to college, (c) beginning orientation to the Tribal Scholarship Program with 9th graders, (d) providing on-campus mentoring opportunities for Tribal Scholarship Program participants, and (e) expanding this research to public school graduates who participate in the Tribal Scholarship Program.

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