Class of 2009 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were 1) to review the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy’s curriculum to assess if courses cover pertinent topics in the use of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medications by pregnant and lactating women based on The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Gender and Sex-Related Health Care Pharmacy Curriculum Guide and 2) to assess pharmacy students’ knowledge and abilities to counsel women during pregnancy and breastfeeding. METHODS: The curriculum review was a retrospective, descriptive analysis to assess how well the required curriculum addressed eight pertinent topics in the use of prescription and OTC medications by pregnant and lactating women. The self-assessment questionnaire was a cross-sectional, descriptive analysis that measured student pharmacists’ comfort level with counseling pregnant and lactating women, their perception of how well pharmacy school has prepared them for this role, and their familiarity with and use of available resources. RESULTS: The College of Pharmacy was not in compliance with AACP’s Pharmacy Curriculum Guide. This was reinforced by the questionnaire, which showed that the majority of students, regardless of year in school, did not feel they had been adequately prepared to counsel or to make recommendations to this population. CONCLUSIONS: It is recommended that the curriculum be amended by adding a lecture on teratogenicity. A list of gender and sex- related topics should be provided as well as a handout with available resources. In addition, case studies in each course should be revised to include critical decision-making, recommendations, and counseling if the patient were pregnant or breastfeeding.

Class of 2007 Abstract / Objectives: The main objective of this study was to determine if there was a link between the amount of OTC medications consumed and the knowledge of these products. With approximately 100,000 OTC products are available to the consumer this study focused on the most common class sold over the counter, analgesics. This study also determined if there was a correlation between the elderly and their frequency and knowledge of these products. Specific demographic characteristics including gender and education level were also evaluated to determine if these factors had an impact. Methods: A 21 question survey on OTC analgesics was distributed to retail pharmacy customers. It consisted of questions on amount of OTC analgesics regularly consumed, general knowledge of these products, and basic demographic questions. The initial questions assessed the amount of OTC analgesic regularly consumed by the participant. The remaining questions were designed to determine the participant’s knowledge of these products. They were either multiple choice or true false questions covering basic information on OTC analgesics Results: It was found there was no correlation between the amount of OTC analgesics consumed and the knowledge of these products. A person who consumed analgesics on a regular basis was not significantly more knowledgable about these products then a person who had never taken them. There was also no link between age and amount of OTC analgesics taken or knowledge of these products. It was found that women have more knowledge of OTC analgesics then men. Females answered an average 63.6% of the survey questions correct, compared to males who answered 51.8% correct. This project also demonstrated there was a correlation between the amount of the participant’s education level and their knowledge of OTC analgesics. Participants who had a high school education or less, answered 53.6% of the questions correct, and those who had a college degree or post graduate answered 73.5% correct. Conclusions: Although OTC analgesics don’t require a prescription, it is still important to counsel patients taking these medications. This should be considered a necessary part of the job of a pharmacist to ensure the general population has adequate knowledge of these products and is taking them safely. These products can offer a significant benefit and improve a person’s quality of life when utilized correctly. Providing patient education can ensure this can be done.

Purpose: Accounting practices vary not only across firms, but also across countries, reflecting the respective legal and cultural background. Attempts at harmonization therefore continue to be rebuffed. The purpose of this paper is to argue that different wordings in national laws, and different interpretations of similar wordings in national laws, can be explained by taking recourse to the philosophy of language, referring particularly to Searle and Wittgenstein. Design/methodology/approach: The example of the substance over form principle, investigated in seven countries, is particularly suitable for this analysis. It is known in all accounting jurisdictions, but still has very different roots in different European countries, with European and international influences conflicting, which is reflected in the different wording of the principle from one country to the next, and the different socially constructed realities associated with those wordings. Findings: This paper shows that, beyond accounting practices, the legal and cultural background of a country affects the wording of national law itself. The broad conclusion is that different socially constructed realities might tend to resist any attempt at harmonized socially constructed words. Originality/value: The paper contributes to the debate surrounding the possible homogenization of accounting regulations, illustrating the theory of the social construction of both "reality" and "language" on the specific application of one common principle to various Member State environments.

A research area that has recently gained great interest is the development of network architectures relating to the tracking of wireless VoIP devices. This is particularly so for architectures based on the popular Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Previous work, however, in this area does not consider the impact of combined VoIP and tracking on the capacity and call set-up time of the architectures. Previous work also assumes that location information is always available from sources such as GPS, a scenario that rarely is found in practice. The inclusion of multiple positioning systems in tracking architectures has not been hitherto explored. It is the purpose of this thesis to design and test SIP-based architectures that address these key issues. Our first main contribution is the development of a tracking-only SIP based architecture. This architecture is designed for intermittent GPS availability, with wireless network tracking as the back-up positioning technology. Such a combined tracking system is more conducive with deployment in real-world environments. Our second main contribution is the development of SIP based tracking architectures that are specifically aimed at mobile wireless VoIP systems. A key aspect we investigate is the quantification of the capacity constraints imposed on VoIP-tracking architectures. We identify such capacity limits in terms of SIP call setup time and VoIP QoS metrics, and determine these limits through experimental measurement and theoretical analyses. Our third main contribution is the development of a novel SIP based location tracking architecture in which the VoIP application is modified. The key aspect of this architecture is the factor of two increase in capacity that it can accommodate relative to architectures utilizing standard VoIP. An important aspect of all our tracking architectures is the Tracking Server. This server supplies the location information in the event of GPS unavailability. A final contribution of this thesis is the development of novel particle-filter based tracking algorithms that specifically address the GPS intermittency issue. We show how these filters interact with other features of our SIP based architectures in a seamless fashion.

Broadband over Power Line (BPL) technology has garnered significant attention lately due to recent advancements in solid state technologies and channel coding schemes. The successful application of BPL technology for in-home automation and networking has led to suggestions of applying BPL in other systems including ships. The application of BPL technology using the Shipboard Power System (SPS) as a potential communications network for ship automation systems has been proposed, to achieve recent U.S. Navy ship management concepts geared toward reducing ship manning while improving operational efficiency. This thesis presents an analytical model developed to examine the channel response characteristics and estimated throughput capacity of SPS cables. The work used a multiconductor transmission line theory based approach to model the channel response of SPS distribution lines and estimated the channel throughput capacity using a “water-filling” communication technique. This work found that BPL using the SPS holds a strong potential for use as a communications network for ship communication systems.

Call admission control (CAC) extends the capabilities of Quality of service (QoS) tools which protect voice traffic from the negative effects of other voice traffic. It does not allow oversubscription of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. To achieve better performance for efficient call admission control, various dynamic routings are being proposed. In the dynamic routing mechanism, the condition of the network is learned by observing the network condition via the probe packets and according to the defined threshold, routes are chosen dynamically. In such schemes, various combination of route selection is used such as two routes are used where one is fixed and other is random or two random routes are chosen and after observation one is chosen if it passes the test. Few schemes use a route history table along with the two random routes. But all have some issues like it selects random routes (not considering the number of hops), does not process memorization before admission threshold test, it calculates all selected paths regardless of the fact that they are selected or not, thereby wasting central processing unit (CPU) time and since these uses two routes so obviously the call admission probability is less. In this thesis work, a new dynamic routing scheme is proposed which considers a routing history table with endpoint admission control increasing the call admission probability, makes call establishment time faster and it saves valuable CPU resources. The proposed scheme considers a combination of three routes with routing history table--one is the direct route and the other two are selected randomly from all available routes and the routing history table is used to memorize the rejected calls. CAC tests like Admission Threshold were performed on the selected routes. Various parameters such as delay, packet loss, jitter, latency etc from the probe packets are used to carry out the tests. Performance of the proposed scheme with respect to other dynamic routing schemes is studied using a mathematical / analytical model. Also, effect of arrival rate probe packets on utilization, busy period, waiting period, acceptance probability of calls, probe packets, and the number of successful calls was also studied. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. / "July 2006."

The notion of spaces of orderings was introduced by Murray Marshall in the 1970's and provides an abstract framework for studying orderings on fields and the reduced theory of quadratic forms over fields. The structure of a space of orderings (X, G) is completely determined by the group structure of G and the quaternary relation (a_1, a_2) = (a_3, a_4) on G -- the groups with additional structure arising in this way are called reduced special groups. The theory of reduced special groups, in turn, can be conveniently axiomatized in the first order language L_SG. Numerous important notions in this theory, such as isometry, isotropy, or being an element of a value set of a form, make an extensive use of, so called, positive primitive formulae in the language L_SG. Therefore, the following question, which can be viewed as a type of very general and highly abstract local-global principle, is of great importance:<p>Is it true that if a positive primitive formula holds in every finite subspace of a space of orderings, then it also holds in the whole space?<p>This problem is now known as the pp conjecture. The answer to this question is affirmative in many cases, although it has always seemed unlikely that the conjecture has a positive solution in general. In this thesis, we discuss, discovered by us, first counterexamples for which the pp conjecture fails. Namely, we classify spaces of orderings of function fields of rational conics with respect to the pp conjecture, and show for which of such spaces the conjecture fails, and then we disprove the pp conjecture for the space of orderings of the field R(x,y). Some other examples, which can be easily obtained from the developed theory, are also given. In addition, we provide a refinement of the result previously obtained by Vincent Astier and Markus Tressl, which shows that a pp formula fails on a finite subspace of a space of orderings, if and only if a certain family of formulae is verified.

Organizational restructuring and reform in the health care system has impacted the ability of Clinical Nurses (CNs) to participate in and influence decision making that affects the delivery of patient care. Clinical nurses maintain and advocate a professional responsibility to practice according to specific standards, policies and procedures, and to meet the needs of the patient and family members. Clinical nurses participation in decision making at the patient, unit and administrative levels recognizes their abilities and skills as professionals; however, CNs continue to experience a limited role in the decision making and control over nursing practice at all of these levels.<p> The literature overview examines control over nursing practice including how this complex concept is difficult to define and undervalued within the CNs professional practice environment. It is evident in the literature that control over nursing practice is important to the CNs professional practice environment ultimately affecting job satisfaction, recruitment/retention, and patient outcomes. Control over nursing practice is explored in relation to internal and external factors that affect the professionalism of the CN. Internal factors are those that are more closely related to the CNs scope of practice and include professionalism (influence in decision making including policies and procedures, collegial relations, and professional development), CN satisfaction (workload, scheduling, health, safety and security concerns, supportive management, and opportunities for leadership), safe quality patient care (staffing, education, and specialization), empowerment, and autonomy. The external factors are outside the immediate scope of the CN yet directly and indirectly affect the CNs control over nursing practice including health care restructuring, organizational influence, work environment models (shared governance and magnet hospital environments), and nursing leadership. <p>This study provided CNs employed in the provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan an opportunity and a voice to share their perceptions of who governs their professional practice environment including control over nursing practice. This mixed method descriptive survey design used Hess Index of Professional Nursing Governance ([IPNG], 1998) along with five questions geared to elicit qualitative responses to study the perceptions of who governs CNs professional practice environment including control over nursing practice in provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan. Section one of the IPNG contains a demographic section including information on age, gender, nursing education, and employment information. The second section of IPNG consists of 86 questions that are further divided into six subscales asking respondents to indicate who has control over nursing practice in a number of areas within their particular health facility. The six subscales include Subscale I Professional control relating to who has control over professional practice in the organization, Subscale II Organizational influence examining who participates in governance activities within the organization, Subscale III Organizational recognition identifying who controls nursing personnel and related structures, Subscale IV Facilitating structures indicating who determines and participates in governance decisions within the organization, Subscale V Liaison exploring who influences the resources that support professional practice, and Subscale VI Alignment identifying who sets and negotiates conflict within the organization. These questions are rated on a 5 point Likert scale according to the following response possibilities: 5 = staff nurses only; 4 = primarily staff nurses with some nursing management/administration input; 3 = equally shared by staff nurses and nursing management/administration; 2 = primarily nursing management/administration with some staff nurse input; 1 = nursing management/administration only. Section three the qualitative questions, contained one closed ended and four open ended questions that provided CNs an opportunity to share a more personal perspective regarding their perceptions of control over nursing practice in their work environment. These questions included: 1. What does control over nursing practice mean to you? 2. How could control over your practice be changed significantly? 3. Do you feel you have enough control over practice in your work environment? 4. What limits your control over practice in an area that interests you? and What enables your control over practice in an area that interests you? <p>The total population of 1804 CNs in provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan was invited to participate in this study. One hundred and seventy two CNs (9.53%) responded to this study, including 118 from Saskatoon (11.8%) and 54 from Regina (6.7%). The descriptive data provides data on gender and average age of CNs that is similar to Canadian Institute for Health Information ([CIHI], 2006) and Health Canada (2006a). A greater number of CN respondents indicated their basic nursing education was a diploma and more CNs had attained a baccalaureate degree as their highest level of education when compared to the CIHI data. Twice as many CNs indicated having specialty certification and a higher number were working full time in comparison to the CIHI data. The quantitative data obtained from the IPNG subscales indicates CNs perceive limited control over nursing practice and this is by in large held mainly by nursing management/administration (1) and nursing management with some staff nurse input (2). The subscale results include Professional control (M = 1.72), Organizational influence (m = 2.13), Organizational recognition (M = 1.73), Facilitating structures (M = 1.82), Liaison (M = 2.1), and Alignment (M = 2.1). Overall, the results from the IPNG subscales provide scores of less than 3 on the Likert scale indicating CNs perceive limited control over nursing practice in their professional practice environment. There were no significant differences within the provincial hospitals or between the health regions regarding CNs perceptions of control over nursing practice. In their qualitative responses, CNs provided information related to both the internal and external factors as discussed in Chapter Two. Clinical nurses indicate they face many challenges regarding control over practice including lack of influence in decision making in issues related to policy and procedure, quality patient care, staffing ratios, self-scheduling, and educational opportunities. They also identified external factors affecting their control over nursing practice including a lack of support by management in relation to decision making, a lack of provision of and access to an adequacy of resources, and a lack of communication and collaboration. Many CNs indicated their only influence in decision making was related to direct patient care. Clinical nurses described that being valued, supported, and recognized for their experience and education in decision making positively affects control over nursing practice and more specifically, quality patient care. <p> Study results offer government officials, practitioners, regulatory bodies, researchers, administrators, educators, nurses, the public, professional association, employers, unions, and any other stakeholders information that provides an opportunity to increase their awareness and understanding of the impact that control over nursing practice has for CNs in their practice environment. If stakeholders are serious in their attempts to recognize CNs concerns regarding control over nursing practice in their work environment, the results from this study will provide information facilitating change in the CNs control over nursing practice. Ultimately, this affects the CNs professionalism and ability to provide quality patient care.

Organizational restructuring and reform in the health care system has impacted the ability of Clinical Nurses (CNs) to participate in and influence decision making that affects the delivery of patient care. Clinical nurses maintain and advocate a professional responsibility to practice according to specific standards, policies and procedures, and to meet the needs of the patient and family members. Clinical nurses participation in decision making at the patient, unit and administrative levels recognizes their abilities and skills as professionals; however, CNs continue to experience a limited role in the decision making and control over nursing practice at all of these levels.<p> The literature overview examines control over nursing practice including how this complex concept is difficult to define and undervalued within the CNs professional practice environment. It is evident in the literature that control over nursing practice is important to the CNs professional practice environment ultimately affecting job satisfaction, recruitment/retention, and patient outcomes. Control over nursing practice is explored in relation to internal and external factors that affect the professionalism of the CN. Internal factors are those that are more closely related to the CNs scope of practice and include professionalism (influence in decision making including policies and procedures, collegial relations, and professional development), CN satisfaction (workload, scheduling, health, safety and security concerns, supportive management, and opportunities for leadership), safe quality patient care (staffing, education, and specialization), empowerment, and autonomy. The external factors are outside the immediate scope of the CN yet directly and indirectly affect the CNs control over nursing practice including health care restructuring, organizational influence, work environment models (shared governance and magnet hospital environments), and nursing leadership. <p>This study provided CNs employed in the provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan an opportunity and a voice to share their perceptions of who governs their professional practice environment including control over nursing practice. This mixed method descriptive survey design used Hess Index of Professional Nursing Governance ([IPNG], 1998) along with five questions geared to elicit qualitative responses to study the perceptions of who governs CNs professional practice environment including control over nursing practice in provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan. Section one of the IPNG contains a demographic section including information on age, gender, nursing education, and employment information. The second section of IPNG consists of 86 questions that are further divided into six subscales asking respondents to indicate who has control over nursing practice in a number of areas within their particular health facility. The six subscales include Subscale I Professional control relating to who has control over professional practice in the organization, Subscale II Organizational influence examining who participates in governance activities within the organization, Subscale III Organizational recognition identifying who controls nursing personnel and related structures, Subscale IV Facilitating structures indicating who determines and participates in governance decisions within the organization, Subscale V Liaison exploring who influences the resources that support professional practice, and Subscale VI Alignment identifying who sets and negotiates conflict within the organization. These questions are rated on a 5 point Likert scale according to the following response possibilities: 5 = staff nurses only; 4 = primarily staff nurses with some nursing management/administration input; 3 = equally shared by staff nurses and nursing management/administration; 2 = primarily nursing management/administration with some staff nurse input; 1 = nursing management/administration only. Section three the qualitative questions, contained one closed ended and four open ended questions that provided CNs an opportunity to share a more personal perspective regarding their perceptions of control over nursing practice in their work environment. These questions included: 1. What does control over nursing practice mean to you? 2. How could control over your practice be changed significantly? 3. Do you feel you have enough control over practice in your work environment? 4. What limits your control over practice in an area that interests you? and What enables your control over practice in an area that interests you? <p>The total population of 1804 CNs in provincial hospitals in Saskatchewan was invited to participate in this study. One hundred and seventy two CNs (9.53%) responded to this study, including 118 from Saskatoon (11.8%) and 54 from Regina (6.7%). The descriptive data provides data on gender and average age of CNs that is similar to Canadian Institute for Health Information ([CIHI], 2006) and Health Canada (2006a). A greater number of CN respondents indicated their basic nursing education was a diploma and more CNs had attained a baccalaureate degree as their highest level of education when compared to the CIHI data. Twice as many CNs indicated having specialty certification and a higher number were working full time in comparison to the CIHI data. The quantitative data obtained from the IPNG subscales indicates CNs perceive limited control over nursing practice and this is by in large held mainly by nursing management/administration (1) and nursing management with some staff nurse input (2). The subscale results include Professional control (M = 1.72), Organizational influence (m = 2.13), Organizational recognition (M = 1.73), Facilitating structures (M = 1.82), Liaison (M = 2.1), and Alignment (M = 2.1). Overall, the results from the IPNG subscales provide scores of less than 3 on the Likert scale indicating CNs perceive limited control over nursing practice in their professional practice environment. There were no significant differences within the provincial hospitals or between the health regions regarding CNs perceptions of control over nursing practice. In their qualitative responses, CNs provided information related to both the internal and external factors as discussed in Chapter Two. Clinical nurses indicate they face many challenges regarding control over practice including lack of influence in decision making in issues related to policy and procedure, quality patient care, staffing ratios, self-scheduling, and educational opportunities. They also identified external factors affecting their control over nursing practice including a lack of support by management in relation to decision making, a lack of provision of and access to an adequacy of resources, and a lack of communication and collaboration. Many CNs indicated their only influence in decision making was related to direct patient care. Clinical nurses described that being valued, supported, and recognized for their experience and education in decision making positively affects control over nursing practice and more specifically, quality patient care. <p> Study results offer government officials, practitioners, regulatory bodies, researchers, administrators, educators, nurses, the public, professional association, employers, unions, and any other stakeholders information that provides an opportunity to increase their awareness and understanding of the impact that control over nursing practice has for CNs in their practice environment. If stakeholders are serious in their attempts to recognize CNs concerns regarding control over nursing practice in their work environment, the results from this study will provide information facilitating change in the CNs control over nursing practice. Ultimately, this affects the CNs professionalism and ability to provide quality patient care.

The notion of spaces of orderings was introduced by Murray Marshall in the 1970's and provides an abstract framework for studying orderings on fields and the reduced theory of quadratic forms over fields. The structure of a space of orderings (X, G) is completely determined by the group structure of G and the quaternary relation (a_1, a_2) = (a_3, a_4) on G -- the groups with additional structure arising in this way are called reduced special groups. The theory of reduced special groups, in turn, can be conveniently axiomatized in the first order language L_SG. Numerous important notions in this theory, such as isometry, isotropy, or being an element of a value set of a form, make an extensive use of, so called, positive primitive formulae in the language L_SG. Therefore, the following question, which can be viewed as a type of very general and highly abstract local-global principle, is of great importance:<p>Is it true that if a positive primitive formula holds in every finite subspace of a space of orderings, then it also holds in the whole space?<p>This problem is now known as the pp conjecture. The answer to this question is affirmative in many cases, although it has always seemed unlikely that the conjecture has a positive solution in general. In this thesis, we discuss, discovered by us, first counterexamples for which the pp conjecture fails. Namely, we classify spaces of orderings of function fields of rational conics with respect to the pp conjecture, and show for which of such spaces the conjecture fails, and then we disprove the pp conjecture for the space of orderings of the field R(x,y). Some other examples, which can be easily obtained from the developed theory, are also given. In addition, we provide a refinement of the result previously obtained by Vincent Astier and Markus Tressl, which shows that a pp formula fails on a finite subspace of a space of orderings, if and only if a certain family of formulae is verified.