Thesis advisor: Joyce K. Edmonds / Background: Midwifery-led birth centers (BC) provide positive perinatal outcomes for women and birthing people at low perinatal risk that exceed national outcomes in the United States. Yet, less than 1% of all births occur in BCs. The Coxon conceptual model of birth setting decision-making provides the most comprehensive research framework about how people decide where to give birth. Research is essential for the promotion of an informed decision-making approach regarding birth setting options and the facilitation of access to high value BC care. This dissertation aims to study birth setting decision-making, specifically decision-making about BCs, in the United States. Methods: Three methods were used to address the overall dissertation aim. An integrative review was conducted to evaluate factors influencing birth setting decision-making in the United States, examining research studies from 2011-2022. A secondary data analysis of the population- based Listening to Mothers in California survey identified factors associated with interest in BC care in a future pregnancy among respondents who experienced hospital birth in California. Finally, a hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted to explore the decision-making experiences of participants with Medicaid health insurance and who chose to give birth in a freestanding BC in Massachusetts. Results: Four themes were generated from 23 research studies included in the integrative review. The themes represented factors influencing birth setting decision-making in the United States: Birth Setting Safety Versus Risk, Influence of Media, Family, and Friends on Birth Setting Awareness, Presence or Absence of Choice and Control, and Access To Options. In the Listening to Mothers in California survey, respondents (N = 1447) were more likely to express interest in future BC care if they had experienced pressure from health professionals to have an obstetric intervention, believed childbirth is a process that should not be interfered with unless medically necessary, sought information about hospital cesarean rates, had a doula in labor, and experienced mistreatment. Finally, qualitative data from participant interviews (N = 12) generated five analytic themes that described the BC decision-making process: Desire to Step Away From “the System,” Access to Birth Center Care, Influence of Partners, Family, Friends, the Media, and Birth Workers, the Built Environment of the BC, and the Temporal Dynamics of Decision- Making. Conclusions: The findings from this dissertation extend our knowledge about BCs as a unique and necessary decision process and choice for perinatal care in the United States. Illuminating why and how people decide to seek care at BCs is vital to expanding access and supporting informed, values-based decision-making about birth settings. By making specifications and refinements to the Coxon conceptual model about birth-setting decision-making, a novel pathway is now available for further research and discovery about how people decide where to give birth in the United States and how to best support their choice. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

No / The aim of this project was to explore the feasibility and identify the issues of using mobile technologies in the assessment of health and social care students in practice settings. We report here on a case study, which took place between a University department and varied clinical settings where students were on placement. Twenty-nine student midwives and five members of lecturing staff took part in the study and were issued with PocketPCs on which to record assessment documentation including action plans and evidence of achieving performance criteria. Qualitative data were obtained from three focus groups with student midwives and individual interviews with their link lecturers and quantitative data were gathered through short questionnaires to provide simple descriptive statistics. Findings indicated that students preferred the neatness and durability of the PocketPC to the paper based format, which became worn overtime. The ability to add to notes and references as and when appropriate was welcomed. However, anxiety about losing the device or material stored within it proved to be a major constraint. Lecturing staff found that synchronising the device with the University electronic diary system was extremely useful whilst clinical staff approached the change with varying levels of acceptance or dismissal. Introducing mobile technology into the clinical setting will require a significant shift in culture and a significant level of training and support.

No / The aim of this project was to explore the feasibility and identify the issues of using mobile technologies in the assessment of health and social care students in practice settings. We report here on a case study, which took place between a University department and varied clinical settings where students were on placement. Twenty-nine student midwives and five members of lecturing staff took part in the study and were issued with PocketPCs on which to record assessment documentation including action plans and evidence of achieving performance criteria. Qualitative data were obtained from three focus groups with student midwives and individual interviews with their link lecturers and quantitative data were gathered through short questionnaires to provide simple descriptive statistics. Findings indicated that students preferred the neatness and durability of the PocketPC to the paper based format, which became worn overtime. The ability to add to notes and references as and when appropriate was welcomed. However, anxiety about losing the device or material stored within it proved to be a major constraint. Lecturing staff found that synchronising the device with the University electronic diary system was extremely useful whilst clinical staff approached the change with varying levels of acceptance or dismissal. Introducing mobile technology into the clinical setting will require a significant shift in culture and a significant level of training and support.

The object of this paper is to effect a comparison between the early Shakespearean songs and their more recent settings and to discuss in detail differences in style and technique, with emphasis upon textual and melodic characteristics.

abstract: Ecotourism is defined as a traveling distance where tourist interact with environment and enjoy nature. It is a market segment in the tourism sector that can provide several benefits if managed properly. Although ecotourism can provide economic benefits for Saudi Arabia, there is not enough attention granted to ecotourism facilities and services in desert sites. The current study attempts to fill this gap by aiming to explore families’ perceptions of environmental desert settings that support their ecotourism needs and to identify opportunities to develop services, expand activities areas, and infrastructures. Ultimately, this study addresses families’ ecotourism needs for the promotion of sustainable desert ecotourism development that is inclusive to most Saudi tourists. This study uses qualitative research methods, including observations, surveys and interviews of families who have visited Saudi Arabian deserts between December 2019 and March 2020. The findings are analyzed and translated into a set of design guidelines for existing and for new sustainable ecotourist sites within Saudi Arabian desert environments. The implications of this study are two-fold: to (1) educate the design industry to take into account ecotourism visitors’ perceptions of environmental settings and infrastructures needs without compromising its natural resources; and (2) highlight the value of sustainable ecotourism so that decision makers take an action to ensure stability of the growing market demand of desert tourism. This study concludes with a discussion of findings reached that can promote more sustainable ecotourism experiences at Saudi Arabian desert sites. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Design 2020

We present three models of the role of asymmetric information in environmental protection. Chapter one considers the market for a green credence good - a good whose environmental characteristics are not observed by the consumer, even ex post - in the presence of environmentally-conscious consumers. Producers may choose to advertise their products. However, if communication is not regulated it can degenerate into "cheap talk". We explore the scope for credible transmission of environmental information by green producers, and the limits on it. In Chapter two we develop some similar themes in an experimental setting, with the focus again on consumer reactions to producer-provided information on the environmental attributes of goods, and the potential role of government to improve social welfare by manipulating the use of certification. In Chapter three the focus is somewhat different, whilst maintaining the theme of the role of information asymmetries in an environmental policy setting. In the model here a regulator has to decide whether or not to regulate a polluting activity with imperfect information regarding the net benefits of so doing. In making her decision, the regulator can listen to an adviser, who may or may not be biased. We look at how the decision maker can exploit the advisories incentive to build reputation to achieve better decisions. As a whole the thesis further underscores and illustrates the critical role that availability and distribution of information plays in policy making aimed at environmental protection.

The majority of scholars’ work on code-switching within the sociolinguistic approach of Arabic has been mainly concentrated on the interaction of the Standard variety with other regional dialects in indigenous communities (Albirini, 2011; Bassiouney, 2006; Saeed, 1997; Soliman, 2008). Their work also extends to include the interaction of Arabic with other languages in informal and highly interactional settings (Abalhassan and Alshalawi, 2000; Safi, 1992; Sayahi, 2014). When it comes to the religious settings, their work has been solely devoted to Standard Arabic and Dialectal Arabic in Arabic countries and among Arabic native speakers (Albirini, 2011; Bassiouney, 2006; Saeed, 1997; Soliman, 2008). This thesis, in turn, investigates CS between Arabic and English in highly formal religious settings in the United States and among American Islamic preachers, non-native speakers of Arabic. It aims to enumerate the social functions of CS between English and Arabic and provides the internal optimal bilingual grammar of these speakers. To achieve these goals, two analyses have been conducted, the functional analysis and the optimality-theoretic analysis. The results of the first analysis revealed that preachers chiefly switch from English to Arabic for eight functions: (1) to use formulaic expressions; (2) to introduce direct quotations; (3) to show a level of education in the Islamic studies; (4) to show a level of education in the Arabic language; (5) to evoke Muslimness and Islamic affiliation; (6) to mark emphasis; (7) to stress the importance of a speech segment; and (8) to introduce rhyming stretches. On the other hand, they switch from Arabic to English mainly to fulfill two functions: (1) to translate the previous Arabic stretch; and (2) to simplify, explain, and clarify a segment that was previously mentioned in Arabic. The result of the optimality-theoretic analysis showed that the internal optimal bilingual grammar of American preachers is {FAITH, FACE} >> PERSPECTIVE >> {SOLIDARITY, POWER}.

In this thesis, I explored children’s experiences of role-play in relation to notions of self. The research took place in two pack-away settings in the Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The experiences of eight children, aged between three-year-three months and four-years one month, were investigated over a period of seven months. I used an adaptation of The Mosaic Approach (Clark and Moss 2001) combined with a reflective lenses approach (Brookfield 1995) to create a three-dimensional view of the children’s experiences. The children and I used a range of tools to gather data including digital cameras, conferencing, drawing and map-making. Children were conceptualised as agentic and capable of commenting on their lives and experiences (James et al 1998, Qvortrup 2004, Cosaro 2010). The findings revealed that children engage in Wave Play, a fluid form of role-play in which they move both props and ideas from space to space. Practitioners support the children in finding the necessary props and allowing them to move from one area of the setting to another. The children displayed positive self-esteem and effective social behaviours showing an awareness of themselves as social beings. They were confident that their needs will be met when they request support. In their role-play activities, they showed their understanding of themselves as integrated selves; beings, becomings and having beens (Cross 2011). Adults in pack-away settings can support children effectively by adopting a flexible pedagogical approach.

The widely collected and analyzed genetic data help in understanding the underlying mechanisms of heterogeneous diseases. Cellular components interact in a network fashion where genes are nodes and edges are the interactions. The failure in individual genes lead to dys-regulation of sub-groups of genes which causes a disease phenotype, and this dys-functional region is called a disease module. Disease module identification in complex diseases such as asthma and cancer is a huge challenge. Despite the development of numerous sophisticated methods there is a still no gold standard. In this study we apply different parameter settings to test the performance of a widely used method for disease module detection in multi-omics data called Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA). A systematic approach is used to identify disease modules in asthma and arthritis diseases. The accuracy of obtained modules is validated by a pathway scoring algorithm (PASCAL) and GWAS SNP enrichment. Our results differ between the tested data sets and therefore we cannot conclude with recommendations for an optimal setting that could perform best for multiple data sets using this method.

Concern for child wellness has led play professionals to explore natural playscapes as a means to enhance free play and consequently child development. For preschool-aged children, dramatic play is a particularly valuable free play that advances cognitive skills, social skills, and emotional intelligence. This study compared thedramatic play affordances of natural and manufactured outdoor play settings to determine which afford the most dramatic play for preschool-aged children. Twenty-four 3- to 5- year-olds were observed during daily playtime on a “natural playground” and an equipment-based “manufactured playground.” Behavior mapping identified settings that afforded the most solitary dramatic, sociodramatic, and complex sociodramatic play. The study suggests that environments designed with child-scale constructive play props, a sense of enclosure, and natural surroundings are more likely to support complex dramatic play. Intentional inclusion of these design elements may afford greater dramatic play in the preschool play yard.