Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the most frequently reported hospital-acquired condition, affecting more than 560,000 patients each year. CAUTIs prolong hospital stays and increase health care costs, and they can result in patient morbidity and mortality. Nurses can be empowered by receiving education and knowledge to manage and identify urinary catheters that are not clinically indicated. The purpose of this project was to develop an education program on CAUTI prevention for critical care nurses using the teach-back method. The conceptual framework that guided this project was Knowles's adult learning theory. The theoretical model was based on 4 fundamental assumptions of self-concept development. A total of 32 critical care unit nurses participated in the evaluation of the teach-back method. Demographic data were collected from these 32 participants, and the results of a frequency analysis were obtained. Deidentified CAUTI data were provided by the organization prior to the educational intervention. The postintervention CAUTI rate and increase in nurses' knowledge level were evaluated 1 month after the educational intervention using a 1-sample t test. The finding was statistically significant (p < .001). The incidence of CAUTI was followed, and the outcomes indicated that the overall incidence of CAUTI in these patients was decreased. The education program was effective in improving critical care unit nurses' knowledge of evidence-based practices to prevent CAUTIs. Improving nurses' knowledge to decrease CAUTI rates is a strategy that may be effective in many healthcare settings. This educational intervention may create social change by improving the health of patients and serving as an educational resource for nurses.

This exploratory study investigates the serving experiences of seven women with work experience in the Victoria, BC restaurant community before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informed by work from Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis on social performance and Candace West and Don Zimmerman’s ideas on doing gender, my overall goal is to answer the following research question(s): How do women servers in Victoria, BC perceive their restaurant work and has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced their serving experiences? Specifically, if the pandemic has changed the industry, what are these key changes, and might they affect the future of restaurant work? The research findings reveal that Canadian restaurants are gendered worksites, and while the pandemic facilitated some positive changes for servers it also surfaced longstanding restaurant concerns. / Graduate

Diplomová práce se zaměřuje na zefektivnění procesu řízení ve vývoji softwaru, a to integrováním agilní metodiky Scrum do projektu. Navrhnuté řešení obsahuje stěžejní principy a součásti metodologie a jejich konkrétní doporučenou aplikaci v projekte ABC v soulade s jeho specifikami.

The problem of this study is to determine the religious attitudes of the people of Escalante, Utah, according to age groups, with an idea of determining whether the opinions which are held by the people are different for various age groups and to determine if possible, the causes for this difference, if there be any.

Juvenile offense is a social problem that affects communities and families. Black juvenile offenses occur at a higher rate than White juvenile offenses. The parents of these offenders may engage in the intervention process of their juvenile offender with the intent to improve the intervention outcome. The literature on this topic, however, is primarily focused on the treatment outcomes of various types of intervention. The identified gap in the literature is research on Black parental input on the process used to select various types of intervention for their offending children. The high rate of incidence compounded by the racial disparity furthers the need to better understand the intervention and treatment selection process from the Black parental perspective. The research question for this study was what are the experiences and perceptions of Black parents involved in selecting juvenile intervention programs for their children who have offended? The theoretical framework used to explain and interpret the participant data was Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. This generic qualitative study involved 7 interviews with Black parents of juvenile offenders residing 20 miles outside of metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. Thematic analysis revealed that participants’ selection process is driven by feelings of responsibility, community and church guidance, unaddressed emotional needs of their children, and intervention challenges and outcomes. Findings support the need for preintervention services; intervention resource availability; parental awareness; and intervention strategy, reform, and efficacy. Policy makers may use these results to inform actions to reduce the juvenile offense rate among Black youth and foster better outcomes for this population group.

Artificial Intelligence arises in the manufacturing field very rapidly. Implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions and algorithms in the manufacturing environment is a well-known research field in academia. On the other hand, Manufacturing-Execution-System (MES) providers do not have a theoretical and pragmatic framework regarding the evaluation of MES functions in respect to their suitability for Artificial Intelligence. In order to be able to pre-evaluate whether a MES function shall be AI supported an intense literature research has been conducted. Academia shows few investigations regarding this field of research. Recent studies have been concerning about possible applications for MES functions in combination with AI. However, there is a lack of research in terms of pre-evaluating a MES function before embedding the function with AI support, since the development of AI solutions for MES functions without pre-evaluating those bears a waste of valuable resources. Therefore, the thesis work introduces an assessment framework consisting of decisive criteria and related indicators which describe qualitatively the suitability of AI for MES functions based on three criteria with related indicators. In addition, the researcher displays furthermore how the developed assessment framework can be used in order to assess the MES functions regarding their AI “readiness”. In order to cope the findings through the thesis work an inductive research approach has been applied. Existing literature in the fields of intelligent manufacturing, Manufacturing-Execution-Systems, machine learning, deep learning, intelligent manufacturing, digital twin, and assessment methodologies have been extensively studied in order to base the theoretical developed framework on grounded theory. A major issue was to focus the development of the assessment framework in harmony with academia and industry. The requirements for academia were met by providing profoundly investigation through the research fields. A case study was carried out in order to test the validity and reliability of the developed assessment framework for industry. The outcome of this thesis work was an assessment framework consisting of decisive criteria and related indicators when evaluating a MES function in respect to its AI suitability. Furthermore, an assessment checklist has been provided for the industry in order to be able to assess a MES function regards AI support in a quick and pragmatic manner. To generate a more generalizable assessment framework criteria and indicators have to be adapted, likewise testing the outcome of analogue and digital assessment methodologies will provide material for future studies. / <p>Successfully defended</p>

With the imposition of lifetime limitations on an individual's ability to receive cash assistance, there is a group of long-term Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients that have approached the lifetime limitation without becoming gainfully employed. Many long term TANF recipients report low levels of self-efficacy which inhibits their ability to successfully transition off welfare and into the workforce. However, most welfare-to-work programs do not address the emotional or psychological well-being of their clients, instead they focus on job placement and job readiness skills. The purpose of this sequential–exploratory mixed methods study is to identify the primary barriers to employment that have a negative effect on long term TANF recipient's self-efficacy. Albert Bandura's self-efficacy theory was the theoretical foundation for this study. Semi structured interviews with 20 long term TANF recipients helped answer the central research questions regarding barrier identification. The participants agreed that support for completing GED, as well as a more holistic approach to addressing their barriers is most effective in helping them transition off welfare and into the workforce. Hong's Employment Hope Scale (EHS-14) was used to collect the quantitative data for this study. The quantitative data were analyzed by multiple regression analysis and found that level of education has a statistically significant moderating effect on length of time on welfare and level of self-efficacy. This study may inform welfare-to-work providers and programmers on the importance of addressing TANF recipients' psychological needs, such as low self-efficacy before attempting to transition them into the workforce.

Background. Since historical handwritten documents have played important roles in promoting the development of human civilization, many of them have been preserved through digital versions for more scientific researches. However, various degradations always exist in these documents, which could interfere in normal reading. But, binarized versions can keep meaningful contents without degradations from original document images. Document image binarization always works as a pre-processing step before complex document analysis and recognition. It aims to extract texts from a document image. A desirable binarization performance can promote subsequent processing steps positively. For getting better performance for document image binarization, efficient binarization methods are needed. In recent years, machine learning centered on deep learning has gathered substantial attention in document image binarization, for example, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are widely applied in document image binarization because of the powerful ability of feature extraction and classification. Meanwhile, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is also used in image binarization. Its objective is to build an optimal hyperplane that could maximize the margin between negative samples and positive samples, which can separate the foreground pixels and the background pixels of the image distinctly. Objectives. This thesis aims to explore how the CNN based process of deep convolutional feature extraction and an SVM classifier can be integrated well to binarize handwritten document images, and how the results are, compared with some state-of-the-art document binarization methods. Methods. To investigate the effect of the proposed method on document image binarization, it is implemented and trained. In the architecture, CNN is used to extract features from input images, afterwards these features are fed into SVM for classification. The model is trained and tested with six different datasets. Then, there is a performance comparison between the proposed model and other binarization methods, including some state-of-the-art methods on other three different datasets. Results. The performance results indicate that the proposed model not only can work well but also perform better than some other novel handwritten document binarization method. Especially, evaluation of the results on DIBCO 2013 dataset indicates that our method fully outperforms other chosen binarization methods on all the four evaluation metrics. Besides, it also has the ability to deal with some degradations, which demonstrates its generalization and learning ability are excellent. When a new kind of degradation appears, the proposed method can address it properly even though it never appears in the training datasets. Conclusions. This thesis concludes that the CNN based component and SVM can be combined together for handwritten document binarization. Additionally, in certain datasets, it outperforms some other state-of-the-art binarization methods. Meanwhile, its generalization and learning ability is outstanding when dealing with some degradations.

This study explored changes in affect regulation and coping strategies with family functioning and attachment behaviors among a sample of incarcerated male adolescents (N = 115) and their maternal caregivers (N = 71). The sample participated in the Multiple Family Group Intervention (MFGI; Keiley, 2007) which is an 8-session program conducted in a juvenile correctional institution with adolescents adjudicated of a sexual offense, and their families. In 90-minute sessions, group facilitators use a six-step therapeutic method for altering interactional patterns from an affect regulation and attachment perspective. Using enactments and discussion, the intervention targets affect regulation and communication skills. Results indicate that changes in affect regulation and coping skills from pre- to post-intervention were related to changes in family functioning and attachment behaviors. Findings add to growing empirical support for the utility of systemic interventions within juvenile justice systems to strengthen affect regulation, coping skills, family functioning, and attachment behaviors.

Identity development primarily occurs the most throughout the adolescent and emerging adulthood years (Arnett, 2000), which can be facilitated through gap years. Previous research has shown gap years to be beneficial (Heath, 2007; King, 2010; O’Shea, 2014). However, research has not addressed the personal perspective of gap year alumni on their own identity formation through structured gap year programs. This qualitative, phenomenological study sought to explore the impact of structured gap years on emerging adults’ identity development as well as identify the types of experiences that were effective for personal growth. The study examined the experiences of 15 participants, both gap year alumni and professionals employed by a gap year program. The findings revealed three common themes concerning identity development and four types of experiences that were beneficial for identity formation. Based on the findings and the limitations of the study, the researcher made recommendations for further research.