The purpose of this project was to review the literature associated with the social and psychological adjustments freshmen and transfer intercollegiate athletes face as they transition into college and create a mandatory course to assist them through their transition into California Polytechnic State University. This project led to the creation of an academic course that will be offered at California Polytechnic State University in the near future. This course could serve as an impetus for coaches, faculty, and administrators at other universities to develop similar courses, or reevaluate established course offerings, and to develop follow-up course training for intercollegiate athletes that will contribute to their positive growth throughout the course of their college careers.

Heart failure (HF) is an escalating chronic disorder that impacts patients, families, and society. HF necessitates efficient transition of care and complex self-care knowledge in a population often burdened with low health literacy and high readmission rates. The purpose of this project was to improve transition of discharged HF patients from a Level 1 trauma system in a mostly rural area of South Carolina to its affiliated nurse-led HF clinic. The no-show rate for initial visits to the health care system's outpatient HF clinic by postdischarge patients was 59%. Using Henderson's need theory and Stevens's knowledge transformation model for theoretical guidance, a quality improvement project was conducted to identify factors related to no-show behavior in initial HF clinic visits using a retrospective chart audit of the first 50 no-show patients in a 90-day period. Data were collected from the electronic medical record and analyzed through descriptive statistics. Frequently noted factors were lack of literacy screening, use of assistive devices, and access issues related to distance to travel and transportation to the HF clinic. Recommendations included mandatory literacy level screening on admission, integration of an evidence-based health literacy screening tool into the electronic record, use of satellite HF clinic services, and consideration of a mobile HF clinic on wheels to better serve the rural population. Social change is expected to occur in this vulnerable population through these efforts to address health literacy issues and increase access to clinic care after hospital discharge.

Institutions are recruiting new graduate nurses to fill their vacancies. The aim of this project was to create a new graduate nurse orientation program that consists of the Essentials of Critical Care Orientation (ECCO) program created by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (2014), scenarios, and simulation that will result in an increase in nurses' sense of their ability to provide safe patient care, communicate effectively, perform skills, and increase their sense of institutional support. The theoretical framework for this mixed methods project was Benner's "From Novice to Expert." The convenience sample participants consisted of 17 baccalaureate-prepared new graduate nurses. The Casey-Fink Graduate Nurse Experience Survey was administered prior to the orientation program and again at the completion. Content analysis was used for Section I of the survey, which pertains to the top 3 skills nurses are uncomfortable performing. In the presurvey, chest tube care, ECK/EKG/telemetry, and tracheostomy were listed. However, they were not listed on the post survey. The findings resulted in a correlation between skills that were taught during simulation and scenarios. Fisher's exact test was used for Sections II, III, and IV of the survey. There was no statistically significant difference in the pre and post survey as it pertained to questions regarding safe patient care, communication, and sense of institutional support. Results of this study are inconclusive and do not fully support the orientation program. Nurse leaders have a social mandate to ensure new graduate nurses are supported and have the resources needed to provide safe patient care. The program that was created and implemented was an attempt to assist new graduate nurses with their transition into practice.

Numerous popular business publications and academic literature have highlighted that the Chinese cultural phenomenon of guanxi has made noticeable impacts on the economic efficiency in China’s economic transition. Despite the pervasive belief of the significance of guanxi for facilitating Chinese business transaction, few empirical efforts have been dedicated to comprehensively investigate the dynamics of guanxi in the mainland Chinese business context. Specifically, there is a dearth of empirical evidence to support the anecdotal claims that the guanxi construct and the business strategy orientations are strategically collaborated with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network, and these operations are influenced by the attributes of organizations and individuals. Consequently, the purpose of this research was to investigate the interactions between the guanxi construct and the business strategy orientation with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network, as well as the moderating effects that the organizational properties and individual attributes have on the posited interactions. / A cross cultural study was conducted in six large coastal and inland cities of Guangzhou, Foshan, Xiamen, Kunming, Hefei and Dalian of mainland China. These six research cities are located in the five large provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, Anhui and Liaoning, which are geographically dispersed from southeastern, southwestern, northeastern to southern China. The six research cities, which were purposely selected across the ‘early’ to ‘late’ open economic regions, are the major centers of the five provinces that have embarked on a modernization policy and market liberalization of the Chinese economy while maintaining traditional values. This study was undertaken with 1033 Chinese business executives who were positioned at the top five senior managerial levels of 480 Chinese organizations across four major industrial fields in the six study cities. The four major industrial fields that were selected in this study were 1) Trading, 2) Building/Construction, 3) Manufacturing, and 4) Service. Although there has been extensive attention on the relevance of guanxi in a relationship based society of China (Gold et al. 2002), few empirical studies that have been conducted in the industrial sectors and across several regional locations that are enmeshed in the revitalization of the Chinese economy. Hence, it is claimed that this study is the first project of its kind that was implemented to empirically investigate the dynamics of guanxi amongst four industrial fields across six cities of mainland China. / The study respondents were senior business executives who have overall successful business and managerial careers in directing and developing businesses in mainland China. Many of them have traveled to Western countries frequently, and they possess extensive experience and proven records in global business dealings. More than half of the business executives had at least five years experience in their current industrial fields while nearly half had no less than five years experience in senior managerial levels. One third of the study organizations had existed for five to 10 years, while more than 30 percent of the study organizations had a longer history of more than ten years. And almost one third of the study organizations employed 100 to 500 people, while nearly 20 percent of the organizations have cadres of more than 500 employees. All of the study business executives completed a complex questionnaire for examining a model of the dynamics of guanxi in the business context. The questionnaire was comprised a total of 83 items. Demographic information was sought from the first 12 items of the questionnaire, and a further 72 items that were comprised in three interval instruments that were used to capture the perceptual data of the study. / The three interval instruments that were employed in this study included the guanxi construct, the business strategy orientation, and the guanxi network. The instrument of the guanxi construct was developed by two of the guanxi leading scholars (Wong & Leung 2001), and the scale of the guanxi network was developed by several well known guanxi researchers (Davies, Leung, Luk & Wong 1995). These instruments were deliberately chosen because they have shown acceptable psychometric properties (i.e. validity and reliability) in similar assessments, and thus, they were considered appropriated to be adapted and modified for the present study. The modification of these two instruments were undertaken after a systematically study of numerous leading publications pertaining Chinese culture and Chinese Values (e.g., Hofstede 1988; Redding 1990; Luo 2000; Seng & Lim 2004; Xin & Pearce 1996), and thorough consultations with several Chinese Professors of Economics as well as some prominent business people in mainland China. The instrument, which was employed to assess the business strategy orientation in this study, was developed by the researcher. This approach was carried out after a careful study of reputable academic journals and relevant literature (e.g., Aaker 1992; Barnett & Wilsted 1988; Digman 1986; Miles & Snow 1978; Porter 1980; 1985; Pearce & Robinson 1991; Rajagopalan 1997). The development of the instrument involved two separate empirical studies engaging 314 indigenous Chinese managers, who were exclusive of the 1033 study business executives of the main study, in a number of industrial domains in seven large cities of mainland China. In general, the inaugural established instrument of the business strategy orientation and the two adapted scales of guanxi construct and guanxi network were found to have acceptable internal consistencies. / A comprehensive pluralist methodology was applied to evaluate the hypotheses of this study. Relevant literature pertaining to the examined variables was reviewed. In light of the literature review, a number of hypotheses and a conceptual model were developed. A quantitative methodology was employed to assess the postulations and qualitative methodology was sought to provide explanations and clarifications of the results. This pluralist methodology is gaining currency in contemporary cross country research. A number of commentators (De Ruyter Moorman & Lemmink 2001; Pearson & Entrekin 1998; Zotteri & Verganti 2001) have contended that a richer and more trustworthy result is likely to be gained by simultaneously pursuing both a quantitative and a qualitative methodology. In total of 1313 questionnaires, which were administrated for completion over six weeks, a total of 1071 questionnaires were returned. However, 38 questionnaires were discarded due to incomplete information provided. The remaining 1033 useful questionnaires generated an overall response rate of 78.67 percent for the six research cities. Comparatively, the response rate of this survey is considerably higher than most of the earlier studies in guanxi research area. More importantly, the high response rate avoids the non response bias in results. / Several statistical analyses were employed to evaluate the data. For instance, exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were used to assess the psychometric properties of the instruments. The results of psychometric assessments indicated that the scales had good validities and reliabilities, which had potential for robust results. In addition, correlation analysis was applied to evaluate the hypothesized bivariate correlations of the conceptual model. Path analysis was then utilized to test the hypotheses, which were postulated in Chapter Two. The results of path analysis demonstrated that certain facets of the guanxi construct had strong influence on the application of both of the vertical and the horizontal network, whereas particular business strategic approaches had intense interactions with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network. Moreover, regression analysis was applied to further examine the hypothesized relationships of the conceptual model. The results of the regress analysis illustrated a substantial convergence with the results of path analysis. Furthermore, hierarchical multiple regression analysis was undertaken to determine the moderating effects that the organizational properties and personal attributes have on the hypothesized interactions between the guanxi construct and the business strategy orientation and the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network. The results of these analyses indicated that the attributes of organization and individual played significant moderating roles on a number of the tested correlations. Lastly, the analyses of T-test and ANOVA were employed to evaluate the extent of difference in the demographic elements and structure properties. / The results of these tests depicted that there was a considerable degree of consensus for all the tested variables of the study model across the demographic elements and structure properties. A salient feature of this study is the application of qualitative analysis to enhance the understanding of quantitative results. The researcher visited each of the six researched cities again to conduct focus group meetings, which were mainly held in the languages of Mandarin and Cantonese. Most of the meetings were approximately 90 to 120 minutes in duration. Focus group meetings that were conducted in the cities of Kunming, Foshan, Xiamen, Hefei and Dalian were videotaped and subsequently replicated into DVD plates, whilst feedback sections that were carried out in Guangzhou were completed recorded by written notes. A total of 90 business executives participated in 20 focus group meetings, which were recorded in Chinese and accredited English translations were subsequently arranged. The Chinese meeting record contains almost 160,000 words in 240 pages, and the English translation had 248 pages with approximately 100,000 words. General details of the focus group meetings are reported in Chapter Four. / The subjects that were discussed in the qualitative feedback sessions mainly encompassed six aspects. First, respondents’ comprehension of the instruments and the suitability of the scales employed in this study were discussed. Second, the results of factor and reliability analyses, particularly relating to some certain emerged patterns and the dimensionalities of instruments were elucidated. Third, extensive comments about the empirical findings in relation to the correlations that were predicted in the studied model and the unexpected relationships were sought, and clarifications to the phenomena caused were also documented. Fourth, the outputs of the analyses of T-test, ANOVA, path analysis, and regression for descriptive statistic and correlation were discussed. Finally, opinions on the discovery of the moderating effects that the moderating variables had on the tested relationships were attained and elucidation to the results were clarified. In general, the qualitative analytical results have broadly enriched the comprehension to the quantitative findings. With extensive reference to the contribution of the 90 business executives in the qualitative analytical sections, a lengthy discussion of the results of the study is elucidated. Following the discussion of results, an outline of the key findings of this research is presented in Chapter Five. / A number of theoretical and practical contributions have constructed in this study. The first theoretical contribution of this study is an advancement of the currently available knowledge relating to the operations amongst the guanxi construct with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network, as well as the interactions between the business strategy orientation with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network in the business context. A second theoretical contribution of the study is to evaluate Western based theoretical notions in a non Western context. Next, evaluation of the study model has the potential to make further theoretical contribution in terms of enhancing the understanding of Multi National Companies (MNCs) and overseas investors on the imperativeness of the cultural phenomenon of guanxi. The first practical contribution is the investigation of the moderating effects that the attributes of organizations and individuals have on the relationships between the guanxi construct and the business strategy orientation with the vertical and the horizontal guanxi network has significant potential to make contribution to international management in an Asian context. Moreover, the inaugural developed seven point Likert scale instrument for assessing the business strategy orientation in the Chinese business organization is likely to facilitate practical contribution to the development of an universal scale. A further practical contribution is to provide a greater comprehensive insight of the dynamics of guanxi in the business context, which would be beneficial to overseas investors and MNCs when they explore their possible Chinese business ventures. Implications of the findings for business practitioners and the theory developments are comprehensively documented in Chapter Six. / This research has merged two salient concluding observations. Firstly, it highlighted the importance of the application of a pluralist methodology in implementing cross cultural studies. The findings of this study suggested that the qualitative investigation technique is essential to capture information that was not attainable through the quantitative assessments and that the qualitative dimension complements the quantitative results. In addition, an extended remark in relation to sampling method was offered for further research in mainland China. Preferably, the guanxi ideology is more practical than the Western traditional ‘mail out’ system when conducting a comprehensive survey in China. Especially, guanxi plays a significant role in attaining genuine and liberated comments for qualitative analysis. Secondly, the results of this study suggested that the global environment has reshaped the quality and mindset of Chinese people and this has resulted in the substantial consensus in conceptualizing the theories of the present study. The salient observations and suggestions for future research are discussed in Chapter Six.

This thesis continues the study into the synthesis and analysis of metal poly - yndiyl complexes. These molecules have shown promise as model molecular wires. The study provides a general overview of the interest in carbon based molecules and introduces the need for molecular electronics. Some of the most promising classes of molecular wires are described before outlining the methods of evaluation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Chemistry and Physics, 2006.

The major purposes of this Field Study are twofold: firstly, to examine, briefly, the major issues in the transition of Australian secondary students from school to the world of work, and secondly, to examine one school-based and school-developed program which has been produced in response to perceived student needs in one particular school within one particular community. Whilst the emergence of school to work transition has only recently been recognized as being of major importance, it is now, as an educational issue, receiving widespread attention both in Australian and overseas. Transition programs are now also receiving considerable funding from Commonwealth Government Sources. The opening two chapters of this Field Study focus on the process of this raising of consciousness, both from the point of view of the initiating forces in Australian Society, as well as from some of the policy proposals and recommendations emerging from a national examination of the problem of transition. In addition some attempt is made to establish a particular philosophical stance - a stance which embodies those characteristics of a program considered, by this writer at least, to be essential components of any attempt by schools to come to grips with the needs of their students who are facing the process of transition. The middle section of this Field Study examines the approach that one particular school has adopted in the development of such a program - an examination which highlights such areas as the process of curriculum change, the clarification of expressed student needs, development of philosophical bases, sources and significance of Commonwealth funding and the political ramifications of program adoption. The final section of this Field Study commences an evaluation of this particular school's transition program based loosely upon evaluation guidelines developed by Robert Stake. Whilst this can only be a part evaluation (both because of the on-going nature of the program and the writer's involvement in the program as its director. )it is hoped that such an evaluation will produce a set of useful recommendations - useful both for the effective continuation of the program and useful for the implementation of possible future programs designed to assist Australian youth facing this major, and often traumatic, transition form school to the "real life world" outside school. The reader's attention is drawn to the range of possible future audiences of this report - audiences ranging from the academic examination of the project as part of a masters' degree to the clients of the actual program reported. Given this range of audience, it has been the intention of the writer to produce as "readable" a document as possible. It is the hope that in so doing all audiences will be served.

This thesis is using a framework to analyse the process of transition from foraging to farming in northeast China. Tool complexes analysis is the particular method used to retreive prehistoric economies. Based on the result of these case studies about prehistoric economies in northeast China, this thesis attemp to apply the availability model of transition to farming in northern Europe, proposed by Zvelebil and Rowley-Convy, in the new area northeast China. The result of this research has implicated that the transition to farming in prehistory is the result of the interaction between human societies and environment. among many factors in this interaction, the motivation that prehistoric societies choosing agriculture economy to meet social, political and economic needs would have to be the major one leading to the transition occurred.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

The importance of comprehensive transition programs is increasingly being recognised. This exploratory study was designed to identify the transition practices and needs of primary schools across Victoria in metropolitan and non-metropolitan locations; and from government and non-government educational sectors. Staff from 155 schools completed a questionnaire involving multiple choice and open-ended response formats. Schools reported providing a wide range and number of activities to support children and their families during the transition to school. Variation across geographical locations and educational sectors were found, with some activities being more likely to be provided depending on whether schools: were located in a metropolitan or non-metropolitan area; or, belonged to the government or non-government educational sector. Of concern, were findings highlighting the relatively few numbers of schools specifically catering for children and families from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds (for example, single parent, low socio-economic status, immigrant and, families with language backgrounds other than English) or, engaging in transition activities with child care centres. / The need for schools to consider the needs of these groups of children and families is recommended. Teachers raised a number of concerns in relation to the transition to school and provided suggestions for improving the transition to school experience for children and their families. For example, specific ideas included: joint administrative responsibility for schools and prior to school settings; greater resources and release time for transition activities; more formalised and uniform information sharing processes/protocols, including the development of an assessment tool to capture relevant information on children’s prior learning and development; aligning curricula; developing clusters/networks; providing joint professional development/training; and, parenting support. Further research to investigate the types and use of transition activities employed by parents, prior to school setting staff, communities, and the influence of these activities on children’s adjustment to school is recommended.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 20, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.