University of Oklahoma - Tulsa

INTRODUCTION: The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between workplace stress and productivity among employees from worksites participating in a WorkWell KS Well-Being workshop and assess any differences by sex and race. METHODS: A multi-site, cross-sectional study was conducted to survey employees across four worksites participating in a WorkWell KS Well Being workshop to assess levels of stress and productivity. Stress was measured by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and productivity was measured by the Health and Work Questionnaire (HWQ). Pearson correlations were conducted to measure the association between stress and productivity scores. T-tests evaluated differences in scores by sex and race. RESULTS: Of the 186 participants who completed the survey, most reported being white (94%), female (85%), married (80%), and having a college degree (74%). A significant inverse relationship was observed between the scores for PSS and HWQ, r = -0.35, p < 0.001; as stress increased, productivity appeared to decrease. Another notable inverse relationship was PSS with Work Satisfaction subscale, r =-0.61, p < 0.001. One difference was observed by sex; males scored significantly higher on the HWQ Supervisor Relations subscale compared with females, 8.4 (SD 2.1) vs. 6.9 (SD 2.7), respectively, p = 0.005. CONCLUSIONS: Scores from PSS and the HWQ appeared to be inversely correlated; higher stress scores were associated significantly with lower productivity scores. This negative association was observed for all HWQ subscales, but was especially strong for work satisfaction. This study also suggested that males may have better supervisor relations compared with females, although no differences between sexes were observed by perceived levels of stress.

Research collaborations in policing have been characterized as extremely challenging. The assumption has been that academicians and police hold contrasting philosophical viewpoints and perceptions of research. We tested this assumption by surveying police researchers (n = 377) and police practitioners (n = 171) concerning their philosophical orientations (pragmatic, intellectual, or humanistic), as well as their perceptions of research collaboration processes (collaboration climate, trust, and knowledge integration) and overall performance. The differences in philosophical orientations were significant, with researchers displaying very high intellectual orientations and very low pragmatic orientations while practitioners indicated predominantly humanist orientations; researchers with law enforcement background were in-between both groups. While all groups assessed their research collaborations positively, police were significantly less positive than researchers. Further, knowledge integration predicted collaboration success for researchers, while a collaboration climate of trust and respect predicted success for practitioners. The results indicate that both groups value different qualities in a research partnership. These differences may complicate, but do not appear to prevent successful collaborations, and former practitioners could become boundary spanners between academia and practice. The importance of relationship building and collaborative methodologies, such as action research, are discussed.

Research findings: This study uses newly available data on low-income children and their teachers in a mixed-delivery, publicly funded early care and education (ECE) system to document the prevalence of personal and economic stressors that ECE teachers experience. We go on to explore whether these stressors are associated with child academic, self-regulatory, and social outcomes. Results indicate that ECE teachers in our sample report a high degree of personal and economic stressors - for instance, rates of depression and food insecurity are relatively high. Yet, these stressors' associations with child outcomes are often weak and inconsistent. Practice and policy: ECE teachers in publicly funded settings face high expectations but are paid astonishingly low wages, which may contribute to high stress. More research is needed to understand why the many stressors teachers report did not consistently predict child outcomes in this study. What enables teachers to compartmentalize or absorb their personal and economic stressors such that their students are protected from its impacts? How can this information be applied to professional development focused on improving teacher wellbeing? Regardless of associations with child outcomes, reducing stressors reported by ECE teachers is a worthy practice priority because children deserve healthy and economically secure teachers and a worthy policy priority from a human rights perspective.

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the importance of soft skills for leadership and offers recommendations for soft skill development training for the next generation of leaders. Design/methodology/approach An integrated review of current research literature was conducted on management, leadership and soft skills to develop recommendations for integrating the development of soft skills in leadership development training protocol. Findings A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for soft skills development or measurement. Each soft skill is defined differently and should be assessed based on different behavioral actions. Progress in this area of measurement development will make a great impact on the use of soft skills. The development of assessment tools for the different soft skills across professional disciplines is assumed to enhance other aspects of transformational leadership such as coaching and mentoring. Research limitations/implications Current strategies for the assessment and measurement of soft skills present an obstacle for including these skills in current leadership training models. Practical implications The paper includes implications for the development of soft skills for the next generation of leaders and offers recommendations for integrating the development of soft skills in leadership training programs. Originality/value This paper fulfills an identified need to study how soft skills can be measured and assessed. This is important given that specific skills vary across professional disciplines and organizational contexts.

Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are revolutionizing obesity and type 2 diabetes treatment, delivering remarkable weight loss outcomes. These medications, leveraging the effects of the insulin-regulating hormone GLP-1 via actions on peripheral and central nervous system targets, have raised hopes with their bariatric surgery-rivaling results. However, questions remain about their long-term safety and efficacy. Drawing from our expertise in obesity medicine and psychiatry, we reflect upon our experiences with the clinical use of these medications and delve into the nuanced challenges and risks they pose, particularly for those prone to disordered eating or those diagnosed with rare genetic diseases of obesity. We contend that effectively managing weight loss within this "danger zone" necessitates (1) proactive screening and continuous monitoring for disordered eating, (2) vigilant monitoring for appetite-related maladaptive responses, including food aversion and dehydration, and (3) ongoing assessment for broader health impacts. A multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach that melds medical, psychological, dietary, and behavioral strategies is crucial to delivering tailored and thorough care to each patient.

Despite evidence of abuse and violence against U.S. elected officeholders at the federal, state, and local levels, to date, no political science research has investigated the frequency, channels, and correlates of this phenomenon. Here, we surveyed mayors in U.S. cities with populations above 30,000 and found that mayors face physical violence and psychological abuse at rates equal to or greater than the general workforce, social media are the most common channels of these actions, and mayors in all types of cities experience violence and abuse. Nevertheless, mayors who are younger, female, in strong mayor systems, and in larger cities were more likely to be affected than their counterparts. Finally, with the exception of gender, the factors associated with greater likelihood of psychological abuse are not the same factors associated with experiences of physical violence.

Distributed video coding (DVC) is rapidly gaining popularity as a low cost, robust video coding solution, that reduces video encoding complexity. DVC is built on distributed source coding (DSC) principles where correlation between sources to be compressed is exploited at the decoder side. In the case of DVC, a current frame available only at the encoder is estimated at the decoder with side information generated from other frames available at the decoder. One of the main challenges in DVC design is that correlation among the source and side information needs to be estimated online and as accurately as possible. Since correlation dynamically changes with the scene, in order to exploit the robustness of DSC code designs, we integrate particle filtering (PF) with standard belief propagation (BP) decoding for inference on one joint factor graph to estimate correlation among source and side information. Correlation estimation is performed online as it is carried out jointly with decoding of the graph-based DSC code. Moreover, we demonstrate our joint bit-plane decoding with adaptive correlation estimation schemes within state-of-the-art DVC systems, which are transform-domain based with a feedback channel for rate adaptation. Experimental results show that our proposed system gives a significant performance improvement compared to the benchmark state-of-the-art DISCOVER codec (including correlation estimation) and the case without dynamic PF tracking, due to improved knowledge of timely correlation statistics via the combination of joint bit-plane decoding and particle-based BP (PBP) tracking.

The expansion of early childhood education programming has heightened the focus on teachers’ educational preparation and its role in providing high-quality services for young children. The interest in teachers’ education is especially relevant in early childhood since differentiated levels of preparation are commonly used in quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) as a variable to distinguish differences in quality among programs. Levels of formal education are also used by early childhood programs for the hiring, placement, training, and promotion of teachers. Since little research has been conducted on early childhood students at different levels of professional preparation, the purpose of this study was to investigate the knowledge and beliefs of early childhood students at four levels of professional preparation commonly used in QRIS and early childhood teacher career ladders: 1) students working toward a Child Development Associate (CDA) credential; 2) students working on an associate’s degree in early childhood; 3) students working on a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education; and 4) graduates with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. Results indicate students at higher levels of education had more knowledge of child development, higher levels of self-esteem, more realistic expectations of children, and increased empathy for children.

Generation of chaos from acousto-optic modulators with an electronic feedback has been studied for several years. Such chaotic signals have an important application in providing secure encryption in free-space optical communication systems. Lyapunov exponent is an important parameter for analysis of chaos generated by a nonlinear system. The Lyapunov exponent of an acousto-optic system is determined and calculated in this paper to understand the dependence of the chaotic response on the system parameters such as bias, feedback gain, input intensity and initial condition exciting the cell. Analysis of chaos using Lyapunov exponent is consistent with bifurcation analysis and is useful in encrypting data signals.

BACKGROUND: US medical schools are increasingly integrating lifestyle medicine competencies into their academic programs. Yet, physician assistant (PA) academic programs have been slower to respond. METHODS: = 24). The 4-week hybrid, 2-credit hour course activities aligned with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine competencies for primary care providers and reinforced four of the Accreditation Standards for PA Education. We combined didactic lectures with weekly hands-on cooking modules from the "Health meets Food" courseware for medical students. We employed a pre-post evaluation design including a comparison group of 2nd-year PA students in a separate program. We assessed changes in personal nutrition behaviors and knowledge and confidence for counseling in nutrition, exercise/physical activity, weight, smoking, and alcohol, using the modified 5A's framework (assess, advise, agree, assist, and arrange) for lifestyle counseling. RESULTS: Students receiving the intervention demonstrated significantly higher gains in both knowledge and confidence for the 5A's of nutrition counseling compared to the control group. Self-reported knowledge and confidence for the 5A's of counseling for the other lifestyle behaviors similarly improved among the intervention group compared to the control group, but to a lesser extent. CONCLUSION: A nutrition-centered lifestyle medicine course can demonstrate PA academic program adherence to accreditation standards, while also introducing students to nutrition and lifestyle medicine competencies. Hands-on experiences that reinforce didactic instruction may maximize student knowledge and self-efficacy for implementing lifestyle medicine into their practice.

This paper presents the concept and implementation of a <i>Braided Single-stage Protocol </i>for quantum secure communication. The braided single-stage protocol is a multi-photon tolerant secure protocol. This multi-photon tolerant protocol has been implemented in the laboratory using free-space optics technology. The proposed protocol capitalizes on strengths of the three-stage protocol and extends it with a new concept of braiding. This protocol overcomes the limitations associated with the three-stage protocol in the following ways: It uses the transmission channel only once as opposed to three times in the three-stage protocol, and it is invulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack. This paper also presents the error analysis resulting from the misalignment of the devices in the implementation. The experimental results validate the efficient use of transmission resources and improvement in the data transfer rate.

Free-space optic (FSO) technology transmits information using a modulated light beam traveling through the atmosphere. In certain situations, when compared with wireless communication, it proves to be more effective by providing higher data rates at reduced size and cost. Current FSO technology transmits data, video, and voice communications at a bandwidth of up to 2.5 Gbps. FSO system transceivers rely on o line-of-sight connection to maintain a continuous exchange of data. Because atmospheric conditions can greatly affect FSO communications, facilitating continuous alignment requirements has been the primary concentration of mobile FSO research to date. This introduces a fully automatic, advanced FSO alignment system that has been tested to provide both continuous and simultaneous transmission and reception of data and modulated signal during mobile conditions. Building sway and aerial-to-base station communication were considered in this study.

OBJECTIVE: Human and Organizational Factors (HOF) studies in health technology involve human beings and thus require Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Yet HOF studies have specific constraints and methods that may not fit standard regulations and IRB practices. Gaining IRB approval may pose difficulties for HOF researchers. This paper aims to provide a first overview of HOF study challenges to get IRB review by exploring differences and best practices across different countries. METHODS: HOF researchers were contacted by email to provide a testimony about their experience with IRB review and approval. Testimonies were thematically analyzed and synthesized to identify and discuss shared themes. RESULTS: Researchers from seven European countries, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and the United States answered the call. Four themes emerged that indicate shared challenges in legislation, IRB inefficiencies and inconsistencies, general regulation and costs, and lack of HOF study knowledge by IRB members. We propose a model for IRB review of HOF studies based on best practices. CONCLUSION: International criteria are needed that define low and high-risk HOF studies, to allow identification of studies that can undergo an expedited (or exempted) process from those that need full IRB review. Enhancing IRB processes in such a way would be beneficial to the conduct of HOF studies. Greater knowledge and promotion of HOF methods and evidence-based HOF study designs may support the evolving discipline. Based on these insights, training and guidance to IRB members may be developed to support them in ensuring that appropriate ethical issues for HOF studies are considered.

The findings of this empirical research provide new information about the importance of caregiver interactions during care routines, specifically diaper changing, in supporting infant and toddler involvement and well-being. This correlational study involved observations of 144 separate diapering cycles by 31 caregivers with 74 infants and toddlers in 30 infant and toddler classrooms in a U.S. Midwest city. Based on these observations, caregiver responsiveness was found to be significantly related to both child involvement and child well-being. Another feature of caregivers' behavior, caregiver encouragement, was significantly associated with child well-being, but not child involvement. The study results suggest that caregivers' behaviors, specifically responsiveness and encouragement, during diapering are vital proximal processes in the moment-to-moment interactions between a caregiver and child. Thus, responsiveness and encouragement in care routines should be emphasized in infant care settings and be a focus for caregiver professional development, including pre- and in-service training. Although training related to diapering is often restricted to health concerns, the findings suggest that specific caregiver-child interactions during this care routine may support or hinder children's well-being and involvement in the moment. Caregiver responsiveness to children's cues in this context may enhance children's opportunities to practice involvement in bidirectional relationships and support children's well-being.

Organizations use validity transport to assess whether adoption of a particular selection measure may be of value. Current validity transport methodology assumes a normal distribution of validity parameters. Research over the past two decades has questioned this assumption, investigating the types of decision errors likely with various non‐normal parameter distributions. The current paper demonstrates that the variance of the parameter distribution and choice of lower bound has a greater impact on the true lower bound of the parameter distribution than does its shape. The current practice of using 80% credibility intervals provides a reasonable compromise in terms of invariance to parameter distribution shape while also limiting the probability of erroneously concluding validity transport is reasonable in a specific case.

Free Space Optical (FSO) multi-user communication provides high aggregate bandwidth and link robustness attributable to spatial diversity. The primary challenge for this technology is interference among multiple users at the receiver. A non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique multiplexes numerous users in the power domain at the same time and frequency resource. Thus, different users simultaneously transmit their signals with various power levels. The receiver then decodes user data individually from the overlapped signal using successive interference cancellation (SIC). This paper reports the use of NOMA in an FSO link with two users and details an investigation of the effects of power allocation and channel estimation on the user’s signals demodulation accuracy. Analysis of varying data rate and system capacity gain are explored. Experimental results indicate that accurate channel estimation and optimum power allocation ratio can improve the accuracy of signal reconstruction. Difference in data rate tested proved negligible to signal demodulation quality.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of our study is to assess the methodology of overlapping systematic reviews related to cemented vs uncemented hip hemiarthroplasties for the treatment of femoral neck fractures to find the study with the best evidence. Also, we assess the gaps in methodology and information to help with direction of future studies. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in September 2022 using Pubmed, Embase, and Cochrane Library. Clinical outcome data and characteristics of each study were extracted to see which treatment had better favorability. The outcomes and characteristics extracted from each study includes, first author, search date, publication journal and date, number of studies included, databases, level of evidence, software used, subgroup analyses that were conducted, and heterogeneity with the use of I2 statistics Methodological quality information was extracted from each study using four different methodologic scores (Oxford Levels of Evidence; Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR); Quality of reporting of meta-analyses (QUROM); Oxman and Guyatt. After that, the Jadad decision algorithm was used to identify which studies in our sample contained the best available evidence. Finally, overlap of each systematic review was assessed using Corrected Covered Area (CCA) to look at redundancy and research waste among the systematic reviews published on the topic. RESULTS: After screening, 12 studies were included in our sample. For the Oxford Levels of Evidence, we found that all the studies were Level I evidence. For the QUORUM assessment, we had 1 study with the highest score of 18. Additionally, we did the Oxman and Guyatt assessment, where we found 4 studies with a maximum score of 6. Finally, we did an AMSTAR assessment and found 2 studies with a score of 9. After conducting the methodological scores; the authors determined that Li. L et al 2021 had the highest quality. In addition, it was found that the CCA found among the primary studies in each systematic review calculated to .22. Any CCA above .15 is considered "very high overlap". CONCLUSIONS: The best available evidence suggests that Cemented HAs are better at preventing Prosthesis-related complications. Conversely, the best evidence also suggests that Cemented HA also results in longer operative time and increased intraoperative blood loss. When conducting future systematic reviews related to the topic, we ask that authors restrict conducting another systematic review until new evidence emerges so as not to confuse the clinical decision-making of physicians.

This paper re-examines an organizational democracy initiative that was undertaken in a suburban police department in the southwestern United States in 2003. In 2005, a study confirmed positive outcomes in terms of improved employee commitment, labor relations, work conditions and productivity. By 2008, however, mid-level managers complained that the democratic reforms undermined their authority and contributed to a lack of accountability. We conducted interviews with 10 agency managers to assess perceived changes in the agency culture and communication, and the impact of the initiative on accountability and managers’ personal authority. In addition, we re-analyzed quantitative (n = 122) and qualitative data (n = 28) from 2005. Results indicate the importance of executive leadership, clearly defined roles, structural boundaries and the affirmation of managerial authority when integrating vertical and horizontal leadership. The limits of organizational democracy are discussed, as well as the symbolic aspects of police culture.

We propose an adaptive distributed compression solution using particle filtering that tracks correlation, as well as performing disparity estimation, at the decoder side. The proposed algorithm is tested on the stereo solar images captured by the twin satellites system of NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) project. Our experimental results show improved compression performance w.r.t. to a benchmark compression scheme, accurate correlation estimation by our proposed particle-based belief propagation algorithm, and significant peak signal-to-noise ratio improvement over traditional separate bit-plane decoding without dynamic correlation and disparity estimation.

Accurate tumor segmentation is a critical step in the development of the computer-aided detection (CAD) based quantitative image analysis scheme for early stage prognostic evaluation of ovarian cancer patients. The purpose of this investigation is to assess the efficacy of several different methods to segment the metastatic tumors occurred in different organs of ovarian cancer patients. In this study, we developed a segmentation scheme consisting of eight different algorithms, which can be divided into three groups: 1) Region growth based methods; 2) Canny operator based methods; and 3) Partial differential equation (PDE) based methods. A number of 138 tumors acquired from 30 ovarian cancer patients were used to test the performance of these eight segmentation algorithms. The results demonstrate each of the tested tumors can be successfully segmented by at least one of the eight algorithms without the manual boundary correction. Furthermore, modified region growth, classical Canny detector, and fast marching, and threshold level set algorithms are suggested in the future development of the ovarian cancer related CAD schemes. This study may provide meaningful reference for developing novel quantitative image feature analysis scheme to more accurately predict the response of ovarian cancer patients to the chemotherapy at early stage.