University of Amsterdam CS1231 Discrete Structure dissertation

Week 4 Grad. School: Choose & Describe due 7/20 by 11:59 p.m. Please include a title for eachassignment. In addition to an introductory paragraph and a conclusion paragraph, one well-developed, specific, and very clear paragraph must be devoted completely to each of the three areaslisted. In organizing each paragraph, be sure to include a sentence that specifically identifies theintent of that paragraph. Do not approach writing in this assignment as a “one (or two or even three)sentence coverage of each topic.” Each of the three areas MUST include well-developed andthorough content that demonstrates synthesis, analysis, and application.Note: In choosing a graduate school for this assignment, you must be able to find answers to eachof the required areas that follow. If your “preferred” graduate school doesn’t have that information, youmust select one that does. You also must select a program that specifically requires a version of a“letter of intent,” purpose, or personal statement essay.Assignment: Write a “3-5” paper in which you use 5 paragraphs that include an introduction,conclusion, and a well-developed, specific, and very clear description of the following 3 areas:I. Do your research! Identify a graduate school andprogram within it in which you have an interest inobtaining a “Masters’ Degree.If you graduate school does not interest you in the "near future", consider that at some point you maychange your mind! You will write the paper "as if" therefore.For example, "back in the day" when I graduated from college with a bachelor's degree, going on toget my master's was the furthest thing from my imagination. I thought I wanted to teach English inhigh school, though I had no idea what was or was not required to do so. I didn't get a full timeteaching job until many years later when I taught at a community college: but I did get hired as asocial worker! I had taken sociology in college but had just one social work class because I didn't likethe main instructor who I thought was boring. At work, I quickly discovered there were many things Ididn't know about doing social work–and the first area was in mental health. I contacted people agreat many times in that field in effort to learn more. I was eventually even hired to do that work. I stilldidn't have all the answers of "how to do this"– but I still didn't consider graduate school. Then oneday the opportunity jumped right into my face and I took it–and though I struggled going to grad.school full time for two years as I worked full time and had to maintain a family that included a toddlerdaughter who scribbled in my textbook, it was one of the best decisions I ever made for myprofessional future. Given this assignment as an undergraduate student, I would have struggled andprobably not written it the way I would now. However, I might have learned more about myself and mycommitment to "make a difference" in SOME way! Achieving goals begins with a deep self-assessment and progresses through an organizing of specific, measurable action steps that directyou to success in a meaningful plan.A. Discuss an area in the program in which you would like to specialize, and identify if this programprovides an opportunity for this specialization. If there is no overt opportunity for specialization,discuss how you would plan to address this.B. Describe the geographic location and its proximity or distance from your home.C. Identify contact information including the URL, address, and name of Dean of the school.D. Describe the research or other “background” interests of at least 3 faculty in the programE. Identify other Interesting areas to include related to individualizing this program!Responses 2II. Describe the requirements for entry into theprogram.A. What specialized testing is required? For example, do they require a GRE or an “MCAT” or an“LSAT,” etc.?B. What are the application fees?C. What is the deadline to apply?D. How many undergraduate credit hours are required for admission?E. Identify other requirements and/or related and interesting areas to include related to individualizingthis program!III. Describe the program’s mission and goals andhow they “match” yours.A. Describe–in sentences that use italics and underlining for the specific key words or phrases–atleast five key words and phrases the program uses to describe expectations for students. Chooseonly those key words that are specific to a program, clear, and unique to their setting. (Don't forget:use italics and underline each of the five examples of their key words and phrases.)B. Discuss how those key words and phrases link directly to your academic and career goals andobjectives. This is a very important section in which it is important to demonstrate strongcritical thinking skills in synthesis, analysis and application!C. Summarize the content of the program’s letter of intent.D. Include a summary of your own goals and objectives and what you learned from researching thegraduate program's goals and objectives.

BHR 3352 Human Resource Management Harvard University Week 5 Assignment

                    Discipline: Management                     Type of service: Essay                     Spacing:                                                Double spacing                                                                                   Paper format: APA                     Number of pages: 4 pages                     Number of sources: 4 sources                     Paper detalis:                 Research Paper: New Supervisory Skills  Your research paper is based on the following scenario:  You have just taken over as a Shift Supervisor at Bad Teddy Bear  Manufacturing and have a team of 30 under you.  Your educational and  training level is exactly what you have today.  Your teams rotate shifts every 3 weeks and there are two shifts,  morning, 0700-3:30 PM and evening, 3PM to 11:30PM. You have the  flexibility to move people around shifts, and you stay on the same  shift, with overlap (i.e. your hours are 9-6).  Two co-leads take over  when you are not there and stay on shifts with their workers.  The previous supervisor was let go for cause, failure to meet quotas and  leadership inability. The department’s morale is very low and there is a  great deal of pressure for your shift to perform.  On top of this, there is a problem with two of your employees, one is  always late and the other calls in sick frequently (you can decide what  factors lead to their absenteeism). The previous supervisor never did  anything about this and everyone knew it was an issue. One of your  co-leads has brought it to your attention and wants to know when you are  going to fix it.  You also have an employee that has been there for 14 years and has never  been promoted to co-lead or supervisor. He came to you and wants to  know why? He is an older worker and knows what he is doing, however, one  of your co-leads told you that some of the younger workers grumble that  he is too slow and can’t learn new technology. He also stated that  unless he gets the opportunity to move up, he’ll quit and make sure that  management knows you never gave him a chance.  Finally, there is a brand new worker, a single mother, who is super  sharp and a very hard worker. She told you on your first day there how  much she loves working at the company and wants to progress upward.  However, childcare is an issue and sometimes she needs to leave early.  On top of that, her car has left her stranded on several occasions.  You are to develop a solution to present to each of your co-leads on how  to start fixing some of these issues.  Make the paper informative, with  some of the techniques and terms that we have addressed thus far in the  course that deal with new supervisors.  This about the terms leaders  vs. managers, counseling, feedback, types of leaders, SMART objectives,  SWOT, generational differences, Theory X and Y, MBWA, and favoritism.   These terms are not all-inclusive and you are welcome to add others to  support your solutions.  This can be a narrative paper, informative paper, a letter (albeit a  long one) or a talking paper. You can use the first person to discuss  what you think needs to be done. You can also assign tasks or take tasks  away from co-leaders.  Your supervisor, co-leads, and workers can have fictional names, you can  add in additional issues or factors and most of all, have fun and be  creative in developing this workplace. Your co-leads can be good or bad  at their job, you can decide how little or much you want to delegate to  them as well as how much reporting back to you is needed.  Think about these challenges you will face as a new supervisor. You may  want to break this into fixing immediate problems, a six-month goal, and  one-year goal.  You should use proper APA sixth edition formatting.  You should have a title page, 3-5 pages of body content and the last  page should references. Make sure that your paper has references.  Use at least 3 references on your paper.  They should be articles that  support your paper or lessons we have covered. Do not use Wikipedia!  The paper should contain no more than 20% direct citations or quotations.  Have fun writing this and make sure to use good terms and sources.

Week 1 discussion 1 | Human Resource Management homework help

 
Select one of the following case studies (located in your textbook):

Case 1-1: Ba-Zynga! Zynga Faces Trouble in Farmville.

Then complete the following:

Add your opinion about the choices and decisions being made—if this was your company, would you make this choice?
What would you do differently?

apa format
1-2 paragraphs
references
Case 1-1 Ba-Zynga! Zynga Faces Trouble in FarmVille
In late 2011, Zynga’s employees were showing serious frustration with long hours, high-stress deadlines, and especially the leadership of the company. Responses to a quarterly staff satisfaction survey provided lots of criticism of both the company culture and of Mr. Mark Pincus—the CEO. One individual was so disenchanted that he openly expressed his intent to “cash out” and leave after the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in December 2011.
Zynga was one of the fastest growing web-based companies at that point in time. It operated with an almost military command-and-control structure, with autonomous units in charge of each game (most of you will recognize the games FarmVille and CityVille). At times, it was “a messy and ruthless war.”89 Employees worked long hours while “managers relentlessly track[ed] progress, and the weak links [were] demoted or let go.”90 The entire environment could be described as intense.
There were serious concerns about the long-term viability of this culture, though. “While some staff members thrive in this environment, others find it crushing. Several former employees describe emotionally charged encounters, including loud outbursts from Mr. Pincus, threats from senior leaders, and moments when colleagues broke down [in] tears.”91 A number of former employees spoke about how the high-pressure culture might become a major liability as the company continued to grow. The consensus of these former workers appeared to be that the company might not continue to be able to attract and retain the top engineering and programming talent that they would need going forward.
“While from the outside Zynga may have the fun and whimsy of the Willy Wonka chocolate factory, the organization thrives on numbers, relentlessly aggregating performance data, from the upper ranks to the cafeteria staff.”92 Everything was measured and mapped, and results were used to identify the top performers along with the “not-so-top” performers and their groups. (Top teams had been known to be rewarded with vacations for the entire team, with spending money provided by the company!) Mr. Pincus personally tracked large amounts of data showing performance levels for the 3,000 employees and their work teams.
It wasn’t that Zynga was failing, or even that there was an open fear of failure. Zynga was one of the rare Internet start-ups that were actually making money. Zynga had garnered $828.9 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2011 and had earned $121 million since the start of 2010. However, the company culture was purely performance driven. The best employees were rewarded very well, while people who couldn’t “hit the numbers” were likely to disappear.
Other local companies and their human resources managers were looking on in anticipation. They also had talent acquisition problems, but many had a much more collaborative culture than Zynga did, and they thought they would be able to use these cultural attributes to steal talent from Zynga after the IPO concluded. They knew that most of Zynga’s early employees who had some type of stock or options in the company would not be likely to leave until the IPO was finalized, but that many would be looking around soon after.
Questions
Imagine you are the new HR director at Zynga. What do you think you might do in this situation to limit the potential loss of a large number of very talented employees?
Are there any benefits or incentives that you can think of that might make more people want to stay on at Zynga after the IPO is complete and they can “get their money”?
HR managers frequently have to teach other senior managers how to deal with their employees better. What do you think you can do about Mr. Pincus? Is there anything you can do? Can you coach him concerning his management style? Do you think this will be effective?
Do you think that big cash and stock rewards for top performers and “the boot” for poor performers is the appropriate way to manage talent in this type of high-tech business? Why or why not?
Case written by Herbert Sherman, Long Island University

CRB discussion replies

Please reply to all parts with 150 words a piecePart 1In an article “Where is Managed Care Now?” written by Marc Roberts it states that For years, most doctors and hospitals have been paid on a ‘fee-for-service’ basis. Like piecework payment in the garment industry, such arrangements have the predictable effect of encouraging people to do more work – in order to make more money. The result has been that the United States has the highest health care costs in the world” (Roberts). The healthcare delivery model provides health care solutions for people whenever they want to speak with a medical provider, immediate services can be given, and  the cost is not as outrageous. This is why the health care delivery model was created.         Two types of managed care are Health Maintenance Organizations and Preferred Provider Organization. In the article “Managed Care” it states that “Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) usually only pay for care within the network. You choose a primary care doctor who coordinates most of your care.” (Unknown 2019). Preferred Provider Organizations will usually pay more if you get care within the network however they will still pay part of the cost if you decide to go outside of the network. The difference is that Health Maintenance Organizations do not pay for out of the network care and Preferred Provider Organizations will pay part.         An advantage of the managed care model is that people can seek can from within their network and information on patients moves rapidly throughout networks. A disadvantage is that it limits care for those who do not have insurance or provider coverage.Part 2Managed Care Plans:I believe the managed care plan model was created to help people see the differences, costs, providers, services that they have to choose from and which one would be best. Sometimes even a model can be confusing though. I believe in my heart of hearts that things need to change with all these plans, I think that the government should just come up with one whole plan that covers everyone regardless of health, age, employment etc. It would be a better world for that to happen. Reason being that I said that is because some plans only have certain providers, services, and costs differ tremendously. As I’m getting ready to talk about the differences between the 2 managed care plans HMO AND POS that I chose to discuss, See below:   HMO managed care plan seems to give employees cheaper costs by finding specific healthcare providers that are flexible with employees schedules, income needs, and services needed for the person. HMO also seems to make a persons life easier and one way they do that is that the network takes care of any and all claims for the employee.                                                                                                         VS.POS managed care plan is a plan where the member has to choose their own doctors that will agree to evaluate/treat the member at a dicussed discount cost. Members have to use the chosen doctor and if the member has any medical isssues past or present the doctor has to be the first one contacted in order for the member to get the best services provided. In closing I feel in my opinion that HMO is the best way to go!Part 3According to the article “What Is an FSED?” an OCED “is run by a hospital similarly to an outpatient department” (Unknown) while “IFECs are owned and run by for-profit, non-hospital entities. They offer similar services comparable to OCEDs but are not bound by federal ED regulations” (Unknown). An advantage to the OCED is that they have Medicare or Medicaid billing. In the article “Freestanding ED 101: What you need to know” written by Caitlin Gillooley it states that “private insurers usually pay OCEDs as in-network providers under the affiliated hospital’s contract. In other words, OCEDs bill like traditional emergency departments” (Gillooley 2016).  IFECs cannot bill Medicare or Medicaid. Private insurance companies think of IFECs to be out of the network. The advantages of an FSED is the location is convenient for patients and they are fully equipped to deal with emergent cases. The disadvantages of an FSED is that it can be expensive for patients as they can often be out of the network, it is expensive for insurance companies and they are rarely reimbursed by Medicare or Medicaid. Members of the community would probably prefer a OCED due to it being much like an outpatient department and they can be billed by Medicare and Medicaid. Most FSEDs are located in Texas, Ohio, and Colorado because these locations have higher incomes and a lower population of patients with Medicaid. Across these three states, FSEDs are located in areas with a better payer mix. Based on my research about FSEDs, I would recommend that OCEDs are the better of the two OCEDs. However, my opinion is that while they bring needed service to more isolated communities, they are being reserved for the areas with less of a population of patients with Medicaid and more wealth. Part 4According to the article “What Is an FSED?” an OCED “is run by a hospital similarly to an outpatient department” (Unknown) while “IFECs are owned and run by for-profit, non-hospital entities. They offer similar services comparable to OCEDs but are not bound by federal ED regulations” (Unknown). An advantage to the OCED is that they have Medicare or Medicaid billing. In the article “Freestanding ED 101: What you need to know” written by Caitlin Gillooley it states that “private insurers usually pay OCEDs as in-network providers under the affiliated hospital’s contract. In other words, OCEDs bill like traditional emergency departments” (Gillooley 2016).  IFECs cannot bill Medicare or Medicaid. Private insurance companies think of IFECs to be out of the network. The advantages of an FSED is the location is convenient for patients and they are fully equipped to deal with emergent cases. The disadvantages of an FSED is that it can be expensive for patients as they can often be out of the network, it is expensive for insurance companies and they are rarely reimbursed by Medicare or Medicaid. Members of the community would probably prefer a OCED due to it being much like an outpatient department and they can be billed by Medicare and Medicaid. Most FSEDs are located in Texas, Ohio, and Colorado because these locations have higher incomes and a lower population of patients with Medicaid. Across these three states, FSEDs are located in areas with a better payer mix. Based on my research about FSEDs, I would recommend that OCEDs are the better of the two OCEDs. However, my opinion is that while they bring needed service to more isolated communities, they are being reserved for the areas with less of a population of patients with Medicaid and more wealth. Part 5Today I am wanting to discuss just a couple of reimbursement models. The two i am going to be talking about are staff and group. The staff model are HMO (Health Maintenance Organizations) salaried physicians with a clinic type of arrangement and only the HMO (Health Maintenance Organizations) members receive services. Whereas the group model are HMO (Health Maintenance Organizations) that have a multispecialty physician group that provides all medical services.  In other words, the staff model only provides services to members and the group model provides to everyone that needs any type of treatment.       Another thing I want to discuss is how physicians practice their abilities to treat patients based on being influenced by the government and private insurances. In my personal opinion, I believe that alot of physicians treat patients according to how much they are getting paid whether it be by the government or private insurance companies. It seems like if the patient is not a millionaire or someone thats got alot of money, a patient gets treated badly and not as thorough as a rich person. I believe thats close to discrimination. The better physicians are paid the better the patient will be treated. Most of all its great when a physician can just pull up a patients chart on an electronic health record. It saves a lot of time especially during a first visit to a physician. It keeps track of all the patients health problems, medications, surgeries, and all the crucial things that a physician would need to know about in a patient especially when it could be a life or death matter.               Physicians are not the only ones in healthcare that can give care to a patient. There are nurses, occupational and physical therapists, radiologists, pharmacists, and many others. These healthcare team can lower alot of costs by just helping patients by answering questions, checking the patient in for services without patient having to see a physician. Everytime a patient has to see a physician the cost of healthcare possibly could go up.  Bottom line we all need to think about these things when it comes to our country and the costs of healthcare services.Part 6Good morning everyone, I will start my discussion off by discussing two reimbursement models and the roles of physicians. The two types  of reimbursement models are FFS (fee for services) and ACA(affordable care act). FFS is a payment model where services are unbundled and paid for separately. Physicians are paid a fixed amount per patient per month for services. The government and insurance get billed for everything including doctor visits medicine, and procedures. Also clients might have to pay  co pay and submit bills for reimbursement. ACA is Obama Care and it was passed by the congress and signed into lay by Barrack Obama in march 2010. ACA physician has shorten a lot due to more patients. More patients are getting accepted, but there is not enough money to pay the physicians. I think it would be better if they had a bigger budget. Private insurance is more expensive than any other insurance. They have a big influence on physicians sometimes that is how physicians get paid. Sometimes depending on what insurance it is you might not get paid or get paid enough which is kind of hectic. Some government and insurance have different rates and set prices. ACA is good for patients but sometimes not fair to physicians. In order to be reimbursed you have to have documentation and record of what you have did. For example when you go to work you have to clock in and out of paper or on a clock in machine in order to get paid and have documentation showing what you did. I can relate because, I work for absolute care and in order to get paid we have to sign in on the website and tell everything we did with the patient in order to get paid. physicians can loose money when they have not logged the accurate information. Also it is to keep records of the patients health and to help better understand what is going on with the patient. Other members of healthcare team who do not provide direct care is Clinical educator,and a patient advocate. Reference:prognocis.comJournal of general internal medicine 2017March;Vol.32(3),pp.284-290.Health Management Technology Vol.19,iss.2,(Feb 1998):98,97Part 7  Hope everyone is as excited as I am to be in the Healthcare Program because today I want us to discuss the challenges we face and how we can overcome them by keeping our career goals in tact!        First, I would like to talk about a few challenges that are of most important to me and you may have different challenges which is completely okay, everyone is different but special in their own way! One of the challenges that i see today is the high need for healthcare professionals, those consists of alot of different types of physicians, hospital staff, technicians, pharmacists, hospitals, clinics, live-in facilities, hospice, nurses, physician assistants, surgery centers, and many more.        The problem is there is not enough or good enough pay to these healthcare professionals because of all the different insurances, low-income families too poor to pay as well, not enough government assistance to go around. This doesn’t just affect our healthcare teams, it also affects the whole economy. A couple things that are looking up for this situation is a government agency called Medicare (CMS) and a government agency called Medicaid. In my opinion Medicaid is easier to get than Medicare because Medicaid is for pretty much everyone no matter the size of their families and sometimes no matter what all medical problems they may have, while Medicare is usually only for elderly people, veterans, disabled. I believe as long as Medicare and Medicaid are around, the high healthcare costs may go up some but at least it will be worth it in getting everyone paid in healthcare and all patients being able to be treated.        When I start my career after graduation, I want to make it a goal for myself and all patients to get them the best healthcare treatments possible in and out of the hospitals and all facilities involved in healthcare, I want my patients to see my as not just the lady that checked me in but someone they can count on for anything and someone they trust with their life! The better patients feel, the better i will feel and healthcare teams can get paid more based on performance, although, that isn’t at all the reason for me wanting patients to feel safe and put their trust in me, my reasoning is because I’m a people person and I know how I would want to be treated and I also know how it feels to fell like you’re a bother to a healthcare team member, I never want my patients to feel that way!         I was so shocked to hear about how medicare and medicaid work in healthcare, I have them both and I never knew how they came about in the U.S. and how much they help people! Now that I know I can learn how to read my statements that I get in the mail and their policies will be easier to understand! I’m so happy to discover that I made the right choice in getting my bachelor degree in healthcare management!Part 8There are many hardships in the U.S. health care system. One of the challenges noticed is unnecessary cost and patients that do not hold insurance. This impacts many different healthcare departments such as places like billing, medical records, supply, etc. This puts a toll on taxpayers because due to the unnecessary costs, it is also wasting supplies. A government agency that meets the austerity of the U.S. Health Care system is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, (AHRQ). In the article “AHRQ’s Role in Improving Quality, Safety, and Health System Performance” written by Richard Kronick, it states “(AHRQ) is the lead federal agency charged with improving the quality and safety of America’s health-care system” (Kronick 2016). This government agency is intended to ameliorate the quality of care for patients and allow receiving this care inexpensive. AHRQ’s purpose is also to get to the bottom of any safety concerns while capitalizing on any medical errors. Considering career goals of my own in the healthcare industry, my place as a member of the healthcare team and my own team would be involved in meeting the challenge by ensuring that we are all present and the mission of safe and effective patient care is coming first. Facing the mission and looking at multiple perspectives will also ensure the challenge gets met. Something that I learned in this course that was unexpected was the FSEDs. While I already work in the healthcare system, I am also in the Military where things are run differently from the civilian sector. Seeing the differences made this course interesting for me because there are many things we overlook. 

CB discussion replies

Please reply to all parts with 150 words a piecePart 1The simplest way to define managed care is: an insurance contract between payors and providers.  The providers agree to accept a certain dollar amount per person who receives care.  Managed care was created because people were not able to afford healthcare.    Two different kinds of managed care are: Health Maintenance Organizations, also known as HMOs, and Preferred Provider Organizations, also known as PPOs.  In an HMO, the cost of the care is covered ONLY if you receive care within the contracted network.  A patient is generally not allowed to receive care outside of the network unless there is an extenuating circumstance.  In a PPO, a patient is not limited to receive care within the network, but the insurance reimburses at a higher rate if the care is received within the network.  This means that the patient would have a higher percentage to cover “out of pocket” than if their care was “in network.”      Managed care has good points and bad.  An advantage of an HMO is that if care is received within the network, care is provided at little to no cost to the patient. A disadvantage could be that the patient does not have carte blanche to any and all providers.  There will be a limited selection available to pick from.  An advantage of a PPO is that you aren’t limited to providers only in the network.  If you want a second opinion from a specialist who is not in your network, the visit will be covered (but at a smaller percentage than if they were in network.)  The disadvantage could also be the same reason: the reimbursement for out-of-network could be much smaller than if the patient was seen in network.  Part 2the managed  the care, is a system of the health care in which  of the patients and agree to the visit only the certain and the doctors and  the hospitals, and in the which the  cost of the treatment is the monitored by a managing and  company… (preferred provider and organization)in a ppo  the managing  and entlty  is not always  the  insurer, it also the term  of the managed of the care or the managed of the health care is the usedin the united states  to the describe  a one of the most characteristic and forms  of the managed of the care is  the use  of a panel or the network of the healthcare providers to  provide. there are 3 main types of managed of care in reference to the employee the benefits; and medical the least the expensive of the form of the managed  of the medical the care  is the healthcare is the  health maintenance there are two  main types  of the dental plans. describe of the continuum of the managed of the health care  of the plains and the key of  the differences for each of the discuss the key  of the elements of the difference types of the integrated and the delivery and the systems, 19 2 combine hmo like system with indemnityPart 3Before we discuss the benefits of using attached vs freestanding emergency rooms,  its  important to point out that there are two different kinds.  Off Campus Emergency Departments (OCED) are still part of a larger health system while Free Standing Emergency Departments (also known as FSEDs) are private and run as their own business.  Each type has many advantages and many disadvantages.  OCEDs can  include access to care, built in referrals of patients for In Patient status if needed, as well as an additional revenue source .   If patients know that they can receive the same standard of care at  a   OC ED that they would if they travel all the way downtown to the hospital, they can remain confident about their care in their neighborhood.     Some of the advantages of the FSED are: competition as well as faster care.  Competition is always great in almost any space.  If a company knows they are competing for a patient’s business, they will strive to do better and that is always a win for the patient.  If an ambulance company knows that a patient can receive the  care  they need at a FSED, it could shorten the ambulance ride, thus the patient arriving at the ED quicker which could potentially save a life.  (Guiterrez, “State Regulation  Of  Freestanding Emergency Departments Varies Widely, Affecting Location, Growth, And Services Provided”, 2016)  Disadvantages to having a FSED/OCED can include not being able to treat advanced cases.  Things like myocardial infarction, stroke or trauma are generally not treated at FSED.   (Johnson, “Free-standing ERs offer care without the wait. But patients can still pay $6,800 to treat a cut.”, 2017)  If a patient somehow has an event like this and arrives at a FSED/OCED, it would potentially DELAY care because the patient went to the wrong place and now needs to be transferred to the right place.  A really good marketing campaign would need to be established for public education.  Training the public in advance for what to do in an emergency would be a great idea so they know which place to pick should they have an emergency.  Another disadvantage is that Medicare and Medicaid will not pay for services at a FSED/OCED so that marketing campaign would really need to drive these education points.  The elderly population (for example) are the primary users of Medicare and if you try to locate a FSED/OCED right in the middle of a senior living community, you might not do very well financially with your new business venture.    While a FSED or OCED is not ideal for all patient populations, it can be a real asset in affluent neighborhoods where most patients are covered with private health insurance.  If someone has an Emergency Room Copay, and they can use it close to home, they will probably choose to do so.   If we can find the right location for our new ED, I recommend that we break ground immediately.    Part 4Emergency Room Facilities: Free Standing or Off Campus?In recent years, healthcare has continued to grow and change to keep up with the demand for both convenience and profitability. Healthcare organizations and private facilities have taken advantage of these opportunities to establish two new types of emergency departments: free standing emergency departments, and off campus emergency departments  (Kenny, 2016). While both facilities specialize in the treatment and care of life-threatening illness or injury, there are some significant differences in profitability, access, benefits and their drawbacks. Off campus emergency departments, or OCEDs, are unique in the respect that they are still associated with a healthcare organization, but are located within the community  (Kenny, 2016). These types of facilities have the ability provide emergency care within the community, in addition to emergency services located within the main healthcare facility  (Kenny, 2016). These emergency departments offer the same co-pays and deductibles that the patient would have at the main campus, as well as a majority of services. In the event that the OCED did not have the specialist or equipment needed for a patient, they would be transported via ambulance to the main facility for immediate care  (Boulton, 2014). This type of facility helps reduce wait times to be seen while providing more revenue for the organization  (Kenny, 2016). Services provided are reimbursed via private insurance, or through Medicare/Medicaid. These profits, along with income from the main facility, help provide growth for the organization and financial wellness  (Davis, FACHE, & Zacchigna, 2018). While this facility offers many benefits, a free standing emergency department, or FSED, is becoming for popular in some states. These types of facilities differ from OCEDs in regard to their involvement with healthcare organizations- for FSEDs, they have no association with them  (Boulton, 2014). As a result of their independent ownership, these facilities may or may not be in network for patients, depending on their association with the healthcare plans available. If the FSED is not a part of their healthcare plan, the patient could potentially be billed for a much larger deductible and out of pocket expense  (Kenny, 2016). These emergency departments are expertly built in financially secure areas- a tactic to ensure the facility will collect in full on services rendered  (Center for Improving Value in Health Care, 2016). While FSEDs are also made available in the community and provide transportation, they do have some limitations. FSEDs are becoming more popular in states such as Texas, Ohio, and Colorado due to the limitations and bans from other surrounding states  (Sutherly, 2014). One of the many reasons for these restrictions is because a large number of patients mistake these FSEDs for urgent care facilities, which have much lower co-pays and deductibles. The high cost of convenience may be one of the many reasons behind these regulations  (Davis, FACHE, & Zacchigna, 2018). The driving force behind FSEDs growth can be largely attributed to the potential profits from financially secure communities as well as the absence of regulations that limit them in these states  (Boulton, 2014). While these two types of remote emergency departments have many benefits, the most effective type of facility to build would be the OFED. While this hospital may not get as much initial revenue as a FSED, they would be preferable to the patient for the lower deductibles and co-pays  (Kenny, 2016). These facilities would also not have restrictions to which states they could be expanded to, and have the ability to transport patients in serious condition to the nearest hospital facility. In remote areas, these emergency departments could be critical for locals to receive emergency care and help provide vital resources to people who are in need of them. FSEDs may stand to make more revenue in the short-term, but if this new trend for satellite emergency departments continues, OCEDs could help many healthcare organizations expand beyond their community and provide services beyond state lines to patients in need. Despite the fact that they would not generate as much income at first, this growth in their organization would be beneficial to the communities who need it, and could continue to be cost-effective in building a profitable and successful future for the healthcare organizations that provided resources to people in need. Part 5Describe two reimbursement models and the role of the physician in each model. Fee-for-Service .  A system of provision of care where the health provider is paid a fee for each service or supply provided. Fees are billed at rates established by the provider. Fee for Service is not a form of managed care. Patients may receive reimbursement for health care services under a fee schedule. Fees and reimbursements from any applicable insurance arrangement based on a complex variety of factors, including the number and type of services provided, standardized coding system, the geographic area of service, and certain office and training expenses of the provider.  physicians and healthcare providers are paid by government agencies and insurance companies (third-party payers), or individuals, based on the number of services provided, or the number of procedures ordered. How do government and private insurers influence how physicians practice today?Why is accurate and complete documentation in the EHR important to reimbursement and quality of care?What other members of the healthcare team who do not provide direct care to patients contribute to cost containment and delivery of healthcare services?Part 6Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). The most common of healthcare Reimbursement.  A managed care arrangement consisting of a healthcare organization that acts as both insurer and provider of comprehensive but specified medical services. Most services are financed through prospective per capita (capitation) payments. The organization has responsibility for managing the provision of comprehensive health care services and typically provides preventive care. Depending on whether the services are organized under a staff or group model versus being contracted with clinicians separately, services are provided at the organization’s own facility or those hospitals, clinicians, and clinics with which it has a network agreement for the provision of care. Typically, primary care clinicians coordinate and refer patients for treatment while acting as a gatekeeper through whom the patient has to go to obtain other health services such as specialty medical care, surgery or physical therapy.Both government and private insurers influence how physicians practice today in many ways the biggest one I have found is that it all comes down to money. Meaning the government and private insurers set the prices on the healthcare system. Where at times it makes it harder for people to afford even with health insurance. And when this happens physicians lose patience and business. Accurate and complete documentation  in the electronic health record also known as Documentation integrity  is important to the reimbursement and quality of care for many reasons. The biggest one is the safety and HIPPA if the patients if accurate documentation is not done correctly it can result  in lawsuitsThe healthcare system is made up of many people  in the world, ranging from individuals who work in corporate offices to the people who in the billing department, even down to jantorios of hospitals and so far all of these people are members that contribute to the services in the healthcare. Part 7As previously stated, Medi-Cal is playing a major role in trying to accommodate people with their insurance coverage. As Medi-Cal expands, through the Federal Affordable Care Act, it targets patients who are young and/or middle class, in hopes of raising the number of uninsured people. Even though these patients do not have preexisting conditions, there is still a great potential for financial disaster due to patients neglecting their health or developing a chronic illness. Medi-Cal allows for regular check-ups in the hopes of preventing a potential disaster. As of now, my role does not play a major role in this disaster because we are on the backend of things. However, since my team can play a role in cutting costs with the usage of technology. I am a site specialist, which means that I assist in the troubleshooting of the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, Epic. With Epic, everything is found and completed in one area, leaving us more room to cut costs for our patients. With the role I plan on playing in the future, I hope to be able to find other ways of cutting costs as our technological skills advance. Our computers have allowed us to get the job done, with less staff members, allowing us to allocate monies towards better care for our patients. What I learned most in this course, which surprised me, was the potential on how big of a role I can play in the efficiency of patient care. In the past, I have always seen my job as a means to an end; however, our department plays a pivotal role in the future development of patient care. We may be simply troubleshooters in some eyes, but because of us, the job is able to be completed more quickly and efficiently, leaving more time for our providers to focus on their patients. I look forward to growing in this industry and am excited to see just how far my career can make a difference. The U.S healthcare system has different challenges; one is the healthcare regulatory changes.  The affordable care act extended the access to care for so many patients. There have been some talks about repealing and replacing the affordable care act (ACA) and if that eventually takes place the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service is going to be impacted and the physician that provides care for CMS patients.  The CMS suggest the importance of information sharing to keep providers informed with changes of healthcare regulation           As an administrator of the facility, I would ensure that the database for the healthcare regulations records are accurate and complete and accessible to authorized personnel. I would ensure that all staff are regularly trained and updated with the changes of healthcare regulation.  Training session would be offer via interactive video to ensure every employee is compliance with the changes of healthcare regulation. I would also have strategy in place for all staff to be able to address patient concerns with changes pertaining to the healthcare regulations.

Edu 695 week 4 | English homework help

Discussion

Share Your Action Research Study
Action research is a form of inquiry in which a problem is identified and a series of actions are planned as a way of gaining deeper understanding of the range of possible solutions. The purpose of this discussion is to promote reciprocal sharing of your final action research report with others in your community of practice (your peers in this course) who would value the knowledge you have gained through the action research process. In this discussion, you will create a presentation using the software of your choice (e.g., PowerPoint, Google Docs, Present.me, YouTube, Prezi, Jing, SlideRocket, or another program) to present your findings to your school at an after school staff meeting. Include speaker notes if using PowerPoint. If using a program other than PowerPoint, submit a document with speaker notes included for each slide. 
There are two parts to this discussion.
Part 1: Share the process and results of the action research planned in EDU671 and conducted in EDU675. At a minimum:

Describe the purpose of your study by writing a statement that completes the following sentence, “The purpose of this study is to…” (two to three sentences). 
Post your research question(s) – Include definitions of key technical terms, if necessary. (one to three sentences)
Outcomes/Results The “so what?” of your study—Answers to your research questions. (three to four sentences)
Assuming you would conduct another cycle of this study, what specific modifications or adjustments would you make, and why? (three to four sentences)
Explain why this study is important to the school and the students. ( two to three sentences)
Explain why this study is important it is important for teachers and other educational practitioners to become researchers of their own practice. (two to three sentences)

Part 2: 

Attach a link to your ePortfolio (Pathbrite).
In one paragraph, reflect on your experience with the redesign of the Week Three Assignment in terms of challenges you encountered and how you overcame those challenges. Also include how your assessment promotes learning and innovation skills and how it could be used as a tool for ongoing evaluation of student progress.

 
Use the PowerPoint Template as a guide to help create a high quality presentation.
 
Assignment
Research and Educational Change
One aspect of professional development that educators can participate in is that of educational conferences. While you may at some point have participated in an educational conference as an attendee, you have the opportunity in this assignment to think as a presenter! This assignment will also provide you the opportunity to create a Curriculum Vitae (CV) and cover letter. 
In this assignment, you will take your discussion presentation you prepared for the staff meeting and convert it into a poster that you could use at an academic conference. As well, often when submitting a poster proposal, you include a CV and cover letter that highlight your experience and research interests. 
Historically, a conference poster session involves use of a large poster-board style document as a reference when speaking with conference attendees about your research or practical experiences with a topic. Increasingly, the poster session involves handouts in digital format transferred through QR codes or another medium and may involve a television or other screen display to communicate your research at an academic conference. Always, your poster presentation contains a title, introduction to your question, overview of your approach, results from your study or experience, and your planned next steps in applying or expanding the study or experience. Additionally, the poster provides information about literature related to the poster topic, usually a selected listing of previously published articles that are important to your research, and a brief acknowledgement to those who helped you with the study. 
Your poster, in whatever format it is presented at the conference, is effective if it can be scanned and comprehended at a high level in around five minutes. Usually you will be present with your poster to explain points and answer questions in an authentic conference experience. 
Using the Poster Presentation Template, create your assignment to meet the content and written communication expectations below. Upload your assignment to the course for evaluation and to your ePortfolio (Pathbrite).
Note: Including your CV or Cover Letter in your ePortfolio is optional. 
Content Expectations – Two PartsPart One: 

Introduction (1 point): In 100-200 words, use this section to interest your audience in the issue or question of your study while using minimal background information and definitions.

 Materials and Methods (1 point): In 50-100 words, describe the procedure you used to collect data.

Study Results (1 point): In 50-100 words, state your research questions, describe how they were supported by your research, and then include visuals (e.g., graphic/charts/diagrams) to illustrate the parts or results of your study. 

Conclusion (1 point): In no more than 200 words, provide the concluding remarks about your study while explaining your major result in such a way as to convince your audience why the outcome is interesting. Describe the relevance of your findings to the field of education and/or beyond, describe other directions this study could lead to, and summarize the changes you would make to the study in retrospect. 

Relevant Literature Cited (.5 points): Use full citations in APA for all primary works you consulted from the literature to inform and support the purpose of your study. 

Acknowledgement (.5 points): In 30-50 words, provide an acknowledgement to individuals or groups who supported or contributed to your study. 

Part Two:

Create – Curriculum Vitae (.5 points): In three to four pages your CV should include your name, an overview of your education, your academic and related employment (especially teaching, editorial, or administrative experience), your research projects and/or research interests (including conference papers and publications), and your departmental and community service. 
Create – Cover Letter (1.5 points): In no more than one page your cover letter should include; heading, introduction, argument and closing.

Written Communication Expectations
o        APA Formatting (.25 points): Use APA formatting consistently throughout the assignment.
o        Syntax and Mechanics (.25 points): Display meticulous comprehension and organization of syntax and mechanics, such as spelling and grammar.
o        Page Requirement (.25 points): Includes a CV and Cover Letter that are no more than 4 to 5 pages in length. 
o        Source Requirement (.25 points): References three scholarly sources in addition to the course textbook. All sources on the references page need to be used and cited correctly within the body of the assignment.
Required Resources
Required Text

Burnaford, G., & Brown, T. (2014). Teaching and learning in 21st century learning environments: A reader. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Chapter 4: Leading Change Through Research

 
Recommended Resources
Articles

Barrell, J., & Weitman, C. J. (2007). Action research fosters empowerment and learning communities. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 73(3), 36-45. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database.

In this bulletin, Barrel and Witman discuss how action research done in learning communities can produce results that affect the whole school. 

Brown, H. (2004). Action research in the classroom: A process that feeds the spirit of the adolescent. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(1), 1-30. Retrieved from the EBSCOhost database.

This action research study was conducted to see if student-driven questions inserted into a holistic intrapersonal curriculum would encourage student self -efficacy. The results of the study noted that the concepts of competence, encouragement, confidence, and self-esteem allow holistic teaching to flourish when creativity, choice, imagination, and constructivism nourish the adolescent spirit in the classroom.

Websites
 

Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html)

Website for the web-based screen recording software that allows up to five minutes of narration for on screen content, including a presentation, with a free account. Web-based publishing of recordings is also possible through the associated Screencast service with a free account. 

PowerPoint (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint)

Website offering access to resources for download, such as templates, and references for use of the widely used Microsoft Office PowerPoint software.

Present.me (https://present.me/content/for-education)

Website for the web-based presentation software with a free account option to upload presentations created in other software, such as PowerPoint, and to add voice narration including a webcam video of you speaking the presentation. 

Prezi (http://prezi.com)

Website for the web-based non-linear presentation software service with a free option. Prezi allows for embedding of other web-based content, images, and text. Review the support page for additional assistance using this service.

SlideRocket (http://www.sliderocket.com) 

Website for the web-based presentation software tool that has a free account option for uploading and sharing slides online.

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com)

Website for the web-based video creation and distribution service, which allows for webcam recordings, video uploads, video editing, narration and captioning options, and much more for public, unlisted, and private videos. If you want a video to be viewable only by those who have a direct link, select “unlisted” as the option for distributing your video. 

Sociology touch stone 1 | Sociology homework help

 
Touchstones are projects that illustrate your comprehension of the course material, help you refine skills, and demonstrate application of knowledge. You can work on a Touchstone anytime, but you must pass your Milestone before you submit it. Once you’ve submitted a Touchstone, it will be graded and counted toward your final course score.
This Touchstone provides an opportunity for you to practice developing a research plan for a real-world topic that interests you. Throughout this course you will read about the results and conclusions of many different sociological studies; this Touchstone is where you can practice the skills of conducting such a study. You will use the materials you develop for this Touchstone for a later Touchstone.
This Touchstone will further strengthen your problem-solving skill, while reinforcing the content from the lesson. You will analyze your research topic of choice, while applying the problem-solving skills from the unit. By considering the dynamics of community groups, you will also strengthen your relationship building and self and social awareness skills.
Touchstone 1: Developing a Research Plan
SCENARIO: Imagine that you work for a nonprofit organization that is focused on increasing diversity in community groups in your area. Your supervisor asks you to develop a sociological study concerning topics of diversity and collaboration in a specific community group of your choice. Eventually you will prepare to share your research with colleagues.
ASSIGNMENT: For this Touchstone, you will begin by formulating a question about diversity in a community group that you have access to. Then you will use the steps of the scientific method to prepare a research plan, including a bibliography for a literature review. As you learned, sociologists follow the scientific method so that their results are both scientifically valid and useful to the greater sociological community. A literature review allows researchers to learn from completed studies and to build upon their conclusions.
Use the following Touchstone template to fill in your research plan as you develop it. When you have finished, submit this template to move on to the next unit.
Touchstone 1 Template
Touchstone 1 Sample
A. Directions
Step 1: Pick a Topic
Select a community group to study. Some examples of community groups you might explore include:

An activity-based group like a book club, a soccer team, or a community choir
A religious or ideological community such as a church congregation or a local political party
A community organization like a Parent Teacher Association (PTA), a neighborhood association, or the volunteer committee at a local soup kitchen
An identity-based organization such as a social club for veterans or a fraternal type organization

It should be a group in which membership is voluntary and recreational. Avoid:

Families
Workplaces
Ethnic or racial categories
Friend groups

You might wish to choose a group that you are a part of, or you might not. You can use your personal experience with the group to form the basis of your research question. Or you can ask members of the group about their experiences, which will help you develop your research question.
In the template, write a paragraph (approximately 6-8 sentences) describing the community group you have chosen. In particular, be sure to answer the following questions:

What is the community group?
What are the attributes or characteristics of this community group? (e.g. What activities does this group do together? What element of the members’ interests or identities brings them together? How is membership in the group defined, if at all?)
What kind of experience with or access to this community group do you have?

Step 2: Ask a Question
Next, you will formulate a question related to this group, and to topics related to diversity and/or collaboration. You might think about diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic status, or along multiple intersecting identities. Be sure to use what you learned in Unit 1 about the ways sociologists ask questions.
Examples:

What are the challenges of a mom’s community organization in appealing to moms with children of different ages?
How does a group of car enthusiasts reach out to the surrounding community to get support for their events?
How has the Boy Scouts accepting girls impacted their mission and programs?
Do gender segregated sports teams for kids help maintain traditional gender roles?

In the template, write the question you have formulated for your study. Be sure to identify the Independent and Dependent variables and identify them correctly. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.3: Asking Questions and Lesson 1.3.5: Formulating a Hypothesis for help.)
Step 3: Prepare a Bibliography
Finally, you will begin developing a bibliography for a review of the existing literature that relates to your question. Before conducting a full literature review, a sociologist will build a bibliography, or a list of potential sources that they will read and study in greater depth in the review.
Collect 4-6 articles, books, or other resources that relate to your question and list them in your template. You don’t have to look into these materials in depth right now! You’ll review this literature more closely in a later Touchstone, and you will also be exposed to additional relevant research and frameworks in Unit 3. You’ll also be able to add to or amend your bibliography before your Touchstone in Unit 3.
Attributes of good readings for your literature review:

They are academic, scholarly works about research findings, or they are reliable journalistic reporting based on scientifically credible and reliable data.
They should have been published in the last 20 years—unless they are a landmark work on the topic and provide important background or as a comparison.
They look at different sides of the argument and a variety of perspectives.
They do not have to be written by sociologists or published in sociology journals, but they should be academic and not popular works.

Where to find readings: More than likely you will use a major search engine like Google Scholar. Start your search by identifying key search terms related to your research question, to generate relevant results. Google Scholar specifically searches scholarly literature. However, keep in mind that much of this literature may have limited or paid access. Another good place to search is in a public library or university library catalog or database. You might also want to try regular Google, but you will have to be careful to screen your results and make sure you only select academic sources. Whichever way you choose to search, make sure that you are selecting credible sources.
What makes a source credible? Credible sources are written by authors who are well known in their field. They are based on scientific data—not opinions or with biased observations. Sources should be from reliable outlets, like major publishers, universities, think tanks, and credentialed current practitioners. (HINT: Refer back to Lesson 1.3.4: Researching Existing Sources for more guidance.)
How to format sources in your bibliography: Sociologists use American Psychological Association (APA) format for their research. However, you will use a more simplified method to format sources for your bibliography. You will include five key elements for each source, with each element separated by a period:

Author’s name(s)
Publisher and publication date
Title of the source, in quotation marks
Page numbers (if applicable)
Source’s location for web-based texts (URL)

EXAMPLE
Alireza Behtoui. Journal of Sociology, 2015. “Beyond social ties: The impact of social capital on labour market outcomes for young Swedish people.” p. 711-724. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1440783315581217
B. Rubric
Advanced (100%)Proficient (85%)Acceptable (75%)Needs Improvement (50%)Non-Performance (0%)
Research Question (15 points)
Research question is well crafted. Research question is sufficiently specific to be researchable while tying into broader themes in sociology. Independent and dependent variables are clearly identified and are in the correct relationship. Research question is sufficiently specific for research but does not tie into broader themes in sociology. Independent and dependent variables are clearly identified but are not in the correct relationship. Research question is too specific or too broad for research purposes but can be revised. The relationship between the dependent and independent variables is unclear. Research question demonstrates little understanding of the general principles of developing a research question. Did not submit a research question or submitted so little work that no credit can be given.
Identify Community Group (15 points)
Paragraph is well developed and answers all parts of the question. A voluntary, recreational community group is identified and described thoroughly. Group attributes/characteristics and discussion of the student’s experience with or access to this group is provided. A voluntary, recreational community group is identified and described, with some gaps remaining. Group attributes/characteristics and discussion of the student’s experience with or access to this group is provided. A voluntary, recreational community group is identified and described insufficiently. Student discusses group attributes/characteristics or their experience with or access to this group, but not both. An inappropriate community group is identified, or community group is described insufficiently. Group attributes/ characteristics and discussion of the student’s experience with or access to this group may not be provided. Did not submit a response or submitted so little work that no credit can be given.
Bibliography (15 points)
Sources appropriate for a sociological literature review are identified.4-6 credible, relevant, recent, and properly cited sources are provided.4-6 relevant and properly cited sources are provided, but may be less credible or recent.3 relevant and properly cited sources are provided.1-2 relevant and properly cited sources are provided. Did not submit any credible, relevant, recent, and properly cited sources.
Writing Mechanics (5 points)
Writing follows conventions for standard written English. There are 0-2 errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. There are 3-4 errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. There are 5-6 errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. There are 7-10 errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. There are more than 10 errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization.
C. Requirements
The following requirements must be met for your submission:

Use a readable 11- or 12-point font.
All writing must be appropriate for an academic context.
Composition must be original and written for this assignment.
Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited.
Submission must include your name and the date.
Include all of the assignment components in a single file.
Acceptable file formats include .doc and .docx.

Nurs 8310 week 8: screening for diseases

  
Week 8: Screening for Diseases
What might happen to cancer rates if existing screening tests were no longer used? Consider, as an example, colorectal cancer. The American Cancer Society (ACS) identifies colorectal cancer as the third most common cancer in men and women, as well as the second leading cause of cancer-related death (2011). Colorectal cancer screening tests can detect abnormal cell growth before cancer even forms, allowing for early detection, more successful treatment, and—in some cases—the prevention of cancer altogether. The ACS recommends this screening for all men and women over the age of 50 and earlier for individuals with additional risk factors. Much to the credit of screening procedures, “the death rate from colorectal cancer has been dropping for more than 20 years” (ACS, 2011).
Scientists are continually seeking to develop new screening tests that can detect diseases earlier. Screening is an essential tool for the secondary prevention of disease. It is used when the earlier detection of disease is associated with an improved outcome, as is the case with colorectal cancer. This week, you will examine the process of screening for disease, the effectiveness of different screening tests, and the controversies that surround screening programs.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
· Analyze how epidemiologic data are used to argue for or against a screening program
· Analyze how epidemiologic data can be used to formulate policy for improving population health
· Evaluate the social impact of addressing a population health problem
· Develop an evaluation plan for a health intervention
  
Learning Resources
Required Readings
Friis, R. H., & Sellers, T. A. (2021). Epidemiology for public health practice (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett.

Chapter 10, “Data Interpretation      Issues”
Chapter 11, “Screening for      Disease in the Community”

Chapter 11 examines aspects of screening for disease, including characteristics of a good screening test and how screening programs can be evaluated.
Nash, D. B., Skoufalos, A., Fabius, R. J. & Oglesby, W. H.  (2021). Accountability for outcomes. In Population health: Creating a culture of wellness (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Chapter 10 describes the purpose, methodology, and measures associated with accountability for outcomes. Scientific models for improvement, and the IHI Triple Aim Framework and the Quadruple Aim are explored. The chapter discusses the expanded role of social determinants of health and the need for expanded collaboration with stakeholders. 
Nash, D. B., Skoufalos, A., Fabius, R. J. & Oglesby, W. H.  (2021). Changing organizational vulture In Population health: Creating a culture of wellness (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Chapter 11 introduces components of change needed for success and three successful change theories: a) Switch, b) Psychology of Change, and c) Kotter eight-step change model. Important takeaways for change leaders are explored.
Note: You will need to review the following four articles to complete this week’s Discussion:
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. (2009). Screening for breast cancer. Retrieved from https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/evidence-summary-screening-for-breast-cancer/breast-cancer-screening1  
This is a summary of the controversial USPSTF proposal regarding screening for breast cancer using mammography and breast self-examination. It includes the recommendations, rationale, and evidence supporting the proposal.  
Alvarez, G. G., Gushulak, B., Rumman, K. A., Altpeter, E., Chemtob, D., Douglas, P., … & Ellis, E. (2011). A comparative examination of tuberculosis immigration medical screening programs from selected countries with high immigration and low tuberculosis incidence rates. BMC Public Health, 11(3). Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/11/3
This article examines tuberculosis screening practices among migrants from high-incidence countries to low-incidence countries. Consider the benefits and challenges of standardizing screening requirements at the global level.
Hugosson, J., Carlsson, S., Aus, G., Bergdahl, S., Khatami, A., Lodding, P., & … Lilja, H. (2010). Mortality results from the Göteborg randomised population-based prostate-cancer screening trial. Lancet Oncology, 11(8), 725–732.
Prostate cancer screening can result in the detection of other cancers that may “never present during the patient’s lifetime (over-diagnosis) and it results in unnecessary treatments that can damage men’s quality of life (over-treatment).” However, this research study also demonstrates how prostate cancer screening also can reduces mortality rates in some instances.
Kessler, T. A. (2017). Cervical cancer: Prevention and early detection. Seminars in Oncology Nursing, 33(2), 172–183. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.soncn.2017.02.005
HealthMap. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.healthmap.org/en  
This website tracks, maps, and describes current disease outbreaks around the world, along with sources of information about them. It provides a valuable picture of global public health issues.  
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). A framework for program evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm  
The CDC provides this framework for program evaluation. Review the information presented as you prepare for Assignment 4.  
Association for Community Health Improvement. (2006). Planning, assessment, outcomes & evaluation resources. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20130709124030/http://www.communityhlth.org/communityhlth/resources/planning.html
Explore the many resources available for program evaluation. These resources may inform Assignment 4.  
Required Media
Laureate Education (Producer). (2012). Epidemiology and population health: Screening [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 8 minutes.
In this week’s program, Dr. LaPorte discusses screening as it relates to epidemiology.
Accessible player  –Downloads– Download Video w/CC Download Audio Download Transcript  VIDEO ATTACHED
Optional Resources
Fields, M. M., & Chevlen, E. (2006). Screening for disease: Making evidence-based choices. Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, 10(1), 73–76.
Strong, K., Wald, N., Miller, A., & Alwan, A. (2005). Current concepts in screening for noncommunicable disease: World Health Organization Consultation Group Report on methodology of noncommincable disease screening. Journal of Medical Screening, 12(1), 12–19.
Open the links
https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/document/evidence-summary-screening-for-breast-cancer/breast-cancer-screening
https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2334-11-3
https://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm
https://www.healthmap.org/en/
https://web.archive.org/web/20130709124030/http://www.communityhlth.org/communityhlth/resources/planning.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com
https://www.healthmap.org/en/
https://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20130709124030/http://www.communityhlth.org/communityhlth/resources/planning.html
  
Discussion: Screening for Disease
Although many individuals and organizations may endorse the goal of screening programs, the details and implementation are often controversial. For some types of screening, it can be quite challenging to weigh the human and economic costs and benefits and determine a clear recommendation. For instance, in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Michael Barry (2009) indicates that “serial PSA [prostate-specific–antigen] screening has at best a modest effect on prostate-cancer mortality during the first decade of follow-up. This benefit comes at the cost of substantial over-diagnosis and overtreatment. It is important to remember that the key question is not whether PSA screening is effective but whether it does more good than harm.”
This week’s Learning Resources include articles about screening programs for four different diseases that contain potentially controversial recommendations. For this Discussion, you will select a disease and examine the epidemiological evidence to assess a recommendation for screening guidelines. In addition, you will consider possibilities for furthering policy to promote population health related to this disease.
To prepare:
· Review the four articles concerned with screening and public policy listed in this week’s Learning Resources. All four articles contain potentially controversial recommendations for screening and prevention.
· Select one article on which to focus for this Discussion.
· Analyze how the epidemiologic data could be used to formulate policy for improving population health.
By Day 3
Post a cohesive scholarly response that addresses the following:
· Summarize the recommendations of your selected article. Discuss ethical considerations and whether or not you believe the recommendations are justified.
· Describe the epidemiological evidence in support of your position.
· Identify whether the screening program you review is population-based or high-risk based and how that influences your assessment.
· How can the reported data be used to move policy forward for improving population health around this issue?
2 pages in APA and cite 4 to 5 of the given sources

Excel due tonight! | Education homework help

  
Excel_Comprehensive_Capstone2_Summer_Revenue
Project Description:
In this project, you will apply skills you practiced from the objectives in Excel Chapters 4 through 10. You will develop a workbook for Frank Osei, the Vice President of Finance, that includes financial information and analysis regarding summer product revenue.
Steps to Perform:
   
Step
Instructions
Points    Possible
 
1
Open   the Excel file Student_Excel_Comp_Cap2_Summer_Revenue.xlsx   downloaded with this project.
0
 
2
On the Maine Store worksheet, in the range B9:B16,   use the Fill Series feature to enter interest rates beginning with 8.00%. Decrease the amounts by .50% ending with 4.50%. Format the rates as Percent   Style with two decimal places and apply bold and center. 
4
 
3
In cell   B8, enter a PMT function using the information in the range B2:B4 to   calculate a monthly payment. Be sure that the result displays as a positive   number.
2
 
4
In cells B8:H16, create a Data Table using the   information in cells B2:B4 where the row input cell is the Period and the   column input cell is the rate. Apply the format in B8 to the results in the   data table, and then AutoFit columns C:H. Format the payment option closest   to and less than $10,000 per month with the Note cell style. Change the   Orientation to Landscape.
4
 
5
On the   Quarterly Apparel Costs worksheet, apply the Currency [0] cell style to the   range B6:E6. Apply the Comma [0] cell style to the range B7:E17. To the range   B18:E18, apply the Currency [0] and Total cell styles. 
2
 
6
Name the ranges B6:E10 Swim_Costs; B11:E14 Shirt_Costs; B15:E16 Jacket_Costs; and B17:E17 Hats_Costs.
2
 
7
Insert   a new row 15. In cell A15, type Go Explore Shirts. In cell B15, type 9500. In cell C15, type 9695. In cell D15, type 8315. In cell E15, type 9275. Display the Name Manager, and then edit the Shirt_Costs name to include row 15.   Select Hats_Costs, and edit the   name to Headwear_Costs. (Mac users, click Define Name and make edits using the Define   Name dialog box.)
4
 
8
Click cell B19. On the Formulas tab, in the Formula   Auditing group, click Error Checking, and then select Update Formula to   Include Cells. Use the fill handle to copy the corrected formula from cell   B19 across through cell E19.
2
 
9
On the   Quarterly Apparel Costs worksheet, in cell B25, insert a SUM function to sum   the Swim_Costs named range, using the name in the formula. Create similar   formulas in the range B26:B28, being sure to use the range name in each   formula. In B29, calculate a total, and then apply the apply Currency [0] and   Total cell style. Apply the Currency [0] style to cell B25 and apply the   Comma [0] style to the range B26:B28. Save the workbook.
8
 
10
On the Quarterly Apparel Costs worksheet, record a   Macro using the name Sheet_Title and the Shortcut key CTRL+j. (Mac users, use   Option+Command+j). Store the Macro in the workbook, and as the Description, type Report   heading. Click   cell A1, type Front Range Action Sports and then press CTRL+ENTER.   Merge and center the text across the range A1:E1, and then apply the Title   cell style. In cell A2, type Apparel Costs, and then press CTRL+ENTER. Merge and Center the   text across the range A2:E2, and then apply the Heading 1 cell style. Click   cell A1, and then stop recording the macro. Delete the text in A1:A2, and   then test the macro.
 
4
 
11
Edit   the Sheet_Title macro to display   the Visual Basic Editor. Select and copy all of the code, close the Visual   Basic Editor window, and then paste the code in cell A32. Display the   worksheet in Page Break Preview. Move the page break to position it between   rows 30 and 31 so that the VBA code displays on Page 2. Return to Normal View   and save the file as a macro-free workbook.
4
 
12
On the Product Information worksheet, select the   range A4:C9, and then sort the data by Style Code in ascending order. Select   the range A5:C9 and then name the selection Lookup_Table.
2
 
13
On the   Phone Order worksheet, in cell A9, type C-SW and then press TAB. In cell B9, use a VLOOKUP   function to lookup the Item in cell A9 and insert the description from the   Product Information worksheet using the Lookup_Table range as the table array. The   description is in column 2 of the table array. Fill the formula down through B18. In cell   C9, type 12 and in cell D9, type Blue and then press TAB.
6
 
14
In cell E9, use the VLOOKUP function to insert the   unit price of the item in cell A9 using the Lookup_Table range as the table array. The   unit price is in column 3 of the table array. Fill the formula down through E18.
6
 
15
In cell   A10, type W-RR and in C10 type 12. In cell D10 type Yellow and then delete rows 11:18. Sum the Order Amount and apply the   Total cell style.
3
 
16
On the Summer Attendance worksheet, in the range   G4:G8, insert Line Sparklines to show the attendance trend for each event   over the five-year period. Show the High Point and Low Point.
5
 
17
Insert   a Line with Markers Chart using the ranges A3:F3 and A6:F6. Reposition the   chart so that its upper left corner is in A11 and the lower right corner is   in F25. Edit the Chart Title to Attendance at Event Live Arizona. Edit the Vertical (Value) Axis   to set the Minimum to 6000 and then format the chart using Style 4. 
8
 
18
On the Expense Report worksheet, in the range   H15:H21, create formulas to sum the data in each row, not including Date and   Description. In cell H22, enter a formula to sum the total expenses. Apply   Accounting Number Format to the ranges C15:H15 and C21:H21. Apply Comma Style   to the range C16:H20. In cell H22 apply Accounting Number Format and the   Total cell style. 
5
 
19
Select   the ranges D8:F12 and A15:G21 and format the cells so that when the sheet is   protected, the selected ranges are not locked. Protect the sheet and be sure   the top check box to protect the worksheet and the first two check boxes in   the list are selected. Enter the password go.
3
 
20
On the Summer Program Revenue sheet, in cell B4,   create a DAVERAGE function to calculate the average of the Amount field for the Lessons category.   The Criteria range has been set up for you in the range A3:A4. In cell C4,   create a DSUM to calculate the total of the Amount field for the Lessons category. Format the   range B4:C4 using Accounting Number Format.
5
 
21
In the   Summer Program Revenue sheet, click cell A9, and then insert the Recommended   PivotTable Sum of Amount by Location in a new worksheet. Rename the worksheet PivotTable   and Chart. Use   the Month field as the report filter. Use the Location field as the row   labels and the Item field as the column labels. Format the values in the   PivotTable using the Number category with zero decimal places and the 1000   separator.
9
 
22
On the PivotTable and Chart worksheet, insert a   footer with the file name in the left section and the sheet name in the right   section. Change the Orientation to Landscape and center the worksheet   Horizontally. Fit the Width to 1 page.
2
 
23
On the   PivotTable and Chart worksheet, insert a PivotChart using the Stacked Column   chart type. Move the chart so that its upper left corner is positioned in   cell A13, and then drag the lower right sizing handle so that the lower right   corner of the chart is positioned in cell H35. Apply the Layout 3 chart   layout, and Chart Style 9. Add and center Data Labels to the chart. Replace   the text in the Chart Title with Summer Program Revenue and then hide all of the field   buttons on the chart. Save the workbook.  
  Note, Mac users, select the range A4:G10 in the PivotTable, and then insert a   stacked column chart. Follow the instructions to complete the chart, and   ensure that the column headings of the PivotTable display in the legend. The   row headings should display on the horizontal axis.
8
 
24
Display the Maine Store sheet—the first worksheet.   Select cell B33, type 3, and then press ENTER. Use Solver to predict breaking even after   3 months. The Set Objective box, should be set to $B$38. Edit the To option to a Value of 0 and the By Changing Variable   Cells box should display $B$34, $B$36. Keep the Solver solution.
2
 
25
Save   and close the file and submit for grading.
0
  
Total   Points
100

Module 3 | Psychology homework help

Before he invented behaviorism, John B. Watson considered learning one of the most important topics in psychology. Watson conducted excellent empirical research on animal learning. He developed behaviorism in part to promote research and elevate the status of learning in psychology. Watson was much less successful in the adequacy and originality of the mechanisms he proposed to explain learning. By assimilating the method of classical conditioning and adopting Pavlov’s theory of stimulus substitution, Watson linked behaviorism with a new method that could compete with both Titchener’s method of introspection and Freud’s methods of psychoanalysis. Watson’s interest in explaining psychopathology led to the discovery of conditioned emotional responses and a behavioristic explanation for the learning of phobic behavior. Watson established learning as a central topic for basic research and application in American psychology. 
Learning in animals is probably the most important topic in the whole study of behavior (Watson, 1914, p. 45). 
No experimenter has yet set his experimental problems in such a way as to construct from his data a guiding theory of habit formation (Watson, 1925, p. 25). 
In 1930, when he revised Behaviorism for the last time, Watson expressed satisfaction that behaviorism was strongly entrenched as a point of view in American psychology. He took the occasion to repeat a major theme of his career, the contrast between the old psychology of James’s and Titchener’s introspection and what he called the new psychology of behaviorism. From his point of view, Watson had achieved great success in his primary goal of changing the subject matter of psychology from consciousness to behavior. After telling his readers that consciousness was the subject matter of the old psychology, Watson repeated the main point of his manifesto on behaviorism (Watson, 1913a), that “behaviorism, on the contrary, holds that the subject matter of human psychology is the behavior of the human being” (1930, p. 2). 
What historical factors led Watson to propose a change in the subject matter of psychology from consciousness to behavior? Although many factors, both in American culture at large and in American psychology, contributed to the origins of behaviorism (Burnham, 1968; Mills, 1998; O’Donnell, 1985), the challenge of explaining learning was central to the origins and subsequent development of John B. Watson’s behaviorism. By 1930 Watson could also take satisfaction that not only behaviorism, but also the topic of learning, was strongly entrenched in American psychology. 
For Watson, behaviorism represented much more than a change in the subject matter of psychology. Many topics in psychology could be approached objectively. Indeed, in one of the first of a genre of critiques of behaviorism, Titchener (1914, p. 5) pointed out that calls for objective psychology were common in the history of psychology, so “Watson’s behaviorism is neither so revolutionary nor so modern as a reader unversed in history might be led to imagine.” The target of Watson’s behaviorism was all introspectionists, especially Titchener. In order to replace the method of introspection, Watson issued a call for the adoption of new methods in psychology for the study of behavior. A corollary of behaviorism was Watson’s call for the adoption of new methods for the study of Learning. 
Behaviorism elevated the status of learning as a topic of research by psychologists. Behaviorism became Watson’s chosen vehicle for calling attention to research on learning. Watson’s (1925) popular book, Behaviorism, was a showcase for research on learning, especially Watson’s own research on emotional learning in children. For Titchener, the most important topics in psychology were sensation and perception. (See Tweney, 1987, for the details of Titchener’s program of research in experimental psychology.) For Watson, behaviorism was a platform from which he attempted to persuade his colleagues and the public that learning was a more important topic for research than were sensation and perception. 
In contrast with Watson’s success in changing the subject matter of psychology from consciousness to behavior, and as Boakes ( 1994) pointed out, Watson was much less successful as a learning theorist. The quotation from Watson with which this article begins indicates that he eventually recognized that his efforts to develop a behavioristic theory of habit formation were not successful. Watson failed to find a behavioristic substitute for Thorndike’s law of effect. He also failed to develop a heuristic explanation for maze learning. After writing an editorial calling for research in comparative psychology on imitation (Watson, 1904), Watson (1908, p. 172) may have been slightly embarrassed when he reported that with respect to his own research on imitation in monkeys, “I unhesitatingly affirm that there was never the slightest evidence of inferential imitation manifest in the actions of any of these animals.” Thus, imitation represented a failure in Watson’s efforts to advance comparative psychology by investigating learning. Watson (1925) simply adopted Pavlov’s theory of stimulus substitution as an explanation for Pavlovian conditioning. Thus Watson does not rank with Pavlov and Thorndike as a learning theorist. Watson’s major contribution to learning theory was the prediction and discovery that emotional responses could be conditioned (Watson & Rayner, 1920). With the exception of the discovery of conditioned emotional responses, Watson’s enduring achievement for learning was an increase in the status of the topic. By identifying the mechanisms of trial and error learning and maze learning as unsolved problems in experimental psychology, Watson paved the way for the neobehaviorism of Hull, Tolman, and Skinner in the 1930s. 
The topic of learning has been neglected in prior scholarship on Watson (for an exception, see Malone, 1990a). Todd (1994) identified Watson’s extension of the province of learning as one of the topics requiring additional historical analysis. He asked, “Could behaviorism have become an important philosophy without specific empirical principles?” (1994, p. 165). The answer is “yes.” Even with very few wellestablished principles of learning, Watson’s behaviorism achieved its collateral objective of increasing the attention paid to the topic of learning. Therefore, an exploration of the role of learning in John B. Watson’s published papers provides an additional key for placing classic behaviorism in a proper historical context. 
How Watson spotlighted the topic of learning 
Learning is mentioned only obliquely in Watson’s ( 1913a) famous manifesto for behaviorism, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.” The purpose of this paper was to change the subject matter of psychology from consciousness to behavior, so it represented more of an attack on Titchener’s structuralism and the functional psychology Watson had been a part of at Chicago than a vehicle for presenting fresh data on learning. Watson mentioned an eclectic melange of several topics for research that could be approached behavioristically. The list included the study of learning and habit formation, instincts, the comparative study of sensory processes including vision in both animals and humans, and a set of applied problems including psychopathology. In his manifesto of 1913, Watson’s characterization of the areas of basic research in psychology was a lament about what he believed to be experimental psychology’s low status among the natural sciences, which he put as follows: 
I do not wish unduly to criticize psychology. It has failed signally, I believe, during the fifty-odd years of its existence as an experimental discipline to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science. Psychology, as it is generally thought of, has something esoteric in its methods. ( 1913a, p. 163) 
The key to understanding this quotation is Watson’s use of the word methods. Watson’s goal was to replace the method of introspection with “objective” methods. Consider the topics of sensation and perception, which were an important area of research for Titchener and his students (Tweney, 1987). Watson could have simply called for a behaviorism that represented a return to Fechner’s objective methods of psychophysics, but he did not. In his manifesto, Watson did not single out any particular topic in experimental psychology for special favor. 
After the manifesto for behaviorism, Watson’s next major opportunity to advance the agenda of behaviorism was his book on comparative psychology. He used this book as a platform from which to elevate the status of learning as a topic for research by psychologists. Consider Watson’s comments about learning in his treatise on comparative psychology, Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1914). One might expect that instinct would emerge as a key concept in a textbook on comparative psychology. Watson defined an instinct as a behavior on the part of an animal that did not require learning, and he devoted two chapters in Behavior to a discussion of instincts. (See Dewsbury, 1994, for a portrait of Watson as a comparative psychologist, including his interests in instincts.) However, Watson reserved the most praise in Behavior not for instincts, but for the topic of learning, whose importance he described as follows: 
On account of its bearing upon human training, learning in animals is probably the most important topic in the whole study of behavior. Entirely apart from this connection, this division contains the behaviorist’s most important group of problems, since by means of habit formation he finds the most direct way of controlling animal activity. (1914, p. 45) 
Consider three points in the preceding quotation. First, notice that Watson was not interested in animal learning per se as a topic for scientific exploration, but primarily as the topic related to human learning. Second, because the goal of Watson’s ( 1913a) behaviorism was the prediction and control of behavior Watson found the topic of learning relevant because it provided him with a tool for controlling behavior. Third, Watson described the topic how called learning as habit formalion. Habit formation is no longer used as a synonym for learning. As Malone (1990b) pointed out, Watson borrowed the concept of habit formation from William James (1890/1950). 
Watson ( 1917a) had another opportunity to spotlight learning when he reviewed Holt’s (1915) book on psychoanalysis. Holt was an American psychologist from Harvard who attended Freud’s lectures at Clark University in 1909. After he returned to Harvard he wrote a book on ethics that was influenced by Freud’s idea of wish fulfillment. Holt called his book The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics. The book contained a discussion of the Meynert problem, a hypothetical and philosophical explanation of how a child might learn not to put his or her finger into a candle flame despite the impulse to reach out and touch an attractive object. Holt highlighted the topic of emotional learning in children in his book and pointed out that “fear is a normal and necessary ingredient of the learning process” ( 1915, p. 71 ) . However, Holt did not of fer any data, and his discussion of learned fear in children was philosophical. The significance of Holt’s book was that after listening to Freud, Holt talked about learned fear as a psychological topic worthy of the attention of psychologists. Holt (1915, p. 74) went on to conclude his theoretical discussion of the Meynert problem with the statement that “the mechanism of learning is by no means understood as yet.” 
In a review of Holt’s book, Watson’s response to the challenge of Freudian psychoanalysis was a call for psychologists to turn to research on learning. Watson (1917a, p. 86) believed that psychoanalytic concepts, which he considered mystical entities, could be explained in terms of “well-known principles of habit formation.” Watson followed Holt and discussed the Meynert problem. In the context of understanding the mechanism by which children’s fears were acquired, Watson made another call for elevating the status of the topic of the mechanisms of learning within experimental psychology: 
In these few experiences a genuine learning process is involved and the explanation of this learning process-regardless of whether the act is acquired in few of many trials-is what I consider one of the chief problems in psychology. (1917a, p. 89) 
Watson has transformed his research interest in children’s fears from an old philosophical conundrum, how children learn to keep their hands out of a burning candle, into “one of the chief problems of psychology.” 
Watson was explicit in indicating that behaviorism represented a shift in the importance of the topics psychologists selected for research. For Watson’s behaviorism represented a shift away from sensation and perception toward a focus on learning and habit formation. Watson described the change as a shift from the structural analysis of the unit of sensation toward the units of learning and habit formation. He rejected 
the introspectionist unit concept [of] sensation. The reason for the omission is clear. When a unit changes in a science the problems and points of interest shift . . .The mechanism of habit formation . . must await the working out of just those factors which the behaviorists insist upon. ( 1917a, p. 92). 
Here Watson offered to set the theoretical agenda for successive generations of behavioristic learning theorists. Thus a characteristic of Watson’s rhetoric was to call attention to the importance of learning as a topic for research within experimental psychology. Another illustration of this practice occurs in a paper on maze learning, where Watson wrote, “The control of habit is one of the most vital problems in every system of psychology” (1917b, p. 59). Although Watson was a great salesman for research on the topic of learning, he was less successful as a learning theorist. His first theoretical failure was with maze learning. 
Watson’s failure to explain maze learning behavioristically 
Why did Watson abandon consciousness as an explanatory concept? One good place to start considering this question is by comparing the discussions of Small and Watson on maze learning in the rat. Small (1901 ) constructed a maze for white rats from a diagram of the Hampton Court Maze in the Encyclopedia Britannica. He placed food at the center of the maze and found that his rats rapidly learned to run from the start location, through a complex series of passages, until they reached the food. Looking down on the uncovered maze, Small recorded the errors when a rat entered a cul-de-sac and the amount of time the rat required to find the food. The maze was complicated and Small was impressed by the proficiency with which the rats mastered the task. Watson (1907) duplicated Small’s maze, replicated Small’s experiment, and began an experimental analysis of the factors that influenced maze learning in rats. Watson and Small obtained essentially the same data, but their interpretations of the mechanism of learning and even their choices for presenting the data were profoundly different. Small did not trust the learning curve of Thorndike (1898) as an adequate representation of the process of learning, but Watson proudly filled his paper with beautiful learning curves. Watson found that the average length of time to find the food was 16 min on the first trial and that the time dropped to about 1 min after only 10 trials. For both Small and Watson, the question was, What is the mechanism underlying the process of learning? 
Small’s mechanisms for maze learning: Consciousness and sensations 
In Small’s and Watson’s day, comparative psychologists were sharply divided over anthropomorphism and the law of parsimony. Small was an eclectic theorist who belonged in the camp of those who were willing to attribute components of human consciousness to animals. Unlike Thorndike (1898), he thought animals could reason and he chided the advocates of parsimony as inflexible extremists in very clear language: 
Some modern comparative psychologists’ abhorrence of anthropomorphism leads to the opposite extreme. . . . .Is not a certain amount of chastened anthropomorphism a wholesome specific, a kind of saving grace against scientific pedantry?. . . . The law of parsimony is important no doubt, but it may be employed too rigorously. (Small, 1901, p. 228) 
Small used what would now be called cognitive language to describe the process of maze learning: “The selection of paths begins to be purposive” (Small, 1901, p. 212). In other words, Small anticipated the language of Tolman’s (1932) purposive behaviorism to the extent of using the term purposive. Small never mentioned the construct of Tolman’s (1948) cognitive map, but he did use a similar cognitive concept, imagery, to describe maze learning when he wrote, “There seemed to be some kind of an image in his mind that he was trying to follow . .He apparently knew when he was on the right and when on the wrong road” (Small, 1901, pp. 212-213). Small mentioned consciousness frequently in his discussion. 
Small’s explanation of maze learning also included a second, much more molecular level of analysis. He discussed the various modalities of sensation, including smell, sight, and tactual motor sensations. The tone of this discussion was quite different from the discussion of consciousness. Small believed that the rats acquired a motor memory in learning the maze. This memory included a representation of distance intervals and proper turns. Small concluded his paper with a call for other researchers to consider the possibility of thinking about maze learning in tactual motor terms. Watson answered Small’s call for a sensory analysis of maze learning. 
Watson’s mechanism for maze learning: Kinesthetic sensations only 
Simply put, Watson applied the law of parsimony to Small’s mechanisms by rejecting Small’s discussion at the level of consciousness. In other words, Watson was willing to run what Small called the risk of “scientific pedantry.” Watson (1907, p. 94) rhetorically asked, “Why, then, in the case of the rat, need we assume the presence of motor images?” Watson followed Small by concluding that the rat learned the maze on the basis of kinesthetic sensations. Watson recognized that he arrived at this conclusion by a process of eliminating other sensory candidates. Watson rejected all of Small’s cognitive processes such as imagery as follows: “No one would dream of affirming that such a complexity in the cortical processes as this would call for could exist in the case of the rats” (Watson, 1907, p. 94). Of course, we now know from the work of O’Keefe and Nadel (1978) and other neuroscientists that the hippocampus is the structure in the brain of rats that is involved in maze learning, but this information was not available to Watson. 
Watson discovered that extramaze visual cues were important in maze learning for normal rats. When he rotated the maze by 180 for normal rats, he found that these rats were “absolutely lost” (1907, p. 87). However, this discovery was made rather late in the collection of the data and Watson decided to simply present the data rather than to speculate about a possible interpretation. 
In conclusion, Watson’s research on maze learning was basically empirical. Although Watson rejected interpretations of the data that included consciousness, he left the problem of maze learning without a satisfactory explanation. 
Although the Chicago school of maze learning in rats produced several additional publications (Carr & Watson, 1908; Peterson, 1917) the theoretical interpretation of the results in terms of Watsonian concept remained vague. At the end of an extensive monograph on maze learning, Peterson, who had worked as a graduate student with Watson at Chicago, reluctantly concluded that “the great problem of how learning takes place is yet largely unsolved” (1917, p. 46). Watson sought to impress the readers of Behaviorism (1925) with the learning abilities of rats in the maze by presenting an impressive learning curve for maze learning, but he remained fixated on his theoretical position that habit formation could be reduced to a kinesthetic sensation in which “the muscular stimuli coming from the movements of the muscles themselves are all we need to keep our manual responses occurring in proper sequence” (1925, p. 176). Watson’s school of maze learning came to a dead end before 1920. In Behaviorism, Watson (1925) reprinted the learning curve from his paper of 1907 and then concluded that the mechanism underlying maze learning and other manual habits “have never been worked out in a wholly satisfactory manner” (1907, p. 171). Watson’s legacy was to pass along to the next generation of researchers in animal learning the problems he had been unable to solve. 
Most historians of learning theory would conclude that the problem of maze learning remained unsolved until Tolman (1948) introduced the construct of the cognitive map. After discussing and rejecting the point of view advocated earlier by Watson, Tolman advocated a point of view called field theory that assumed that “in the course of learning [a maze,] something like a field map of the environment gets established in the rat’s brain” (1948, p. 191). Tolman’s (1932) purposive behaviorism represented a return to the kind of theorizing Small had introduced into learning theory at the beginning of the 20th century. However, Small does not appear in Tolman’s writing as the source of purposive behaviorism. Tolman (1932, p. 12) credited McDougall (1926) for the origin of the term purposive behaviorism. After Watson’s failure to explain maze learning, Tolman successfully proposed a cognitive explanation of maze learning that remains viable today. 
Watson’s failure to improve on Thorndike’s law of effect 
Thorndike, with a bit of hubris, called the identification of the mechanism of associative learning, “perhaps the greatest problem of both human and animal psychology” (1898, p. 103). The law of effect was Thorndike’s well-known explanation for the trial-and-error learning in the puzzle box. Thorndike’s interpretation of his data was that satisfaction increased the preceding response and dissatisfaction decreased it. Watson quoted Thorndike’s law of effect in his book on comparative psychology, but he was skeptical of Thorndike’s assumption that “the successful act is pleasant, and the unsuccessful act is unpleasant” (1914, p. 256). Watson believed that Thorndike’s law of effect was dangerously close to venturing into inferences about consciousness in animals. Similarly, Watson’s student Harvey Garr (1914) was skeptical of the law of effect. Carr simply did not believe Thorndike’s assumption that “all eliminated acts are unpleasant and that all surviving acts are pleasant” (1914, p. 164). 
In addition to the maze, Thorndike’s puzzle box provided another preparation for the study of animal learning by behaviorists. Inspired by Thorndike’s ( 1898) puzzle boxes, Watson developed a sawdust box in which sawdust was placed beneath a box with a hole in the floor. Watson placed food in the box and measured the time required for the rat to burrow through the sawdust to obtain the food. 
Watson conducted an experiment on delay of reward that was designed to provide an empirical test of Thorndike’s law of effect. Watson reasoned that if Thorndike were correct, the pleasure from an immediate reward would be greater than the dissatisfaction from a delayed reward. Using his sawdust box and two groups of rats, Watson (1916a) compared the learning curves for a group of rats that received an immediate reward upon entering the box with a second group where the reward was delayed for 30 s. Watson reported that the learning curves for the two groups of rats were almost exactly identical, a somewhat puzzling result. Years later, Grice (1948) discovered that a delay of reward as short as 0.5 s was effective in producing a decrement in the acquisition of the behavior of lever pressing. In Watson’s study, the ef fectiveness of the delay of reward may have been ineffective because the food was visible in the dish during the delay. Watson noted that his rats were very active during the delay, trying to get at the food. Nevertheless, Watson’s (1917b) data led to skepticism among classic behaviorists about the validity of Thorndike’s law of effect. 
Watson never developed a behavioristic alternative to Thorndike’s law of effect. After reviewing research on motor habits in Behaviorism, Watson remained scornful of the idea that pleasure and displeasure were associated with successful and unsuccessful movements during learning. Watson attacked Thorndike as follows: 
Only a few psychologists have been interested in the problem. Most of the psychologists, it is to be regretted, have even failed to see that there is a problem. They believe that habit formation is implanted by kind fairies. For example, Thorndike speaks of pleasure stamping in the successful movement and displeasure stamping out the unsuccessful movements. Most of the psychologists talk quite volubly about the formation of new pathways in the brain, as though there were a group of tiny servants of Vulcan there who run through the nervous system with hammer and chisel digging new trenches and deepening old ones. (1914, p. 166) 
This passage demonstrates that Watson’s rhetoric of attack on Thorndike was relentless, but Watson did not have a behavioristic alternative to Thorndike’s law of effect. Only when Skinner (1938) developed the concept of the operant and the principle of reinforcement did behaviorists have an alternative to Thorndike’s law of effect. 
Watson’s use of James’s concept of habit in preference to learning 
The term learning does not appear in the index of the revised edition of Watson’s (1930) Behaviorism, but habit formation is listed. There were no chapters called “Learning” in any of Watson’s books, but each edition of Behaviorism contained a chapter on habits. Therefore, at least as a title for a chapter, Watson was more comfortable with the concept of habit than he was with the concept of learning. When Watson wrote about habits, he was building on a conceptual framework he inherited from William James. 
Although Watson’s ideas about learning have frequently and correctly been linked with Pavlov, it was James who had the most influence on Watson’s early thinking about learning. In 1937, John Watson wrote an informative letter to Ernest Hilgard in which he described the development of his early thinking about learning. One can infer from Watson’s letter that Hilgard asked Watson about the influence of Pavlov and Bechterew on his early thinking about learning. Watson’s reply was that neither Pavlov nor Bechterew “had much influence in shaping my early convictions” (Letter from Watson to Hilgard, February 18, 1937). On the contrary, Watson wrote, “I had worked the thing out in terms of HABIT formation” (Letter from Watson to Hilgard, February 18, 1937). If neither Bechterew nor Pavlov influenced Watson, that leaves the question of whose ideas about habit first influenced Watson’s thinking about learning. The answer is William James. 
In his autobiography, Watson (1936) wrote that he learned his James as a graduate student at the University of Chicago under James Angell. Angell was strongly influenced by James’s Principles of Psychology ( 1890/ 1950) and Angell received a master’s degree in psychology at Harvard under James. After Watson arrived at Hopkins, James’s concepts influenced the organization of his teaching because “for two years at Hopkins I taught a modified James type of general psychology” (Watson, 1936, pp. 276-277). Thus Watson was very familiar with the conceptual framework and chapter titles James used to organize Principles of Psychology. In his books on behaviorism, Watson was inclined to use the same titles for chapters that James had used. James had chapters on habit, instinct, and emotions, and in Behaviorism Watson also has chapters on habit, instinct, and emotions. 
Watson proposed a simplified and selective adaptation of James’s ideas about learning. Watson was not willing to follow James beyond the mechanism of the reflex arc. For example, James ( 1890/1950) used the concept of contiguity as a mechanism for forming associations, but for Watson there was “no necessity for speaking of `associations”‘ (1914, p. 260). Watson’s classic behaviorism carried with it the implication that “there are no reflective processes (centrally initiated processes)” (1913a, p. 174). Therefore, Watson rejected any mechanism of learning that appeared to involve centrally initiated processes, and this included James’s use of associative mechanisms. The elimination of centrally initiated mechanisms left Watson with very few theoretical processes for explaining learning. His initial list was limited to “terms of stimulus and response, in terms of habit formation, habit integrations and the like” (Watson, 1913a, p. 167). 
James’s use of the reflex as the foundation unit of habit 
James’s theoretical treatment of habit was analytic. He used a metaphor from chemistry in which a habit was compared with a chemical compound similar to plastic and the task of the scientist was to identify the elements from which the habit was constructed, which permitted the behavioral plasticity. What was the unit similar to the element in chemistry from which a complex habit was constructed? James’s answer was that a habit was “nothing but a reflex discharge . .The most complex habits are . . nothing but concatenated discharges in the nervecenters, due to the presence there of systems of reflex paths” ( 1890/ 1950, pp. 107-108). Thus James reached within the nervous system to the concept of the reflex arc, with its sensory and motor paths, for his explanation of how learning occurred. For James, learning a habit at first required conscious attention to whole chain of reflexes. Then with practice the habit became automatic, so that each muscular contraction produced a sensation, which elicited the next muscular contraction, and so on, so that consciousness was no longer required for the performance of well-learned habits. 
Watson’s analysis of motor habits simply followed James, but omitted James’s discussion of consciousness. Thus Watson’s (1914) analysis of how a rat learned to run a maze for food focused on the stimuli and responses involved in the chaining of reflexes. The learning theorist’s task was to specify “(1) the number, location, and serial order of functioning of the reflex arcs until food is reached; and (2) the stimulus which releases each arc” (Watson, 1914, p. 207). 
The publication of Watson’s book on comparative psychology marked the end of the first phase of Watson’s interest in the topic of learning. Although Watson published further occasional papers in comparative psychology, his major research interest underwent a profound switch from animal learning to emotional learning in infants. A major problem in the historiography of Watson’s behaviorism is to account for this shift. 
Why did Watson abandon comparative psychology for emotional learning with infants? 
Watson’s most famous experiment in learning was the discovery of conditioned emotional responses in the laboratory experiment with Little Albert (Watson & Rayner, 1920). This experiment was designe