Digital Commons Network^™

Perceptions Regarding The Michigan Merit Curriculum Reform Policy And Its Impact On Cte And Dual Enrollment In A Southeastern Michigan High School, Winifred L. Green

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Michigan joined Arkansas, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Rhode Island in the high school reform effort. The Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC), mandated in 2006, contained a new set of statewide graduation requirements. This qualitative case study used focus group interviews to examine the perceptions of students, teachers, parents, and key administrators in a southeastern Michigan high school about the effects of the MMC on students’ performances and outcomes as they relate to Career and Technical Education (CTE) and dual enrollment, and about problems that emerged from the MMC. Five themes emerged from the data: Transparency and Communication for Dual Enrollment, Loss …

Distant Cathedrals, Gina Ceccoli

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Utilizing the first eight measures of the Kyrie from Missa Primi Toni by Palestrina, Distant Cathedrals is a piece which connects the old with the new. The elegant voice-leading and careful regulation of dissonance in Palestrina’s panconsonant music is emblematic of late Renaissance polyphony. Given Palestrina’s position as one of Europe’s leading composers, late Renaissance counterpoint is often labeled Palestrina-style polyphony. This piece infuses the pureness of Palestrina with extended tertian and mixed-interval harmonies of the contemporary variety, while alternating and integrating Palestrina’s thematic material and Distant Cathedral’s original material. Distant Cathedrals was written for full orchestra, including: one piccolo, …

An Exploration Of Self-Concept And Life Satisfaction Of Single Women, Stacey Lynn Piatkowski

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This communication study explores the relationship between self-concept and life satisfaction of single women and examines, through the use of interviews, how these two factors are connected. This study aims to gain perspective of why women remain single, what pressures single women face, and how a woman’s life satisfaction and self-concept are affected by being single. Results showed that women remain single for a variety of reasons and while women feel pressure from family, friends, and media about their singlehood, the majority of the pressure is internal and indicated that women need a romantic relationship that will eventually lead to …

Racial Battle Fatigue, Role Strain, And African-American Faculty At Public Community Colleges, Tamara N. Stevenson

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

African Americans remain disproportionately underrepresented in the faculty ranks at institutions of higher education in the United States. The faculty role is critical to the quality and exchange of teaching and learning, particularly at public community colleges. The extant literature documents how “chilly” campus climates and racially charged encounters can be harmful to African-American faculty. Moreover, along with the traditional responsibilities and demands of the faculty role, African-American faculty members contend with racism, discrimination, and an anti-Black sentiment in academia as a microcosm of society, likely resulting in race-related role strain. Overall, this exploratory study sought to understand the nature …

Synthesis And Purification Of Potential Antimicrobial Peptides, Christopher Ryan Snyder

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of Psychological Risk Factors For The Development Of Substance Abuse Among Post-Bariatric Surgery Patients, Valentina Ivezaj

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Bariatric surgery is a clinically effective tool that commonly results in sustained weight loss changes for the majority of patients. While bariatric surgery is generally associated with a number of positive health outcomes post-operatively, some popular media outlets and clinical anecdotes have presented concerns about the notion of “addiction transfer” and substance abuse post-bariatric surgery. There is a lack of research, however, in this area. The present study examined the rate of substance abuse in a broad sample of postbariatric surgery patients and examined potential risk factors for the development of substance abuse post-surgery. It was hypothesized that documented risk …

How Participation In Aphasia Support Groups Influences Perceptions Of Aphasia, Sally Jakeway

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Progress Towards Heterocycles As Inhibitors Of Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1, Gregory Alan Abernathy

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Visuomotor Adaptation In Young Adults With And Without Motor Difficulties, Chi-Mei Lee

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Children with Developmental Coordination Disorders (DCD) have shown motor learning deficits in visuomotor adaptation tasks, and the failure of detecting errors seems to be the key that impedes motor learning. Recent studies suggested that presenting larger feedback improves the rate and extent of motor learning in healthy subjects and stroke patients. The present study recruited young adults with and without motor difficulties and aimed to examine their adaptability in visuomotor adaptation tasks with either regular (30° rotation) or enlarged (30° + double error) visual feedbacks. Results revealed that participants with lower motor ability showed less adaptability than those with higher …

An Analysis Of Local Education Foundations As Alternative Revenue Streams For Public School Districts, Douglas M. Busch

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

As school district revenues are reduced by state allocating agencies, local school district administrators and school boards frequently evaluate alternative sources of possible revenue. One emerging source of revenue that many school districts explore is a local education foundation. Local education foundations are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that are affiliated with their local public school district. This study seeks to understand the problem that local school district leaders face when dealing with the complex issues that shape the success, impact, and viability of local education foundations. This mixed methods study used a cultural and symbolic framework to analyze local education foundations …

An Analysis Of University Student Academic Self-Entitlement: Levels Of Entitlement, Academic Year, And Gender, Tiffany Brook Hartman

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Academic self-entitlement is a rapidly increasing phenomenon that is becoming a problem in universities today. Self-entitled students expect high grades for minimal effort and tend to be highly demanding; they exhibit strong emotions when outcomes fail to meet their expectations. This type of student behavior increases the burden placed upon unprepared faculty, emphasizes performance goals rather than learning goals, and threatens to place the core values of education at stake. This study investigates whether relationships exist between student gender, year in school, and academic self-entitlement. University students were assessed using the Academic Entitlement Scale (Achacoso, 2002). A two-way MANOVA revealed …

Characterization Of The Expression Patterns Of Cellulose Synthase-Like A (Csla) Genes In Arabidopsis Thaliana Using Reporter Promoter-Fusions And Immunolocalization, Mary Skinner

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Plant cell walls are the most abundant source of renewable biomass on Earth. Cell wall carbohydrates have many practical applications (e.g., forage, building materials, biofuels, textiles, paper, etc.), and within plants they contribute to structure, provide defense, and facilitate cellular communication. This study is focused on the CELLULOSE SYNTHASELIKE A (CSLA) family, members of which have been implicated in the synthesis of the backbone of mannan polysaccharides in plant cell walls. The Arabidopsis genome contains nine CSLA genes and we hypothesize that there is some degree of functional redundancy among these genes. A detailed investigation of transgenic Arabidopsis plants harboring …

Assessing The Relationship Between Classroom Interaction And Perceived Student Learning In Videoconferencing Remote Sites: A Social Learning Approach, Kevin M. Hankinson

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In distance education via videoconferencing, students at classroom remote sites learn without the physical presence of their teacher and other classmates at the host site. As a result, the learning experience of remote site students differs from host site students. Therefore, instructional leaders should make every effort to minimize the adverse effects of videoconferencing on the learning of remote site students.

This study invited Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme remote site students who participated in videoconferencing to share their perspectives on the role of interactions on their learning. Specifically, this study explored the presence and strength of relationships …

Image Reconstruction Through Polyfiltered Variation Minimization, Michael Hagen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

There has been considerable interest in reconstruction of remotely sensed imagery from incomplete frequency measurements for some time now. Given the nature of the collection process, it may be that portions of the spectrum are either missing or corrupted such that one is left with an incomplete representation of the original image. The advances in both the theory and available software for sparse signal reconstruction through function minimization make it an attractive approach for recreating the missing frequency data. It is the aim of this thesis to generalize the reconstruction technique known as Total Variation (TV) minimization from a signal …

Activity And Diet Of Bats In Apple Orchards Of Southern Michigan, Brenna Lynn Smith

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

I studied activity and diet of bats in apple orchards in southern Michigan. There was no difference between organic and conventional orchards in number and composition of insects captured with light traps, number of bats captured with mist nets, or number of acoustic files of bat activity that were recorded. The majority of insects captured were Coleptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Lepidoptera, and Trichoptera. Only two species of bats were caught: big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and eastern red bats (Lasiurus borealis). Most calls were produced by big brown bats, followed by hoary bats (L. cinereus), red …

Development Of Eco-Friendly Flame Retardant Fabric Using Phosphorus Based Intumescence Chemistry, Vikas P. Joshi

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The research aims at developing Eco-friendly flame retardant textile fabric using phosphorous based intumescence chemistry. Phosphorous in the structure of Spirocyclic pentaerythriol diphosphoryl chloride (SPDPC) acts as the main group to impart flame retardancy. Intermediate compounds were synthesized in the laboratory and finally converted into sol. The silane sol was applied to the textile material using pad-dry-cure method. The intermediate compounds and the coated material were tested using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and Thermogravemetric analysis (TGA) testing instruments. Vertical flammability testing was performed as per ASTM D-6413 standards to test the fabric for its flame …

Experimental Simulation Of Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide (Hiapp)-Pancreatic Beta Cell Membrane Interactions: Inferences And Implications In The Etiopathogenesis Of Diabetes Mellitus Type Ii, Sarika Pamarthy

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Pancreatic beta cells secrete insulin, an endocrine hormone that regulates blood glucose levels and maintains normal physiological activity in humans and animals. Diabetes mellitus type II is a consequence of the gradual destruction of these important cells, likely by human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) that is co-secreted with insulin. Increasing health care costs, coupled with the World Health Organization’s prediction of a worldwide diabetic epidemic by year 2030, make experimental diabetes research a crucial prologue to future clinical trials in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Diabetes mellitus type II. Our experimental set-up simulates hIAPP peptide fragment and pancreatic beta cell …