Digital Commons Network^™

Investigation Of Discrepancies In South Carolina Traffic Collision Forms, Jackson Wegmet

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to improve the accuracy of information recorded in the South Carolina traffic collision forms. To accomplish this, it examines 200 forms containing information about fatal crashes in work zones between 2014 and 2020 to determine how many discrepancies exist between the written narrative and other fields. In addition to obtaining these statistics, this thesis seeks to identify factors that influence discrepancies. To test the hypothesis that crash complexity and weather influence the investigating officer’s level of processing (a theory developed by Craik and Lockhart in 1972), and consequentially his/her ability to complete the traffic …

Structure V-1: A Mississippian Mica Workshop In Kershaw County, South Carolina, John Mclellan Dodge

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reanalyzes the pottery assemblage of Structure V-1 at the Mulberry site (38KE12). Because Structure V-1 was originally hypothesized to be evidence of a late seventeenth century occupation at the Mulberry site, the framework I use for this research focuses on identifying evidence of community coalescence after Mulberry’s initial occupation ended. However, new evidence from both the pottery and radiocarbon analysis conclusively dates the structure to around the sixteenth century Mulberry I phase. With that new date in mind, I explore the role mica craft production within Structure V-1 might have had in linking the community at Mulberry to …

Evaluating Health Awareness In Cancer Genetics Amongst The Black And African American Community In South Carolina, Annika Jaliya Gadson

Theses and Dissertations

Historically minoritized individuals are underrepresented in genomic research which limits the ability to fully understand genetic variation within the population (Sirugo et al., 2019). This creates bias that questions the effectiveness of guidelines for genetic testing, predictive risk values, and medical management. Disparities in cancer genetics may be attributed to historical events that have cultivated mistrust in research and medicine, institutional bias, provider skepticism in patient reporting of medical symptoms, and limited access to genetic testing (Saulsberry et al., 2013). More exploration is needed to better understand how to increase access and awareness of cancer genetic services to Black and …

Gis Analysis Of Housing Delinquency After Repeated Flooding In Horry County, South Carolina, Andrew White

Theses and Dissertations

How communities react and change after disaster has been well-studied in recent decades. Knowledge around time scales, spatial scales, and specific facets of the built environment, such as housing recovery, have all developed largely around the opportunities that disasters have provided in understanding societal functions. This research has given policy makers and institutions insights into shortcomings of disaster specific recoveries, but these shortcomings are generalized beyond the scope of the originally studied areas. This thesis adapts this body of knowledge to a GIS methodology to help localize understanding to the coastal South Carolina context of Horry County. This low-lying area …

Differentiating Pleistocene Alloformations In The South Carolina Coastal Plain Through Lithologic, Textural, Mineralogical, And Cluster Analyses, Charles Andrew Wykel

Theses and Dissertations

Currently, there is no textural or mineralogic basis for identifying and differentiating Pleistocene strand deposits in the South Carolina (SC) Lower Coastal Plain (LCP). Historically, geologic mapping of the SC coastal plain uses geomorphologic and biostratigraphic techniques for identifying and mapping LCP surficial strand deposits. While useful, both approaches have problems. The aim of this study is to develop a cost-effective approach to differentiate and identify strand deposits of different Pleistocene alloformations occurring in the SC LCP. To accomplish this task, four strand samples were taken from the Ten Mile Hill, the Ladson, and Wicomico alloformations in Horry County, SC. …

The Presbyterian Exception? The Illegal Education Of Enslaved Blacks By South Carolina Presbyterian Churches, 1834-1865, Margaret Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The study of literacy among enslaved people in South Carolina is often limited to legal literature, enslaver and enslaved autobiographies, and Northern accounts of education from teachers sent to the South. The use of these types of sources to describe literacy and education of enslaved people leaves out a major contributor to the enslaved literacy movement, the churches. Using documentation from two Presbyterian churches in South Carolina, this thesis expands upon the enslaved literacy movements in South Carolina to look at the roles ministers, missionaries, and congregations played in teaching enslaved blacks how to read religious literature, why these institutions …

A Case Study Of Rural Southern Desegregation: How Black Students In A South Carolina Community Experienced Segregated Schooling And The Integration Process, Margo Mcdowell Gore

Theses and Dissertations

My purpose for this study is to shed light on how the African-American community in a small Southern rural community experienced segregated schools and the long school desegregation process. Conflicts over school integration in urban centers like Little Rock drew the media's attention, but how small communities beyond the glare of the media fared is less well understood and documented. Archival data and contemporary media coverage provide a timeline and context for the experiences of this Black community, and oral history interviews were collected and analyzed to document the range of desegregation experiences.

Although the Brown v. Board of Education …

Suas And Deep Learning For High-Resolution Monitoring Of Tidal Marshes In Coastal South Carolina, Grayson R. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

Tidal marshes are dynamic environments, now more than ever threatened by both natural and anthropogenic forces. Best practices for monitoring tidal marshes, as well as the environmental factors that affect them, have been studied for more than 40 years. With recent technological advances in remote sensing, new capabilities for monitoring tidal marshes have emerged. One of these new opportunities and challenges is hyper-spatial resolution imagery (<10 >cm) that can be captured by small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). Aside from enhanced visualization, structure-from-motion (SfM) technology can derive dense point clouds from overlapped sUAS images for high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs). …

Who Has The Right To Reproduce? Forced Sterilization In South Carolina In The Early Twentieth Century, Kathryn Pownall

Theses and Dissertations

This paper aims to uncover the history of forced sterilization in South Carolina. Compulsory sterilization of the feebleminded, a form of eugenics, gained prominence in the United States throughout the early twentieth century. It was both an ableist and misogynistic movement that targeted women because they were seen to be responsible for reproduction. Sterilization was regarded as a solution to halting the reproduction of feebleminded individuals, who would otherwise continue to depend on the state financially. South Carolina was slow to implement a sterilization law, becoming the thirty-first (and second-to-last) state to pass one. Although South Carolina shares a border …

Gonorrhea: Core Areas And State Policies, Jessica Purser

Theses and Dissertations

This research looked at gonorrhea rates both from a community perspective and at the state level. Using hot spot analysis, means differences, and quantile regression, we found that education, specifically the percent of people over the age of 25 with less than a high school education, was the dominant factor at the state level while core areas of gonorrhea exist in the PeeDee and western Lowcountry regions of South Carolina in 2017 and 2018. Risky sexual behaviors are well-defined in the literature for individual persons, but this shows that looking at societal and community factors is important.

This is a …

That Strange Darkness, Matthew Boedy

Theses and Dissertations

This novel is about the past. It is a novel about how the past always encroaches on the present and the future. Even for those who are saved from it.

The Effect Of Concrete Material Properties On Rigid Pavement Design In South Carolina, Nicolet Anne Devine

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the effect of concrete material inputs on rigid pavement design in the state of South Carolina. The impact of concrete strength input parameters in the historical AASHTO pavement design method and MEPDG method is investigated using three newly constructed concrete sections, I-85 in Cherokee County, I-20 in Lexington County, and I-85 in Spartanburg County. Strength data obtained from the sections were the result of QA/QC testing provided by the SCDOT during construction, as well as from UofSC laboratory testing. The compressive strength data from these tests was correlated to the elastic modulus and modulus of rupture (which …

Sex (Work) And The City: Sex Work In Columbia, South Carolina, 1860-1880, Presley Mckalyn Ramey

Theses and Dissertations

Nineteenth-century sex work in the American south has long been neglected in sex work historiography. Formerly Confederate states have red-light districts rich in history, and stories of the South waiting to be told. The city of Columbia has great significance as the capital of the first southern state to secede from the Union, and this thesis acts as a local history of the city’s red-light district. Utilizing city ordinances, court cases, census records, city directories, probate records, and wills, the lives of Columbia’s sex workers and how they interacted with the growing city around them are brought to the forefront. …

Land, Racial Formations, And Power: Exploring The Network Of Power Relationships During Climate Change Planning In Coastal South Carolina, Teresa Norman

Theses and Dissertations

Climate change projections for the coastline of South Carolina predict that by mid-century there will be around 1.2 feet of sea level rise, and potentially up to 4 feet of rise by 2100. Additionally, climate change is linked to intensified hurricanes, a hazard for the South Carolina coastline every year. Both of these scenarios result in increases in the regularity and severity of coastal flooding, making the threat of permanent or temporary displacement (relocation) from coastal lands a reality. This is a particularly pressing matter for African American communities already made vulnerable by the long history of racial discrimination in …

Fortnightly Effects Of Urea Additions On Cyanobacteria In A Stormwater Detention Pond, Halley Carruthers

Theses and Dissertations

Increased urban and suburban population growth along the South Carolina (SC) coast has led to a rise in impervious surfaces, altering the course of stormwater runoff events. The construction of stormwater detention ponds (SDPs) is one of the many ways to best mitigate the flow of this water. In their function as natural pollutant traps, SDPs often contain increased levels of nutrients (nitrogen, N and phosphorus, P), which can lead to eutrophication. Under these high eutrophic conditions, primary production is overstimulated, and the formation of phytoplankton blooms, including harmful algal blooms (HABs) can occur. In recent decades, the forms of …

Evaluation Of A Clinic-Based Peer Navigation Program (Pnp) For African Americans Living With Hiv In South Carolina, Kimberly Butler Willis

Theses and Dissertations

Peer navigation programs have been identified as a potential motivator in care engagement and retention for patients living with HIV, although the data is inconsistent. HIV management requires important disease management considerations and innovative approaches for patient care. Medication advancements and technology have drastically improved care for most patients living with this chronic disease; yet African Americans contract, live with, and die because of HIV-related complications at disproportionately higher rates compared to their White peers.The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods outcome evaluation is to: (1) determine if peer navigation is a viable intervention to improve three key HIV care metrics: …

Joshua Gordon’S Witchcraft Book And The Transformation Of The Upcountry Of South Carolina, E. Zoie Horecny

Theses and Dissertations

The life of Joshua Gordon and his intellectual product, Witchcraft Book (1784) gives access to the backcountry of South Carolina. Witchcraft Book is exemplary of syncretism in the Atlantic world, influenced by multiple European traditions, understandings of science in the early modern world, indigenous knowledge, and life in North America. After serving in the American Revolution, Gordon transitioned from a small farmer to a slaveholder. He was a part of political and economic processes that unified the backcountry with low country elites in defense of slavery. As a prominent figure in his community and church, he solidified his legacy for …

Gendering Secession: Women And Politics In South Carolina, 1859- 1861, Melissa Develvis

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the writings and literature surrounding elite, white South Carolina women from 1859 and 1861 to trace their increasing political consciousnesses surrounding their state’s secession and the threat of civil war. Their diaries and letters reveal that though these women and their families were staunch supporters of South Carolina’s secession, women reacted to their new circumstances with fears and misgivings that their male counterparts would not, or could not, express. Elite women harnessed familiar and religious concepts to express political hopes and fears, creating a socially acceptable outlet through which to discuss current electoral politics previously considered improper. …

Geophysical Study Of Gold Mineralized Zones In The Carolina Terrane Of South Carolina, Saad Saud Alarifi

Theses and Dissertations

T

he goal of this study was to calibrate and test geophysical methods for the detection of geological structural and disseminated sulfides in the area of the four largest gold deposits in the Southern Appalachian of South Carolina. The Coastal plain sediments, vegetation and saprolite covering the mining areas remain the most challenging in this region. The work focused on the calibration of high-resolution gravity, and helicopter electromagnetic (EM) and magnetic data provided by OceanaGold over the Haile and Brewer Mines; then calibrating the regional gravity and aeromagnetic data over the four gold mines in South Carolina. Observed geophysical fields …

Analysis Of Hpv16 Variants In The Carolina Women’S Care Study And A Comparison Of Gene Expression Profiles Of Exfoliated Cervical Cells From Women Who Either Clear Or Do Not Clear An Hpv16 Infection, Erica Shirlene Green

Theses and Dissertations

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the etiologic agent for cervical cancer with HPV type 16 (HPV16) being found in about 50% of cervical cancers worldwide. HPVs vary in genomic (DNA) sequence not only between types, but also within types, known as variants. Variants of a particular HPV type may differ by up to 2% in nucleotide sequence in the coding region and up to 5% in the noncoding region. Variants within HPV16 have been identified and grouped into six distinct phylogenetic branches, which segregate geographically: European (E), Asian-American (As.A), African-1 (Af-1), African-2 (Af- 2), Asian (As), and North American (NA). However, …

Distribution And Abundance Of Vibrio Parahaemolyticus In Surficial Estuarine Sediment From North Inlet, Sc, Usa, India Briana Gartmon

Theses and Dissertations

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a ubiquitous coastal organism that causes gastroenteritis (vibriosis) after ingestion of mishandled or undercooked seafood. Cases of vibriosis have increased rapidly in the past decade. V. parahaemolyticus densities have historically been associated with an increase in sea surface water temperatures, but recent shellfish bed closures in fall and winter months in cooler regions (the Baltic Sea, the Pacific NW, and New England) suggest that there may be additional environmental parameters that affect densities of V. parahaemolyticus. The vertical distribution of V. parahaemolyticus was assessed in the pristine North Inlet Estuary (SC, USA). The goal of this …

The Intergenerational Effects Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Children’S Emergency Department Utilization And Depression And Anxiety In South Carolina, Eboni E. Haynes

Theses and Dissertations

Adult exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is common in the U.S., with over half of adults reporting exposure to at least one ACE. Childhood trauma is associated with risk factors for premature death, disability, poor physical and mental health, and lower quality of life in adults. Traumatic experiences also influence parenting behaviors later in life, placing offspring at an increased risk of ACE exposure. Few studies have explored the intergenerational effects of ACEs on the health and well-being of offspring. This study sought to identify whether associations existed between caregiver ACE exposures and emergency department (ED) utilization for sick …

Time Series Analysis Of Weather Data In South Carolina, Geophrey Odero

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses time series analysis of weather data in South Carolina for the last fifteen years (January 2003 to December 2017) for Columbia, Greenville and North Myrtle Beach. The first part presents a brief overview of different variables that are used in the analysis. That is, temperature, dew point, humidity and sea level pressure. A short discussion of time series data is also introduced. The second part is about modeling the variables. The models of choice are presented, fitted and model diagnostics is carried out. In the third part, we discuss background on climates of the cities and model …

Hiv Care Location: An Evaluation Of Single Versus Multi Facility Utilization Of Hiv/Aids Care Services And Patient Health Outcomes And Clinical Indicators In South Carolina, Melanie Gwynn

Theses and Dissertations

Background: On the HIV/AIDS care continuum, the “retention in care” metric does not distinguish between single-facility (SF) or multi-clinic utilization (MC), also described as HIV care location (or type). SF utilization is vital as it has been linked optimal clinical outcomes among People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). Published research detailing the prevalence of HIV care type and its association with health outcomes/clinical indicators, has been studied only in limited urban settings. Additionally, coinfections such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs), have yet to be evaluated as potential predictive factors for HIV care type.

Methods: A cross-sectional design was used …

3-D Potential Field Inversion Camp Clubhouse Crossroads Mafic Intrusive Pluton, Coastal Plain, South Carolina, Kubra Sibel Albayrak

Theses and Dissertations

The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, is the largest known igneous province in the world. However, the geometry and volume of CAMP intrusives under the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States are poorly known. Under the Coastal Plain sediments of Georgia and South Carolina, the “J” seismic reflector was predicted to be produced by a CAMP lava flow. Recent studies of seismic and well data have shown that the “J” reflector is an unconformity and only locally a CAMP lava flow. In the Clubhouse Crossroads area of South Carolina, seismic reflection, seismic refraction, and well …

Disparities In Colorectal Cancer: Measuring Spatial Accessibility, Screening, And Surveillance Outcomes In South Carolina, Michele J. Josey

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation project is to add to the growing literature about the multi-faceted aspects of colorectal cancer (CRC) prevention and related disparities. We focused on the spatial distribution of facilities performing screening services to identify areas that underutilize colonoscopy screening. Next, we examined how the food and physical activity environment affects precursors of CRC by considering plausible pathways. Finally, we explored if access to health insurance reduced the racial disparity of receiving a timely surveillance colonoscopy after a CRC diagnosis.

We utilized the SC Ambulatory Surgery Discharge Database, an all-payer, population-based outpatient dataset with colonoscopy records from …

Psychometric Evaluation Of Lung Cancer Stigma Among Lung Cancer Survivors In South Carolina, Lisa A. Webb

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Despite the improved screening and treatment modalities, lung cancer is the second leading cause of cancer and accounts for 27% of all cancer deaths in the United States. Survivors of lung cancer experience physical, social, and particularly psychological challenges. Lung cancer stigma is a formidable challenge for survivors of lung cancer that complicates their physical, psychological and social well-being.

The Cataldo Lung Cancer Stigma Scale is the first instrument adapted to measure lung cancer stigma. This instrument was adapted from Berger’s HIV Stigma Scale. HIV stigma and lung cancer stigma share similarities. These health-related stigmas reflect behaviors that …

The Impact Of A Global Education Program On The Critical Global Awareness Level Of Eighth Grade Students In A Rural School In South Carolina, Marina Mosneaguta

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few years of teaching at a school district in a southeastern state, the researcher noticed that her students had become increasingly interested in various global topics. Students wanted to talk about world events and cultures around the world, but they had a limited understanding of their own roles as world citizens. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of global education program on the critical global awareness levels of eighth grade students at East Bridge Middle School. This researcher analyzed the effects of global education program on the critical global awareness level of eighth …

Essays In The Economics Of Education, Breyon J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

I examine, separately, the impact of three education programs on student achievement, using difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences designs. First, I examine whether spillover benefits on achievement exist from preschool. I estimate the effect of exposure to a South Carolina preschool program that targets disadvantaged four-year-olds on students’ test scores in grades 3 through 5, where exposure means residing in a school district once the program was made available and disadvantaged students are those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch or Medicaid. I find that exposure to the preschool program not only increases the math and reading scores of targeted students, but …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Precipitation And Flood Data From South Carolina, Haigang Liu

Theses and Dissertations

Spatio-temporal data are everywhere: we encounter them on TV, in newspapers, on computer screens, on tablets, and on plain paper maps. As a result, researchers in di- verse areas are increasingly faced with the task of modeling geographically-referenced and temporally-correlated data. In this dissertation, we propose two different spa- tiotemporal models to capture the behavior of rainfall and flood data in the state of South Carolina.

Both models are built using a Bayesian hierarchical framework, which involves specifying the true underlying process in the first level and the spatio-temporal ran- dom effect in the second level of the hierarchy. The …