Digital Commons Network^™

Targeted Re-Instruction For Hearing Aid Use And Care Skills, Carly Catherine Alicea

Dissertations - ALL

Purpose: Approximately 30% of hearing aid owners do not wear their hearing aids. One of the main reasons reported for hearing aid non-use is that hearing aid owners cannot successfully use and/or care for their hearing aids (Lupsakko, Kautiainen, & Sulkava 2005; Popelka et al. 1998; Vuorialho, Karinen, & Sorri 2006). The primary purpose of the present study was to evaluate the benefit of identifying specific hearing aid use and care skills that a hearing aid user cannot perform or has difficulty performing and providing re-instruction on those specific skills. This is operationally defined in the present study as targeted …

Village Doctors And Vulnerable Bodies: Gender, Medicine, And Risk In North India, Jocelyn Killmer

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation tracks an uncommon migration: the movement of young women doctors from urban medical colleges to rural clinics in Rajasthan, North India. The ability for young women doctors to transfer their lives to a rural clinic, even for a year or two, is vital for career advancement in Rajasthan’s government health sector. Yet I found that women, over and over, rejected this opportunity, turning this urban to rural migration into a trickle rather than a flow. Through interviews, observations, and travel in urban and rural Jaipur district, I explore the meanings of urban and rural spaces as well as …

Schooling At The Intersection Of Refugee Identity And (Dis)Ability: Implications From North Korean Students With Refugee Backgrounds, Yosung Song

Dissertations - ALL

Researchers have previously found that school-age refugees and asylum-seekers are frequently characterized as experiencing physical, emotional, or psychological disabilities or disorders in schools because of the adversity that they face and a lack of adequate resources during their refugee journey. In their relocated society, many refugee students are interpreted as having disabilities or receiving special education services. While refugee experiences are often framed as causing deficits in students, the purpose of this study was to better understand the interplay of (dis)ability and refugee identity at a school that publicly proclaimed refugee experience as an asset. Grounded in a qualitative methodology, …

Development Of Explicitly Correlated And Many-Body Diagrammatic Techniques For The Investigation Of Electron-Hole Correlation In Nanomaterials, Michael Gray Bayne

Dissertations - ALL

The focus of this work is to develop theoretical methods that will accurately describe electron-electron and electron-hole correlation in nanoparticles using many-body diagrammatic techniques. Diagrammatic representation is a more complex representation of quantum mechanics, however, it becomes a more advantageous representation in its application to this work due to its ease of use. Diagrammatic techniques are essential to the ve methods presented here as they prove to be pivotal in theoretical development as well as providing useful information in extracting and visualizing fundamental physics to make useful approximations to the methods. In the projected congruent transformed Hamiltonian method with partial …

Seeing And Believing: Philosophical Issues In Theory Of Mind Development, Joseph A. Hedger

Dissertations - ALL

All human beings understand the behaviors of others as causal results of their mental states. Philosophers call this ability folk psychology and developmental researchers call it theory of mind (ToM). My dissertation concerns how this reasoning works and how it is acquired.

First, I develop and expand a theory of how folk psychology develops in childhood. This is the Perceptual Access Reasoning, or PAR theory of the Fabricius lab. Contrary to the two views dominant in the field, I argue that ToM (belief reasoning or BR) is acquired around 6 years of age after undergoing two preliminary cognitive stages, reality …

The Effect Of Fetal Programming On Physical Activity Behaviors, Jessica Garay Redmond

Dissertations - ALL

Appropriate fetal growth and development largely depends on the health and nutritional status of the mother. Exposure to a stressful intra-uterine environment leads to a series of adjustments, known as fetal programming, which have both short- and long-term implications. Immediately, the growth and development of the fetus is altered, resulting in intra-uterine growth restriction and a small size at birth. Long-term, individuals who experience fetal programming are at higher risk of developing certain chronic diseases.

In the current study, we examined the relationship between size at birth (an indicator of intra-uterine growth restriction and thus, fetal programming) and two main …

Three Essays In Urban And Regional Economics, Boqian Jiang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation comprises three chapters that are related to the research topics in Urban and Regional Economics. The first chapter examines whether economic self-interest associated with homeownership motivates homeowners to vote more than renters in U.S. local elections. To control for the self-selection of homeownership, I use national election turnout as the counterfactual outcome. Since policy discussions in national elections are targeted more at the national level, the disparity in political participation between homeowners and renters should be reduced. Results based on election data from three U.S. cities confirm these hypothesis, which suggest that local policies may tend to cater …

Sex Differences In Cardiovascular Adaptations To Chronic Endurance Exercise, Jacqueline A. Augustine

Dissertations - ALL

Endurance exercise typically leads to beneficial cardiac adaptations manifested as increased cardiac mass, higher cardiac function and lower central hemodynamic load (blood pressure, aortic stiffness and wave reflections). However, studies in male marathoners suggest detrimental cardiac remodeling, such that larger cardiac mass is associated with reduced cardiac function and higher central hemodynamic load. There are well-established sex differences in cardiac adaptations to endurance exercise and central hemodynamics across the lifespan. Whether there are sex differences in cardiovascular adaptations in marathoners requires further scrutiny. We examined sex differences in 1) Left ventricle (LV) structure, 2) LV function 3) 24-hour central hemodynamic …

Structurally Supported Cell-Laden Scaffolds For Bone Tissue Regeneration, Stephen William Sawyer

Dissertations - ALL

Due to challenges associated with current clinical techniques used to treat bone defects, there has been an increased focus on finding a tissue engineered solution. However, while great progress in this field has been achieved, researchers have yet to suitably combine the proper biological and structural environments needed to serve as a complete bone tissue substitute that is comparable to modern clinical solutions.

To achieve the goal of creating a model bone tissue substitute which could eventually serve as a viable therapy for bone trauma, be it caused by congenital medical conditions, age related diseases or high impact forces, three …

Putting Forts In Their Place: The Politics Of Defense In Antigua, 1670-1785, Christopher Kurt Waters

Dissertations - ALL

Between 1670 and 1785, the plantation elite on the British island of Antigua built and maintained at least fifty-four fortifications to protect the island from other European competitors. Rather than being commissioned, engineered, and defended by the metropolitan government in London, the defense of the island was the sole purview of the Antiguan legislature. Money, designs, and locations for these defensive sites came from internal deliberations on the island making them unique places to study iterations of seventeenth and eighteenth century British colonialism, elite thinking, and the impact on the landscape. To interpret these sites, I use archaeological, archival, and …

Deconvolution Of Membrane Protein-Detergent Complex Interactions, Aaron Wolfe

Dissertations - ALL

Membrane proteins are important in many biological functions such as cell-cell recognition, transport, and signaling; yet the study of these proteins is stunted due to their excessive aggregation in aqueous solutions. Detergents have been extensively exploited to mitigate this aggregation, and accomplish this by protecting the hydrophobic exterior of the membrane protein with their hydrophobic tails, while the polar heads of the detergents interact with the surrounding aqueous environment. Although detergents are of fundamental importance in many membrane protein studies, their selection is primarily done by trial and error screening. In this thesis, I will describe a method to utilize …

Ecohydrology Of Natural And Restored Wetlands In A Glacial Plain, Kyotaek Hwang

Dissertations - ALL

More than half of wetland area in the U.S. have been converted to other land use types for agricultural use and development. Limited understanding of ecological services provided to society by wetlands is another reason for the massive wetland loss in the past. Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and the 1989 federal mandate of “no net wetland loss” supported increased efforts for wetland restoration and creation to compensate for two centuries of ecosystem degradation. Hydrology is a critical driver for wetland formation and sustainability, yet few studies have investigated the ecosystem benefits of restored or constructed wetlands relative …

On Classification In Human-Driven And Data-Driven Systems, Qunwei Li

Dissertations - ALL

Classification systems are ubiquitous, and the design of effective classification algorithms has been an even more active area of research since the emergence of machine learning techniques. Despite the significant efforts devoted to training and feature selection in classification systems, misclassifications do occur and their effects can be critical in various applications. The central goal of this thesis is to analyze classification problems in human-driven and data-driven systems, with potentially unreliable components and design effective strategies to ensure reliable and effective classification algorithms in such systems. The components/agents in the system can be machines and/or humans. The system components can …

This Is A Question? Prosody, Social Communication, And The N400 Effect, Elizabeth A. Kaplan

Theses - ALL

The present study examined electrophysiological responses, specifically the N400 effect, in typically developing adults (N = 37) to spoken questions and statements that contained prosodically congruous and prosodically incongruous contours. In particular, prosodic incongruities were created by cross-splicing the audio signal so that questions ended with a decreasing pitch and statements ended with an increasing pitch. Further, the study examined the extent to which the size of an individual's N400 effect was related to an applied score of social communication as measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition. Results revealed no main effect of sentence congruency, but a main …

The Effects Of Affective Arousal On Intentions To Engage In Sexual-Risk Behavior: An Experimental Study, Alan Z. Sheinfil

Theses - ALL

Despite decades of research on correlates of condom use, and numerous intervention development studies, condom use behavior remains inconsistent among adolescents and emerging adults as the incidence and prevalence of sexually transmitted infections continues to rise. One factor that may play a role in risky sexual decision-making is state affect, however, research investigating this relationship is equivocal. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the effects of experimentally induced affective arousal and affective valence on intentions to engage in condomless sexual activity in a sample of emerging adults. Based on the dual systems model of youth decision-making, it …

Interpolation And Extrapolation Of Missing Antenna Measurement Datasets Using The Cauchy Method And Matrix Pencil Method, Nicolas Reginelli

Theses - ALL

As electromagnetic systems become more complex, the computational time and power required to solve these large problems will also increase. It is thus of practical interest to apply methods of interpolation and extrapolation to reduce the amount of data required for accurate computation. Two such approaches of the implementation of interpolation and extrapolation examined in this thesis are the Cauchy method and the Matrix Pencil method.

This thesis explores the theory, process, and application of the Cauchy method and Matrix Pencil method in interpolating and extrapolating performance metrics of various electromagnetic systems. The Cauchy method begins by assuming that an …

Exploring Specificity And Stability Of A Molecularly Imprinted Polymer, Stephen Robert Shepherd

Theses - ALL

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have numerous practical applications, including integration with quartz crystal microbalances to make specific, stable, chemical sensors, but most published research literature does not provide details concerning the specificity or stability of such an imprinted polymer. A polymer made from polyacrylic acid monomers, templated with benzoic acid, was tested for specificity with solutions of benzoic acid, acetic acid, phenol, and terephthalic acid passed through samples of uniform size under vacuum filtration. Additionally, MIP samples were also stored for extended periods of time in varied microclimates and then tested for performance, and consequently, stability. Initial conclusions indicate that …

Confronted With Bullying When You Believe In A Just World, David Voss

Theses - ALL

Bullying has been recognized as a phenomenon that detrimentally affects the lives of many, and researchers continue to explore its various potential influences and correlates. Among such correlates that have been examined, are scales measuring the belief in a just world (BJW). While the BJW predicts victim blaming across a wide host of circumstances, both the personal BJW and the global BJW have been found to correlate positively with empathetic attitudes toward bullying. However, the global BJW’s relation to bullying has only been examined in one study that used an explicit five-item measure to capture attitudes toward bullying. The current …

Differences In Social Media Profile Picture Selection Motivation: A Comparison Between Chinese And U.S. Users, Ruochen Jiang

Theses - ALL

The goal of this research is to explore the differences in the motivation of profile picture selection on social media using survey methodology. Prior research regarding profile pictures has focused on the reception of users, but the motivations behind choosing profile pictures remain unanswered. The study focuses on the profile pictures selecting process, which is the process behind users’ choice of pictures that appear with their name and biography on social media accounts. The study will compare social media users in China and the United States to explore whether users from different cultural backgrounds (i.e., independence or interdependence) report different …

The Role Of Public Relations Messaging In Reflecting The Syracuse City School District’S Mission, Values, And Goals, Holly Zahn

Theses - ALL

This study evaluates the role of messaging in the Syracuse City School District (SCSD) public relations approach. Effective public relations impacts attitudes and behaviors of publics. In the case of SCSD, effective messaging can impact student and community action as well as achievement including student attendance, graduation rates, test scores, and parent participation. This study seeks to evaluate how SCSD’s messages reflect its stated goals in terms of its publics. Through a content analysis methodology, the study examines the strategic messaging produced by SCSD in order to understand the role it plays in reinforcing the organization’s overall mission.

An Investigation Of Civilian Implicit Attitudes Toward Police Officers, Rikki Hope Sargent

Theses - ALL

This research investigated implicit attitudes toward police among civilians. Two preliminary studies served as an empirical foundation for the current study, as both assessed the implicit construct activation of safety and fear when participants were primed with police using a modified version of the Word Fragment Completion Task (e.g., Johnson & Lord, 2010). The findings were counter-intuitive, such that in a college sample safety construct activation increased and fear decreased when primed with police, whereas in an online sample safety and fear construct activation increased. The current study sought to clarify these trends by utilizing four modified versions of the …

Constructions Of Masculinity In Bollywood Promotional Content, Alyssa Grace Lobo

Theses - ALL

Following a growing public discussion on violence against women in India, some commentators have turned their eye upon Bollywood. The film industry’s role in perpetuating models of courtship based on the stalking and harassment of women has drawn criticism from several quarters. While there has been much said about the depiction of women in Bollywood film, there has been relatively less said on portrayals of masculinity. The research that does exist focuses on textual analyses of films, or looks at masculinity through the lens of global capital flows. This thesis instead, analyzes trailers, posters, promotional pictures and social media for …

Gaseous State: A Historical Geography Of Natural Gas And The Capitalist State In An Age Of Climate Change, Carlo Sica

Dissertations - ALL

In the 1930s U.S., a set of social forces and crises pushed forward state energy regulation. As states struggle to end greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels, the threat of climate change demands new explanations for how energy policy emerges. In this dissertation, I explain the period of U.S. natural gas regulation between 1938 and 1978 from critical political economy and Marxist state theoretical perspectives. My main conclusion is that the capitalist state stabilizes markets for energy to serve capital with an auxiliary means of production. Based on that conclusion, I recommend that Marxist state theory be class-centered, i.e., recognize that …

Turkish Male Viewers’ Perceptions Of Female Sportscasters: A Chair Reserved For Men?, Hamide Demet Akat

Theses - ALL

This research explored perceptions of female sportscasters. More specifically, this study aimed to better understand how Turkish male television viewers perceive female sportscasters. Male hegemony established the theoretical basis to understand male domination that is prevalent in sports, media and also heavily in Turkish culture. Sexual objectification of women was also helpful to better understand the status of women working in the media industry. Semi-structured, qualitative in-depth interviews were used to gather data. Twenty-one interviews were done, transcribed, and analyzed. The findings of this research indicated the male hegemonic environment of sports and also sports media, in the eyes of …

State’S Obligation For The Human Right To Adequate (Safe) Food And Global Trade: A Case Study Of Indonesian National-Level Inequalities In Food Safety Standards For Imported Foods, Irma Nurliawati

Theses - ALL

States have the obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the right of their people to adequate food, including safe and nutritious food. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate) means states must proactively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access to safe food. A lack of resources and capacities can hamper a state’s capacity to develop a proper scientific justification as the basis to establish food safety regulations as mandated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and thus can create inequality in public health protection between developed and developing countries. This thesis aims to present a case study of inequalities in …

Machine Learning Methods For Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Danushka Sandaruwan Bandara

Dissertations - ALL

Identification of user state is of interest in a wide range of disciplines that fall under the umbrella of human machine interaction. Functional Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (fNIRS) device is a relatively new device that enables inference of brain activity through non-invasively pulsing infra-red light into the brain. The fNIRS device is particularly useful as it has a better spatial resolution than the Electroencephalograph (EEG) device that is most commonly used in Human Computer Interaction studies under ecologically valid settings. But this key advantage of fNIRS device is underutilized in current literature in the fNIRS domain.

We propose machine learning methods …

Lemons Into Lemonade: Black Undergraduate Women's Embodiment Of Strength And Resilience At A Pwi, Jordan Shelby West

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a qualitative research project for Black undergraduate women and about Black undergraduate women. The aim of this dissertation is to lift, center, and share the lived experiences of Black undergraduate women as they reflect on the messages and memories of coming into their Blackness, their transition to and experiences while attending a PWI, and the ways in which they continue to make meaning of space. Informed by Black Feminist Theory and Critical Race Theory, the framework and methods used in this project prioritize the care of the participants and allow them to be co-creators of their own …

Experimental And Computational Analysis Of Relative Energetic Stabilities Of Crystalline Anhydrous Polymorphs And Pseudopolymorphs, Teresa Dierks

Dissertations - ALL

The stability of pharmaceutical solids is impacted by the properties of both active and inactive ingredients. Given that the aqueous solubility of solid-state medicinal products can be directly linked to the component properties, it is prudent to carefully study these materials to predict bioavailability and shelf stability. The relative energetic stabilities of the molecular crystals of interest are governed by both the intermolecular forces and the molecular conformations within the structure. In this research, the electronic origins of crystalline stability were investigated using a combination of solid-state density functional theory (ss-DFT) and terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). Terahertz spectroscopy of the …

Static Enforcement Of Termination-Sensitive Noninterference Using The C++ Template Type System, Scott Douglas Constable

Dissertations - ALL

A side channel is an observable attribute of program execution other than explicit communication, e.g., power usage, execution time, or page fault patterns. A side-channel attack occurs when a malicious adversary observes program secrets through a side channel. This dissertation introduces Covert C++, a library which uses template metaprogramming to superimpose a security-type system on top of C++’s existing type system. Covert C++ enforces an information-flow policy that prevents secret data from influencing program control flow and memory access patterns, thus obviating side-channel leaks. Formally, Covert C++ can facilitate an extended definition of the classical noninterference property, broadened to also …

A Smart Products Lifecycle Management (Splm) Framework - Modeling For Conceptualization, Interoperability, And Modularity, Yunpeng Li

Dissertations - ALL

Autonomy and intelligence have been built into many of today’s mechatronic products, taking advantage of low-cost sensors and advanced data analytics technologies. Design of product intelligence (enabled by analytics capabilities) is no longer a trivial or additional option for the product development. The objective of this research is aimed at addressing the challenges raised by the new data-driven design paradigm for smart products development, in which the product itself and the smartness require to be carefully co-constructed.

A smart product can be seen as specific compositions and configurations of its physical components to form the body, its analytics models to …