Digital Commons Network^™

Cenozoic Extension Of The Lake Tanganyika Rift, East Africa: Structures, Tectonostratigraphy And Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Shaidu Shaban

Dissertations - ALL

Active continental rifts are ideal sites for understanding the break-up of continents, and long-lived rift lake environments are known as important reservoirs for endemic communities and biodiversity. The sedimentary fill of extensional continental rifts within the East Africa Rift System (EARS) records a long history of continental extension and variable tropical climate that is unparalleled in its duration and fidelity. Continental extensional basins are sensitive to variations caused by the interplay between tectonics, sedimentary processes, and climate change. However, to discern the sedimentary fill history and its related tectonostratigraphy, as well as for reconstructing past climate changes, high-fidelity data such …

Interpretable Network Representations, Shengmin Jin

Dissertations - ALL

Networks (or interchangeably graphs) have been ubiquitous across the globe and within science and engineering: social networks, collaboration networks, protein-protein interaction networks, infrastructure networks, among many others. Machine learning on graphs, especially network representation learning, has shown remarkable performance in network-based applications, such as node/graph classification, graph clustering, and link prediction. Like performance, it is equally crucial for individuals to understand the behavior of machine learning models and be able to explain how these models arrive at a certain decision. Such needs have motivated many studies on interpretability in machine learning. For example, for social network analysis, we may need …

Unpacking The Implementation Of Restorative Practices: A Case Study Of Race, Equity, And Change, Theresa Helyn Holtsbery

Dissertations - ALL

This research examined two types of change enacted by implementing Restorative Practices to address racially disproportionate disciplinary practices at an urban middle school. The first was change at a systemic, organizational level and the second as a paradigm shift in the negotiation of race, equity, authority, and Restorative Practices. The research explores essential change components in the planning, enactment, and sustainability of RP implementation and details the history and rationale for selecting RP. This study also explores the perspectives and actions of school staff as they negotiate the intersections of RP, race, equity, and authority. Qualitative data was collected during …

Powers And The Metaphysics Of Fundamentality, Benjamin Cook

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation, I address the question of whether ground, the relation that obtains between entities e1...en and a further entity e when e ontologically depends on, and is metaphysically explained by, e1...en, should be understood causally and, if so, whether this has any substantive implications. I answer both in the affirmative. I argue that ground and causation are similar enough to motivate characterizing ground as a special kind of causation, and that this can be done if we adopt a powers-theoretic account of causation. Moreover, I argue that the resultant view of ground, what I call “powerful, existential causation,” …

Educational Leadership In Middle Schools: Informal Teacher Leaders, Mary Ann Luciano

Dissertations - ALL

Quality educational leadership has been shown to have a strong positive relationship with student achievement (Louis et al., 2010). Successful schools do not depend upon a single charismatic leader but on many individuals collaborating and using their collective leadership skills (Grissam et al., 2021; Jackson & Marriott, 2012; Ogawa & Bossert, 1995; Pounder et al., 1995). To attain excellent student success, a school must engage its full leadership capacity (Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2008; Klar & Brewer, 2013; Leithwood et al. 2004). This includes teachers. Teacher leadership, an elusive concept with various definitions, has received growing attention from scholars …

Finding “A Self To Speak Of”: Affective Enactments Of The Self In Black And White Victorian Women’S Elegies, Kellie-Sue Martinucci

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores the genre of sentimental elegy within Antebellum Victorian America, drawing on affect studies, American religious history, and Black critical theory in order to contextualize the particular socio-political and religious influences that shaped the medium of the sentimental elegy and its role within Victorian America. This is punctuated by a close reading of six personal elegies written by Black and white women in the years 1855-1865. By attending to the differential application of sentimental norms about human bodies and their capacities for thought and feeling, this paper identifies the personal sentimental elegy as a technology of the self …

Evaluating Evidence Of Episodic Tendencies During Semantic Fluency, Rebecca Anne Wilder

Theses - ALL

While semantic organization has been widely observed in episodic memory tasks, episodic organization has yet to be observed in the semantic fluency task, due to structural differences between test paradigms. Episodic memory effects require an opportunity for target information to first be learned and later retrieved. Semantic fluency tasks, which are designed to measure retrieval capacity for facts, are typically limited to a single test-phase format. In semantic fluency tasks, participants are presented with a semantic retrieval cues (i.e. category prompts) and asked to list as many items as they can think of that fit the classification. The repeated fluency …

Leveraging System Context To Understand Collaborative Systems In Modern Public Management, Catherine Annis

Dissertations - ALL

Complex and boundary-spanning problems like overpopulation, hunger, pandemics, homelessness, and environmental degradation occur more frequently now than ever (Bynander & Nohrstedt, 2019; Criado & Guevara-Gómez, 2021; Huang, 2020; Kapucu, 2015; Getha-Taylor, 2007; Jayasinghe et al., 2022). Policymakers increasingly address these challenges through interorganizational collaboration (Isett et al., 2011). Countries worldwide now use collaborative governance to respond to such wicked problems (Jayasinghe et al., 2022; Huang, 2020; Megawati et al., 2020). Despite growing in popularity, gaps remain in understanding collaborative governance at scale. In this dissertation, I present research on the interconnected nature of collaborative governance initiatives in the United States …

Structure And Morphology Of Photoreactive Monomer–Nanoparticle Mixtures Under Patterned Irradiation, Shreyas Pathreeker

Dissertations - ALL

Establishing processing–structure relationships is central to materials science. In this work, we seek answers to whether morphology can be controlled during Light–Induced Self–Writing (LISW) in polymer composite materials, and if yes, how? LISW is based on the ability of light to undergo divergence–free propagation in photoreactive media due to photopolymerization–induced rise in refractive index of the medium. Notably, LISW in polymeric materials has found use predominantly for the fabrication of optical waveguides but has not been explored in polymer–inorganic mixtures. Using through–mask projection which creates a spatially periodic array of optical beams, this work extends LISW to nanoparticle–monomer mixtures to …

Future Climate Rhetorics Of Belize: A Counter-Apocalyptic Inquiry Into Belize’S Possible, Probable, And Preferable Futures, André Habet

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation investigates future climate rhetorics of Belize through a variety of methods in order to mediate the various conceptions of the future professed in climate policy, experiential phenomenology, and acoustic ecologies of agroecology. Chapter one considers the values embedded in climate change policy documents, specifically the Nation Communications documents composed by Belize’s various ministries since the country signed to the Paris Agreement in 2016. Using the People’s Agreement of Cochamba as an alternative lens, the chapter explores how people-centered, as opposed to market-centered, attunements informing climate policy can potentially lead to a more just, equitable future that does not …

“Envisioning Digital Sanctuaries”: An Exploration Of Virtual Collectives For Nurturing Professional Development Of Women In Technical Domains, Subhasree Sengupta

Dissertations - ALL

Work and learning are essential facets of our existence, yet sociocultural barriers have historically limited access and opportunity for women in multiple contexts, including their professional pursuits. Such sociocultural barriers are particularly pronounced in technical domains and have relegated minoritized voices to the margins. As a result of these barriers, those affected have suffered strife, turmoil, and subjugation. Hence, it is important to investigate how women can subvert such structural limitations and find channels through which they can seek support and guidance to navigate their careers. With the proliferation of modern communication infrastructure, virtual forums of conversation such as Reddit …

Observation Of The Ξ_B^-→Λ_B^0 Π^- Decay And Measurement Of B(Ξ_B^-→Λ_B^0 Π^-), Zhuoming Li

Dissertations - ALL

We present the first observation of the weak decay Ξ−b → Λ0b π−, which is mediated by an s → u ̄ud transitionwithin the Ξ_b^- baryon. The analysis uses a pp collision data sample at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV corresponding to 5.5 fb^(−1) of integrated luminosity. The sample of Λb0 baryons used in this analysis are reconstructed through their decays to Λ+c π− and Λ+c π−π+π−. From a fit to the Ξ−b → Λ0b π− mass spectrum, the Ξ−b → Λ0b π− decay is observed with a significance of 11.3 standard deviations, thus establishing observation of this decay. …

Data-Driven Estimation Of The Power Grid Inertia With Increased Levels Of Renewable Generation Resources, Che Kai Chang

Theses - ALL

The thesis investigates methods for estimating inertia in systems at different levels of renewable energy penetrations. Estimating renewable generators' inertia is challenging because their structures differ from traditional generators. Moreover, the power generated from renewable energy resources is not stable, depending on weather conditions. When a power grid has a disturbance, photovoltaic inverter control influences a power grid inertia by different controllers, such as power factor and reactive power control, to bring a power grid back to a steady state. The changing reactive power impacts the frequency, which strongly relates to inertia and increases the inertia estimation problem.

Several papers …

Design Of Two Stage Bulk-Driven Operational Transconductance Amplifier (Ota) With A High Gain For Low Voltage Application, Pushkar N. Mishra

Theses - ALL

An Operational Transconductance Amplifier (further abbreviated as OTA) is a voltage controlled current source used to produce an output current proportional to the input voltage. A schematic architecture for a 180nm OTA is presented in this thesis with the goal of improving the open-loop gain for a 0.9V supply voltage with a rail-to-rail bulk-driven input stage. Results show an open loop gain 97.14 dB with a power consumption of 3.33uW. An OTA with over 90 dB open loop gain and lower power consumption is highly suitable for low-voltage applications. The slew rate of the OTA is 0.05V/uS with a unity-gain …

Testing Detrital Zircon Age Bias In Tectonic Provenance: Examples From Modern Alluvium In The South Island, New Zealand, Will Sparhawk Fisher

Theses - ALL

Detrital zircon (DZ) grains from 13 drainages across the South Island, New Zealand, were U-Pb dated to ascertain how accurately their ages reflect the geologic record of exposed bedrock. With the proliferation of inexpensive and easily accessible ion microprobes and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers, DZ dating has become the dominant chronometer for elucidating tectonic systematics. Zircon’s physical and chemical resilience makes it an ideal candidate for U-Pb geochronometry, but is also a potential source of bias. Zircon’s resilience in sedimentary systems means it rarely occurs as first order detritus. N = 966 zircon grains from Modern alluvium …

Heterogeneous Strain Distribution & The Effects Of High Frequency Climate Change On The Evolution Of Early-Stage Rift Systems: Case Studies From Lakes Tanganyika And Malawi (Nyasa), East Africa, Lachlan Wright

Dissertations - ALL

The break-up of the earth’s crust through the formation of continental rift basins is a fundamental aspect of plate-tectonics and the first step that ultimately leads to plate-spreading, new continent formation, and the creation of ocean basins. Within continental rifts, processes associated with extensional faulting drive uplift and subsidence of the landscapes forming rift valleys, and climatically influenced processes act upon these transient landscapes, erode them, modify relief, and produce sediments that infill the rift valleys creating the stratigraphic record. Continental rifts are highly sensitive to the interplay between extensional faulting, sedimentary processes, and climate change, and variations in the …

Algorithmic Solutions To Combat Online Fake News, Xinyi Zhou

Dissertations - ALL

The unprecedented growth of new information producing, distributing, and consuming every moment on the Web has fostered the rise of ``fake news.'' Because of its detrimental effect on democracy, global economies, and public health, effectively combating online fake news has become an essential and urgent task.

This dissertation starts with making typological, theoretical, and empirical efforts to promote the public's comprehension of fake news and lay the foundation for algorithmically combating fake news. As there has been no universal definition of fake news, this dissertation discusses the definition of fake news from three dimensions: veracity, intention, and news, comparing it …

Unpacking Athletics: An Exploration Of Identity Development For Division I Women College Athletes, Kathleen E. Scanlon

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explored how former Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women athletes made meaning of their undergraduate experience and how it influenced their post-graduate lives. The study research questions focused on three areas: a) how participants constructed meaning from their athletic experiences and what role those experiences had in shaping their identity; b) how the participants made sense of the various systems they experienced and what bearing various identities had on their meaning making; and c) what concrete knowledge, skills and qualities participants felt they possessed today that they attribute to their intercollegiate athletic experiences.

Three semi-structured interviews …

The Design, Synthesis, And Investigation Into Small Molecule Modulators Of The Src Homology 2 Domain-Containing Inositol 5’-Phosphatase (Ship), Shea Thomas Meyer

Dissertations - ALL

The PI3K pathway is a major cell signaling pathway that influences survival and longevity in eukaryotic cells. Abnormal signaling of this pathway has been implicated in a number of disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and cancer. The PI3K pathway utilizes the inositolphospholipid PI(3,4,5)P3 as a key secondary messenger in the transmission of signals from outside the cell to the nucleus. The SRC Homology 2 containing Inositol 5’-Phosphatase (SHIP) also plays a key role in the PI3K pathway, mediating hydrolysis of the inositol phospholipid PI(3,4,5)P3 to PI(3,4)P2. Early testing has shown modulation of SHIP activity through the use of small molecule modulators …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Students’ Writing Skills: An Examination Of The Agreement Between Teachers’ Judgments And Curriculum-Based Measurement In Written Expression, Emily Ann Watts

Theses - ALL

Nearly 75% of students in the United States of America are not meeting grade-level standards in the area of writing (NCES, 2012; Persky et al., 2003), despite this skill impacting students’ performances in other academic areas (Ray et al., 2016), and limiting students’ access to higher education (Addison & McGee, 2010), and opportunities for jobs in the adult workforce (National Commission on Writing, 2005). Because difficulties with early writing skills are associated with later writing skills deficits (Juel, 1988), it is crucial that educators accurately identify students in need of additional support in order to provide them with appropriate instruction. …

The Associations Between Paternal Depressive Symptoms And Children’S Behavior Outcomes Via Intimate Partner Violence And Paternal Rejection In Kenyan Families, Dickson Mukara Matsantsa Ong'ayi

Dissertations - ALL

High rates of depressive symptoms and intimate partner violence in Kenya place children at risk for behavioral difficulties well beyond the preschool years. This study examined (a) whether paternal depressive symptoms, psychological and physical intimate partner violence, and rejection were associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors above maternal risk factors, and (b) whether psychological and physical intimate partner violence and paternal/maternal rejection mediated the associations between depressive symptoms and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors differently for mothers and fathers. Propositions within the developmental psychopathology framework and interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory guided the formulation of the research questions and hypotheses. A …

Chemical Control And Understanding Of Horizontal Gene Transfers, Drug-Resistance Development, And Filament And Biofilm Formation, Yuchen Jin

Dissertations - ALL

Biofilms formed by microbes on surfaces are the sources for persistent infectious diseases and environmental problems. The mechanism and details of how antibiotics promote biofilm formation is largely unknown. For instance, it not clear what stages of biofilm growth are promoted to proceed faster than without antibiotics, what phenotypes of bacteria form in an antibiotic-promoted biofilm, and what different biofilm compositions and structures are caused by the presence of antibiotics. Among other effects, antibiotics can cause bacteria to form filaments of living bacteria. Here, we conduct a real-time study of the adherence of bacteria and antibiotic-induced filamentous bacteria on surfaces …

Vitamin D3 Status And The Cardiovascular Response To Head Down Flexion In Healthy Adults, Justin Pascual

Theses - ALL

Objectives: The primary aim of this study was to elucidate relationships linking vitamin Dconsumption and the vestibulo-sympathetic reflex (VSR) by exploring the associations between self-reported vitamin D consumption and the cardiovascular responses to head-down flexion (HDF), a maneuver known to activate the vestibulo-sympathetic response. Background: During orthostasis, the body attempts to maintain cerebral blood flow, thereby avoiding syncope. Orthostatic intolerance, the inability to withstand postural changes, occurs when cardiac output is not maintained during orthostasis and is highlighted by symptoms including lightheadedness, impaired cognition, loss of balance, low blood pressure, and syncope. The cardiovascular and vestibular systems work in tandem …

High Fidelity Universal Gates Performed On A Continuously-Decoupled Coherence Enhanced Transmon Qubit, Michael Senatore

Dissertations - ALL

Decoherence is the primary limiting factor for the utility of modern qubits and qubit networks; most chiefly, pure dephasing which limits the operational time any gate-sequence can produce a high-fidelity result. In this dissertation, I present the results of my experiment, performing fast, high fidelity, universal single-qubit gates, on a qubit which has been decoupled from pure dephasing resulting from environmental noise. This technique can expand operational ranges of qubits–such as allowing the high-coherence operation of a flux-tunable qubit far away from its flux-insensitive sweet-spot; broadening our selection of viable qubits by making otherwise low-coherence qubits operable with high coherence, …

Does Working Memory Predict Preference To Use Inherent Explanations In Scientific Observations? A Bayesian Item Response Theory Approach, Sepideh Namvarrad

Theses - ALL

Understanding the cognitive processes that help people generate explanations is one of the fundamental questions in cognitive science and philosophy. In this study, we try to examine the extent to which working memory capacity can predict peoples’ preference for scientific explanations under uncertainty. Specifically, we distinguish between possible explanations in terms of their focus on inherent vs. extrinsic entities associated with an observation. According to past findings, inherent vs. extrinsic properties of a phenomenon are different in terms of the ease of accessibility for cognitive processes. The results of this research indicate a significant association between people’s tendencies to choose …

Crisis Communication In The Public Sector: Influences On Stakeholders’ Experience Of Psychological Effects As U.S.-Russia Tensions Rise, Elisabeth Shirk

Theses - ALL

As war in Ukraine rages on and the U.S.-Russia relationship becomes increasingly hostile, the need to better understand public sector communication in times of international crisis is once again rising. For years, the public and private sectors have been treated largely the same in crisis communication research and practice. In the context of international crisis, specifically rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia, this study looks at where these differences lie and what that might mean for future research and practice.

In contribution to this broader topic, this study looks at the influence of domestic stakeholders’ perceptions of the Biden …

Living In The Fast Lane: The Role Of Temporal Processing In Adhd Risk-Taking Behaviors, Ashley Schiros

Theses - ALL

Background: Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder, prevalent in the college student population, that is associated with temporal processing deficits and functional impairments, namely engagement in risky behaviors (ERB; e.g., binge drinking). An existing theoretical framework purposes that aberrant temporal processing and subjective experience of time passing slowly, experienced in individuals with a fast internal clock (e.g., individuals with ADHD), increases the likelihood of ERB. The primary aim of this project is to improve our understanding of the relationship between objective temporal processing deficits and the subjective experience of time passage among people with elevated ADHD symptoms. Method: …

Exploring The Biomedical Applications Of Polyurethane-Based Foams, Films, And Hydrogels, Anand Utpal Vakil

Dissertations - ALL

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are a class of smart materials that can be temporarily stored in a deformed shape and can actively recover their original shape upon exposure to an external stimulus, such as heat, magnetic field, moisture, pH, light, or electric field. The ability of SMPs to change shape when required can be used for a wide range of applications, especially in the case of minimally invasive biomedical applications. In this work, polyurethane-based SMPs were explored for their use in tissue engineering, drug delivery, and wound healing applications.

In the second chapter, low density porous foams with tunable degradability …

Examining Student Adherence Within A Cover-Copy-Compare Intervention, Kaytlin Ann Nelson

Theses - ALL

The Cover-Copy-Compare intervention is a self-management strategy developed to improve students’ academic performance, particularly in the area of spelling. In academic intervention research, it is often assumed that students are completing an intervention as intended, yet this is seldom examined during intervention implementation or subsequent data analysis. The aim of this study was to retrospectively examine students’ Cover-Copy-Compare permanent products to assess their ability to adhere to the intervention and to examine whether intervention adherence influences intervention effectiveness. Data for the present study were selected from two larger randomized control trials that examined the efficacy of the Cover-Copy-Compare intervention on …

Design And Modeling Of Superconducting Hardware For Implementing Quantum Stabilizers, Yebin Liu

Dissertations - ALL

Superconducting qubits are one of the leading systems for implementing quantum processors. Realizing fault-tolerant quantum computation requires some form of quantum error correction, which typically involves performing repeated stabilizer operations on groups of physical qubits in an array to form a logical qubit with enhanced protection against errors. Realizing a logical qubit that is suitable for running quantum algorithms requires an array with a significant number of physical qubits, which is extremely challenging. However, the physical qubit overhead can be reduced by lowering the error rate on the physical qubits. Current state-of-the-art superconducting qubit designs do not have robust protection …