Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 181 - 206 of 206

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Disability In An American Indian Community : Prevalence, Distribution, And The Role Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls, Thoin F. Begum Jan 2022

Disability In An American Indian Community : Prevalence, Distribution, And The Role Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls, Thoin F. Begum

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Phthalates have been implicated as reproductive toxicants in animal models and in human populations. This study examined associations between potential exposure sources and urinary phthalate concentrations among couples undergoing infertility treatment. Women (n=56) and their male partners (n=43) undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) were enrolled in a prospective cohort investigation of environmental chemicals and IVF outcomes at an academic medical center. On the day of oocyte retrieval, participants provided urine samples and completed questionnaires detailing use of personal care products (PCPs), and consumption of medications, foods, and beverages in the preceding 24-hours. Urine was analyzed for MEP, MBP, MPP, MHxP, …


X Ray Phase And Coherent Scatter Imaging Measurements, Mahboob Ur Rehman Jan 2022

X Ray Phase And Coherent Scatter Imaging Measurements, Mahboob Ur Rehman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In conventional radiography, anatomical information of the patients can be obtained, distinguishing different tissue types, e.g. bone and soft tissue. However, it is difficult to obtain appreciable contrast between two different types of soft tissues. Instead, coherent x-ray scattering can be utilized to obtain images which can differentiate between normal and cancerous cells of breast. An x-ray system using a conventional source and simple slot apertures was tested. Materials with scatter signatures that mimic breast cancer were buried in layers of fat of increasing thickness and imaged. The result showed that the contrast and signal to noise ratio (SNR) remained …


Examining The Potential Of Epigenetic Age To Mediate The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Locus Of Control Using The Alspac Cohort, Christopher Reddy Jan 2022

Examining The Potential Of Epigenetic Age To Mediate The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences And Locus Of Control Using The Alspac Cohort, Christopher Reddy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are negative events and environments (e.g., poverty) that occur during childhood and are known to undermine health and wellbeing. Adverse childhood experiences are related to cognitive outcomes in populations of children. A specific area of cognition associated with ACEs is locus of control (LoC). While the association between ACEs and LoC is clear, what is not well understood is how—that is, through what mechanism—ACEs influence LoC. The purpose of this research was to evaluate epigenetic age as a potential mechanism connecting ACEs with LoC. To address this hypothesis, a mediation model was evaluated using the Accessible …


Fluorescent Biosensors : Engineering And Applications, Monica Rodriguez Jan 2022

Fluorescent Biosensors : Engineering And Applications, Monica Rodriguez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Neurons in the brain communicate via electrical and chemical synapses, whereneurotransmitters are released. Traditional methods to detect synaptic transmission rely on single-cell patch-clamp recordings from target neurons, but these can only provide an indirect readout of the lifetime of neurotransmitters in the extracellular space. More recently, this task has been aided by developing fluorescent biosensors with high sensitivity and large dynamic ranges. Fluorescent biosensors are typically composed of a neurotransmitter binding protein tagged with fluorescent reporter molecules. Fluorescence biosensors come in different forms, including FRET-based biosensors. These can be built using different intracellular signaling molecules and neurotransmitter binding domains. Here, …


Black-White Interracial Contact And Anti-Racist Activism : What Promotes Action In White Americans?, Katheryn Lucille Roberson Jan 2022

Black-White Interracial Contact And Anti-Racist Activism : What Promotes Action In White Americans?, Katheryn Lucille Roberson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Racism is a pervasive form of harm which has been found to contribute to negative outcomes for both individuals and society. Toward a more just society, anti-racist activism can create safer environments, reduce structural inequities, and improve interpersonal relations. To address prejudice, many studies have examined how interracial contact reduces prejudice in White Americans; however, less research has focused on the application of these factors on White American antiracist activist behaviors. This study sought to provide further support for Intergroup Contact Theory and the influence of established mediators of empathy and intergroup anxiety on activist behaviors. Data from 384 White …


The Spirit Of Cancun : Basic Needs And Development During The Cold War, Christian Ruth Jan 2022

The Spirit Of Cancun : Basic Needs And Development During The Cold War, Christian Ruth

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This project examines how international development changed during the second half of the Cold War, using development to highlight transformations in global discourse on needs, rights, and socioeconomic equity. After the late 1960s, nations in the global North, most notably the United States, struggled to reconcile the failure of the modernization schemes they had funded throughout the global South. In response, experts and activists around the world worked together in the 1970s to create a diverse array of alternative theories meant to uplift socioeconomically disadvantaged nations which centered on the concept of basic human needs. Yet the idea of basic …


Literacy And Covid-19 : Elementary Students' Reading Performance Through A Global Pandemic, Emmett Mcgregor Schweiger Jan 2022

Literacy And Covid-19 : Elementary Students' Reading Performance Through A Global Pandemic, Emmett Mcgregor Schweiger

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The critical area of literacy instruction has long relied on the use of measurement tools and the resulting data to identify at-risk readers and deliver needed supports. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption to education, measurement practices were altered and there was limited existing research available to predict the potential impact of the pandemic on literacy development. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the reading performance of students in a Southern Tier New York elementary school before and during the pandemic, utilizing existing data from fall 2019 to spring 2021. Additionally, this study sought to evaluate the …


Effects Of Metal And Polychlorinated Biphenyls Exposures And Fish Consumption On Cognitive Function In Adults, Nozomi Sasaki Jan 2022

Effects Of Metal And Polychlorinated Biphenyls Exposures And Fish Consumption On Cognitive Function In Adults, Nozomi Sasaki

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Cognitive decline often occurs with aging, independent of development of neurodegenerative diseases. Little is known about how to prevent cognitive decline or what cofactors, hereditary or environmental, may accelerate or protect against it. In young people, metals, including lead, cadmium, arsenic, methylmercury, and some organic compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), are known to decrease cognitive function. Consumption of fish is a route of exposure to methylmercury and PCBs, but fish also contain omega-3 fatty acids that are reported to enhance infant neurodevelopment and postnatal cognitive performance. Yet, a recent systematic review concluded that there was inconclusive evidence the omega-3 …


The Differential Influence Of Maltreatment Subtype And Age Of Exposure On Empathy, Kate L. Senich Jan 2022

The Differential Influence Of Maltreatment Subtype And Age Of Exposure On Empathy, Kate L. Senich

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The capacity for empathy may be shaped by interpersonal interactions throughout development. Research shows that detrimental interactions, such as maltreatment, lead to aberrant levels of empathy. However, different subtypes of abuse and neglect as well as age of exposure complicate the relationship between maltreatment and empathy. The current study aims to elucidate the contributions of maltreatment subtypes and age of exposure in predicting state and trait empathy. Participants (N=94, M age=19.12 years, 45.7% male) self-reported their age of exposure to eight subscales of maltreatment from caregivers. Next, participants self-reported their trait empathy and completed a vignette measure aimed to assess …


Uio-Type Metal-Organic Framework Derivatives As Sorbents For The Detection Of Gas-Phase Explosives, Matthew Ryan Sherrill Jan 2022

Uio-Type Metal-Organic Framework Derivatives As Sorbents For The Detection Of Gas-Phase Explosives, Matthew Ryan Sherrill

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The detection of energetic compounds – better known to the public as explosives – has is an important cornerstone of counterterrorism and homeland security . While significant advances have been achieved for the detection of trace explosives in various matrices such as soil, wastewater, and clothing, the detection of explosives in the gas phase remains challenging due to their infamously low vapor pressures. In this thesis, we leverage the high sensitivity of direct analysis in real-time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) and the microporosity of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to adsorb and therefore concentrate explosives from the vapor phase and subsequently detect them …


Cheating Detection In A Privacy Preserving Driving Style Recognition Protocol, Ethan Sprissler Jan 2022

Cheating Detection In A Privacy Preserving Driving Style Recognition Protocol, Ethan Sprissler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The growth of cloud-based services collecting user data for online analytical processing (OLAP), machine learning, and applications relating to the Internet of Things (IoT) has also increased concern with data privacy. Privacy-preserving data sharing using Secure Multiparty Communication (SMC) enables the exchange of encrypted data between parties to perform calculations while maintaining data privacy for both parties simultaneously. This research builds on established work that proposed a privacy-preserving driving style recognition protocol designed to work well with semi-honest actors. In this protocol, both parties follow the established algorithms and do not overtly attempt to deceive the other party into revealing …


Constructing And Constraining Mobility At The New University, Rachel Sullivan Jan 2022

Constructing And Constraining Mobility At The New University, Rachel Sullivan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The goal of this dissertation is to uncover the black box that currently envelops the student experience at New & Mobility-Granting Universities, which are defined by their ability to enroll and graduate students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds at a higher-than-average rate. More specifically, I use data from 65 student interviews at State U, which is a mid-sized public university, in order to show how opportunity is granted to some students through their common points of interaction with the institution—in the classroom, with advisors, within high-impact programs, and in the workplace. At the same time, I show that …


Photopolymers : Environmentally Benign Technology For A Variety Of Industries, Tatyana Tarasevich Jan 2022

Photopolymers : Environmentally Benign Technology For A Variety Of Industries, Tatyana Tarasevich

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Photopolymerization is a well-known process with applications in a variety of industries. Photopolymers are formed by a reaction of monomers or oligomers, photoinitiators and in some cases crosslinkers. Upon irradiation with UV or visible light, monomers undergo conformational change to form polymers via a photochemical process. Several photopolymerization types will be discussed in this thesis. End products of photopolymerizations included epoxies, inks, coatings, photoresists, etc.


An Evaluation Of Demographic And Clinical Characteristics Of Youths Enrolled In Two Residential Treatment Programs, Monelle Shemique Thomas Jan 2022

An Evaluation Of Demographic And Clinical Characteristics Of Youths Enrolled In Two Residential Treatment Programs, Monelle Shemique Thomas

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

AbstractModern-day residential treatment programs (RTPs) for children and adolescents have been present for over 70 years. These 24-hour treatment programs serve as a more restrictive placement for youths with severe social-emotional and behavioral difficulties that have exhausted the supports provided in the home, school, and community settings. In New York State, there exist two different types of RTPs for children and adolescents, residential treatment facilities (RTFs) and residential treatment centers (RTCs). There is limited research comparing these residential programs and the impact of differential funding on residents’ treatment program entry and outcomes. The current evaluation attempted to explore the similarities …


The Urban Heat Island Of Bengaluru, India : Characteristics, Trends, And Mechanisms, Heather Samantha Sussman Jan 2022

The Urban Heat Island Of Bengaluru, India : Characteristics, Trends, And Mechanisms, Heather Samantha Sussman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The urban heat island (UHI) effect refers to how urban surfaces tend to be warmer than nearby non-urban areas due to less vegetation and other processes. UHIs can increase the risk of heat and respiratory illnesses. Since every city is unique, UHIs should be studied on a local-scale. One particular city that has not had its UHI comprehensively evaluated is Bengaluru, India. Bengaluru was once known as the “Garden City” of India due to a wide presence of gardens and public parks, but is now known as the “Silicon City” of India due to the overwhelming presence of the information …


The Racial And Partisan Underpinnings Of Attitudes Toward Police In A Time Of Protest, Andrew Thompson Jan 2022

The Racial And Partisan Underpinnings Of Attitudes Toward Police In A Time Of Protest, Andrew Thompson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Racial and ethnic differences in policing attitudes have generally been examined through the group position or other conflict perspectives. This perspective contains a limitation, especially when considering recent trends in racial and policing attitudes. Racial attitudes have been liberalizing for over a decade among White political liberals and moderates, while Republicans’ racial attitudes have been relatively stagnant. These divergent trends may have accelerated since the murder of George Floyd. While racial attitudes (including attitudes about the police) have been polarizing along political lines, the group position model suggests that racial attitudes and policy preferences among dominant group members, regardless of …


System Measurements For X-Ray Phase And Diffraction Imaging, Erik Wolfgang Tripi Jan 2022

System Measurements For X-Ray Phase And Diffraction Imaging, Erik Wolfgang Tripi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In medical imaging, X rays are used to look inside the body to find fractures in bones, abnormal masses, cavities in teeth, and so on. What makes X rays so good at looking at these types of structures is the X ray’s penetration power. When imaging soft tissue to search for tumors, X-ray images tend to have difficulty performing well. The reason for this is that the background structures, such as fat or fibro glandular tissue have similar absorption coefficients as the tumor. Mammography tends to have a high false positive rate and can miss tumors entirely as well. There …


Genomic Epidemiology Of Clinical Salmonella Enterica In New Hampshire, 2017-2020, Madison R. Turcotte Jan 2022

Genomic Epidemiology Of Clinical Salmonella Enterica In New Hampshire, 2017-2020, Madison R. Turcotte

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Antimicrobial resistance in Salmonella enterica remains a challenging public health threat. We aim to characterize the population structure and evolutionary history of 394 genomes of S. enterica isolates recovered from human clinical cases in New Hampshire, USA from 2017 to 2020. The population is phylogenetically diverse, consisting of 78 STs and 67 serotypes. We detected 61 genes associated with resistance to14 different antimicrobial classes. Rather than a single multidrug resistant clone expanding in the state, we found multiple lineages carrying different combinations of independently acquired resistance determinants. New or emerging lineages can therefore rapidly spread over relatively short timeframes. In …


A Mixed Methods Exploration Of Fairness Issues In Algorithmic Policing Systems, Emmanuel Sebastian Udoh Jan 2022

A Mixed Methods Exploration Of Fairness Issues In Algorithmic Policing Systems, Emmanuel Sebastian Udoh

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Algorithmic governance (AG) systems aim to utilize machine learning (ML) in the form of mathematical modelling and predictive analytics to achieve greater efficiency and accuracy, effect equal treatment and eliminate bias. In its application to policing, algorithmic policing (AP) or predictive policing applies tree-based risk training algorithms on criminal complaint data to predict where and when the next crime is likely to occur, and who the likeliest perpetrators and victims are. Thus, AP preemptively determines where, how, and when to deploy police resources. However, as more and more cities adopt AP, there are fears that AP may be reinforcing age-long …


Dynamic Instance-Wise Decision-Making For Machine Learning, Yasitha Warahena Liyanage Jan 2022

Dynamic Instance-Wise Decision-Making For Machine Learning, Yasitha Warahena Liyanage

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In a typical supervised machine learning setting, the predictions on all test instances are based on a common subset of features discovered during model training. However, using a different subset of features that are most informative for each test instance individually may improve not only the quality of prediction but also the overall interpretability of the model. To this end, in this dissertation, we study the problem of optimizing the trade-off between instance-level sparsity and the quality of prediction using a dynamic instance-wise decision-making approach. Specifically, this approach sequentially reviews features one at a time for each data instance given …


Ab42 Alters Glutamatergic Transmission In The Ca1 Region Of The Mouse Hippocampus, Patrick Harry Wehrle Jan 2022

Ab42 Alters Glutamatergic Transmission In The Ca1 Region Of The Mouse Hippocampus, Patrick Harry Wehrle

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting 4.5 million people in the US, a number expected to increase 3-fold over the next 30 years. One of the hallmarks of AD is the extracellular accumulation of the protein Aß₄₂ throughout in the brain, particularly in limbic structures like the temporal cortex and hippocampus, key regions for learning and memory. Currently available animal models for AD aim to reproduce key genetic traits of the familial variant of the disease, but >90% of AD patients are affected by idiopathic AD. To overcome this potential limitation, we use a different approach to study …


Women's Work History And Mental Well-Being : Evidence From The Indonesian Family Life Survey, Nurul Widyaningrum Jan 2022

Women's Work History And Mental Well-Being : Evidence From The Indonesian Family Life Survey, Nurul Widyaningrum

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Most research on women and work in developing countries has focused on factors and contexts that shape women’s employment choices and options, gender segregation in the labor market, and the meaning of work for women. Studies on the outcomes or consequences of work are less common and tend to focus on income as the primary outcome of interest. Using a combined capability and feminist framework, this study identified Indonesian women’s work patterns and their relationship to women’s mental health. The capability approach was used to choose work outcomes that are not merely income-based, while the feminist perspective was used to …


New York City Micronet : Comprehensive Site Metadata And Classifications And Characteristics Of The Urban Heat Island, Ashley Williamson Jan 2022

New York City Micronet : Comprehensive Site Metadata And Classifications And Characteristics Of The Urban Heat Island, Ashley Williamson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The New York City Micronet (NYC Micronet), comprised of 17 stations, was installed in the Fall of 2020 for the purpose of long-term monitoring of climate change, and to provide support to utility operations for Consolidated Edison, Inc. (Con Edison). There are five additional standard NYS Mesonet stations located in NYC installed in late 2017. Co-located at the standard stations are three flux, and three profiler stations from sub-networks within the NYS Mesonet. With 22 different locations collecting 5-minute averaged data, this network becomes the highest spatial and temporal resolution urban meteorological network (UMN) of this quality in NYC. This …


Examining The Relationship Between Admission Requirements And Program Outcome Variables In A Special Education Teacher Preparation Program, Emily Woofenden Jan 2022

Examining The Relationship Between Admission Requirements And Program Outcome Variables In A Special Education Teacher Preparation Program, Emily Woofenden

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The need for well-prepared special education teachers makes it important to examine how to best select candidates for special education teacher preparation programs, or at least to determine which, if any, admission variables relate to program outcome measures. This study is a replication and extension of a 2012 study—it used archival data from 64 students to investigate the relationships among multiple pre-admission variables from teacher candidate applications and on-site admission tasks (undergraduate GPA, letter of reference ratings, interview ratings, math assessment scores, and a teaching skills task) and outcome variables (graduate GPA and preservice practicum teaching performance scores). The outcome …


Sampling Distribution Of Non-Overlap Indices Using Bootstrapping Procedure : A Monte Carlo Simulation Study And Empirical Demonstration, Xinyun Xu Jan 2022

Sampling Distribution Of Non-Overlap Indices Using Bootstrapping Procedure : A Monte Carlo Simulation Study And Empirical Demonstration, Xinyun Xu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Statistics can be either parametric or non-parametric, depending on whether distributional assumptions about the data and sampling distributions are required. Parametric and non-parametric approaches each include a variety of inferential methods. These methods can be seen in the field of single-case experimental design (SCED). By reviewing one of the most used groups of statistics for SCED research (Jamshidi et al., 2022; Maggin et al., 2011), the non-overlap indices, one major issue arose. It is challenging to make inferences and interpretations about non-overlap indices. The main reason for this issue is that non-overlap indices have inconsistent and unknown sampling distributions (under …


"We Are The Stories" : Narrative Competence And Cognitive Mapping As A Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy In The Education Of Emergent Bilinguals, Sepideh Yasrebi Jan 2022

"We Are The Stories" : Narrative Competence And Cognitive Mapping As A Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy In The Education Of Emergent Bilinguals, Sepideh Yasrebi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Much has been said about the drawbacks of “teaching to the test” in K-12 public education in the U.S. When it comes to English as a New Language (ENL), however, few studies have explored the ways in which ENL literacy and education is framed and conceptualized in the New York State Next Generation Learning Standards (NGLS), which, in turn, decisively shape ENL curriculum and instruction at schools. Considering the issues of deficits perspectives, context and pragmatics in Second Language Acquisition, mechanical approaches to writing, and narrative and agency, this study intends to reframe narrative writing around students’ lived experiences. In …