Digital Commons Network^™

The Issue Of Women In Science: Exploring The Gender Gap In Egypt's Scientific Research Productivity., Yomna Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Research productivity and impact are highly valued in the scientific field. It is regarded as a significant determinant of career advancement, financial support, academic recognition, and prominent personal position. Unfortunately, this is an area that has demonstrated a long history of gender disparity. This quantitative study aims to validate and identify gender gaps concerning women’s research productivity to help assess effectiveness of interventions and policies aiming to improve female participation and representation in scientific research. Although, gender gap in scientific publications is a global phenomenon, but this should not mask potential variations at both the national and regional levels. Hence …

Evaluating The Use Of The L1 In A French Language Classroom, Joyce Esther Hiaumiti Guidi

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have explored how different balances of first language (L1) and target language (TL) use in a foreign language classroom impact students' fluency and proficiency in TL acquisition. Research has shown that the use of the L1 in a foreign language classroom is done in order to determine the most effective way to raise the proficiency of second language learners to the level that is expected within their classrooms (Lee & Muncie, 2006). The use of the L1 is not something that is uncommon, even in the highest levels of foreign language instruction, although some believe it could inhibit learner …

The “Muddle” Of Landscape And Machinery In E.M. Forster’S Howard’S End And A Passage To India: An Ecocritical Reading, Ryan Ignatius Vera

Theses and Dissertations

This is an ecocritical reading of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and Howard's End. I argue that Forster is concerned with imperial power structures that damaged the environment, as well as the looming aftereffects of the Industrial Revolution on both landscape and the people that reside in it.

The Act Of Seeing And Being Seen: Visual Explorations Of Queerness And Memory In Alison Bechdel’S Fun Home, Vanessa Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

In the autobiographical illustrated novel Fun Home, Alison Bechdel uses various art styles and comic techniques to examine her father’s life as a closeted gay man and his tragic suicide, as well as her own childhood and experience with homosexuality. This thesis explores how Bechdel uses the medium of the graphic novel to showcase different visual perspectives and ways of bearing witness to the past, memory, trauma, and interpersonal relationships, showing how they converge to create the story of how one generation’s model of queer identity can impact and shape the next. Bechdel presents multiple points-of-view in her exploration …

Plastic, Pollution, Art, And The Caribbean, Celine Collazo

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of a growing ocean pollution problem can be seen on the trash-filled shores of Caribbean beaches. Through a contextualization of the work of three artists, Tony Capellán, Radamés ‘Juni’ Figueroa, and Alejandro Durán, this paper discusses the cause and effects of such detritus, and possibilities for change.

‘Stuck’ In The Waiting Room: African And Haitian Migrants Between Liminality And Mobility In A Mexican Border Town, Julia Hause

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the border town of Tijuana, Mexico as a site of fragmentation and rupture along the migration journeys of African and Haitian migrants transiting the South American-Central American corridor towards North American destinations. Extra-continental migration of migrants from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to Latin America has been an emerging migration trend as global migration governance becomes increasingly restrictive and externalized. U.S. immigration and asylum policies implemented at the southern border have made migrating and making claims to international protection difficult for those migrants who arrive at the border. These policies, coupled with the indefinite U.S. land border …

Identifying Micrornas Panel Associated With Hepatocellular Carcinoma In Serum Of Chronic Hepatitis C Patients, Areeg Dabbish

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) will reduce morbidity and mortality rates of this poorly diagnosed widely-spread disease. Dysregulation in microRNA (miRNAs) expression is associated with HCC progression. Objective: Is to identify a panel of differentially expressed miRNAs (DE-miRNAs) to enhance HCC early prediction in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients. Methodology: Candidate miRNAs were selected using bioinformatic analysis of microarray and RNA-sequencing datasets, resulting in nine DE- miRNAs (miR-142, miR-150, miR-183, miR-199a, miR-215, miR-217, miR-224, miR-424 and miR-3607). Their expressions were validated in the serum of 44 healthy individuals, 62 non-cirrhotic HCV patients, 67 cirrhotic-HCV and 72 HCV-associated …

Finding Neverland? Artificial Intelligence And The Jurisprudence Of Legal Certainty, Omar Zaky

Theses and Dissertations

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) models that are capable of predicting the decisions of prominent courts – most notably the European Court of Human Rights and United States Supreme Court – provides us with an opportunity to revisit important jurisprudential debates regarding the quest for legal certainty. Through providing clear distinctions within formalistic jurisprudence, and its, subsequent, realist critique; this thesis seeks to analyze legal decision-making and its relationship with artificial intelligence. I argue that, AI’s deterministic nature and its support for the law being an “entirely self-contained process” does lend some credence to certain jurisprudential arguments. However, this …

The Influence Of Comorbid Gad On Er Utilization In Urban Youth With Asthma, David A. Karpe

Theses and Dissertations

Current literature indicates a strong association between asthma and the early onset of comorbid generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in minors and their primary caregivers. Studies show that asthma prevalence increases with certain demographic factors, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and housing quality. Evidence also suggests that GAD influences decision-making, especially when deciding to utilize emergency room (ER) services for asthma-related concerns. This study analyzed the effect of comorbid GAD on minors with asthma and ER utilization. The data were provided by an earlier Stress & Justice Study (S&J) baseline survey, an investigation aimed at understanding the impact of parental criminal …

Identifying And Evaluating Common Subgenres In Asymmetric Virtual Reality Games, Miah Dawes

Theses and Dissertations

Recent years have seen a significant growth in what designers and players call asymmetric virtual reality (AVR) games. This dissertation creates a framework that defines the relevant characteristics of AVR as a genre and describes five common genres of AVR games, including David(s) and Goliath, Hide and Seek, Perspective Puzzle, Order Simulation, and Lifeline. The core features of each subgenre are expounded. These subgenres are then evaluated using design workshops to observe novice game designs use these subgenres in their game design process. An analysis of the workshops found that the AVR subgenre framework may benefit novice game designers in …

Not Again, Victor M. Perez Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Victor Perez explores personal narratives involving artifice, domesticity, and patriarchal harms through paintings which use a hybrid of digital and hand applied painting.

A Dumb Mouth From Which The Teeth Have Been Pulled, Anna Sofie Jespersen

Theses and Dissertations

This paper consists of a series of scenes in which various narratives with proximity to the truth plays out. within it I aim to articulate the dispersed subjectivity and forensic aspects to my work, as well looking at the perverseness in the desire for proximity to the fantasy, utilizing the self as a vehicle of desire.

The Formation Of The Diminutive In Brazilian Portuguese, Cristina M. Newell

Theses and Dissertations

Although the Portuguese diminutive has been analyzed for centuries, there is a lack of descriptive experimental data regarding how native speakers form the diminutive including participants from each state in Brazil. For this study, 1,053 native speakers from each of the 26 states and the federal district of Brazil filled out an online survey, providing information about their age, gender, birth state, and current state of residence in Brazil. Participants selected the form(s) of the diminutive which they would use for 60 test words. Results indicate that the most influential factors in the formation of the diminutive are the age …

Figures Of Virtue: Margaret Fell And Aemilia Lanyer's Use Of Decorum As Ethical Good Judgment In The Construction Of Female Discursive Authority, Kirsten Marie Osmani

Theses and Dissertations

Understanding how the Renaissance rhetorical curriculum taught style as behavior makes it possible to unite the study of women writers' identities with formal criticism. Nancy L. Christiansen shows that early modern humanists built on the Isocratean tradition of teaching rhetoric as an ethical practice because they adopted and developed lists of rhetorical figures so extensive as to encompass all human discourse, thought, and behavior. For them, knowing, selecting, and applying these various forms was the ethical practice of good judgment, also called decorum. This type of decorum plays an important role in the rhetorical function of two key texts by …

Race, Dis/Ability, And The Potential Of The Co-Taught Classroom: Exploring Co-Teachers' Interruptions Of Inequity, Mallory A. Locke

Theses and Dissertations

Although the co-taught classroom is the fastest-growing inclusion model in U.S. public schools, an increasingly-diverse student population coupled with the continued overrepresentation of students of color in special education threatens to undermine its potential as an inclusive space that ensures success for all students. This multiphase, critical qualitative study explored how three pairs of co-teachers navigated race and dis/ability within co-taught classroom spaces serving students with multiple, intersecting identities. Informed by Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), Critical Race Spatial Analysis, and the DisCrit Classroom Ecology framework, this study sought to examine how co-teachers’ own educational histories and beliefs about race …

Examining The Need For Parental Satisfaction With The Msu Extension Equine Assisted Therapy Program, Ashlyn Ann Kiker

Theses and Dissertations

Animal assisted interventions are becoming more prevalent in our society. Animal interventions have become a popular therapy technique that exist to aid a variety of disabilities. Equine therapeutic riding has become one of the most popular forms of animal assisted therapy for both children and adults. While research shows the importance and benefits of animal assisted therapy for children, there is a lack of research concerning parental satisfaction within therapeutic riding programs.

This study tested a newly developed instrument for measuring parental satisfaction for therapeutic riding programs. The Parent/Caregiver Evaluation Tool (Kerr, 2021) was administered to parents/caregivers whose children participated …

Sport Venue Quality: Measurement, And Its Impact On Spectator’S Sustained Consumption Intentions, Dae Eun Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of the current study was to reconstruct the sport venue quality dimensionsas an autonomous quality with a utilitarian perspective and examine the impact on spectators’ perceived risk, price perception, and sustained consumption intentions. Venues for National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) games that mostly represent indoor and outdoor sporting facilities were chosen, and subjects were spectators who have experience of attending professional team sport events in sport venues. The study employed an online survey for data collection, and a total of 595 samples were utilized for data analyses. The data set was randomly split into …

Phylogeny And Visual System Evolution In Sap Beetles (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea: Nitidulidae), Gareth S. Powell

Theses and Dissertations

Coleoptera is currently the most diverse lineage of life on Earth with more than 400,000 described species. The group also contains unbelievable ecological and morphological variation that has been evolving since the early Carboniferous (>350 MYA). The group provides the perfect playground to test evolutionary hypotheses with large-scale phylogenies. First, a newly developed bioinformatics tool is presented that allows for the critical assessment of the stability of phylogenetic nodes with even minor changes in taxon sampling (i.e. a single taxon jackknifed). The tool, TANOS, is capable of performing tests on large genomics-scale datasets. The case study included is a …

Identity Formation Of Black Surinamese Dutch Women, Ashley Melcherts

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explores the self-identification of young Black Surinamese Dutch women in the racialized context of Dutch society, how family and school contribute to identity formation, and how identity shapes the everyday lives of young women of color in predominantly white institutions in the Netherlands. Eight online in-depth interviews were conducted with Black Surinamese Dutch college women in the Netherlands about how they understand their identities, how they perceive the process of learning about their identities, and how their identities shape their everyday experiences in Dutch society. Findings illustrate the influence of family in shaping ideas about identity, the …

Examining Negative Thinking Styles And Thought Control Strategies Within Borderline Personality Disorder, Courtney K. Mason

Theses and Dissertations

Components of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) include emotion and cognitive dysregulation. The Emotional Cascade Model (Selby & Joiner, 2009; Selby et al., 2009) suggests negative affect and the cognitive process of rumination could be interchangeably increasing over time, leading to maladaptive behaviors. The current study evaluated negative thinking styles (i.e., anger rumination, sadness rumination, worry, catastrophizing) and thought control strategies (i.e., brooding, reflection, thought suppression) in relation to BPD traits using path analyses in a college student sample (N = 204). Results indicated anger rumination, sadness rumination, and worry indirectly predicted BPD traits through thought suppression, brooding, and reflection. However, …

Virtual Reality And Postural Control: The Virtual Moving Room Paradigm, Hannah R. Freeman

Theses and Dissertations

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming increasingly important in balance training. However, the influence of VR generated visual perturbation, through the novel virtual moving room paradigm, is unknown. Thirty healthy individuals had their static balance assessed on a BTrackS balance plate under eight different conditions: baseline eyes open and eyes closed with and without VR, unexpected toward and away moving VR perturbation, and expected toward and away moving VR perturbation. Multiple statistical analyses were conducted, and the results revealed significantly higher postural sway variables in the unexpected moving toward trials compared to the other moving room conditions; significantly higher postural sway …

A Review Of Calcineurin Biophysics With Implications For Cardiac Physiology, Ryan B. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Calmodulin is a prevalent calcium sensing protein found in all cells. Three genes exist for calmodulin and all three of these genes encode for the exact same protein sequence. Recently mutations in the amino acid sequence of calmodulin have been identified in living human patients. Thus far, patients harboring these mutations in the calmodulin sequence have only displayed an altered cardiac related phenotype. Calcineurin is involved in many key physiological processes and its activity is regulated by calcium and calmodulin. In order to assess whether or not calcineurin contributes to calmodulinopathy (a pathological state arising from dysfunctional calmodulin), a comprehensive …

For Civilization And Citizenship: Emancipation, Empire, And The Creation Of The Black Citizen-Soldier Tradition, Henry Ian Davis

Theses and Dissertations

For civilization and citizenship: emancipation, empire, and the creation of the black citizen-soldier tradition examines the origins and evolution of black military service and its relation to how black and white Americans understood citizenship from the Civil War Era to the First World War. This dissertation analyzes how different generations of black soldiers pursued full, civic citizenship through their military service and formed their own vision of citizenship rooted in military service and how the War Department sought to deal with the tensions created by a biracial Army. While it asserts that a separate, black citizen-soldier tradition linking service and …

Molecular, Somatic, And Performance Characteristics Of Broilers Exhibiting Woody Breast Myopathy, And The Effects Of Dietary And Challenge Intervention Strategies, Linan Jia

Theses and Dissertations

Woody breast (WB) is a meat quality problem that has caused significant economic losses for the poultry industry. Ross × Ross 708 chicks were randomly assigned to a 3 (diet) × 2 (cocci challenge) × 2 (sex) factorial arrangement of treatments. The three diets included the control diet (corn-soybean meal basal diet), antibiotic diet (basal diet + 6.075 mg bacitracin /kg feed), and probiotic diet (basal diet + 2.2 × 108 CFU Bacillus subtilis PB6 /kg feed). Birds in the cocci challenge treatment group received 20 × the live cocci vaccine as an inoculum on d 14. Growth performance and …

The Effects Of Prior Exposure To Agriculture On College Students’ Food Purchasing Decisions, Leah E. Gann

Theses and Dissertations

This text examines the possible impacts of prior exposure to agriculture, and how this relates to college students’ food purchasing decisions. This study will assess if college students had prior exposure to agriculture before attending college, and what type of exposure this was, as well as assess how this prior exposure may alter purchasing decisions made by students who attend Mississippi State University. To collect this data, this study used a qualitative survey method to question students enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Mississippi State University and determine if there is a significant relationship between prior …

Using Social Media As A Communication Tool: A Study Of Ministries Of Sport And Sport For Development And Peace Organizations In Sub-Saharan Africa, Kelsey Slater

Theses and Dissertations

This study expanded on the previous research surrounding the Facebook and Twitter use of non-governmental sport for development and peace (SDP) organizations as well governmental Ministries of Sport. Following the theoretical framework of Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) this research examined specifically how non-governmental and governmental sport organizations share information, form a community and encourage action with their social media audiences. A content analysis of 6003 social media posts demonstrated that both Ministries of Sport and SDP non-governmental organizations (NGOs) primarily use social media to disseminate information to their followers, however, SDP NGOs were more likely to use social media posts …

School Transportation Protocol And Procedures Related To Students’ Safety And Discipline: Reflective Experiences Of School Bus Drivers And School Administrators, David Luke

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation deals with the protocol and procedures related to students’ safety and discipline while on a school bus as experienced by school bus drivers’ and school administrators’ experiences as a guide for changes to the existing programs. The following was the overarching research question that guided the study: How do school bus drivers and school administrators describe their reflective experiences related to bus driver training and protocol and procedures associated with student safety and discipline?

A qualitative research design was selected for the study. A case study approach was used to collect and analyze data for the study.

Participants …

Using Bst To Increase Interview Skills Among Emerging Adults With Autism Via Telehealth, Johnna L. Dowdy

Theses and Dissertations

he purpose of the current study was to evaluate the use of behavior skills training via telehealth to teach job interview skills to emerging adults with ASD. Additionally, the study examined if following intervention, skills were able to generalize to new interviewers. 2 undergraduate and 1 graduate student with ASD participated in the study, and received intervention for 3 behaviors: (1) appropriately answering questions, (2) asking appropriate questions, and (3) engaging in appropriate body language. The current study used a multiple baseline design across behaviors. Results from the study indicated BST via telehealth was effective in teaching job interviews skills. …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of Pathways To Computing Careers: Defining Broadening Participation In Computing (Bpc) Success With A Rearview Lens, Mercy Jaiyeola

Theses and Dissertations

Efforts to increase the participation of groups historically underrepresented in computing studies, and in the computing workforce, are well documented. It is a national effort with funding from a variety of sources being allocated to research in broadening participation in computing (BPC). Many of the BPC efforts are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) but as existing literature shows, the growth in representation of traditionally underrepresented minorities and women is not commensurate to the efforts and resources that have been directed toward this aim.

Instead of attempting to tackle the barriers to increasing representation, this dissertation research tackles the …

The Development Of Authentic Virtual Reality Scenarios To Measure Individuals’ Level Of Systems Thinking Skills And Learning Abilities, Vidanelage L. Dayarathna

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops virtual reality modules to capture individuals’ learning abilities and systems thinking skills in dynamic environments. In the first chapter, an immersive queuing theory teaching module is developed using virtual reality technology. The objective of the study is to present systems engineering concepts in a more sophisticated environment and measure students learning abilities. Furthermore, the study explores the performance gaps between male and female students in manufacturing systems concepts. To investigate the gender biases toward the performance of developed VR module, three efficacy measures (simulation sickness questionnaire, systems usability scale, and presence questionnaire) and two effectiveness measures (NASA …