Digital Commons Network^™

Fluid And Sodium Intake And The Relationship To Total Body Water In Children With Sickle Cell Anemia, Katelyn Nicole Hart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sickle cell anemia (HbSS) is the most common and severe form of sickle cell disease.1,2 A complication of HbSS is vaso-occlusion pain crisis (VOC) that occurs when the sickled red blood cells become lodged in the blood vessel and causes pain.5 The purpose of this study was to measure hydration status using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), to measure fluid and sodium intake, and to see if there is an association between oral fluid intake, sodium intake, and hydration status. Ten children between the ages of 5 and 17 who had HbSS were recruited. The BIA measured their total body water …

An Analysis Of Relationship Between School Composition, College Readiness Culture And Act Achievement In Tennessee High Schools, Sherenda Moss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although college aspirations have increased over the past several decades, significant gaps in race, ethnicity and income groups remain among high school students. Students of low-income and minority backgrounds are least likely to prepare for and enroll in college. A review of literature revealed that significant disparities found among students can be attributed to the lack of academic preparation, college knowledge, resources and shared advising in high schools (ACT, 2009; Conley, 2010, Spence, 2009). Often times, low-income and minority students are susceptible to a high school culture that conveys misperceptions about their readiness for college. The purpose of this study …

Leadership Identity Development In Greek Life Organizations: Lessons Learned, Justin T. Lawhead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on the multi-faceted process of leadership identity development through an-in dpeth analyis of the life experiences of students involved in Greek life at a mid-size researched institution in the Souther United States region. Research was conducted within the framerwork of the Leadership Identity Development (LID) model authored by Komives, Owen, Longerbem, Mainella, and Osteen (2005). Of particular interest was the degree to which the data upheld the presence of the four development influences of the LID model : 1) peer influences 2) meaningful involvement 3) reflective learning and 4) adult influence.Framed by an understanding of college student …

The Piano Music Of Jose Montserrat Maceda, Frances Alfaras Niduaza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The obscurity of Maceda's piano works led to this study; ergo this will contribute to their understanding and significance. His "Two Pianos, Four Winds," composed in 1996 for clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, and two pianos, will be the focus of this study. His other piano works, "Music for Five Pianos," (1994), "Music for Two Pianos and Four Percussions," (2000), and "Sujeichon - A Korean Court Music for Four Pianos," (2002), will be briefly discussed. In order to fully comprehend the conceptual framework of his compositions, one has to be cognizant of his discourse, i.e., the influences of Western European avant-garde, …

Chemical Treatment Of Sludge Return Streams At The Maxson Wwtp, David James Hilgeman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the treatment of wastewater, many by-products are produced. One ofthese by-products, the sludge return stream, is produced from the sludge digestion and dewatering process. This high strength wastewater is known as a return stream because it is often returned to the beginning of the treatment plant to be combined with the influent. Because of its high strength, it often has a significant impact on influent concentrations of organics and nutrients. The main focus of this work was to study chemical treatment ofthe return streams at the Maxson WWTP in order to reduce pollutant loading on theinfluent. Regarding this, several …

Literacy Practices In The Homes Of African American Families And Their Perceived Affects On The Language And Literacy Development Of Their Children, Delilah Ann Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the tenacities, practices, and discourse of family-based literacy practices and their connection in African American families. It scrutinized the influence of the practices of African American families on the multiple contexts of literacy practices in their passageway across the school-community periphery. The researcher used interviews, literacy practices blogs, and analyzing of literacy artifacts to identify and document the family literacy practices of five African American families with pre-school age children. The findings of the study revealed that each family shared some common literacy practices which may be associated with the ecology of …

Mind Wandering While Reading Easy And Difficult Texts, Shi Feng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mind wandering is a phenomenon in which attentiondrifts away from the primary task to task-unrelatedthoughts. Previous studies have used self-report methods tomeasure the frequency of mind wandering and its effects ontask performance. Many of these studies have investigatedmind wandering in simple perceptual and memory tasks,such as recognition memory, sustained attention, and choicereaction time tasks. Manipulations of task difficulty haverevealed that mind wandering occurs more frequently ineasy than in difficult conditions, but that it has a greaternegative impact on performance in the difficult conditions.The goal of this study was to examine the relation betweenmind wandering and task difficulty in a high-level …

Growing Up Female: A Feminist Origin Story, Maggie Caitlin Bausch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Growing Up Female: A Feminist Origin Story seeks to explore the connection between the depictions of women in popular culture and media, and how they have affected the speaker. This work combines the narrative of a memoir with cultural criticism. The popular culture criticized serves as a backdrop to illuminate both the sense of place that surrounded the author growing up, and what the depictions of women looked like for those in Generation Y. Television, Disney movies, Barbie, Film, Pornography, Advertisements, and the internet serve as a way for the author to answer the question of whether or not she …

Feasibility And Reliability Of A Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire In College Students, Cara Barbara Hedges

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective To gather feasibility and reliability data of a nutriton knoweldge questionnaire. Secondarily, to gather preliminary data on nutrition knowledge of college students.Methods A nutrition knoweldge survey, based off a nutrition survey used by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in 2010 was sent via email to the University of Memphis professors teaching an online class during the summer of 2013. It is a descriptive study completed via Qualtrics, an online survey tool.Results They survey was completed from July 17-August 9, 2013 by 85 participants, Participants were 27.1% male (n=23) and 72.9% female (n=62). When asked if the questionstested their knowledge …

Sublimation Rate Of Vertically Oriented Naphthalene Cylinders In A Natural Convection Environment, Lauren Raye Carley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The naphthalene sublimation technique was used to determine the rate of mass transfer from three solid naphthalene cylinders in a natural convection environment. The cylinders’ diameters measured 1, 1.5, and 2 inches nominally, and sublimation rates were found to be 1.42 x 10 -8, 1.89 x 10-8, and 2.28 x 10 -8 kg/s, respectively. The mass transfer coefficients were determined to be 1.64 x 10-3, 1.45 x 10-3, and 1.31 x 10 -3 respectively. Correlations were developed for the Sherwood vs. Rayleigh numbers, Sherwood vs. Grashof numbers, and mass transfer coefficient vs. diameter.

Robust Modeling Of Epistemic Mental States And Their Applications In Assistive Technology, A K M Mahbubur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents the design and implementation of EmoAssist: "Emotion-Enabled Assistive Tool to Enhance Dyadic Conversation for the Blind". The key functionalities of the system are to recognize behavioral expressions and to predict 3-D affective dimensions from visual cues and to provide audio feedback to the visually impaired in a natural environment. Prior to describing the EmoAssist, this dissertation identifies and advances research challenges in the analysis of the facial features and their temporal dynamics with Epistemic Mental States in dyadic conversation. A number of statistical analyses and simulations were performed to get the answer of important research questions about …

Improvement Of Dynamic Performance Of The Grid Connected Photovoltaic (Pv) System By Series Compensating Devices, Md Kamal Hossain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes the bridge type fault current limiter (BFCL) and series dynamic braking resistor (SDBR) methodologies to enhance the low voltage ride through (LVRT) capability of the PV plant during network faults. This work also focuses on smoothing out the PV power fluctuation due to variable irradiance. To achieve this, the output power of diversely located identical and small PV plants, instead of a big PV plant in a certain area, is integrated. Simulations performed through the Matlab/Simulink software shows that the terminal voltage obtained from the proposed protection schemes maintains the grid code, and hence the PV systems …

Infant Volubility Across Circumstance Estimated From All-Day Recordings, Barbara S. Franklin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By analyzing infant volubility we may illuminate early communication development and aid early identification of disorders. LENA recordings provide a naturalistic method for gathering data all-day and yield automated labeling of speakers including the infant wearing the device. In Study 1, 10 six-month-old infants were studied for volubility in a naturalistic setting analyzed by LENA and a human coder using a traditional repeat-listening method based on a single all-day recording for each infant. Twelve randomly selected 5-minute segments (excluding presumed sleep) were coded for vocal type (vocants, squeals, and growls). This allowed for estimation of six-month-old infant vocal rate across …

Propensity Score Methods In Estimating Conditional Hazard Ratio, Wen Feng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Various simulations have been done to demonstrate how propensity score methods perform in estimating mean difference, proportion, odds ratio and marginal hazard ratio, however, few rigorous simulations have been done to evaluate the performance. We conduct an extensive series of simulations to demonstrate the performance of propensity score methods in estimating conditional hazard ratio. For each propensity method, we characterize the conditions to 7 propensity score scenarios, each contains a different set of variables. For each scenario, we apply four propensity methods to estimate conditional hazard ratio. Meanwhile, we also use multivariate Cox model (conventional Cox model) to estimate conditional …

The Moderating Effect Of Employee Age On The Association Between Affective Commitment And Human Resource Practices, Michael Mark Mackay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing hypotheses from a theory of lifespan development called selective optimization with compensation (SOC, Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Baltes, Staudinger, & Lindenberger, 1999), the study explored the degree to which employee age moderates the relationship between employee affective commitment and satisfaction with various high commitment human resource practices (HCHRPs; e.g., providing training, opportunity for advancement, work/life balance). In addition, as exploratory hypotheses, the study also tested whether other employee-level variables such as gender, job tenure, and job type also serve as moderators of the HCHRP-affective commitment relationship. Customer-facing employees (N = 6,360) representing three job types (O*NET titles: Shipping, Receiving, …

Disentangling The Roles Of Race, Gender, And Socio-Economic Status On Childhood Adiposity From Kindergarten To 8th Grade, Gabrielle Gipson Banks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project used Latent Growth Curve Modeling to examine race and gender as moderators for the relation between socio-economic status (SES) and children’s initial, standardized Body Mass Index (zBMI) and rate of zBMI change from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Data were obtained on 14,800 White and Black children (~50% male) from a nationally representative database that followed the children from Kindergarten through the 8th grade. BMI data was collected at six time points. Black children had consistently higher zBMIs than their White counterparts. Socio–economic status significantly predicted higher initial status in Black boys and lower initial status and/or rates of …

Comparison Among Series Connected Auxiliary Devices For Fault Ride Through Capability Enhancement Of Wind Generator Systems, Ahmed Eid Abu Hussein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A comparison among series connected auxiliary devices; SFCL, DVR, TCSC, and SDBR is performed in terms of fault ride through capability improvement of a fixed speed wind generator systems, controller complexity, and cost. The tested system consists of one synchronous generator and one squirrel cage induction machine based wind generator, which feed an infinite bus through a double circuit transmission line. Simulation results show that all the devices performs well under symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults, however, in spite of the DVR controller complexity it has the best performance among all devices in terms of voltage, and speed control of wind …

Model Bias Analysis Using Statistical Methods With The Nga East Ground Motion Database, Luke Philip Ogweno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) East project has an updated database for Central and Eastern North America (CENA) ground motions. I analyzed the performance of ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) used in the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project (NSHMP) and other potential GMPEs used in the CENA through bias analysis, model inadequacies check using statistical tests and finally ranking the GMPEs using log likelihood (LLH), and the Euclidean Distance Based Ranking (EDR) technique. From bias analysis, Atkinson and Boore (2011) (model A08p), Atkinson and Boore (2011) (model AB06p), and Atkinson and Boore (2006) (model AB06+) …

Radiation Effects On Medical Grade Polycarbonate Urethane, Rudra Gnawali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Polycarbonate Urethane (PCU) is a material of growing prominence for use as a biocompatible material for joint replacements. PCU has good wear properties, is easy to lubricate, and is very compatible with natural tissues. Extensive studies stil have not been performed to fully investigate the radiation effects on PCU components. Thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) spectroscopy is a powerful tool to study radiation-induced defects in materials, while electron spin resonance (ESR) is a technique to directly detect free radicals in a material. To better investigate radiation effects on PCU materials, we have subjected PCU to X- and UV-irradiation and analyzed the …

Sample Size/Power Calculation For Stratified Case-Cohort Design And Generalized Stratified Case-Cohort Design, Wenrong Hu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Time to event is a commonly used endpoint in epidemiological and disease prevention trials in order to study the relationship between risk factors and the endpoints. Case-cohort design that consists of a sub-cohort randomly sampled from full cohort, and all subjects with event is often applied in studies where the disease is rare and the cost of collecting the event information is high. with the non-rare events, a generalized case-cohort design is advocated in which a subset of events instead of all events is sampled. Cai and Zeng have proposed the general log-rank tests and the corresponding sample size/power formulas …

The Role Of Web-Based Social Networking On Career Success And Worker Well-Being: A Social Capital And Job Demands-Resources Approach, Jonathan David Burlison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through two studies, this research is some of the first to-date to test how the use of social networking websites affects worker well-being and career success. In a period of less than a decade, online social media has quickly redefined many core aspects of human relationships. In 2012, the website, Facebook, reported that one in eight people worldwide used the site weekly. Given such prevalence, this research has far reaching implications for U.S. workers and organizations. The first study (N = 238) used structural equation modeling to examine the effect of site use with coworkers on well-being through increases in …

Flood Inundation Mapping Using Hec-Ras And Gis For Shelby County, Tennessee, Farid Javadnejad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Flood zones with 1% and 0.02% of annual flooding chance are projected in the ‎Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) digital flood insurance rate maps ‎‎(DFIRMs) and are suited for identifying flood risk at the largest impacts. However, less ‎severe floods, which are not mapped in DFIRMs, still cause significant damage and ‎occur on a more frequent basis. This article employs an easy-to-setup GIS-based ‎solution for rapid inundation mapping of small flood events. The linear interpolation ‎technique (LITE Flood) is developed to rescale the hydraulic behavior inherent with a ‎larger flood event without performing additional hydraulic simulations. The approach is ‎evaluated …

Diversity In The Dietetics Profession, Xin Yi Ter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Majority of Registered Dietitians (RD) in the United States are Caucasian females. This study aims to understand the factors associated with low enrollment of minority students in the dietetics major and difficulties faced in the process of becoming an RD. This was a descriptive survey research. Three sets of survey were given to ethnic minorities who were (1) undergraduate dietetic students in Tennessee, (2) undergraduate students not majoring in dietetics at University of Memphis, and (3) dietetic interns in Tennessee. Seventeen, eleven and six participants responded to survey 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Eight respondents (73%) from survey 2 reported …

Mindset Perfect, Jeremy Eugene Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mindset Perfect is a short story collection about the residents who live in the fictional city of Lincoln, Mississippi. Centering mostly on the Moore family, this collection of stories explores themes like religion, gossip, death, and marriage. This collection gives readers an insight into what it is like to live in a small Southern town, where everyone tends to know everyone. Beginning with "Mr. Tansey's Daughter," a story about a prodigal child returning to her hometown after a long absence, and ending with "The Redemption of Donald McCoy," which features a life long resident of Lincoln finally leaving his hometown …

On Display, Devon Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This essay collection is about what we see: what we want to see, how we try to see, and the poses we strike when we imagine we're being seen. I open the collection with a series of personal essays written in memoir style that explore my roots as an observer and the ways in which this tendency has manifested as I have grown older. The second half of the collection takes a more analytical approach to my subjects, exploring the various ways in which people seek to publish themselves and the world. Much of what I am interested in is …

Crash Data Study For The City Of Germantown, Tn, Jared Wayne O'Dell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The City of Germantown has experienced a rise in intersection related crashes over the past several years. They currently must sort throught hundreds of documents to perform analysis on these intersections and the cause of increased crash rates. This thesis proposes a method of visual analysis of the 39 major intersections within the Germantown city limits. Visual mapping software is required for visual analysis. The incorporation of ArcGIS 10 is critical to the success of this project because it provides a means of quick visual analysis of intersection related crash data within the city. This provides Germantown officials with a …

Student Engagement And Reading Competence: Important Connections And The Moderating Role Of Parent Support, Tera Lynn Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Student engagement is a multidimensional construct believed to be a critical component for understanding school dropout (Christenson et al., 2008). The majority of related research has focused primarily on overt (academic and behavioral) rather than covert (psychological and cognitive) subtypes of engagement; however, there is evidence to suggest that psychological and cognitive engagement are linked to increased levels of academic achievement, overall school effort, and positive emotions. Such internal factors may be particularly relevant for enhancing reading competence, as it has been suggested that difficulties with reading can interfere with students’ motivation and engagement with learning (Guthrie & Wigfield, 2000; …

Building Bridges For Women Through Service-Learning: Bringing Students And Communities Together To Combat Domestic Violence In Honduras, Darlene Metcalf-Bergeron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis defines service-learning and domestic violence, while describing how bringing students and communities together through service-learning courses can build and has already built bridges for victims of violence against women. Collaboration is essential in the quest to raise awareness about domestic violence through education. This thesis will demonstrate through data and photojournalism this collaboration between students of SPA/MLC Service-Learning Classes of UMaine from 2006 through to and including 2011.

As the themes in this thesis develop the reader will also begin to question what lies just beyond our borders and behind closed doors for women of the twenty-first century. …

Perceived Barriers And Facilitators To Mental And Behavioral Health Screening And Treatment In Primary Care For Women In Northeast Tennessee, Sarah K. Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Between one quarter and one third of all primary care patients meet criteria for at least one mental disorder. However, many women are not screened for mental disorders as recommended by the literature. Some studies suggest even lower rates of screening and treatment in rural areas. This researcher sought to identify barriers and facilitators to mental and behavioral health screening and treatment for women in primary care and solicit feedback on how to ameliorate perceived barriers. Given the limited extant data describing rural Appalachian women’s perceptions of barriers and facilitators to receiving mental health services an exploratory qualitative analysis was …

Synthesis And Characterization Of 2,2-Cis-[Rh2(Nphcoch3)4]•Ncc6h4r Where R = H, 2-Ch3, 3-Ch3, 4-Ch3 And [Rh2(O2cch3)(Nphcocf3)3], Fredricka F. Quarshie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Five novel compounds were synthesized and characterized. Crystal structures were determined using Rigaku Mercury 375/MCCD(XtaLAB mini) diffractometer with graphite monochromated MoKα radiation. The crystal structures of [Rh₂(NPhCOCH₃)₄•xNCC₆H₄R where x = 1 or 2 and R=H, 2-CH₃,3-CH₃ and 4-CH₃ were solved to an R₁ value of less than 5 (R₁= Σ||F_o| - |F_c|| / Σ |F_o|). In each of the nitrile complexes, the rhodium is five or six coordinate and possesses pseudo D_4h symmetry. The complexes were …