Digital Commons Network^™

Deliberately Developmental Leadership In Organizational Settings, Glenn Allen Nixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate leadership development strategies in organizations in North Texas needed to create prepared, competent leaders who can become and help create deliberately developmental leaders. Open-ended and semistructured interviews were used to collect data, with questions centered on effective leadership development strategies for creating competent leaders and effective leadership strategies for creating deliberately developmental leaders. The idea was to understand if organization’s leadership focused on the need for leadership development, if organizational members were being identified for leadership, and if systems exist to address future organizational leadership needs. Three types of organizations were …

The Front Lines Of Student Success: A Phenomenography Exploring The Background And Knowledge Of Primary Role Academic Advisors In Higher Education, Alicia N. Abney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenographic study was to understand the experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives of new, primary role academic advisors at four-year public institutions in the United States. Research on advising has provided insight into advising best practices and the student perceptions of academic advising; however, there is little research illustrating current primary role academic advisors and their experience, or perhaps lack thereof.

To receive highly coveted federal and state funding, higher education institutions must show growth in student success. Academic advisors are on the front lines of student success because they are tasked with the responsibility of retaining …

Rab35 Centered Membrane Trafficking Pathway Directs Apical Constriction During Drosophila Gastrulation, Hui Miao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Force generation in epithelial tissues is often pulsatile, with actomyosin networks generating high-tension contractile forces at the cell cortex before cyclically disassembling. This pulsed nature of cytoskeletal forces implies that there must be cellular processes to extract unidirectional changes that drive processive transformations in cell shape. During Drosophila melanogastergastrulation, the invagination of the prospective mesoderm is driven by the pulsed constriction of apical surfaces. Here, we address the mechanisms by which the irreversibility of pulsed events is achieved while also permitting uniform epithelial behaviors to emerge. We use MSD-based analyses to identify contractile steps and find that when a …

Game Changing Leadership: Developing A Student Athlete Leadership Identity Development Model, Sally Gates Parish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are several theoretical models and approaches to define the leadership identity development of college students, however, none of these models adequately frame the specific leadership identity development of collegiate student athletes. The purpose of this grounded theory study is to develop a leadership model to address this gap by explaining the leadership values and behaviors unique to student athletes and to understand if their leadership experiences occur in a staged, scaffolded way. The research questions guiding this study are: What are the staged, scaffolded leadership identity development experiences of collegiate student athletes? What are the common leadership values and …

A Replication And Extension Of A Prediction Tool Identifying Need For Treatment Among Opioid Exposed Infants, Loni Parrish

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The incidences of maternal opioid use and neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS) have increased by nearly 400% over the past decade. Isemann and colleagues (2017) developed prediction tools (TiTE/TiTE²) to differentiate, within the first two days of life, between infants who will require pharmacotherapy for NOWS from those infants who will not require pharmacotherapy for NOWS. The goal of the current experiment was to replicate and extend their prediction model. The present experiments successfully replicated Isemann et al., (2017) results and also established alternative cutoff values for requiring treatment that provide better balance between all four metrics. Moreover, …

The African State: An Illusory Vestige Of Colonialism, Muhammad K. Otaru

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In a 2006 Interview, prominent Nigerian author, and social commentator, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said; “…Nigeria was set up to fail. The only thing we Nigerians should take responsibility for is the extent of the failure….”1. Such a view about colonialism and the states it arbitrarily created is widely shared by many on the African continent, who have come to understand that the very creation and existence of the African state are largely to blame for the seemingly countless socio-economic and political issues faced on the continent.

1 Kimber, Charlie, Interview: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Socialist Review. (Online, October …

Using Multi-Source Data To Assess The Dynamics Of Socioeconomic Development In Africa, Xuantong Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Frequent and rapid spatially explicit assessment of socioeconomic development is critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at both national and global levels. In the past decades, scientists have proposed many methods for monitoring human activities on the Earth’s surface on various spatiotemporal scales using Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime lights (NTL) data. However, the DMSP-OLS NTL data and the associated processing methods have limited their reliability and applicability for systematic measuring and mapping of socioeconomic development. This research utilizes Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) NTL and the Isolation Forest (iForest) machine learning algorithm …

The Interplay Between Economic Growth And The Environment: The Case Of China, Christian D. Carpio-Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historically, economic development has come at the cost of environmental degradation. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism rooted in neoclassical theory has dominated mainstream economic thought. The result has been a dramatic increase in environmental degradation in favor of economic growth. The neoliberal recommendations toward development are encapsulated in the Washington and post-Washington Consensuses which promote the liberalization of trade and foreign investment as well as a reliance on market mechanisms. Ultimately, the goal of neoliberalism is to generate growth regardless of the impact that it places on the environment. The case of China presents an example of an economy which pursued …

Genetic Analysis Of A Novel Ftsk Homolog, Hfka, In Streptomyces Coelicolor Development-Associated Chromosome Segregation, Sumedha Sethi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A quintessential phenomenon occurring during prokaryotic development is accurate segregation of the replicated genomes into the daughter cells. Key energy-dependent processes like chromosome condensation and subcellular partitioning of the genomes are driven by conserved proteins like SMC, ParB, FtsK. During its complex developmental cycle, Streptomyces coelicolor segregates its genomes into chains of unicellular spores when its multigenomic syncytial aerial hyphae undergo division.

A novel ftsK-like gene, hfkA (Homolog of FtsK protein A), was examined for function and localization during development-associated chromosome segregation. Individual deletions did not affect segregation, but a ΔhfkA ΔftsK mutant exhibited 8% anucleate …

Changing The Rules Of The Game: Can Voicing For Social Responsibility Influence Market Behavior Toward Greater Inclusiveness In Economic Development?, Eileen M. Hoffmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines social responsibility within a capitalist economy by investigating socially responsible investing and, tangentially, corporate social responsibility. These concepts have been at the heart of economic and legal debates for hundreds of years, with no clearly defined consensus regarding how to account for multi-stakeholder welfare inside the market system. This point is brought to life by analyzing two dominant twentieth-century economic periods, 1945-1975/79 and post-1980, through the deliberations of Keynesian economics and Milton Friedman.

This thesis postulates that since the 2008 global financial crisis, a new (i.e. third) economic period is taking shape, ushered in by both the …

Analysis Of Brevundimonas Subvibrioides Developmental Signaling Systems Reveals Unexpected Differences Between Phenotypes And C-Di-Gmp Levels, Lauryn Anne Sperling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The DivJ-DivK-PleC signaling system of Caulobacter crescentus is a signaling network that regulates polar development and the cell cycle. This system is conserved in closely related bacteria, including the sister genus Brevundimonas. Previous studies had shown unexpected phenotypic differences between the C. crescentus divK mutant and the analogous mutant of Brevundimonas subvibrioides, but further characterization was not performed. Here, phenotypic assays analyzing motility, adhesion, and pilus production (the latter characterized by a newly discovered bacteriophage) revealed that divJ and pleC mutants have mostly similar phenotypes as their C. crescentus homologs, but divK mutants maintain largely opposite phenotypes than …

An Examination Of The Relationship Among The Intentions, Features, Affordances, And Outcomes Of Saturday Academy For Math Professional Development For Mathematics Teachers, Brian Buckhalter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using a design framework to connect the features of SA4M to the affordances reported, participants of SA4M deepened their content knowledge on both conceptual and skill specific levels, and expressed intentions to incorporate many of the tasks from SA4M into their practices. There are implications for those tasked with creating and evaluating professional development for teachers.

The Role Of The State In International Trade Theory And Policy: Historical Evidence From South Korea And Brazil, Sumaiya Nehla Saif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the early 1980s, the economic performance of individual countries has been increasingly dependent on global dynamics. Neoliberal policies, including free trade, have been fostered by the global community for both mature and developing economies, led by the view that free markets constitute the driving force of economic growth and development. Accordingly, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) - in addition to the developments within mainstream economic theory - have contributed to portray the state as the carrier of inefficiencies and market distortions, which prevent the unfolding of economic freedom and …

The Migration And Developmental Remodeling Of Intrinsic Interneurons In Visual Thalamus And The Role Of Retinal Signaling., Naomi E. Charalambakis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) of the mouse is a model system to study the development of thalamic circuitry. While most studies focus on relay neurons of dLGN, little is known about the factors regulating the development of the other principal cell type, intrinsic interneurons. To date, the targeting and migratory path of dLGN interneurons as well as their morphological development remains unclear. Here we examined whether the migration, structure, and function of interneurons relies on retinal signaling. We took a loss-of-function approach and crossed GAD67-GFP mice, which express green fluorescent protein (GFP) in dLGN interneurons, with math5 nulls …

Map3k4 Controls The Chromatin Modifier Hdac6 During Trophoblast Stem Cell Epithelial To Mesenchymal Transition, Robert Jackson Mobley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) occurs in trophoblast stem (TS) cells during implantation. Inactivation of the serine/threonine kinase MAP3K4 in TS cells (TSKI4 cells) induces an intermediate state of EMT, where cells retain stemness, lose epithelial markers, and gain mesenchymal characteristics. Investigation of relationships among MAP3K4 activity, stemness, and EMT in TS cells may reveal key regulators of EMT. Here, we show that MAP3K4 activity controls EMT through the ubiquitination and degradation of HDAC6. Loss of MAP3K4 activity in TSKI4 cells results in elevated HDAC6 expression and the deacetylation of cytoplasmic and nuclear targets. In the nucleus, HDAC6 …

The Roles Of Anxious Rearing, Negative Affect, And Effortful Control In A Model Of Risk For Child Perfectionism., Nicholas William Affrunti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Our understanding of perfectionism and its developmental trajectory and impact on children has experienced a recent growth. Research has shown that child perfectionism is associated with a number of negative outcomes including anxiety and depressive disorders, hopelessness, poor psychosocial treatment outcomes, and researchers have not found it to be associated with actual achievement. As such, research has begun to examine the developmental risk factors that predict for its development. The current study proposes utilizing a developmental psychopathology approach, one that purports a complex interaction among internal, external, risk and protective processes in the developmental of perfectionism. Specifically, the study examined …

Trunk And Respiratory Motor Control In Typically Developing Children And Its Implications In Children With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury., Goutam Singh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Independent sitting is a major milestone and is also a prerequisite for optimal performance of activities of daily living (ADLs). Development of sitting posture control is a dynamic process involving control of degrees of freedom of head and trunk. Traditionally, trunk has been modeled as a single unit (segment). However, recent studies have suggested that it is made up multiple spinal units, controlled by a combination of trunk muscles. During typical development, posture control of trunk is different for different trunk segments. This motor development of trunk control is a complex process due to constant interaction between the nervous system …

The Role Of Sibling Configuration In Identity And Career Development, Alyssa Sullinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This synthetic literature review examines the characteristics of sibling configurations— which refer to the ordinal position of siblings, age spacing, and sex composition—in a traditional family setting. A general review of the literature on sibling configurations and relationships is presented, and their potential roles in the development of personality traits, self-concept and identity, and career choices are explored. This synthesis describes how sibling birth rank is affiliated with generalized personality traits and likelihood of siblings with these traits identifying with corresponding career interest-types associated with Holland’s vocational theory. Suggestions for future research include empirical studies investigating these connections, such the …

Doing Good In Guatemala: Perceptions Of Voluntourism In San Juan Comalapa, Samantha Grace Hagan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of host community perceptions of volunteer tourism in the context of a small community in the highlands of Guatemala called San Juan Comalapa. Voluntourism acts as a bridge between development aid and traditional tourism and therefore voluntourism organizations should act as both roles in the community. In this research I found that voluntourism organizations, particularly one organization called Long Way Home, can lean more towards one role than another in the eyes of members of the host community. Based on these findings I recommend that these organizations embrace these dual roles and engage the community …

Characterizing The Developmental And Reproductive Toxicities Of Cannabidiol And Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, Dennis Ray Carty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Medical marijuana is legal in twenty-nine of the United States and an additional nineteen states have passed legislation for cannabidiol (CBD) treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy, such as Dravet Syndrome (DS) which is diagnosed in children as young as two months. While CBD has shown anecdotal and recently clinical trial efficacy in reducing seizure frequency in DS patients, little is known about the potential adverse side-effects on child physiology, brain development, adult disease, or subsequent generations. Moreover, CBD is rarely administered without including low concentrations of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The goal of this project is to characterize the relative morphological, behavioral, reproductive, …

Deconstructing The Diagnosis: Making The Case For A New Discourse On Childhood Cancer, Jessika Carmen Boles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Childhood cancer is both a medical ailment and a cultural phenomenon created within dominant discursive notions of childhood/adulthood, health/illness, and life/death binaries. Research to date on the learning and development of children with cancer has primarily focused on quantifying the knowledge they possess about their illness and treatment and recommendations for medical staff based on the child's assumed capabilities and limitations. Little is known about how children with cancer actively negotiate discursive beliefs in this context. Therefore, the purpose of this Foucauldian (1970) post-structural case study research was to deconstruct the ways in which children with cancer learn about their …

Partitioning Defective Protein 6: A Mechanistic Regulator Of Neuronal Migration, Danielle E. Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) mature they undergo a specific pattern of events. However, the manner which neurons exit the germinal zone (GZ) is not entirely understood. As CGNs polarize and differentiate, they migrate from the outer to the internal layers, a process regulated by polarity genes and post-translational modifications. Due to its role in neuronal migration, we were interested in the functionof the polarity gene Pard6 and its domains. Using the structure function assays, we found that some domains were required for GZ exit. Also, a two-hybrid screen indicated that the E3 ubuiqtin ligase FbxW5 binds to the PDZ …

Solitary Chemosensory Cells Throughout The Life Cycle Of The Sea Lamprey, Petromyzon Marinus, Tina E. Suntres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The sea lamprey is a basal lineage vertebrate and an invasive species in the Great Lakes. It possess a diffuse chemosensory system with microvillous solitary chemosensory cells (SCCs) located on papillae along the gill pore, oral disc and tail. The objectives of this study were to assess the abundance of SCCs across life stages, and to characterize the innervation and biochemical properties. At all three locations, SCCs were most abundant in the spawning stage compared to earlier life stages, suggesting a role during reproduction. Prominent calretinin and 5-HT labeling show homology to previously identified taste cells and to SCCs in …

Microengineering The Neural Tube, Christopher Demers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Early embryonic development is a complex and highly regulated orchestra of instructive cues that collectively guide naïve stem cells towards progressively more specialized fates. In the neural tube, the precursor structure to the brain and spinal cord, these signals emanate from ‘organizing centers’ surrounding the neural tube. These organizing centers send out soluble cues or morphogens that diffuse tens to hundreds of microns to recipient cells residing in the neural tube. Re-creating this dynamic landscape of cues in vitro is impossible using standard cell culture tools and techniques. However, microfluidics is perfectly suited to fill this gap, allowing precise control …

A Case Study Exploring Organizational Development And Performance Management In The Operational Infrastructure Of A Professional Working Organization, Using Academic Constructs, Wm. Casey Crear

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Curriculum, as a concept, has been historically associated with traditional schooling, but the reality is that its application extends to many arenas beyond academia. Through the case study lens, this dissertation utilized the ideologies of curricular theorists John Dewey, John Franklin Bobbitt, and Ralph Tyler to explore how intended, enacted, and assessed curricula phases can integrate into a professional working organization’s comprehensive functionality and materialize into the planning and implementation of its operational infrastructure. Following content analysis of a selected institution’s operational system, using closed codes, a descriptive comprehensive curriculum was designed to address the research purpose of understanding …

The Insecurities Of Underdevelopment: Case Studies Of Child Soldiers And Street Children, Victoria Leilani Busse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After the Cold War, a paradigm shift occurred in the study of international conflict that led to a move away from traditional state-military centric security to make human beings the referent object of security instead. This paper uses the case studies of Sierra Leonean child soldiers and Brazilian street children to explore the links between human security and development. Children are already a vulnerable population, but they are made more insecure when they live in underdeveloped states. While poverty is a main causal factor in both these phenomena, other variables contribute to these social epidemics such as: weak governing structures, …

Impact Of Development On Freshwater Turtle Populations Of Coastal South Carolina: An Examination Of Land Use And Road Density, Andre Dominguez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies (Haxon 2000; Steen and Gibbs 2004; Marchand and Litvaitis 2004; Aresco 2005) have demonstrated that urbanization and development have disproportionally adverse affects on female turtles. In order to test this paradigm I caught 301 turtles (primarily Trachemys scripta scripta) in ten ponds (5 impacted and 5 unimpacted) across coastal South Carolina. Not only do coastal South Carolina turtles not follow the same male biased pattern of many other studies, there was an overall female bias (154:95). Turtle metrics were between the types of sites existed as well, indicating larger/older population of turtles in unimpacted sites. Water quality parameters …

The Effects Of Surf-Driven Development On The Local Population Of Playa Gigante, Nicaragua, Nicholas Harrison William Earhart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In many of the world's developing countries, tourism is starting to play a more important role in the improvements of the local and national economies. One of these countries that have started to view tourism as a way to alleviate poverty throughout the country is Nicaragua. With miles of beaches, large swaths of pristine rainforests and beautiful volcanoes, Nicaragua has plenty to offer to travelers from all over the world. One of the sectors of tourism that has rapidly expanded in recent years is that which caters specifically to North American and European surfing tourists, who travel to Nicaragua for …

Effects Of Benzo[A]Pyrene And Cyp19a1b Knockdown On Zebrafish Development, Khalid M. Alharthy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that is both an endocrine disruptor and a carcinogen. Aromatase (CYP19) is a key enzyme in steroidogenesis playing a key role in the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad feedback loop. We hypothesized that BaP would negatively impact cyp19a1b expression in zebrafish, in turn, adversely affecting development and physiology. Here, we consider whether the toxicities observed following BaP exposure are comparable to those following a transient morpholino (MO)-mediated CYP19a1b knockdown or exposure to an aromatase inhibitor (fadrozole) during early development. One-cell zebrafish embryos were injected with a CYP19a1b-MO or control-MO. Other non-injected embryos were exposed to nominal waterborne …

Development Of The Readiness To Teach Online Scale, Angel Chi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the growing importance of online education, faculty acceptance has remained unchanged. Training programs developed for faculty to teach online have often focused on assessing their cognitive rather than affective and behavioral outcomes. The Readiness To Teach Online scale was developed as part of a multiphase mixed method research project to measure faculty perceptions and motivations toward teaching online. Items in the subcategory Teaching and Learning measured perceptions of technology and online teaching, and motivations regarding resources and other external factors. Items in the subcategories Social and Student Engagement, Faculty and Technology Support, Course Development and Instructional Design, and Evaluation …