Digital Commons Network^™

Essays In Physicians Preference Items And Inventory Management Within The Healthcare Supply Chain, Mohammad A. Shbool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work is composed of a number of topics in the healthcare area, which are approached separately with appropriate methodologies. The two topics deal with physician preference items via two different approaches. The first one investigates stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation in healthcare organizations due to physician preference items (PPI). It captures perspectives of physicians and supply chain professionals about this problem through two surveys. The second topic builds a decision-making framework for the PPI selection process that can be used by healthcare organizations to make more objective decisions. A Multi-criteria decision making technique is implemented to illustrate the framework.

Design Of A Nutrient Reclamation System For The Cultivation Of Microalgae For Biofuel Production And Other Industrial Applications, Heather Sandefur

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microalgal biomass has been identified as a promising feedstock for a number of industrial applications, including the synthesis of new pharmaceutical and biofuel products. However, there are several economic limitations associated with the scale up of existing algal production processes. Critical economic studies of algae-based industrial processes highlight the high cost of supplying essential nutrients to microalgae cultures. With microalgae cells having relatively high nitrogen contents (4 to 8%), the N fertilizer cost in industrial-scale production is significant. In addition, the disposal of the large volumes of cell residuals that are generated during product extraction stages can pose other economic …

Consumer Willingness To Pay For Genetically Engineered Edamame, Elijah John Wolfe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect of GM labeling on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for edamame. It also investigated how people reacted to different messages and whether the order of receiving positive or negative information about GM technology impacted their willingness to pay (WTP). The study had three components: (1) a sensory test of GM and non-GM labeled products; (2) a non-hypothetical experimental auction to assess WTP for GM, non-GM and unlabeled products; and (3) a questionnaire to collect demographics and other information from the participants. Results of the sensory evaluation revealed no statistically significant difference between GM and non-GM …

Examining The Relationship Among Measures Of Global Cognition, Executive Function, And Instrumental Activities Of Daily Living: Can They All Just Get Along?, R. Christopher Branson

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The subtle nature of executive function deficits makes them difficult to identify in a clinical context and to measure how they impact an individual’s daily life. Clinical neuropsychological assessments alone are often unable to measure how executive deficiencies impact an individual’s daily life. The present study investigated the relationship among clinical screening measures of global cognition, measures of executive function, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Adults with Parkinson’s disease and neurologically healthy adults completed a battery of assessments including a clinical measure of general functional ability, the Texas Functional Living Scale (TFLS), and a naturalistic shopping task, the …

Mitigating Delinquency Through Academic Intervention: An Empirical Test Of Social Control Theory, Thaddeus L. Johnson

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Using school and program records for 236 ninth grade students involved in the GEAR UP program, a partial test of Hirschi’s social control theory (1969) was conducted to investigate the effect of academic performance and social bonds on problem behavior. Rarely tested in at-risk, minority student groups, the adolescents sampled in this research attended schools zoned for predominantly disadvantaged minority communities. Findings demonstrate that grade point average, attendance, gender, and participation in GEAR UP summer activities significantly impact student behavior. The results have implications for broadening the context of social control theory and reducing school delinquency.

Authoritative Parenting And Transformational Leadership: An Example Of Family-To-Work Enrichment, Katherine Kearns

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The present study was designed to examine the relationship between authoritative parenting and transformational leadership as an example of family-work enrichment. Participants were working managers who are parents (N = 150), recruited from MBA programs, manufacturing companies, and social media. Participants responded to an internet-based survey composed of measures of parenting style, work-family enrichment, and transformational leadership. Participants also provided responses regarding the overall impact of having children on their personal leadership development. Analyses of self-reported data consisted of correlation and regression-based methods for identifying relationships and predictor variables. Qualitative data were also gathered and content analyzed, helping to illustrate …

Anticipated Work-Nonwork Balance And Conflict As Predictors Of Job Choice: Identity Salience As Moderator, Christopher R. Hudson Jr.

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines individual job choice decision making with the foreknowledge that such choices will impact the quality of a person’s future work-nonwork roles. It is likely that job applicants have at least some anticipation of the work-nonwork conflict (WNC) and work-nonwork balance (WNB) they will face if they accept a certain job offer. Although most research has provided reasons for organizations to promote WNB and reduce WNC in the workplace, little research has examined the influence of anticipated WNB and WNC on applicant job choice. The present study explores this question and considers whether a person’s work and nonwork …

Scared To Death: An Examination Of Underlying Terror Following Death Awareness, Robert B. Arrowood

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

According to Terror Management Theory, when mortality is made salient the potential to experience terror causes powerful worldview defenses to manifest to suppress this potential. Recently, however, the theory has been criticized because no actual evidence has been found to show this potential to experience terror. The current research used Galvanic Skin Response and a battery of self-report measures (e.g. negative affect, stress, fear, distress, etc.) to attempt to provide evidence of potential terror. The results were partially confirmatory suggesting that although mortality salience failed to evoke arousal, negative affect, and stress, it did evoke sadness and distress and suggests …

Silence For The One About To Sing: Selected Short Lyrics From Two Collections, Chasidi Rodgers

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Silence for the One about to Sing contains a chapbook of 30 poems (selected from two collections) and a prologue. In the prologue, I discuss my influences and inspirations, and explain the creative and critical devices I use throughout my art. Inspired by the Portuguese music genre of fado and its latest iteration, the novo fado, selections in each collection feature code-switching, recurring motifs (birds, oil, and water), and sensory language. A variety of speakers and travelogues is also used to explore themes of agency, identity, loss, and restoration. These devices coalesce to produce a progressive framework for the classic …

Active Or Passive? An Examination Of The Relationship Between The Valence Of Work Experiences And Choice Of Recovery Strategy, Ashley Keating

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Regular work days place a strain on employees, depleting precious resources which must be recovered. Recovery results from either passive or active activities. Little research has examined the effect of positive and negative experiences at work and their impact on recovery. The present study investigated how positive or negative experiences at work impact one’s choice of recovery strategy outside of work. I hypothesized that positive experiences at work are positively correlated with a person’s likelihood of engaging in active recovery due to gained resources, and vice versa. The sample for this study consisted of full-time employees with a regular working …

Establishing Foundations For The Development Of A Music-Centered Music Therapy Assessment For Adults With Thought Disorders, Kaitlin Elizabeth Miller

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Mental illness in the United States affects approximately 9.6 million adults, or 4.1% of the population (NIMH, 2014). Thought disorders are most often associated with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders, but can be present in other forms of mental illness, as well. Traditionally, the term thought disorder is defined as a disorder of cognitive organization in form and content, as indicated by disordered speech, delusions, disturbed sense of self, and abnormal psychomotor behavior (APA, 2013). The current methods of assessment primarily rely on the patients’ verbal language, however the literature indicates that there are limits to confining understanding to the verbal domain. …

Naturally Striated Muscle: Examining The Ideographic Crystallization Of, Dustin L. Briggs

Dissertations

In U.S. America and much of the Western world, natural is a venerated symbolic placeholder for any number of assumed virtues and ideals. Present conflicts have brought forward questions about what natural (which I argue functions as an ideograph) should mean in contexts that seem to call for a formal, enforceable definition. In this study, I use the vocabulary of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and the context of bodybuilding to work towards a theory of how ambiguous ideographs become "striated" or “crystallized.” Within this discussion I present instances where natural has been employed as a vehicle to cause harm, and …

Natural Resources, Conflicts, And Conflict Management, Md. Didarul Hasan

Dissertations

This dissertation examines, both theoretically and empirically, the effects of international policies, especially of sanctions, on conflicts. In theoretical analysis, we consider conflicts (both civil and inter-state) related to natural resources and examine how sanctions on natural resource exports affect the intensity of conflicts. However, for the empirical analysis, we consider only the civil conflicts and examine how international sanctions affect the duration of civil conflicts. In chapter 1, we develop a two-period general equilibrium model on the relationship between natural resources and civil conflicts. Contrary to the most of the existing literature, we assume that resource extraction and wage …

#Socialsupport For Diet And Physical Activity Via Web 2.0: A Qualitative Study Of College Women, Bethany Kies Kies

Dissertations

Like other adults in the U.S., college students, have high rates of obesity and overweight, and they have a pattern of poor diet and physical inactivity. Emerging adulthood is a key developmental period for building life-long habits and behaviors, and health theory suggests that one’s social environment and amount of social support affects health behaviors, particularly among women. With the technological advances of Web 2.0, or social media, the opportunity for providing social support for health behaviors through the online social environment now exists; social media is a game changer for both research and practice related to understanding the social …

Cracking The World System: Mediating Public Pedagogies From The “World Revolution” Of 1848, James Kepley Anderson

Dissertations

This project adopts the framework of World Systems Analysis [WSA], formulated by global sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, to take the entire world system as the unit of analysis. Drawing on the work of Paulo Freire, the seminal theorist of critical pedagogy, this project couples WSA with the analytic lens of public pedagogy to overcome the conceptual limitations of ideology and of various postmodern critiques. Primary media sources are used for purposes of critical political economy, to outline the contours of economic changes and class formations from the first world revolution. A detailed descriptive history of the revolutions that swept across Europe …

Welcoming The Stranger: African Refugees And Israel’S Asylum Regime, David Kimelman

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This paper will explore the Israeli asylum regime and its development since the state’s inception and will discuss the rationales and motives behind national policy and public perception of asylum seekers. Over the last decade, Israel’s asylum regime has been significantly upgraded to meet the growing needs of the state to manage an unprecedented flow of asylum seekers entering into the country. Upon arriving in Israel, however, asylum seekers have found a state that is reluctant to take them in and a citizenry unwelcoming to outsiders perceived as a divisive “other.” This “otherness” is perceived as a danger to many …

Roman Britain In The Northeast: The Excavation And Interpretation Of Arbeia, South Shields, Eleanor Shotton

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The research goal of this project was to understand the impact that the Roman Empire had upon the indigenous ‘traditional society’ of the northeastern British peoples at Arbeia, located in modern day South Shields. Within that broad goal, the focus was to determine if the influence of the Roman Empire cultivated a unique homogenization of Romano-British culture, or if both societies maintained their own cultures and lived side-by-side with little cultural interaction or meshing with one another, other than trading goods, etc. To seek out the answer to this research question, I conducted literary research on Roman fort practices and …

Investigation Of The Tandem Alkylation-Cyclization Of Endocyclic Enol Ethers For The Preparation Of Unusual Oxygen Heterocycles, Sarah Mehdi

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The purpose of this research is to study the alkylation and subsequent cyclization reaction of endocyclic enol ethers such as 2H-dihydropyran. This sequence is expected to yield oxygen heterocycles whose structures represent unique scaffolds with promising functionality.

A series of trichloroacetimidates were selected for the direct alkylation of 2H-dihydropyran. Following the alkylation, the addition of acid was expected to induce an intramolecular cyclization reaction that would yield the desired oxygen heterocycles. This stepwise scheme would then be converted into a tandem process in which the reaction would be expected to proceed in a single pot.

Studies showed that the alkylation …

Improving The Nutrient Content Of Agriculture Crops Through Community Ecology, Margo Malone

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Agriculturists continually look for ways to improve the nutrient content of crops without decreasing yield or economic benefits. Mutualistic relationships have the potential to enhance the nutrient content without sacrificing the production needs of the farmer. Mutualisms occur when two or more species interact and both members of the association benefit. An exceedingly important and often overlooked mutualism is the one formed between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and plants. This interaction has been shown to be a critical component of most ecosystems, yet our understanding of these relationships is still limited. We know that in exchange for photosynthetically derived carbon, …

Reclaiming Identities: Intercultural Bilingual Education In Peru And Bolivia, Emily Malina

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This project involves analyzing indigenous intercultural bilingual education (IBE) and the reclaimation of identity. The intercultural nature of IBE models has the potentional to cause an ideological transformation and reclamation of culture through indigenous autonomy and inclusion in nation-building processes. Through comparing the histories of Peru and Bolivia, it becomes evident that there is a correlation between historic polity structures and the successful implementation of IBE.

Estrogens Regulate Metabolic Substrate Concentrations In Brains Of Young Adult Female Rats: A Multiple Memory Systems Approach, Ella D'Amico

Honors Capstone Projects - All

As the most potent circulating form of estrogen in most young adult female mammals, estradiol has extensive effects on physiological functioning. Estradiol effects are especially notable with the drop in the hormone observed when a woman transitions into menopause, with accompanying changes not only in overall physiology but also in brain functions. Recent research reveals the complex effects estradiol has on regulating learning and memory that vary by type of cognitive task among other variables. In particular, increased estradiol levels improve performance on hippocampus-dependent tasks, but impair performance on striatum-dependent tasks through direct actions on these different memory systems. Estradiol’s …

Understanding The Role Of Sog-4 And Sog-6 In The Glp-1/ Notch Signaling Pathway, Micheline Laing

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Notch signaling is a highly conserved signaling mechanism that is important for many developmental processes in animals. In the roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), GLP-1 signaling, a form of Notch signaling, is necessary for mitotic proliferation of the germline. glp-1(ts) mutants display a sterile phenotype at 20 °C. Previously, 14 extragenic suppressors were found that rescued the embryonic and germline temperature sensitive defects caused by improper functioning of GLP in a glp-1(ts) mutant. These mutations were mapped to six genes. These genes are referred to as suppressors of glp-1 or sog mutants. The current study serves to determine the …

Soil For Your Soul: African American Women & Social Entrepreneurship, Markova Casseus

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study seeks to take a look at the growing trend of African-American women in social entrepreneurship, more specifically their motivations for pursuing this career path. In the traditional business model, we find that women are underrepresented at every level of the corporate pipeline, especially in upper level positions. For African-American women, these numbers are even smaller. As such in the recent years, we have seen more and more women turning to entrepreneurship, with African-American women becoming the fastest growing segment of the women-owned businesses population. At the same time, we are also seeing a rise in social entrepreneurship, which …

Structure-Guided Site-Directed Mutagenesis Of The Bacterial Atp Synthase’S Epsilon Subunit, Mariam Bhatti

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) contains energy-rich phosphoanhydride bonds that provide the energy needed for many cellular processes. F-type ATP synthase is found in bacteria, chloroplasts, and mitochondria, having a conserved function to catalyze the synthesis and hydrolysis of ATP. ATP synthase is a membrane bound rotary motor enzyme, with coupled rotation between it’s two distinct complexes F_o and F₁. In bacteria and chloroplasts, the ε-subunit’s C-terminal Domain (εCTD) has a distinct regulatory function that is absent in mitochondria. Determining the inhibitory interactions of ε is important in understanding it’s physiological functions and for potential targeting of ε’s bacteria-specific …

Introducing Alexandra Moniqué: A Journey Through The Music Industry, Alexandra Mayo

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The music industry is a wide field with careers ranging from artist management, publicity, marketing, promotions, and music litigation to songwriting, producing, recording, and mastering. The list goes on and on; but there is a clear distinction between the artistic side of the industry and the business side of the industry.

This Capstone Project is my journey through the music industry both artistically and commercially. As a singer/songwriter, I wrote, recorded, and released an EP under my artist persona, Alexandra Moniqué. I then tackled the business side of the industry by promoting the album as a manager, publicist, and marketer. …

Jesus Wouldn’T Mow, He’D Grow: Transforming Congregations, Lawns, And Food Security In Linn County, Ia, Juliette Crellin

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study looks at religious organizations, lawns, and food insecurity in Linn County, and seeks to evaluate a hypothesis set forth by the founder of a farming nonprofit in the county. The Kendrick Hypothesis states that Linn County congregations could grow enough food on their lawns to eliminate food insecurity in the region. The study assesses this hypothesis using a yield analysis and survey of local religious leaders. While the study found that full participation in a congregation garden program could produce enough yield to significantly impact the county’s food insecurity, the results do not support the Kendrick Hypothesis. The …

Globalization And Offshoring: The Effects Of A Globalized Workplace On Auditing Procedures, Mignon Farnet

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Intensifying audit competition, increasing audit quality standards, and rising demand for audit services have prompted accounting firms across the nation to adopt new methods to meet client and industry demands while not overextending audit staff or raising audit prices. The use of offshoring to utilize a global workplace has allowed firms to maintain their competitiveness and expand to new markets to creatively respond to the industry demand. While offshoring is not something new on the global scale, the auditing practice was a late arrival to this practice, especially when compared to manufacturing industries or even the tax practice within the …

Zest Magazine: An Editorial, Managerial, And Exploration Of Syracuse University's Premier Travel Publication, Madysan Foltz

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Zest Magazine is Syracuse University’s first travel publication dedicated to bursting the bubble of campus life and highlighting student adventures far beyond the Hill. It focuses on servicing students’ curiosity about the world while inspiring a sense of wanderlust in readers. Zest strives to get all students interested in travel, regardless of gender, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic identity. Initially, Zest appeared in the spring semester of 2015 as an interactive tablet publication. It transitioned over to a print publication in the spring semester of 2016.

“Zest Magazine: An Editorial, Managerial, & Exploration of SU's Premier Travel Publication” sets out not …

Address, Xiao Li

Theses

Not only does this 21-minute long narrative short film serve as my graduate thesis project, but it is also my personal tribute to one of my favorite movie genres: film noir.

This film tells a story of a female protagonist, Felicia. She enjoys a poor yet happy life with her fiancé, Ryan, a young striving filmmaker who needs funding to continue with graduate school. After selling his car in order to cover school expenses, Ryan moves into Felicia’s house. One day, Felicia accidentally opens an envelope that was addressed to her ex-husband, Ed. The letter reveals that Ed is entitled …

Phenotypic Studies Of Pho13Δ In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Courtney Kellogg

Theses

PHO13 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast) is a para-nitrophenyl phosphatase (pNppase) of the haloacid dehalogenase (HAD) superfamily. A biological substrate for PHO13 had remained undiscovered while a knockout phenotype has only been observed in strains engineered to grow on D-xylose. The purified enzyme has been identified in our lab to specifically hydrolyze 2-phosphoglycolate, classifying it as a phosphoglycolate phosphatase (PGPase). In photosynthetic organisms, 2-phosphoglycolate (2-PG) is generated by the oxygenation reaction of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (RuBisCO) in the Calvin Cycle. To be recycled back into general metabolism, photosynthetic PGPase converts 2-PG to glycolate. In non-photosynthetic yeast, 2-PG must be generated by …