Digital Commons Network^™

Methamphetamine-Induced Dna Double-Stranded Breaks: The Impact Of The Dopamine Transporter And Insights Into The Mechanisms Of Dna Damage In Mouse Neuro 2a Cells, Lizette Couto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methamphetamine (METH) abuse remains a global health concern, with emerging evidence highlighting its genotoxic potential. In the central nervous system METH enters dopaminergic cells primarily through the dopamine transporter (DAT), which controls the dynamics of dopamine (DA) neurotransmission by driving the reuptake of extracellular DA into the presynaptic neuronal cell. Additional effects of METH on the storage of DA in synaptic vesicles lead to the dysregulated cytosolic accumulation of DA. Previous studies have shown that after METH disrupts intracellular vesicular stores of DA, the excess DA in the cytosol is rapidly oxidized. This generates an abundance of reactive oxygen species …

Interracial Instagram: Depictions Of Interracial Couples On Instagram, Christie Sillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines depictions of interracial romantic relationships on Instagram, a popular photo- and video-sharing social networking site. Social networking sites like Instagram, whereby users connect with each other by creating, sharing, and consuming content, are prime sites for sociological study because ideas are constantly being (re)made on them. On Instagram, meaning-making is mainly done through the construction of a profile and the posting of images and/or videos. Using a mixed-methods research design of hashtag analysis, digital ethnography, discourse and image analysis, I critically analyze Instagram profiles that depict interracial romantic relationships. In doing so, I develop a contemporary, social …

From The Outside Looking In: Transmasculine Narrative Identity, Experiences, And Larger Narratives On Social Media, Micah Roldan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Narrative identity development is an essential process in how individuals perceive themselves and the world around them. Often, narrative identity is studied in cisgender heterosexual individuals and applied to others without the acknowledgment of individuals that fall outside of these categories. Drawing upon existing literature and autoethnography, this thesis aims to meaningfully bridge this gap by studying the narrative identity development of transmasculine individuals through the lens of social media. This thesis proposes that the use of social media to share gender transition journeys has created a new digital trans and queer narrative for users and viewers. This narrative is …

The Role Of Glutamate In The Medial Prefrontal Cortex In The Acquistion And Expression Of Conditioned Approach, Rudolf Nisanov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A series of experiments were conducted to assess the role of glutamatergic stimulation in the dorsal and ventral regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in both the acquisition and expression of reward-related learning using a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm, the conditioned-approach paradigm. Rats with surgically implanted cannulas were exposed to Pavlovian conditioning sessions that occurred on three alternative days (acquisition) or seven consecutive days (expression). These 60-min conditioning sessions consisted of 30 pairings of light (CS) and food pellets (US) presented under a random time schedule. After a two-day break, rats underwent a session with no CS or US and …

Epistemic Theatres: The Dramaturgy Of Knowledge In Twenty-First Century Theatre, Amir Farjoun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I draw upon theatre and performance literature, science and technology studies, and art theory to attend the distinctive dramaturgical features of lecture-performance and other contemporary examples of epistemic theatres. After theorizing their roots, their causes, and their objectives, I build on the intrinsic and mutual links these performances develop between theatre and knowledge to justify and develop novel academic modes of response that consider theatre as a method, and not merely an object, of humanistic study. I propose that a theatricalization of knowledge—or rather, a more explicit acknowledgement of knowledge’s engrained theatricality—helps in developing intellectual-academic responses not …

Employment Outcomes In Higher Education, Yunxia Wei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Understanding the relationship between education, jobs, and wages in higher education is critical. It is not just about earning a degree; it is also about what that degree means for your earnings and the economy. Investigating data on jobs and wages challenges what we think we know and helps us see the whole picture. And delving into how much graduates earn based on what they studied and where they went to school by looking at Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO) using data from sources like the U.S. Census Bureau and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). It's like looking into …

Hagia Sophia: Politics Of Space And Hauntology, Hazal Demir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hagia Sophia is one of the most celebrated cultural heritages, considered sacred for thousands of years. However, Hagia Sophia’s political dimension is often overshadowed by its religious-sacred meanings. This thesis aims to analyze Hagia Sophia’s political character through four pivotal historical events: its foundation by Justinian the Great, its conversion into the imperial mosque of the Ottoman Empire, its secularization under the Turkish Republic, and its subsequent reconsecration into a mosque in 2020. Focusing on these four historical milestones, this thesis illuminates a political pattern embedded in Hagia Sophia, emphasizing its role as a space of political legitimacy and ideological …

Knowing The Patient As A Person: Social Media Listening And Gadamerian Analysis Of Nurses’ Expressions Shared During The Covid-19 Global Health Pandemic, Janusz A. Kaleta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: COVID-19 has dramatically changed human-to-human interactions from in-person to the nonhuman domain of virtual space. In January 2021, every 28 seconds one person died of COVID-19 in the United States. An average of 3,100 Americans died each day during the deadliest month of the pandemic. As of January 2023, the number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA surpassed 1.000.000 people. In hospitals, human-to-human interactions were often limited to seeing one’s eyes behind the face shields, and respirator masks, and hearing a muffled voice, or sounds of the ventilators. In New York State 452 nurses died during the pandemic.

Research …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Deep Learning-Based Human Action Understanding In Videos, Elahe Vahdani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The understanding of human actions in videos holds immense potential for technological advancement and societal betterment. This thesis explores fundamental aspects of this field, including action recognition in trimmed clips and action localization in untrimmed videos. Trimmed videos contain only one action instance, with moments before or after the action excluded from the video. However, the majority of videos captured in unconstrained environments, often referred to as untrimmed videos, are naturally unsegmented. Untrimmed videos are typically lengthy and may encompass multiple action instances, along with the moments preceding or following each action, as well as transitions between actions. In the …

In-Work Recovery Among Hybrid Employees: Examining The Relationships Between Stressors, Recovery Experiences, And Strains, Stefanie Larsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a drastic increase in the number of hybrid employees (i.e., employees who work remotely for part of a workweek) since the COVID-19 pandemic. While previous research has highlighted some of the benefits and costs of remote work, research on hybrid work is still in its early stages. One area that remains unclear is how hybrid work relates to stressor experiences and in-work recovery from work. The present study examined how levels of specific stressors (i.e., workload, availability pressure) vary depending on whether employees work remotely or in the office, and how the variations of these stressors across …

Migrant Children And Legislation: Integrating Knowledge About Trauma Into Policy, Yolennys E. Albornoz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study seeks to integrate some knowledge about trauma into migration policies in the U.S. regarding children. Migration is not a novel concept; it is a dynamic phenomenon that experiences continuous changes and constantly increases in numbers. Globally, the United States has been the primary destination for foreign migrants for a long time, and most of them are Latinos who cross the U.S. and Mexico border. Here, I explore how children face trauma in their home country, which forces them to migrate. Also, while they migrate and after they have migrated, exposing the three stages of trauma for migrant children. …

Algorithmic Love: Twenty-First Century Organizations Of The Romantic, Sandra Moyano Ariza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the highly computed and accelerated experiences of digital love as well as their cultural and artistic representations in order to shed light on the human and more-than-human entanglements producing the algorithmic love experience. The recent turn to love in critical theory and cultural studies examines how love circulates in neoliberal societies and in the subjective processes of the users, foregrounding the control of populations and the very much lamented “end of love” (Illouz 2019). My study of love supplements the neoliberalist critique of algorithmic love with a posthuman and media theory approach that attends to the material …

Digital Rhetoric Of The Invisible: Bisexual Literacy Practices On Tiktok, 2020–2021, Olivia Wood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation uses auto- and digital-ethnographic methods to analyze the literacy practices of bisexual TikTok users primarily during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, during which time TikTok exploded in popularity among U.S. social media users, especially among young adults. It is also an exercise in neuroqueer composing, diverging at times from the norms of academic writing and the dissertation genre to perform and intentionally draw attention to neuroqueer styles of thinking and communication. I argue that bisexual invisibility and contemporary bi+ rhetorical activity must be understood within the context of LGBTQ+ political history, particularly …

The Role Of The Infralimbic-Basal Forebrain Pathway In Fear Extinction, Carolina Maria Fernandes Henriques

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a key region for emotion regulation, and its failure to regulate extinction of aversive memories is associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Study of how the Infralimbic cortex (IL), a subregion of the mPFC, directly communicates with the Basolateral Amygdala (IL-BLA), has thus far failed to uncover the circuit mechanisms that lead to mPFC-mediated amygdala suppression of firing and diminished fear responses during extinction retrieval. One problem of this model is that it doesn’t incorporate indirect IL communication with the BLA. A key region to help understand how IL modulates extinction is the basal …

The True And Only Technic: Technological Ubiquity And Its Critics, Heretics, And Zealots, Hampton A. Dodd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Against technological ubiquity, the philosopher, the ecologist, the theologian, the psychologist, the radical, the reactionary, and the poet have each responded. This analysis seeks to explicate the nature of such responses, as well as to explore their contemporary form and elucidate what those presently publishing might offer as programs toward the future. In order to do this, what follows is broken up into a series of sections, each focused on what I have perceived to be the foremost themes present throughout technological critique: becoming, freedom, identity, faith, space, time, and progress. Prior to such thematic excavations, this analysis offers a …

Más Allá De La Crisis Y La Emergencia: Aproximaciones A Los Movimientos Migratorios Contemporáneos A Través De La Traducción Y La Comedia, Fabiola Fernandez Peer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Esta investigación propone una reflexión original sobre la migración más allá de los marcos de la crisis y de la emergencia en referencia a acontecimientos concretos de estos últimos diez años de “crisis/emergencias migratorias” en y entre las regiones sur y norte del continente. El análisis del ensayo visual de la escritora/artista visual Verónica Gerber; el ensayo y la escritura ficcional de la escritora Valeria Luiselli y los performances de comedia de los comediantes/influencers George Harris y Jóse Rafael Guzmán revela que estos materiales pugnan con el discurso oficial, mediático, artístico, humanitario referido a la migración. Señala el impacto …

Comprehension And Production Of Contrastive Reference In Autism, Georgia Drakopoulou Kalantzi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autistic children often exhibit differences in their use of referring expressions during discourse, characterized by the production of ambiguous expressions or the tendency to provide too little or too much information. Although several studies have investigated the social communicative behavior of autistic children, fewer have examined the pragmatic aspects of reference and how these are related to their cognitive and general language abilities. Moreover, the majority of studies have focused on the production of pronominal reference in narratives, with fewer exploring contrastive reference, particularly in comprehension. The current study aims to address these questions by investigating both the comprehension and …

Cognitive Reserve In Individuals With Frontotemporal Dementia And Primary Progressive Aphasia, Lauren A. Grebe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cognitive reserve refers to the brain’s ability to efficiently adapt in the presence of neuropathological disease. This is an active process influenced by individual differences (e.g., genetics) and lifetime experiences (e.g., education, occupation, leisure) (Cabeza et al., 2018; Stern et al., 2020). The cognitive reserve theory has recently been investigated in individuals with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which refers to various disorders leading to frontotemporal neurodegenerative decline (Young et al., 2018); e.g., behavioral variant of FTD (bvFTD) and variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA): semantic (svPPA), nonfluent/agrammatic (nfvPPA), and logopenic (lvPPA). However, a clear consensus on the relationship among cognitive reserve, …

Modeling Of Covid-19 Clinical Outcomes In Mexico: An Analysis Of Demographic, Clinical, And Chronic Disease Factors, Livia Clarete

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores COVID-19 clinical outcomes in Mexico, focusing on demographic, clinical, and chronic disease variables to develop predictive models. In the binary classification task, the Ada Boost Classifier distinguishes survivors from non-survivors, with age, sex, ethnicity, and chronic medical conditions influencing outcomes. In multiclass classification, the Gradient Boosting Classifier categorizes patients into outcome groups.

Demographic variables, especially age, are crucial for predicting COVID-19 outcomes for both the binary and multiclass classification tasks. Clinical information about previous conditions, including chronic diseases, also holds relevance, especially diabetes, immunocompromise, and cardiovascular diseases. These insights inform public health measures and healthcare strategies, emphasizing …

Turf War: Interstate Banking And Industry Consolidation, 1965–1998, Erin Cully

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the advent of interstate banking in America during the second half of the twentieth century. To become the giants they are today, US financial institutions had to overcome, in fits and starts, the political limits on their geographical expansion across municipal, county, state, and national borders—and not always in that order. Faced with new competitors and harsh economic conditions, some bankers set their sights on expanding their markets to stay afloat. Many policymakers and regulators were responsive to this demand, hopeful that it could serve as a catalyst for economic growth. Challenging restrictions on interstate banking meant …

A Causal Inference Approach For Spike Train Interactions, Zach Saccomano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the 1960s, neuroscientists have worked on the problem of estimating synaptic properties, such as connectivity and strength, from simultaneously recorded spike trains. Recent years have seen renewed interest in the problem coinciding with rapid advances in experimental technologies, including an approximate exponential increase in the number of neurons that can be recorded in parallel and perturbation techniques such as optogenetics that can be used to calibrate and validate causal hypotheses about functional connectivity. This thesis presents a mathematical examination of synaptic inference from two perspectives: (1) using in vivo data and biophysical models, we ask in what cases the …

Of Method: A Propaedeutic To Coleridge's Prose Works, Michael A. Granger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coleridge’s prose works, published and unpublished, demonstrate a thorough and critical testing and understanding of British and German philosophical responses to skepticism and the ability of philosophy to progress by maintaining a double-minded and conflicted suture of both the practical or imaginative eclipse of knowledge and theorizing the hypothetical epistemological absolute that explains the relativity of facticity. Any inadequate method of inquiry stagnates within attempting a purely figurative or purely demonstrative solution to skepticism. Thus, the appropriate way to approach Coleridge’s understanding of philosophy is the struggle to make inquiry adequate though progression. Coleridge’s methodological impulse originates explicitly in a …

Ethnic Minorities And Family Health History: An Autoethnography Of Guyanese Americans And Kidney Disease, Dhaneesha R. Bahadur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exploring family health histories (FHHs) has emerged in recent years as an inexpensive genomic tool in public health. Families and clinicians can also use them to uncover family histories and experiences, which could inform better lifestyle choices to prevent or delay the onset of diseases. Exploring family health histories focuses on an individual’s genetic makeup and considers differences in lifestyle and environment. Despite national campaigns, it is an underutilized tool that could lead to engagement in effective strategies and better health outcomes. One important and serious condition that families should be more aware of is chronic kidney disease (CKD). One …

Essays On Real Estate, Flood Risk, And Political Sentiment, John P. Orellana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that investigate how climate change, flood risk, and political sentiment influence outcomes in housing markets.

Chapter 1: This chapter offers a brief review and discussion of several recent and seminal papers at the intersection of flood risk, climate change, and real estate, as well as a critique on some of the literature on the effects of sea-level rise on housing outcomes.

Chapter 2: FEMA flood maps serve two functions: they signal risk to homeowners and mandate insurance take-up. How these information and risk transfer mechanisms affect homeowner relocation decisions remains unknown. Combining real estate …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

‘The Power Of Three Will Set Us Free': Witchy Womanist Readings Of Toni Morrison’S Sula, Opal Palmer Adisa’S It Begins With Tears, And Migdalia Cruz’S The Have-Little And Miriam’S Flowers, Anamaría Flores

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Witchy womanism is a critical methodology for reading, teaching, and writing about literature in order to generate emancipatory knowledge, activate Queer, Black, and Indigenous consciousnesses, contribute to 21^st century women’s, Black, and Indigenous liberation movements, and foster (re)connections to ancestral rituals and knowledge. Born at the intersections of Black Studies, BIPOC Queer and Gender Studies, Caribbean Studies, English, Hip-Hop Studies and Latinx Studies, “‘The Power of Three Will Set Us Free’: Witchy Womanist Readings of Toni Morrison's Sula, Opal Palmer Adisa's It Begins With Tears, and Migdalia Cruz's The Have-Little and Miriam's Flowers" is a multidisciplinary …

An Examination Of Factors Associated With Ipv Victimization, Ipv Disclosure, And Help-Seeking Among Partnered Sexual Minority Men: An Integrated Theoretical Approach, Stephen Bosco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The emerging body of research illustrates that sexual minority cis men (SMM) in a relationship experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at rates comparable to those reported by cis women in a heterosexual relationship. Although research on IPV in male relationships has increased, it is a phenomenon that remains considerably understudied compared to research examining IPV in a heterosexual relationship. Despite comparable rates of IPV victimization, SMM are less likely to disclose and use informal and formal support services compared to heterosexual women. To conceptualize and understand challenges to disclosure and help-seeking as well as identify facets to develop relevant and …

The Effect Of Alpha Binaural Beats On Virtual Reality Experiences, Andronikki C. Gerohristodoulos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Visually induced motion sickness (VIMS), a subset of motion sickness, has been a long-term obstacle preventing comfortable experiences in virtual reality (VR). There is a growing body of research showing that binaural beats (BBs) have been effective to influence aspects of cognition. The goal of this experiment was to investigate the possible effects of attending to BBs and any changes to the severity of VIMS symptoms following immersion in a virtual reality environment (VRE). To validate our hypothesis a repeated-measures, between-subjects experiment was designed (n=16) and an alpha (10Hz) frequency BB and a control audio were created. Participants were split …

What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?: Visualizing Extreme Wealth, William Mahoney Luckman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The word “billion” is a mathematical abstraction related to “big,” but it is difficult to understand the vast difference in value between one million and one billion; even harder to understand the vast difference in purchasing power between one billion dollars, and the average U.S. yearly income. Perhaps most difficult to conceive of is what that purchasing power and huge mass of capital translates to in terms of power. This project blends design, text, facts, and figures into an interactive narrative website that helps the user better understand their position in relation to extreme wealth: https://whatdoesonebilliondollarslooklike.website/

The site incorporates …