Digital Commons Network^™

2021-December-01-Etsu Professor Writes About Plantation Sites Remembering Slavery, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (December 2021) – Plantation sites have the ability to better tell the histories of former slaves in the United States. 

That point drives the new book, “Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum.” East Tennessee State University’s Dr. Candace Forbes Bright is one of the book’s authors. 

Examining multiple plantation sites across the American South, these scholars consider the experiences of tourists, museum managers and tour guides.  

As the public and scholars alike debate how to best understand and remember slavery in the U.S., this work is designed to help professionals reassemble the narratives and landscapes of …

2021-December-01-Etsu Health Family Medicine Accepting New Patients, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY – A heart for ministering to others paired with a love for science drove Dr. Allison Powers to obtain her medical degree and to pursue opportunities to serve others.

She is accepting new patients at ETSU Health Family Medicine Johnson City.

Powers offers the full scope of family medicine care for all stages of patients’ lives, including acute inpatient care, pediatrics, obstetrics and office procedures. 

“You will receive excellent care through ETSU Family Medicine Johnson City,” Powers said. 

“We are able to provide for many of your health needs in one medical home, while working with a …

2021-December-01-Entrepreneurship-In-Residence Program Announced At Etsu, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – In a first-of-its-kind initiative in the region, the College of Business and Technology at East Tennessee State University has announced the start of its Entrepreneurship-In-Residence (EIR) program, exposing student candidates to startup investment decisions.  

The program is a collaborative effort between The Angel Roundtable (ART) of the Appalachian Highlands and the Entrepreneurship Program at ETSU’s College of Business and Technology. The Angel Roundtable is a network of successful entrepreneurs, investors, and community business leaders from Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina who provide investment capital and strategic advice to late-seed and early-stage companies to …

Social And Academic Experiences Of Black, First-Generation, College Graduates While Attending Predominantly White Institutions, James Edward Stukes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

First-generation college students represent a significant percentage of all college students and comprise various sub-identities and unique backgrounds. Compared to continuing generation college students, many first-generation students arrive on college campuses without complete understanding of how to navigate college life. Factors, such as family support, finding a sense of belonging, and the availability of resources and campus support, play key roles in the overall success of first-generation college students. The current study sought understanding of these aspects of college life and their relationship to the success of Black, first-generation, graduates of predominantly White institutions.

The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological …

All Roads Lead To Darrington: Building A Bluegrass Community In Western Washington, James W. Edgar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through the mid-twentieth century, a significant pattern of migration occurred between Appalachia and the Pacific Northwest, with Washington’s thriving timber industry offering compelling economic opportunities. Many workers and families from western North Carolina settled in the small mountain town of Darrington, Washington, frequently accompanied by their banjos and guitars. As a group of young bluegrass enthusiasts from Seattle established relationships with Darrington’s “Tar Heel” musicians, a collaborative music community formed, laying the foundation for the region’s contemporary bluegrass scene.

Drawn from a series of ethnographic interviews, this project illuminates the development of a bluegrass community in western Washington, while identifying …

Health Workers’ Perceptions On Where And How To Integrate Tobacco Use Cessation Services Into Tuberculosis Treatment; A Qualitative Exploratory Study In Uganda, Elizeus Rutebemberwa, Kellen Nyamurungi, Surabhi Joshi, Yvonne Olando, Hadii M. Mamudu, Robert P. Pack

ETSU Faculty Works

Background: Tobacco use is associated with exacerbation of tuberculosis (TB) and poor TB treatment outcomes. Integrating tobacco use cessation within TB treatment could improve healing among TB patients. The aim was to explore perceptions of health workers on where and how to integrate tobacco use cessation services into TB treatment programs in Uganda. Methods: Between March and April 2019, nine focus group discussions (FGDs) and eight key informant interviews were conducted among health workers attending to patients with tuberculosis on a routine basis in nine facilities from the central, eastern, northern and western parts of Uganda. These facilities were high …

Digital Brand Identity Design From A User Experience Perspective, Isaiah Harwood

Undergraduate Honors Theses

As a graphic designer and as a creative in general, my interest has always been in the conceptualization and execution of brand identities. I am most comfortable as a designer when I am working in the realm of art direction, and most of my design heroes and inspirations are legendary art directors and designers like Paula Scher, Paul Rand, and Michael Bierut. Logo and wordmark design in particular are among my favorite aspects of design, and finding ways to creatively apply these foundational aspects of a brand to each stage of the user experience is exciting to me. The stages …

East Tennessee State University Student Perceptions Of Gun Legislature, Brieann Boyle

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Many Americans are pushing for legislation supporting increased gun control; however many critics argue that increasing gun control will limit Americans’ rights as defined in the Second Amendment. With Tennessee’s passing of the Constitutional Carry, the researcher found it relevant to build on past research and to evaluate East Tennessee State University students’ perceptions of current Tennessee gun legislation in the light of this new act. East Tennessee State University students were surveyed in-person about their perceptions and knowledge of the current Tennessee gun legislation and support for gun control. No significant relationship was found between major and knowledge of …

Natively Implementing Deep Reinforcement Learning Into A Game Engine, Austin Kincer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Artificial intelligence (AI) increases the immersion that players can have while playing games. Modern game engines, a middleware software used to create games, implement simple AI behaviors that developers can use. Advanced AI behaviors must be implemented manually by game developers, which decreases the likelihood of game developers using advanced AI due to development overhead.

A custom game engine and custom AI architecture that handled deep reinforcement learning was designed and implemented. Snake was created using the custom game engine to test the feasibility of natively implementing an AI architecture into a game engine. A snake agent was successfully trained …

“Fake It!”: An Exploration Of Cinematography, Societal Expectations, And Artist Collaboration, Sullivan Perry

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An exploration of cinematography, societal expectations, and artist collaboration, “Fake It!” challenges the traditional definition of art. Part one follows the journey of creating a music video for an original song titled “Fake It!” by the band Model City. Location, lighting, camera, and editing choices are explained and connected to the song's themes of teenage angst, regret, and a rejection of societal norms. Part two explores the process of creating art by translating the hexadecimal color values from the music video into a new musical composition. This is accomplished through a mathematical process that converts the computer-identified RGB letters and …

2021-December-01-Etsu Commencement, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University will confer more than 1,300 degrees during Commencement Exercises on Saturday, Dec. 11, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the Ballad Health Athletic Center. Gayle Conelly Manchin, who is federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), will deliver the keynote address at 10 a.m. ETSU faculty member Dr. Sean Fox, who won the Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching, will address graduates during the 2 p.m. ceremony.

Manchin works directly with the ARC’s 13 member governors, their state alternates and program managers, and a network of local development districts to continue to …

Perceptions Of Risk For Covid-19 Among Individuals With Chronic Diseases And Stakeholders In Central Appalachia, Manik Ahuja, Hadii M. Mamudu, Florence M. Weierbach, Karilynn Dowling-Mcclay, David W. Stewart, Manul Awasthi, Timir K. Paul

ETSU Faculty Works

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly evolving and is a serious public health threat worldwide. Timely and effective control of the pandemic is highly dependent on preventive approaches. Perception of risk is a major determinant of health behavior. The current study explores the association between actual risk and perceived risk for one’s self, family/friends and friends, and community. A questionnaire was administered to participants in Central Appalachia (n = 102). The actual risk was based on the number of chronic conditions of the following conditions: hypertension, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Participants were also queried …

Land, Lava, And Disaster Create A Social Dilemma After The 2018 Eruption Of Kīlauea Volcano, Bruce F. Houghton, Wendy A. Cockshell, Chris E. Gregg, Brett H. Walker, Karl Kim, Caroline M. Tisdale, Eric Yamashita

ETSU Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

2021-December-01-Etsu Health Partners With Healing Hands, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Healing Hands

From left, Dr. Amanda Stoltz and Dr. John Culp are among physicians from ETSU Health Family Medicine Bristol who have partnered with Helen Scott, director of Healing Hands Health Center, to provide health care to low-income and uninsured individuals in the region.

BRISTOL, Tenn. – ETSU Health’s Family Medicine Bristol clinic is providing even more health care to low-income and uninsured individuals through a partnership with Healing Hands Health Center.

Healing Hands, located at 245 Midway Medical Park, is a charitable medical and dental clinic that provides care to adults in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. East Tennessee …

2021-December-01-Etsu Professor Writes About Masculinity, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Masculinity – what it means and how it came to be – has for years been a point of discussion on college campuses. More recently, the conversation has spread to the general public. The New York Times posed the question in 2019: what is “toxic masculinity?”

East Tennessee State University’s Dr. Elwood Watson is addressing these and other important questions in “Talkin’ to You, Bro!: Liberate your mind from the confusing, ambiguous messages of contemporary masculinity,” a book released earlier this fall. 

The book offers a new outlook on manhood in current culture, Watson said, and aims to help men …

2021-December-01-Etsu Health Family Medicine Accepting New Patients, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY – A heart for ministering to others paired with a love for science drove Dr. Allison Powers to obtain her medical degree and to pursue opportunities to serve others.

She is accepting new patients at ETSU Health Family Medicine Johnson City.

Powers offers the full scope of family medicine care for all stages of patients’ lives, including acute inpatient care, pediatrics, obstetrics and office procedures. 

“You will receive excellent care through ETSU Family Medicine Johnson City,” Powers said. 

“We are able to provide for many of your health needs in one medical home, while working with a …

Trained Immunity Enhances The Immune Response And Maintains Microbiome Diversity In Aging And Sepsis, P. Spencer Gill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The global population is rapidly aging. It is estimated that over the next thirty years, the number of individuals >60 years of age will increase by over a billion, and the number of individuals over age 80 may increase by 300 million. As humans age, our immune system becomes progressively weaker through a process called immune senescence. This age-related decrease in immune function increases susceptibility to infection and chronic diseases. Sepsis is a leading cause of death worldwide. Over the past two decades, there has been an increased incidence of sepsis which is due, in part, to our aging population …

Developing A Process To Select B2b Target Markets With A Focus On Siemens Simatic Controllers, Eva Limbrunner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The process to identify and describe target markets can be challenging for marketers due to the complexity of B2B markets and industrial products. This case-based study aims to bridge the gap between theory and praxis by developing a process to determine target markets for Siemens SIMATIC controllers, which are highly technological products designed for process control and used in industrial applications. The author conducted a literature review to investigate the current understanding of B2B market segmentation and target marketing and collected qualitative data from Siemens. This study defines segmentation variables leveraging segmentation models as a foundation to build and describe …

Movies That Sell: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Product Placements In Marvel Movies, Andrew Nii Okai Okai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The advancement of digital entertainment media has given audiences the ability to skip ads that do not interest them. Consequently, brands face the challenge of creating ads that can compel audiences and finding media outlets that can effectively reach target audiences. Brands today use product placements to promote their products because movie audiences are generally attentive to ads when they are incorporated in a movie’s narrative. Marvel Cinematic Universe is a globally recognized entertainment franchise that uses product placements strategically to promote brands in their movies and TV shows. In this study, I conduct rhetorical analyses of select product placements …

Traditional And Non-Traditional Gender Role Stereotypes In Children’S Animated Films, Rachael Davidson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As gender stereotypes could lead to adherence to rape myths later in life, it is important to study the potential development of gender role stereotypes. Based on the theoretical approach of Bandura’s social learning, this mixed methods study sought to expand the literature on children observing gender stereotypes through film viewing. A content analysis of verbal and body language of the highest grossing animated films between 2017-2019 was conducted. The results indicated that most main characters displayed both traditional and non-traditional gender role stereotypes, which is indicative of gender role flexibility. This shows promise that there could be a moderating …

School Accountability And Chronic Absenteeism In The State Of Tennessee, Heidi Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to explore a possible relationship between the number of students in grades 9-12 classified as chronically absent and the inclusion of the Chronically Out of School indicator in Tennessee’s accountability model for schools and school districts. Using publicly available data from the Tennessee Department of Education, the research study examined 6 years of data from the 2014-2015 to 2019-2020 school years. Data were divided into 3 years before and 3 years after implementation.

Results of the study indicated that the mean number of chronically absent students in grades 9-12 were significantly lower …

Electronic Evidence Locker: An Ontology For Electronic Evidence, Daniel Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the rapid growth of crime data, overwhelming amounts of electronic evidence need to be stored and shared with the relevant agencies. Without addressing this challenge, the sharing of crime data and electronic evidence will be highly inefficient, and the resource requirements for this task will continue to increase. Relational database solutions face size limitations in storing larger amounts of crime data where each instance has unique attributes with unstructured nature.

In this thesis, the Electronic Evidence Locker (EEL) was proposed and developed to address such problems. The EEL was built using a NoSQL database and a C# website for …

Preparation And Study Of Bacterial Membrane Models, Enoch Asimbisa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fuel molecules are organic solvents that have disruptive effects on the bacterial membrane. This is a significant barrier in biofuel production, as it limits the fuel concentration that can be achieved through fermentation. One potential way of overcoming this barrier is to identify lipid compositions that can better withstand solvent stress, for which it is important to understand how organic solvents disrupt the membrane. Use of biophysical characterization techniques to quantify physical properties like fluidity and thickness will enable us to understand the mechanism by which solvents disrupt membranes. Native membranes are very complex, and we sought to develop in-vitro …

Functional Mixed Data Clustering With Fourier Basis Smoothing, Ishmael Amartey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Clustering is an important analytical technique that has proven to affect human life positively through its application in cancer research, market segmentation, city planning etc. In this time of growing technological systems, mixed data has seen another face of longitudinal, directional and functional attributes which is worth paying attention to and analyzing. Previous research works on clustering relied largely on the inverse weight technique and B-spline in smoothing data and assessing the performance of various clustering algorithms. In 1971, Gower proposed a method of clustering for mixed variable types which has been extended to include functional and directional variables by …

Synthesis Of Phosphatidylethanolamine Lipids For Model Studies Of The Cell Membrane, John Hayford G. Teye-Kau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Concerns about global warming have resulted in a surge of research into alternatives to fossil fuels. In recent years, biofuels have gained traction due to their low environmental impact. Biofuel production most commonly employs microorganisms to convert biomass to fuel for industrial and transportation applications. Compounds made in biofuel production, however, are toxic to cell membranes and disrupt their integrity, harming the microorganisms and limiting biofuel yield. A key to overcoming this challenge is understanding how fuels interact with microorganisms’ cell membranes, which perform a host of functions, including transport, cell recognition, transduction, and movement. Phospholipids are the cell membrane’s …

Nonprofit Narratives: How Two Organizations Use Social Media And Rhetorical Appeals To Address Issues Of Sexual And Domestic Violence, Samuel Hiester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though often seen as a panacea for organizational objectives, nonprofits must be judicious in deploying social media, particularly due to resource limitations. Nonprofits deploy many types and styles of digital texts, including social media. Classical rhetorical appeals can be effective means for achieving positive impact in that context. When used correctly, these ‘digital texts’ can be leveraged for maximum engagement with audiences. This study examines both a large, national organization – the National Sexual Violence Resource Center – and a small, regional one – Branch House Family Justice Center – for not only what sort of digital texts are utilized, …

Student Collaboration: Early Childhood Teachers' Roles And Perspectives, Kimberly Ballantyne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Early childhood environments can offer valuable opportunities for student collaboration. Social interactions allow students to practice listening to each other and learn how to work together. This study focused on the roles and perspectives of early childhood educators related to student collaboration in the classroom. Six educators from one elementary school in New Hampshire participated in two focus group discussions, the first of which included a presentation on student collaboration with first graders. Participants also completed four concept maps highlighting their perspectives about student collaboration and one written reflection comparing their perspectives before and after engaging in the focus group …

Familial Regulation Of Young Children's Tv Viewing In Ghana, Clara Puni-Nyamesem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined familial regulation of young children's TV viewing in Ghana. Participants were families with young children four through eight years enrolled at a school in the south of Ghana. An online survey of TV regulation practices of families (restrictive, coviewing, and instructive), TV viewing hours of young children, and families' perception of TV influence on their children was completed by 158 family members (mostly parents). Results showed that restrictive regulation is the most predominately used strategy in Ghana, although all 3 regulation styles were used. College educated families were significantly more likely to use restrictive regulation than families …

Synthesis Of Phytosulfokine Analogs As Probes For Studying Plant Signaling And Molecular Trafficking, Thomas Ntim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Plants are exposed to a wide range of biotic and abiotic stresses that hinder their growth and reduce crop productivity. In their adaptive response, plants use signaling molecules that are trafficked throughout the plant. This research focuses on the chemical synthesis and assessment of analogs of the plant signal phytosulfokine (PSK, a sulfated pentapeptide), its delivery to plants and its observation using a fiber-optic fluorescence microscope. PSK regulates growth, cell expansion, heat tolerance, and tissue longevity. Analogs of PSK were synthesized using solid-phase peptide synthesis. Pure PSK and TAMRA-labeled PSK were delivered into the wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 and a …

The Influence Of Social Media On The Tourism Industry: A Content Analysis Of Culinary Tourism Brands Via Instagram, Angela White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The tourism industry in the United States is constantly changing and being influenced by social media, specifically Instagram. Culinary brands use Instagram to advertise their restaurants and dishes in a creative, visual way. As a result, Instagram is now being used as a tool by tourists and both potential and current customers to share their dining experiences and find these locations based on the visual appeal. This study provides a content analysis of Instagram account information and photo composition within eight popular culinary tourism destinations by examining the strategies used by the accounts. 50 randomly selected photos were used from …