Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Impact Of Pre-College Stem Exposure On First-Year Engineering Student Self-Efficacy, Micaha Dean Hughes

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach programs for high school students have become more widely available during the last decade in an effort to drive more graduates into the ever-growing STEM field in the United States. This study utilizes the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE) survey to investigate a possible relationship between specific pre-college STEM outreach programs and noncognitive predictors of success in first-year undergraduate engineering students. Students in their first semester of a first-year engineering program at a large, public research university completed the LAESE survey and were asked to identify their participation in one of three …

Factors In The Success Of Female Computing Majors In Community Colleges, Melanie Williamson

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

Historically, the role of women in computing changes over time as does their presence in the field. In 1985, 37% of computer science bachelor’s degree recipients were women, but in recent years, that number has decreased and currently holds at, around, 18%. Using a mixed methods approach, the study looked at the success of women enrolled in a computing degree program at a community college and the impact that self-efficacy, involvement in academic support opportunities, and profession perception influences persistence to successfully complete a computing course. Using Astin’s Student Involvement theory (1984; 1999) and Astin’s Involvement – Environment – Output …

Action Research As Professional Development: Creating Effective Professional Development In Every Classroom, Lori A. Cambareri

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Professional development is a critical component of teacher professional growth that directly influences increased student learning and achievement. As professionals, teachers continue to develop their knowledge and skills with the aim of improving their teaching to assure that students can learn better. A huge investment in time and resources is invested in teacher professional learning every year. However, teachers report, and research supports, that teacher professional development often does not meet teachers’ needs and does not perform its integral function of creating a sustained change in teacher behavior that leads to a corresponding positive change in student achievement. This problem …

Teacher Decision-Making In Guided Reading, Brittany Worthen

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

Guided reading provides teachers the opportunity to support students in literacy learning. When planning for and implementing this instructional approach, teachers are required to make various in-advance and in-the-moment decisions that involve responding to students’ instructional needs through adaptive teaching. Grounded in sociocultural and social constructivist theories, this study was designed to understand teacher decision-making within the context of guided reading instruction. Several questions were considered for this study: How do teachers make decisions about guided reading instruction? How do teachers make in-advance decisions about grouping, planning, and assessing? How do teachers make in-the-moment decisions about (a) feedback and support …

Transforming Outcomes To Increase Participation In The Independent Living Program Sponsored By Sunrise Children’S Services, Richard R. Burslem

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Research demonstrates the transition for aging-out foster youth evidences they are not equipped with the necessary tools to live a self-sufficient adult life. Many children who age-out of the foster system have encountered trauma at multiple levels. Sunrise Children’s Services is an agency in Kentucky committed to changing negative outcomes for this population of individuals.

The optimum goal for children and youth is for them to grow up within their biological family where they receive guidance and support as they mature. For some individuals that is not an option, and the government along with agencies like Sunrise are focused on …

The Effects Of A Strengths Based Faculty Coaching Intervention On First-Year Undergraduate Student Academic Confidence: A Mixed Methods Action Research Study, Conrad Alfred Davies Sr.

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Deficiency remediation models of education imply that students may enter the university with deficiencies, problems, or needs that imply the student needs to be “fixed” before they can proceed in their academic studies. In contrast, strengths-based education models infer that students come to the university with inherent talents, natural propensities, and behaviors that can be leveraged to overcome their challenges. These differing perspectives can influence the effectiveness of university policies designed to improve student retention. This mixed methods action research study, undergirded by student development theories, examined the effects of a strengths-based, faculty-led coaching intervention on first-year undergraduate students’ academic …

Perceptions Of Rural Middle School Band Directors Regarding Student Recruitment Strategies: An Instrumental Multiple Case Study, Kaitlin Callihan

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The purpose of this instrumental multiple case study was to learn about middle school band directors’ perceptions of successful recruitment strategies. Specific areas of focus included insight on why middle school children choose band, successful recruitment activities/events, involvement of directors in the recruitment process, and advice for support in situations where an individual may be the only band director in the district. Six participants, two from Kentucky, two from West Virginia, and two from Virginia, were selected using purposive sampling criterion. Criterion for selecting participants at the time of the study were: (a) they were middle school band directors, (b) …

Circuition: Concerto For Jazz Guitar And Orchestra, Richard Alan Robinson

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Circuition: Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra is a programmatic musical composition which tells the story of the life cycle. Each part is designed to represent a particular time in life through age or set of events that relate to all people regardless of the specifics in one’s life. Although I disclose how the program of relates to specifics within my own life, the goal is that a listener will find resonance with their own. In this document I examine how the elements of form, harmony, melody, and rhythm shape the composition and inform its programmatic nature.

Topics are divided …

Crouching Tiger Cello Concerto - A Melding Of Form And Content For The Concert Stage, Xiaohang Yu

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto for Amplified Cello and Orchestra is not only one of the most frequently performed cello concerto of the recent past; it also demonstrates Tan’s masterful synthesis of artistic forms from the Chinese and the Western art music traditions with visual media that extends beyond the concert-hall. The music for this concerto was initially composed as part of the score for Ang Lee’s film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, itself a landmark blend of Chinese cinema with Western technique. The score broke boundaries, combining Western orchestral music with traditional Chinese instruments and thematic material. This melding …

The Clarinet And Piano Works Of Ernst Mahle: A Collaborative Pianist’S Perspective, Edgar Augusto Gonsales

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Ernst Mahle is a German-Brazilian composer who not only became a Brazilian citizen but also a reference for Brazilian classical music. His vast list of compositions includes works for all major genres, as well as containing instrument combinations that are not mainstream. In addition to being a composer, Mahle dedicated a big part of his life as a pedagogue, as a teacher and as the director of the Escola de Música de Piracicaba (Piracicaba Music School).

Through research on Mahle’s biography, compositional styles, and an interview with the composer, the purpose of this paper is to study his four clarinet …

A Study Of Language And Its Uses In Flute Performance And Pedagogy, Sarah Tuley

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Various tone colors can be produced on the flute in part by altering the shape of the lips, jaw and tongue movement, and air speed. As these actions are similar to those in the production of speech, flutists and flute teachers often associate aspects of playing with consonants and vowels. However, the shape of the oral cavity can vary depending on the spoken language of the flute-player. By becoming familiar with the pronunciations of different sounds from various languages, the flutist may discover a wider variety of tone colors at his/her disposal. This document will investigate the use of vowels …

A Pilot Study Evaluating A Training For Music Therapy Students On Considerations For Lgbtq Clients, Cecilia Blair Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Music therapists are expected to understand the influence of gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation on the therapeutic process, yet may not be receiving education that adequately prepares them to support LGBTQ clients. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the impact of a one-hour educational training for music therapy students on considerations for working with LGBTQ clients. The presentation included information about terminology, discrimination, healthcare discrimination, music therapy research, musical considerations, and additional resources provided as a handout. The minority stress theory and queer theory informed the development of the presentation. Exploratory analysis revealed that participants …

Teacher Perspectives On The Influence Of Participation In Dalcroze Training In The K–12 Music Classroom: A Mixed Methods Study, Holly Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the teacher perspectives on the influence of participation in Dalcroze training in the K–12 music classroom. A primary goal was to investigate how Dalcroze training influenced music teachers’ classroom instructional practices. An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was use for this study. Participants (N = 91) completed a cross-sectional survey, the Dalcroze Training Experience Questionnaire (DTEQ). Interview participants (N = 6) were selected using stratified sampling based on their years of Dalcroze experience and not demographic characteristics. Each participated in one semi-structured interview.

Quantitative data was analyzed using a …

Songs For High Voice: An Annotated Guide To African Romances, Op. 17 By Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Makeda Danielle Hampton

Theses and Dissertations--Music

African Romances, Op. 17, composed in 1897 by African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), is a collection of seven songs for high voice that is uniquely both African and American. The lyrics of this song cycle were first published in the book Majors and Minors, a collection of poems published in 1895 by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906).

An analysis of resources supports that academic discourse in Black vocal music has been underrepresented due to the absence of centralized information, such as published scores, recorded materials, catalogs, and guides for study and performance. While in depth research focusing on the art …

Symphony No. 3 For Chamber Orchestra, Derrik Nelson

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Symphonic works provide the composer an opportunity to create and explore an entire world, establishing the rules and laws by which the music operates, subject only to the whims and wishes of the composer. I view large-scale symphonic works as one of the highest achievements of musical expression and craft a composer can accomplish. I chose to compose for the chamber orchestra due to its intimate arrangement, narrowing down the orchestra to its most essential components: strings, woodwinds, and brass, along with the inclusion of the piano. Though the piano is technically not an “essential” component of the orchestra, I …

A Glimpse Into Chinese Piano Education And Performance Through An Influential Professor, Xin Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Although China traditionally did not have keyboard instruments of its own origin, the country has taken to the modern piano exceedingly well. In the past decades, piano performance and education have progressed at an impressive rate, its popularity reaching unprecedented heights. The virtuosity of Chinese pianists has earned them prizes at renowned international competitions. These developments have sparked the interest of scholars as well as the general public.

First introduced to China around 1840, the piano was slow to be accepted, but interest grew steadily in the twentieth century. Missionaries and foreigners were the first piano teachers, with figures like …

Southern Alterity In The Global Modernist Novel, 1899-1966, Benjamin J. Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--English

My dissertation examines the portrayal of southern alterity in the global modernist novel. The trope of southern spaces as sites of decay, degeneration, and dissolution proves to be remarkably durable in both fictions set within the domestic U.S. south, as well as those colonial and postcolonial texts associated with the global modernist canon. Novels like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! suggest that the alterity of places like the Congo and Haiti are inextricably bound up with racial hierarchies. On the other hand, texts such as Charles W. Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition and Zora Neale …

Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Optic Fissure Fusion During Zebrafish Eye Development, Megan Weaver

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Vertebrate retinal development requires timely and precise fusion of the optic fissure. Failure of this event leads to congenital vision impairment in the form of coloboma. Recent studies have suggested hyaloid vasculature to be involved in OF fusion. In order to examine this link, we analyzed optic fissure fusion and hyaloid vasculogenesis in the zebrafish pax2a noi mutant line. We first determined that pax2a^-/- embryos fail to accumulate F-actin in the optic fissure prior to basement membrane (BM) degradation. Furthermore, using 3D and live imaging we observed reduced OF hyaloid vascularization in pax2a^-/- embryos. When examining the connection …

Leveraging Transcriptomic Approaches To Identify Differences In Genetic Programming Driving Two Distinct Wound Healing Mechanisms, Regeneration And Fibrosis, In Acomys And Mus, Shishir K. Biswas

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Why can some animals and others cannot? This fundamental question has fueled scientists studying regeneration for hundreds of years since early observations in crayfish, salamanders and many other organisms. While most contemporary work in regeneration is done in a handful of species including salamanders, zebrafish and flatforms, these organisms lack a closely-related, non-regenerating sister species from which unique genetic differences can be identified. Additionally, while much has been learned from these organisms, they do not share fundamental biological traits with mammals (endothermy, metabolism and immune system) which limits the ability to translate this research for clinical medicine. To this end, …

Cellular Bioenergetics Regulates Cell Proliferation During Mammalian Regeneration, Sandeep Saxena

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Mammalian system consists of stress-sensing molecules that regulates their cellular response against damage, injury and oncogenic stress. During vertebrate regeneration, cells responding to injury re-enter the cell cycle and proliferate to form new tissue. Cell cycle re-entry or arrest is at least partly regulated by cellular senescence which negatively impacts the proliferative pool of cells during regeneration. What remains unclear is whether cells in regenerating systems possess an increased propensity to proliferate and are refractory to signals that induce senescence. My thesis work has focused on how fibroblasts from the ear pinna differentially regulate healing in highly regenerative mammals (e.g., …

Meeting Their Expectations: Student Expectations And Perceptions Of Instructor Clarity, Credibility, Rapport, And Climate In Online Courses, Nikki Kowalski

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Continued advancements in technology have steadily increased accessibility to online learning and have provided more tools with which instructors can communicate with their students. As our technology evolves, so too does the students’ expectations for how course content will be communicated. It is important to understand students’ expectations for their online learning experiences so that those expectations can be met. The field of instructional communication has demonstrated the importance of behaviors that establish an instructor’s credibility, clarity, rapport, and climate in the classroom finding these constructs contribute to student cognitive and affective learning. The significance of these constructs has been …

Electric Power Systems And Components For Electric Aircraft, Damien Lawhorn

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electric aircraft have gained increasing attention in recent years due to their potential for environmental and economic benefits over conventional airplanes. In order to offer competitive flight times and payload capabilities, electric aircraft power systems (EAPS) must exhibit extremely high efficiencies and power densities. While advancements in enabling technologies have progressed the development of high performance EAPS, further research is required.

One challenge in the design of EAPS is determining the best topology to be employed. This work proposes a new graph theory based method for the optimal design of EAPS. This method takes into account data surveyed from a …

Fabrication And Simulation Of Perovskite Solar Cells, Maniell Workman

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Since the dawning of the industrial revolution, the world has had a need for mass energy production. In the 1950s silicon solar panels were invented. Silicon solar panels have been the main source of solar energy production. They have set the standard for power conversion efficiency for subsequent generations of photovoltaic technology. Solar panels utilize light’s ability to generate an electron hole pair. By creating a PN Junction in the photovoltaic semiconductor, the electron and hole are directed in opposing layers of the solar panel generating the electric current. Second generation solar panels utilized different thin film materials to fabricate …

Traveling Wave Fault Location Method For Distribution Systems With Distributed Generation, Oluwafeyisayo Afolabi

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fault location is an important topic within electric power systems, as accurate fault location techniques will improve the reliability of the system and reduce downtime caused by outages. This paper explores fault location in distribution systems with distributed generation using the traveling wave fault location method. The single-ended and double-ended traveling wave methods are evaluated using a single-circuit distribution system which is modeled using MATLAB SIMULINK. The results are compared using a basis of signals and bus pairs across fault types, sampling rates and fault resistances.

Energy Harvesting And Sensor Based Hardware Security Primitives For Cyber-Physical Systems, Carson Labrado

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The last few decades have seen a large proliferation in the prevalence of cyber-physical systems. Although cyber-physical systems can offer numerous advantages to society, their large scale adoption does not come without risks. Internet of Things (IoT) devices can be considered a significant component within cyber-physical systems. They can provide network communication in addition to controlling the various sensors and actuators that exist within the larger cyber-physical system. The adoption of IoT features can also provide attackers with new potential avenues to access and exploit a system's vulnerabilities. Previously, existing systems could more or less be considered a closed system …

Toward Intelligent Welding By Building Its Digital Twin, Qiyue Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

To meet the increasing requirements for production on individualization, efficiency and quality, traditional manufacturing processes are evolving to smart manufacturing with the support from the information technology advancements including cyber-physical systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), big industrial data, and artificial intelligence (AI). The pre-requirement for integrating with these advanced information technologies is to digitalize manufacturing processes such that they can be analyzed, controlled, and interacted with other digitalized components. Digital twin is developed as a general framework to do that by building the digital replicas for the physical entities. This work takes welding manufacturing as the case study to …

Vibro-Acoustic Codling Moth Larvae Infestation Detection In Apples, Chadwick A. Parrish

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Within recent years, the demand for organic produce has greatly increased due to many factors, including increasing knowledge about such things as dietary fiber and balanced gastrointestinal bacterial ecosystems. This increase in demand, coupled with the financial penalties for sending invasive species and pests across borders, presents a need for a scalable and accurate system to non-destructively detect infestation. The proposed work addresses this problem by testing the performance of a non-destructive vibro-acoustic method for detecting lava activity in apples. This involved 3 steps; design a mechanical data collection prototype for testing apples, a evaluate a set of features, and …

Combining Approximate Computing And Adiabatic Logic For Low-Power And Energy-Efficient Iot Edge Computing, Wu Yang

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

The growing data-intensive applications that run on IoT edge devices require the circuit to be low-power consumption and energy-efficient for limited resources. As conventional Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) scales down to the nanometer technology node, it reaches its limits, such as leakage and power consumption. Adiabatic logic and approximate computing are emerging techniques for the low-power circuit. Adiabatic logic can recycle energy which is a promising solution for building energy-efficient circuits. However, the power clock scheme and dual-rail structure of adiabatic logic increase the overall area. Power consumption is further reduced by applying approximate computing while reducing the complexity and size …

Designing Novel Hardware Security Primitives For Smart Computing Devices, Amitkumar Degada

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Smart computing devices are miniaturized electronics devices that can sense their surroundings, communicate, and share information autonomously with other devices to work cohesively. Smart devices have played a major role in improving quality of the life and boosting the global economy. They are ubiquitously present, smart home, smart city, smart girds, industry, healthcare, controlling the hazardous environment, and military, etc. However, we have witnessed an exponential rise in potential threat vectors and physical attacks in recent years. The conventional software-based security approaches are not suitable in the smart computing device, therefore, hardware-enabled security solutions have emerged as an attractive choice. …

The Associations Among Parental Emotional States, Adolescent Emotional States, And A1c In Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes, Jennifer L. Yenke

DNP Projects

Background: This study examined depression and diabetes distress (DD) in adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and in their parents. Depressive symptoms and DD are associated with poor glycemic control.

Objectives: To describe the prevalence of parental and adolescent depressive symptoms and DD in the sample and to evaluate correlations among depressive symptoms, DD, and A1c in parent-adolescent dyads in which the adolescents have T1D.

Methods: Thirty-two parent-adolescent dyads completed measures assessing depressive symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-9) and DD (Problem Areas in Diabetes- Parent of Teen and Teen versions), self-reported socio-demographic and clinical variables, and responded to questions about living …