Digital Commons Network^™

Quality And Cost Associated With Cancer Care, Yiqiao Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cancer has been one of the leading causes of death for decades in the United States. It poses a significant burden to patients, stakeholders, and society in both economic (e.g., healthcare costs) and human (e.g., health-related quality of life) terms. This dissertation aimed at filling gaps in the literature on the cost and quality associated with cancer care.

First, a retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the effect of an alternative payment model - accountable care organizations (ACOs) - on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and healthcare cost among patients with cancer. Findings from this study indicate that although …

This Garden: Oysters And Place Along Florida's Forgotten Coast, Annemarie Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

THIS GARDEN is an audiovisual installation that tells the story of oyster farmers and place in Spring Creek, Florida. I use the oral history interviews and documentary photography I made there to explore aquaculturists’ deep relationship with the surrounding environment. To these farmers, the bay is a garden. They work within those often-unpredictable waters to cultivate new life. This accompanying thesis builds a chronological narrative of oyster aquaculture industry along Florida’s Forgotten Coast. It connects Florida’s burgeoning aquaculture industry to the long history of human involvement along the Gulf Coast in commercial fishing and wild harvest oyster operations. Lastly, I …

Applications Of Fluoronitroalkenes In 1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition And 1,4-Conjugate Addition, Hamdan Eid Alrefaei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fluorinated compounds have been routinely synthesized in the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. Approximately, 45% of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018−2019, and 52% of agricultural products between 2010 and 2017 were fluorinated compounds. In comparison to their non-fluorinated counterparts, fluorinated drugs have different pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics profiles. Bond strength and electronegativity of the fluorine atom can affect the compound's pKa, dipole moment, and metabolic stability. Therefore, methods to access fluorinated compounds are highly pursued in organic synthesis. Various fluorinating agents (nucleophilic and electrophilic) have been developed over the last few decades and are widely employed …

Lessons Learned Through Time: An Examination Of The 1918 Influenza Pandemic And The Covid-19 Crisis, Stephanie Lee Poiroux

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study is to compare the United States’ federal and state response to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 Crisis and the role of bureaucracy. Utilizing Qualitative Content Analysis, I examined 300 newspaper articles from The New York Times, The Clarion-Ledger, and The Daily Clarion-Ledger from July 1, 1918, to December 31, 1918, and March 1, 2020, to August 31, 2020. Through this analysis, I found that federal and state governments reacted to the 1918 flu very quickly, whereas the response to COVID-19 was hindered due to political in-fighting that impeded the bureaucracy and …

Effect Of Chronic Pain On Prospective Memory Performance, Alexander Joseph Kuka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pain is among the most widespread and disabling conditions worldwide. In the United States, approximately 50 million people suffer from chronic pain, and nearly half that number experience daily chronic pain. Diagnostic testing, treatments, and operations related to chronic pain cost Americans over $600 billion annually. Prospective memory, the process by which people remember to perform an action in the future after a delay, appears to be affected by the experience of pain, especially when a prospective memory task is more cognitively demanding. While self-report studies of individuals with chronic pain suggest that pain adversely affects both their retrospective …

The Accuracy Of Subjective Load Parameters In Comparison To Analytical Load Measurments In Ncaa Division I Women’S Volleyball, Katherine Pierce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Monitoring the work load of athletes in both an individual and team setting has become a commonplace practice in today’s age of sports. However, this practice can look different depending on the physical demands of the sport. Specifically, in volleyball, an inertial measurement unit, known as Vert, can be utilized to track the number of jumps performed by players, in addition to other jump related variables. While Vert serves as an effective way of objectively measuring jump frequency among players, other ways in which jump frequency can be estimated are needed for teams and players without Vert. Therefore, this study …

Computational Modeling Of Climate Attributes And Condition Deterioration Of Concrete Highway Pavements, Salma Sultana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An efficient and safe road network secures the nation’s economy and prosperity by providing public mobility and freight transport. Maintenance and rehabilitation of the road network cost billions of dollars annually. Road and highway infrastructures performance in any country is impacted by load repetitions and it is further compromised by climate attributes and extreme weather events. Damages to roads and bridges are among the infrastructure failures that have occurred during these extreme events. If maintenance and rehabilitation are not done promptly, the damages to the road caused by heavy traffic and extreme climate may lead to life-threatening conditions for road …

Quantitative Effects Of Electrodialysis Membrane Fouling, John Malone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To meet the ever-increasing global demand for fresh water, research is constantly being conducted on separation and purification methods. Electrodialysis (ED) is one of the major technologies that seems able to make significant headway in combatting water shortages. As with all technologies, it is limited by certain aspects, one of those being membrane fouling. This research takes a look at the surprisingly unexamined phenomenon of membrane fouling in ED systems. The ED system studied was tested using conductivity probing, limiting current density analysis, and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation analysis. Investigation of fouling effects commonly seen in ubiquitous ED systems …

Search For Cpt And Lorentz Invariance Violation In The Muon G-2 Experiment At Fermilab, Meghna Bhattacharya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab (E989) aims to measure the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, $a_{\mu}= (g-2)/2$, to a groundbreaking precision of $140$ ppb, obtaining a near four-fold increase in precision over the previous experiment, E821, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The value of $a_{\mu}$ from BNL currently differs from the Standard Model prediction by $\sim 3.7$ standard deviations, suggesting the potential for new physics and therefore, motivating a new experiment.Because the theory predicts this number with high precision, testing the g-factor through experiment provides a stringent test of the SM and can suggest physics beyond the …

Development, Optimization, And In Vitro Characterization Of Different Anesthetic Wound Products, Alia Alshammari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTAcute and chronic wounds can be a significant source of pain. In the past, pain associated with chronic wounds has been perceived as an inevitable complication of wound care. Fortunately, recent approaches in wound care have developed strategies to prevent and reduce pain when carrying out wound care. Local anesthetics have been used to that end. Lidocaine is the most widely used topical anesthetic in wound care. However, literature on topical Lidocaine has focused almost exclusively on the clinical application on intact skin. This dissertation aims to advance our understanding of anesthetic wound product formulation and development. Anesthetic wound ointments …

Black Grocers, Black Activism, And The Spaces In Between: Black Grocery Stores During The Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement, Keon Ahmad Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of Black-owned grocery stores and their owners during the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Movement. The thesis highlights four Black grocery store owners, and the impact they had on the movement. Grocery stores played a vital role and were often sites of contestants. Black-owned grocery stores served as meeting spaces for Black activism, targets of White domestic terrorism, and safe havens for Black Mississippians. These spaces provided a space for political agency, leisure, and safety. Likewise, this thesis centers Black grocery store owners as fundamental to the progress of the movement. It explores an array of ways …

Sleep And Health-Related Quality Of Life Among Persons With Parkinson’S Disease And Their Caregiverssleep And Health-Related Quality Of Life Among Persons With Parkinson’S Disease And Their Caregivers, Sushmitha Inguva

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aimed at filling gaps in the body of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and sleep literature by synthesizing and appraising current knowledge on the influence of sleep on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in persons with Parkinson’s (PWP) and their caregivers, conducting a psychometric evaluation of a HRQoL instrument among PWP, and applying a novel method to assess the dyadic relationship between sleep and HRQoL in PWP and their caregivers. First, the systematic literature review results showed that nocturnal and diurnal sleep problems among PWP are strong predictors of their HRQoL. Additionally, studies that focused on caregiver outcomes showed that …

The Role Of Acetylcholine In Attention And Lapses In Attention In Rats Using The Mode And Deviation From Mode Of Reaction Time Latency, Scott Lee Mitchell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is currently the neurodevelopmental disorder most commonly diagnosed in children in the United States, and one of the defining characteristics of ADHD is inattention. Inattention is marked by increased lapses in attention, and when assessed clinically, it has been highly correlated with reaction-time variability (RTV). Evidence from the human/clinical literature has shown an inherently higher RTV to be the primary quantitative indicator of an ADHD diagnosis. Reaction-time distributions are characterized by an asymmetrical rightward skew, and because of the prevalence of this presentation, it has been theorized that the distribution peak and skew represent separate phenomena, …

Convective Heat Transfer Enhancement Of A Channel-Flow Using Synthetic Jet, Pravesh Pokharel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A transient numerical simulation was carried out using ANSYS Fluent, to investigate the convection heat transfer enhancement of the air channel flow using the synthetic jet. Keeping the dimensional parameters of the domain fixed, averaged channel flow velocity was varied up to 3m/s. The diaphragm displacement effect on synthetic jet was studied, ranging the peak-to-peak displacement value from 0.4 to 1.2mm with increment of 0.4mm. Three locations were studied to determine the best operating location of the synthetic jet. Also, frequencies were varied up to 200Hz with every 50Hz increment, from initial condition of 50Hz. It was found that the …

The Perceptions Of Rural College Students On The Impact Of High School College Counseling On College Choice, Tommy Glen Walker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Making decisions about college can be challenging for rural students. Guidance counselors and other adults influence these decisions because of their close relationships in high schools and communities. Since rural students are coached into pursuing college as a mechanism for obtaining a better life, it is beneficial to explore their lived experiences regarding college counseling and college choice. This dissertation in practice explores the perceptions of rural college students on the impact of high school college counseling on college choice.

Dachash: A Dynamic, Cache-Aware And Concurrent Hash Table On Gpus, Hao Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

GPU acceleration of hash tables in high-volume transaction applications such as computational geometry and bio-informatics are emerging. Recently, several hash table designs have been proposed on GPUs, but our analysis shows that they still do not adequately factor in several important aspects of a GPU’s execution environment, leaving large room forfurther optimization.

The Biggest Winner: How Loss Aversion And Negativity Bias Can Increase Affective Polarization, Austin Cutler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Affective polarization is on the rise, which makes understanding the origins of it increasingly important. Some work finds that partisan sorting is associated with increased polarization, due to a lack of exposure to conflicting opinions as well as the ease of making generalizations about the opposing side (Iyengar2019-zg). Individuals with more closely aligned ideological and partisan identities are more likely to exhibit hostility towards the other party, and react more emotionally to information that threatens their party or issue stance (Mason2015). The aim of this paper is to analyze how contextual factors, specifically the partisan distribution of an area, can …

A Natural Fit For The Natural State: The Emergence Of Black Power Organizations In Arkansas From 1968-1975, Maurice D. Gipson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to explore how Black Arkansans on college campuses in rural towns navigated their local circumstances while embracing tenets of Black Power. By 1968, public PWIs in Arkansas were contending with an influx of Black students due to the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. Even though many of the universities had been integrated years and even decades earlier, they were still ill-equipped for the number of Black students that would enroll and descend upon the towns during this period.

Forecasting Geotechnical Parameters From Electrical Resistivity And Seismic Wave Velocities Using Artificial Neural Network Models, Fatema Tuz Johora

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Geotechnical measurements of soil parameters used in the design of infrastructure provide information at a specific point of the ground. The use of limited point data may result in greater uncertainty and less reliability in design. Geophysical methods are non-invasive, less time-consuming, and provide continuous spatial information about the soil. However, geophysical information is not in terms of engineering parameters. Correlations between geotechnical parameters and geophysical parameters are needed to facilitate the use of geophysical information in geotechnical designs. The current research is focused on two geophysical methods; electrical resistivity (ER) and seismic wave velocity (S-wave and P-wave). Artificial neural …

Linear And Nonlinear Photophysical Characterization Of Novel Visible And Nir Emissive Materials, Shane Autry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of novel emissive materials is an ever-growing area of chemical research. The applications for these emissive materials include but are not limited to optoelectronics, dye sensitized solar cells, biological imaging dyes, etc. Many systems have been developed over the years that have led to understand the fundamental properties of various emissive building blocks. By characterizing these structures and the understanding of the basic nature of their behavior within varied environments, brighter more efficient molecules can be designed and synthesized. This, in turn, will lead to many benefits for society. This dissertation aims at spectroscopically characterizing newly developed molecular …

The Plight Of Valinor: A Historically Informed Perspective On The Future Development Of Space Law And Potential Exercise Of Self-Determination By Human Settlements On Mars, Marshall David Mckellar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Breathable air, water, food, shelter, sleep: these are the five basic requirements for human survival. Providing these basics to a single person living on Earth is a challenge; providing them to 1,200 people living in the harsh Martian environment is a different matter entirely. Nonetheless, in 2047, SpaceX successfully constructed Valinor—the first human inhabited scientific settlement on Mars—by transporting hundreds of scientists and engineers, along with countless scientific experiments and technologically advanced survival equipment, to the red planet. Each year saw more successful missions to Valinor and the world community grew more excited about the reali-zation of humanity’s expansion into …

Effects Of Acute Exercise Intensity On Source Episodic Memory: Considerations By Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Brandon Thomas Rigdon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior research suggests that behavioral (e.g., acute exercise) and psychological factors (e.g., metamemory; monitoring and control of one’s memory processes) may influence memory function. However, there is conflicting results on the optimal intensity of acute exercise to enhance memory and whether acute exercise can also enhance metamemory. Further, very limited research has evaluated whether acute exercise can influence source episodic memory. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate whether there is an intensity-specific effect of acute aerobic exercise on source episodic memory and metamemory accuracy. A secondary objective was to evaluate if cardiorespiratory fitness moderates this potential relationship. …

The Relationship Between Head Coaching Change And Donations To Intercollegiate Athletic Departments, Michael Paulus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intercollegiate athletic departments encounter unique challenges as organizational units of higher education. Among these challenges is generating revenue to support the rising expenses of operating programs, funding coaches’ salaries, and investing in facilities. Many athletics departments generate revenue by fundraising through donor-based seating programs, philanthropic engagement, and stewardship benefits associated with levels of support. While various factors within an athletics organization can influence fundraising, the important position of head coaches is one of them. These visible positions can play a key role in influencing ticket sales, fan interest, and donations, thereby contributing to the financial viability of the entire organization.This …

Pharmacological Manipulation Of Nmda Receptor Activation And Synaptic Norepinephrine Levels: Effects On Sustained Attention In Male Rats, Zach V. Redding

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Impaired attention is common in many neurological disorders. Normal attention promotes the selective processing of important sensory information. This selective processing relies on neurotransmitters, like glutamate, and neuromodulators, like norepinephrine, acting in frontal, parietal, and visual cortices. We tested treatments targeting the glutamatergic and noradrenergic systems using a rat model of attentional lapses.Rats were trained to respond quickly to stimuli in a two-choice reaction time task (2CRTT). Response times were split into initiation time (IT) and movement time (MT). Performance measures were derived from IT and MT distributions. IT mode represents sensorimotor processing speed when rats are attentive. IT deviation …

Three Essays Exploring Diversification Strategies In Family Firms: Evidence From The S&P 1500 On Acquisitions And Exits., Chelsea Sherlock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Family firms are not only the most prevalent form of business organization in the world, accounting for roughly 75% of all organizations (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, & Shleifer, 1999; Miller, Steier, & Le Breton-Miller, 2003), they also represent “heterogeneous and complex enterprises” that offer a “challenging array of issues to study” (Sharma, Chrisman, & Gersick, 2012, p. 5). Accordingly, this series of essays explores diversification strategies in family firms by investigating the family specific factors which may influence strategic decision-making. I begin with a review of the diversification literature over the last 20 years. Next, using data from S&P 1500 firms, …

African American College Students First Experiences In Counseling, Melissa Denise Spencer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African Americans have experienced mistreatment at the hands of the medical community. Knowledge of the Tuskegee Experiment and the travesties done by J. Marion Sims to slave women have been passed down through the generations causing cultural skepticism of the medical field, subsequently hindering African Americans from seeking medical services. This historical legacy of maltreatment has caused African Americans to seek medical help at a lower rate than their majority counterparts. African American college students seek out mental health services at a much lower rate than White students while experiencing mental health symptoms at the same or sometimes higher rate. …

From Goethe To Godel: Against The Language Of Thought Hypothesis, Berit Turnquist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper re-examines the language of thought hypothesis by considering objections raised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe against influential views about the relation of language and thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, such as those posited by Herder, Schleiermacher, Schlegel, and von Humboldt. Goethe’s Theory of Colors contains an instructive critique of the idea held by many of his contemporaries: that the bounds and limits of thought are linguistic in character. I argue that Goethe’s remarks anticipate later 20th-century challenges to the language of thought hypothesis regarding implicit cognition, such as Dennett’s “chess playing” example, as well …

Absurdity Is A Distinct Aesthetic Category, Sarah Jean Szopinski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Absurdity is the sudden discomfort caused by direct awareness of your being consciousand your relation to reality. Camus’ absurdist philosophy refers to the conflict between the human desire for inherent meaning in reality and the incomprehensible and irrational nature of the universe. Facing absurdity requires confronting the absurd feeling through introspective awareness of this tension. Otherwise, you are overcome by it, succumbing to a lack of mindfulness and avoidance of the confrontation. Absurdity, especially in its aesthetic dimension, has not received the sustained attention it deserves. In this paper, I argue that due to the sustained relevance of the absurd …

Elementary School Counselors' Experiences Working With Children Who Self-Harm, Maegan Tatum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Elementary-aged children struggle with low self-esteem, are often impulsive, and struggle to develop appropriate coping skills. As such, many children have begun to experiment with self-harm. Because children spend a great deal of time in school, school counselors are often the first to know that a student has self-harmed. Although school counselors have extensive experience working with students who self-harm, most school counselors indicate a need for more training and implementation of school district policies regarding self-harm. Additionally, current literature focuses on the experiences of middle and high school counselors because self-harm and NSSI are primarily noted in adolescents. In …

The Perception And Strategies Of Building Rapport With Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Via Telepractice, Anna Cathryn Wall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Telepractice is a growing method in providing services in the profession of Speech-Language Pathology. One question with this growing method is, how do we build rapport when using telepractice? In this study, we intended to find what pediatric SLPs' perceptions and strategies of building rapport via telepractice is with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) ages 5-12, and children’s age was considered as an influential factor. While previous studies have focused on perceptions, we wanted to know what SLPs are doing in order to build rapport with their clients when using telepractice. We reached out to 223 SLPs and there …