Digital Commons Network^™

Karaites & Reformers: Two Failed Cases Of Coherent Interpretation, Menashe Chaim Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are two groups which claim that proper textual interpretation does not require extratextual information. They posit that the meaning of texts is discoverable from the words of the text and/or an individual's reason alone. Thus, no extratextual information is required to arrive at a cogent and coherent interpretation. The medieval Karaites reject the notion that there is any such thing as interpretive precedent and everyone's interpretation, when guided by reason, is as valid and coherent as anyone else's. Early Protestant Reformers such as John Calvin and Martin Luther argue that all one needs to interpret the Bible is the …

Formulation Development, Optimization, And Characterization Of Primaquine Loaded Lipid Based Nanocarriers For Liver Targeting, Tabish Mehraj

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by unicellular eukaryotic parasite of genus Plasmodium. Since ancient times, it has been affecting human populations and still is considered as one of the deadliest diseases with the highest rates of morbidity and mortality. Malaria is the disease, most common in African and Asian regions and the rate of mortality varies from 0.3% to 2.2% on global level with 11% to 30% in tropical regions of the world. Several efforts are being made to control malaria which includes various attempts to eradicate the vectors of mosquitoes, develop effective vaccines, and new anti-malarial drugs. The …

Sustained Delivery Of Carbon Monoxide (Co) Via Organic Co Prodrugs: Pharmacokinetic Studies, Minjia Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Carbon monoxide (CO) is widely known as poisonous gas. Its role as a signaling molecule (gasotransmitter) with various therapeutic effects is less known. Recent years have seen a surge of interest in CO because of its demonstrated therapeutic effect in treating conditions such as inflammation, drug-induced toxicity, ischemia-reperfusion injury, and kidney injury, among others. In developing CO-based therapeutic agents, one key issue is the availability of pharmaceutically acceptable ways of delivering CO. During the past decade, there has been a large number of experiments in cell culture, animal models, and clinical trials using CO gas incubation/inhalation and heavy metal based …

Progress In Natural Product-Inspired Drug Discovery, Md Imdadul Huque Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural products and product-derivatized molecules are significant sources for drug discovery and development, and many have been discovered and developed to treat various diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases, neurological disorders, etc. This dissertation reports on the progress of our natural product-inspired research in the discovery of new compounds to treat cancer, infectious diseases, and neuroHIV.

We discovered many glutamine-based compounds and prodrugs that are effective in suppressing the growth of several breast cancer cell lines without introducing cytotoxicity in a non-cancerous cell line. Our lead compound has shown good exposure to the brain, and several compounds were also found to …

The Current State Of School Culture In Elementary Schools In Mississippi During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rodney Harrison Hurt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the Spring of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic changed not only the way in which our daily lives were carried out, but it also drastically effected the way schools operated. Many if not all school districts in the state of Mississippi began operating in some type of remote fashion during the spring of 2020. Some school districts switched to an online format while others operated using a hybrid model which may have included work packets being completed at home or a combination of the two. The type of model by which each school operated often depended on the resources available …

Cosmology Of Wanderers, Hussain Ahmed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On the 14th of April 2014, a group of insurgents that the world later know to be Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 mostly female students in Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria. The disaster led to the death of thousands of military personnel and vigilante group members, mostly young men. Since that night, millions of people have been displaced. This thesis focused on inter and intra African migrations that result in the aftermath of the abduction.

A History Of Freed Slaves' Homes In Northern Nigeria, 1900-1926, Ajibola A. Abdulrahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is about the children rescued from slave traders by the British colonial government in Northern Nigeria in the early twentieth century. The children were first settled in state-owned Freed Slaves Homes located at Zungeru and Borno provinces in 1904. After the state-owned Homes were abolished in 1909, they were moved to the privately-owned Lucy Memorial Freed Slaves’ Home. The study focuses on the experiences of these liberated children within the premises of the Freed Slaves' Homes and in settings outside of these institutions in Northern Nigeria. Drawing on previously unused archival materials obtained from various parts of the …

Formulation Development Of Famotidine Floating Tablets Using Hot-Melt Extrusion Coupled With 3d Printing Technique., Esraa Al Shawakri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main goal of this study is to develop a floating tablet of famotidine using hot melt extrusion coupled (HME) with Fused deposition modeling FDM 3D printing technology. Seventeen different formulations were prepared to obtain printable HME filaments. Hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPL-LF), hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPLC-EF), Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose (HPMC-E5), and Ethyl Cellulose (EC) were used as polymeric carriers with 10% (w/w) famotidine. Polyethylene Glycol 1500 (PEG-1500) was used as a plasticizer. The resulting physical mixtures were then extruded using an 11 mm twin-screw co-rotating extruder (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). The HME filaments were then printed using an FDM-3D printer (Prusa …

The Truth Value Of Sentences With Legal Empty Terms., Jose Cubillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an ongoing debate in philosophy about whether simple sentences containing fictional names are sometimes true, always false, or neither true nor false. Ordinarily, a simple sentence containing names is true if and only if the things designated by those names are the way they are ascribed as being, and false otherwise. For example, the sentence “Faulkner lived in Mississippi” is true because the person designated by ‘Faulkner’ lived in Mississippi whereas the sentence “Faulkner lived in Costa Rica” is false because that person did not reside there. However, this analysis clearly does not work for sentences such as …

The Relationship Between Ethnicity, Immigrant Generation, & Delinquency: Examining Youth In Child Protective Services., Erin Leigh Geist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although minority youth are overrepresented in the makeup of the welfare and juvenile justice system, there is a lack of research that examines dually-involved youth. In recent years, there has been an escalation in the number of Hispanic youth that have become involved in the child welfare system, including youth that identify as Hispanic immigrants. This study uses nationally representative data of children receiving welfare services to examine the relationship between ethnicity, immigrant generation, and delinquency. The results of binomial regression models illustrated that there was no effect of Hispanic ethnicity or immigrant generation on delinquency. However, the analysis provided …

The Perception And Strategies Of Speech-Language Pathologists In Rapport Building With People With Aphasia Via Tele-Practice: Qualitative And Quantitative Mixed Design, Emily Hershberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Tele-practice has become an important service delivery method, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. A majority of research investigated effectiveness in therapeutic outcomes among children and adolescents, while tele-practice studies among people with aphasia were relatively limited. Rapport building may present more challenges in tele-practice compared to in-person services, yet no study compared it across the two therapy delivery approaches among people with aphasia.

Method: This current study conducted interviews regarding how rapport building is affected in tele-practice from speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who have experienced both in-person and tele-practice among people with aphasia. Nine SLPs were interviewed about their perceptions …

Foolish Games: Stories, Victoria Jayne Hulbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A collection of original short stories.

"The Wild Asleep": A Cultural And Environmental History Of Ramps, Catherine Jessee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ramps, wild onions, or allium tricoccum are a variety of spring ephemeral, or a flowering plant that emerges for a brief period every spring. In working through stereotypical ideas about Appalachian regional identity, I interpret the environmental history of this plant. Incorporating memory, oral histories, and folklore, this thesis complicates wider conceptions of home, community, and boundary. Tapping into an archive of ramps knowledge as it is created, I ask, what can the future of ramps tell us about place, space, and belonging?

The Resilience Of Black Love, Janeth Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For countless years, a network of laws, codes, systemic structures, and malicious forces have been established to eradicate Black love. Despite such evils, African Americans have been steadfast in their love for one another. In the American South, the evidence of that steadfastness is the strongest. States like Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana all had racist systems such as slavery, Jim Crow, Black Codes, and lynching that African Americans faced daily. And within each structure, there were methods employed to separate Black couples. Some historical texts have examined the plight of African American couples’ fight against such systems. However, few studies …

No Person Is An Island: A Multi-Level Analysis Of The Relationship Between Self-Determination Theory And Well-Being, Lauren Nichole Jordan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals frequently work collaboratively with others in school, workplaces, and in their daily lives. As such, the group literature has focused on several concerns that individuals have in groups such as making choices with others, feeling competent, and getting along with others. One such theory that addresses these concerns at the individual level is self-determination theory, or the idea that people must be satisfied in their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness to experience growth and well-being. The purpose of this project was to determine whether self-determination theory replicates in groups and whether individuals’ perceptions that their groups are autonomous, …

Assessing The Effectiveness And Utility Of A Mindfulness-Based Ecological Momentary Intervention In College Students, Jeffrey Pavlacic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mental health problems are common and increasing in college students. Despite the high prevalence rates of mental health problems in college students, a small percentage of students seek treatment. Low treatment seeking is associated with different factors, such as stigma, financial barriers, and emotion dysregulation. Identifying and delivering evidence-based treatments is critical to curtailing mental health problems and promoting psychological well-being in this population. One intervention that offers significant promise is Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMI), which incorporates technology to administer interventions. EMIs are widely applied for heterogeneous psychological problems and effective through different modalities. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) ameliorate psychological distress …

On Ramsey And Gallai-Ramsey Numbers Of Some Classes Of Graphs, Qinghong Zhao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1930, Frank Ramsey showed that one will find a monochromatic clique of a specified size in any edge coloring of a sufficiently large complete graph. This result is commonly known as Ramsey's theorem. The role of Ramsey number is to quantify some specific problems related to Ramsey's theorem. Given a graph H, the Ramsey number R_2(H) is the minimum integer p such that every 2-edge-coloring of the complete graph K_p contains a monochromatic copy of H. Ramsey numbers have been a hot topic in graph theory for decades due to their intrinsic beauty, wide applicability and overwhelming difficulty. Let …

Finding Aid For The Herschel Brickell Collection (Mum00043)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

The collection consists of correspondence, typed manuscripts, published works, and the journal collection of Herschel Brickell, Mississippi-born book reviewer who served as an attaché for the United States State Department in Bogotá, Colombia.

Finding Aid For The Violet Valley Bookstore Collection

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Scope and Content The collection contains news articles and correspondence about Violet Valley Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Water Valley, Miss., as well as promotional materials issued by the store.

Improving Three-Dimensional Instructional Practices Via Professional Development, Alethea Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this applied research study was to improve the use of three-dimensional pedagogy in science classes in chronically low-performing schools. The need to build teacher capacity became evident after the state adopted more rigorous science standards revealing deficits in teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge. This study utilized two elements, three-dimensional professional development and the science cadre, to build teacher capacity as well as foster collaboration and create buy-in throughout the district among science leaders. Data collected and analyzed from classroom observations, student surveys, and teacher interviews revealed improved usage of three-dimensional instruction and increased buy-in throughout the district to …

Unearthing The Old South/West: Histories Of Racial Capitalism In Modernist Border Narratives, Bailey Moorhead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Unearthing the Old South/West” examines four works of modernist historical fiction which accentuate competing regimes of racial capitalism through South/Western border settings. Following the trend in New Southern and Western Studies to break with exceptionalist and essentialist considerations of these regions, my analysis challenges white-centric narratives of the U.S. South and West and questions their popular portrayals as culturally distinct spaces. Viewing the U.S. as a site of ongoing settler colonialism, imperialist conquest, and international trade reliant upon labor exploitation, I develop the idea that South/Western borders form a microcosm for larger structures of systemic oppression throughout the nation by …

Transdiagnostic Processes Of Generalized Anxiety Disorder: An Experimental Investigation Evaluating The Role Of Emotion Regulation In Uncertain Contexts, Mary J. Schadegg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a complex disorder characterized by pervasive and uncontrollable worry. Numerous researchers have established theoretical models to explain the cognitive, emotional, and contextual processes that develop and maintain GAD. From these theories, intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and emotion regulation (ER) have emerged as two transdiagnostic processes that play key roles in this disorder. Extensive research has examined each of these processes individually; however, only four studies to date have specifically examined the association between IU and ER, and none of these studies have looked at the interconnection of these processes in GAD. The current study used …

Expressions Of Femininity, Black Feminism, And Pan-Africanist Rhetoric In Black Popular Music, Alonya Lei Castillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black women have long been subjected to misrepresentations and stereotypes which have denied them full access to their own femininity and womanhood. These misrepresentations and stereotypes are pervasive in Euro-American culture and can be clearly observed in film, television, and music. As a result, these women have combatted such narratives as an expression of agency. One of the most notable ways Black women have accomplished these goals is through Rap and R&B, genres that have allowed them to shape and reshape notions of femininity and Black womanhood. The participation of Black women in these musical traditions frequently draw on womanist …

Supports For College Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Views Of Postsecondary Practitioners And Faculty Regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder Student Service Provision, Susan Byrd Jenkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are matriculating to higher education at growing rates and are now believed to make up roughly one to two percent of the postsecondary student population (Cox & South, 2017; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as cited in Gobbo & Shmulsky, 2013). Service provision for college students with ASD typically falls under the oversight of student disability services practitioners who provide guidance to faculty and staff regarding accommodations. The professionals who carry out ASD service delivery are a source of expertise, insight and understanding regarding recommended supports for students on the spectrum. This study …

The Longitudinal Influence Of Adhd Status And Stimulant Medication On Body Mass Index And Blood Pressure Among Obese Youth, Sophie Kollin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Youth with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more vulnerable to developing obesity, as they have significantly higher body mass index (BMI) and are at increased risk of food addiction and binge eating. Stimulant medication use, which is an evidence-based treatment for ADHD, is associated with lower BMI and higher blood pressure among normal weight youth. The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal influence of ADHD and stimulant medication use on BMI and blood pressure trajectories among a sample of 456 youth treated in a weight management clinic. Mixed linear modeling examined the main and interactive effects of …

Amphiphilic Janus Polymer Nanoparticles For Pharmaceutical And Biomedical Applications, Mahesh Loku Yaddehige

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Amphiphilic hybrid polymers have attracted significant interest as biomaterials for both fundamental research and practical clinical applications due to their unique polymer structure and properties relative to the conventional symmetric polymers. Often referred to as “Janus” polymers combine two different polymer segments (hydrophilic and hydrophobic) of varying degrees, sizes, and functionalities to obtain a single amphiphilic or hetero-functional macromolecule with characteristic features. In particular, amphiphilic “Janus” polymers and their self-assemblies have shown apparent success in nanomedicine owing to their ability to provide highly ordered nanoscale multimolecular aggregates, including micelles and vesicles. However, engineering these polymeric materials on a large scale …

The Ability Of Positive And Negative Liberty, Alexandra Jo Kotter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The way in which we recognize, define, and promote freedom in our society can be deeply valuable. It can lead to important political answers and help identify rights and their nature. My intention is to consider the relationships among three conceptions of freedom. I believe that discussions of freedom which are relevant to political philosophy are necessarily normative. By this I mean that I am not discussing purely descriptive concepts of freedom- instead I am speaking of freedom which can be considered desirable, for this is what truly matters. Freedom to murder, for example, is freedom in the descriptive sense …

Halogen Bond Driven Supramolecular Materials, Dilan Chinthaka Karunathilaka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Halogen bonding (XBing) is a type of non-covalent interaction between covalently bound halogen atoms (XB donor), and Lewis bases (XB acceptor). In recent years, it has become a remarkable and adaptable tool to produce interesting molecular architectures and functionalities in organic-based materials. Such applications include liquid crystals, nonlinear optics, photovoltaics, and multicolor displays in the solid phase. Due to this variety of applications, XBing has become an exciting area of study in supramolecular chemistry. Herein are presented synthetic routes and characterization of self-assembling XBing molecules and their resulting materials. First, four different heterocyclic oligomers containing pyrazine, thiophene, and furan have …

Headache And Psychological Variables As Predictors Of Disability In Individuals With Primary Headache Disorders, Halle Mccracken

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Headache disorders are among the most prevalent disorders of the nervous system, affecting more than half of the global population during the lifetime. Tension-type headache and migraine are disabling conditions, and their resulting symptoms negatively impact quality of life and reduce daily functioning. These conditions are often comorbid with psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety disorders, and headache-related disability is often compounded by these psychiatric symptoms as well as transdiagnostic factors, such as stress, fear of pain, and anxiety sensitivity. The present study aimed to explore the relative contributions of headache symptoms and psychological factors to headache-related disability and …

Building Cultural Competence In Schools Through Teacher Capacity, Latonya R. Robinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the dynamics of how teaching culturally responsive strategies to teachers can help eliminate the opportunity gap between students of color and their White counterparts. The action research method involved first collecting quantitative data through several surveys and then explaining the quantitative results with in- depth qualitative data through interviews and professional learning communities. In the first phase of the study, the culturally responsive and teacher efficacy scale data was collected from the participants within the study and the district at large. While the district survey was not mandated, it was strongly encouraged. …