Digital Commons Network^™

The Current State Of Health Care Facility Preparedness, Health Care Utilization, And Covid-19 Knowledge Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic In The Malaria-Endemic Setting Of Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe, Julia Grace Scott

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been felt worldwide, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). With fractured health systems, disrupted supply chains, limited resources, and continued fighting of endemic diseases such as malaria, SSA is at risk for greater impact. Manicaland Province has the highest incidence rate of malaria in Zimbabwe, and a higher malaria mortality rate than the national average. Manicaland also has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Zimbabwe. In this study, health care facilities and households throughout Makoni, Mutare, and Buhera districts in Manicaland Province were administered cross-sectional surveys. We …

Virtual Interactive Notebooking With Gifted Learners In An Inquiry-Based Social Studies Classroom: A Mixed-Methods Action Research Study On Higher-Order Thinking And Student Motivation, Brandy Cooper Meyers

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods action research was to implement and evaluate the use of virtual interactive notebooks with gifted students in a 4th-grade social studies classroom. Specifically, this study focused on two overarching research questions: (a) how does the implementation of virtual interactive notebooks in an inquiry-based, constructivist learning environment impact the use of higher-order thinking skills (according to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge) of gifted learners in a fourth-grade social studies classroom and (b) how does the implementation of virtual interactive notebooks in an inquiry-based, constructivist learning environment impact motivation of gifted learners in a fourth-grade social studies …

The Impact Of Social Media Account Types On Travel Intention, Nuri Seo

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to explore and understand how social media account types (DMOs, friends, and other individuals) influence traveler destination perceptions (destination trust and destination attractiveness) and visit intention. The current study also investigates the impact of the likes option on social media account types, which influence traveler perceptions and visit intention. Previous research had not explored three social media account types: DMOs, friends, and individuals based on Source Credibility Theory and the impact of likes on traveler destination perceptions and visit intention. The experimental design was used to test the research model; an experiment with a …

Dreadds Modulation Of Operant Behavior In Male And Female Hiv-1 Transgenic And F344/N Rats, Jessica Illenberger

Theses and Dissertations

The neurobiological processes which determine the choice between 2 (or more) reinforcers are unidentified despite the remarkable benefits which could result from better understanding or control of such processes. Most prominently, reducing choices to pursue drug over non-drug reinforcers could curtail the development or continuation of drug dependence. Likewise, increasing goal-directed behavior in single-schedule and choice settings may alleviate some of the consequences of apathy, a reduction in goal-directed behavior which can occur with neuropathologies including HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders. Dysregulation of the mesolimbic circuit, connecting the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens, has been implicated in both drug dependence …

Disrupting The Wise Monkey Approach To Principal Preparation, Ryan Pool

Theses and Dissertations

An antiquated approach to school leadership preparation has resulted in a shortage of leaders equipped to confront the challenges of racism and injustice in our school systems. School districts considering significant investment of financial and human resources in leadership preparation programs would benefit from an elevated understanding of how individuals arrive at a level of conscientization, or critical awakening, regarding issues of social justice. This case study examines one district’s approach to principal preparation, focusing on how specific professional learning interventions influenced participants’ beliefs regarding the transformative responsibilities of a school leader, and the common experiences that occurred between participants. …

Survey Of Four North American And Malaysian Theory Methods For Young Pianists, Wen Bin Ong

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to provide a content analysis and comparison between the selected theory methods by North American and Malaysian authors for the young beginning pianists (age 4 – 6). The selected North American theory methods are Prep Course for the Young Beginner and My First Piano Adventure for the Young Beginner while the Malaysian theory methods are Music Theory Made Easy for Kids and Music Theory for Young Children.

This study is comprised of four chapters, a bibliography, and an appendix. Chapter one provides a brief overview of the study, which consists of an introduction to …

Southern United States English As A Rhetorical Device In The Field Of Marketing: A Study And Implications For Business Writing Pedagogy, Megan Jacklynn Busch

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation project, I examine how professionals in the South use their Southern United States English (SUSE) to communicate in business situations. My goals are to (1) understand how regional language variety rhetorically shapes writtenprofessional communication and (2) establish a pedagogical framework for business writing that attunes to the nuances of language variation in the workplace. I hypothesize that speakers of SUSE implement regional dialects to form interpersonal business connections and build ethos and that SUSE has a significant rhetorical role to place in professional communications. To test this hypothesis, I develop a hybrid method of interviewing, discourse analysis, …

Multimodal Robotic Health In Future Factories Through Iiot, Data Analytics, And Virtual Commissioning, Clint Saidy

Theses and Dissertations

The manufacturing sector is continuously reinventing itself by embracing opportunities offered by the industrial internet of things and big data, among other advances. Modern manufacturing platforms are defined by the quest for ever increasing automation along all aspects of the production cycle. Furthermore, in the next decades, research and industry are expected to develop a large variety of autonomous robots for a large variety of tasks and environments enabling future factories. This continuing pressure towards automation dictates that emergent technologies are leveraged in a manner that suits this purpose. These challenges can be addressed through the advanced methods such as …

Deep Learning Based Models For Classification From Natural Language Processing To Computer Vision, Xianshan Qu

Theses and Dissertations

With the availability of large scale data sets, researchers in many different areas such as natural language processing, computer vision, recommender systems have started making use of deep learning models and have achieved great progress in recent years. In this dissertation, we study three important classification problems based on deep learning models.

First, with the fast growth of e-commerce, more people choose to purchase products online and browse reviews before making decisions. It is essential to build a model to identify helpful reviews automatically. Our work is inspired by the observation that a customer's expectation of a review can be …

Changing Environment. Changing Attitudes?, Lindsey Brooke Hendren

Theses and Dissertations

Most issues of hyper partisanship, such as health care, yield a strong constituency for action on the issue; the low salience of climate change, however, has failed to produce much change. In order to understand public opinion on climate change, this research draws not only on previous studies in political science, but also from psychology, sociology, communication studies, and other disciplines to provide a more comprehensive theoretical background. This dissertation emphasizes the need for more exploration in the field of political science and attempts to bridge some of the existing gaps. Findings from research such as this identify the opportunities …

Hf Radar Signal Inversion For Wind And Swell Ocean Waves, Zaid Rahman Abed Al-Attabi

Theses and Dissertations

Although High Frequency (HF) radars are used routinely for measuring ocean surface currents at high spatial and temporal resolution, their utilization for estimating ocean wave spectra is still limited, mainly because of the lack of extensive evaluation of the accuracy of wave inversion models, and lack of well-established methods, especially if swell is present in the area of study. Estimation of surface currents is based on analyzing the signal of the first-order Bragg peak, while extraction of wave information requires analysis of the signal contained in the second-order continuum of the Doppler spectra; its quality depends on a number of …

Time-Domain Measurement Of Magnetization Dynamics In Ferrofluids, Brian Egenriether

Theses and Dissertations

Time-domain measurements are made on a magnetite-based (Fe3O4) ferrofluid using an inductive technique. The constituent particles are 5.8% by volume, polydisperse, and have a nominal diameter of 10nm with a ~1nm-thick anionic hydrophobic coating. The ferrofluid is placed in a sealed channel on a coplanar waveguide (CPW) situated in an adjustable external magnetic bias field. A fast-rising step current in the CPW quickly reorients the local magnetic field above the signal trace causing the particles’ moments to align in the new field configuration. This changing magnetization induces a voltage in the CPW that is detected by a sampling oscilloscope. Precessional …

Examining The Relationship Of Blood Transfusions And Acute Morbidity In Preterm Infants, Kayla Chavis Everhart

Theses and Dissertations

Preterm infants, those that are born less than 37 weeks gestational age, often suffer major morbidity and mortality during hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit due to their prematurity; one of the major morbidities is Necrotizing Enterocolitis, a devastating gastrointestinal disease. The exact aspects that cause preterm infants to develop Necrotizing Enterocolitis are unknown; however, our hypothesis is preterm infant thermal stability and/or preterm infant stress around packed red blood cell transfusions are etiological factors in the relationship between these necessary transfusions and morbid outcomes such as Necrotizing Enterocolitis.This dissertation includes an in-depth background and introduction of various morbid …

A Stylistic Analysis Of Edvard Grieg’S Slåtter, Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72, Zhiyuan He

Theses and Dissertations

Slåtter, Norwegian Peasant Dances, Op. 72 is a composition for solo piano by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). This set is one of his greatest contributions to piano literature, and shows his attempt to bring the traditional folk music to the rest of the world. The object of this study is to aid musicians toward a better understanding of Slåtter through a stylistic analysis of the work. The study includes historical information about the composer and his connection with nationalism in Northern Europe, and conveys how Slåtter can be considered a culminating work representing traditional Norwegian style characteristics.

The document …

Positioning Customer Service Through Customer Journey Mapping In Service Consumption And Recovery, Dan Jin

Theses and Dissertations

Customer journey mapping is a marketing research tool that has increasingly captured marketers’ attention over the past decades by helping commercial businesses understand customers’ motivations and behaviors. Despite acknowledging the importance of customer experiences, previous literature has generally focused on the firm’s response (supply-side) to the customer. This often considers the service provider’s efforts in the production of goods and services using Goods-Dominant-Logic (GDL), and facilitation with the customer with Service-Dominant-Logic (SDL). However, supply-side logic has largely ignored the customer responses (demand-side) regarding the service operations that appear to be an important function in customer journey mapping. Customers’ demand-side logic …

Functional Supramolecular Materials And The Design And Synthesis Of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Pharmaceuticals, Dustin Wayne Goodlett

Theses and Dissertations

Organization of benzophenone in the solid-state facilitates the formation of persistent and regenerable radicals at room temperature upon exposure to light. Upon incident irradiation, the triplet sensitizer rapidly undergoes intersystem crossing to a triplet excited state. Structural investigation of four distinct benzophenone supramolecular assemblies gives insight into the different processes these materials can undertake once in the triplet excited state such as persistent radical formation, phosphorescence, and self-quenching.

Self-assembly of brominated triphenyl amine bis-urea macrocycles forms a host material with unidirectional pores. Separations of xylene constitutional isomers via adsorption within this crystalline host material at ambient temperature are shown to …

Physical Modeling Of Backward Erosion Piping Phenomenon In A Geotechnical Centrifuge, William Fernando Ovalle Villamil

Theses and Dissertations

Backward erosion piping is a mechanism of internal erosion that has been widely recognized as a potential hazard for water-retaining structures, such as dams and levees, that are founded on granular materials. Backward erosion piping initiates toward the downstream zone of the structure by the concentration of flow at an exit point acting as drainage, which leads to a localized loosening of the soil and eventually to a continuous migration of grains from the foundation following a piping path pattern. Such piping path extends backward toward the impoundment once a certain critical hydraulic condition is met, resulting in the loss …

Effect Of Oil And Gas Extraction On Disinfection By-Product Formation In Drinking Water, Dallas Graham Abraham

Theses and Dissertations

Certain industrial processes, such as energy extraction and utilization, generate massive amounts of wastewater with various geogenic and synthetic contaminants. Oil and gas wastewaters are characterized by elevated halide levels, particularly geogenic bromide and iodide. Concentrations in produced wastewaters have been reported as high as thousands of mg/L of bromide and tens of mg/L of iodide. Large volumes of these wastewaters are stored, transported, and disposed of, potentially impacting drinking water sources. Because conventional wastewater treatment fails to remove halides, oil and gas wastewater disposal, even after treatment, facilitates the formation of brominated and iodinated disinfection by-products (DBPs) at downstream …

Foxy Ladies And Badass Super Agents: Legacies Of 1970s Blaxploitation Spy And Detective Heroines, Carlie Nicole Todd

Theses and Dissertations

The presentation of Black femininity in Blaxploitation spy and detective films like Cleopatra Jones (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Get Christie Love! (1974) – depicting powerful, independent, and multidimensional characters – was a sharp departure from the derogatory images of African American women in film prior. These films also included some of the first Black spy and detective film heroines – Foxy Brown, Cleo Jones, and Christie Love – that portrayed a “serious” female detective or government agent as the main protagonist and center of the film’s action. These Blaxploitation heroines were unique in how their characters departed from prior …

The Relationship Between Enabling District Structure And Principal Self-Efficacy In South Carolina, Justin Lee Nutter

Theses and Dissertations

The role of the school principal is ever expanding in both scope and complexity. School districts must consider how to recruit, develop and retain principals to lead their schools. Principal self-efficacy (PSE) is primal to the leader’s overall positive effect on teaching and learning, yet the antecedents of PSE are not fully defined. This quantitative study used social cognitive theory to investigate the potential influence of enabling district structure (EDS) on the development of PSE within South Carolina public-school principals. Due to increased focus on consolidation of the state’s schools, the study also explored the potential relationship between EDS and …

The Shape Of The Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Testing The Cognate Continuum, Danielle Kristine Fahey

Theses and Dissertations

Items in the mental lexicon have three storage and processing strata, the concept, lemma, and lexeme, which equate to semantic, syntactic and phonological information. Lexical items relate to each other at each stratum. Bilingual lexicons, which contain items from all languages, may contain cognates, items sharing concepts and with overlapping lexemes. Because cognates likely relate at the lemma level also, this research proposed the Cognate Continuum, a categorization of cognates and noncognates in the bilingual mental lexicon. The Cognate Continuum includes three sets of cognates:

(i) true cognates have the closest phonology and syntax.

(ii) lemma cognates have close syntax …

Why So Long? Examining The Nexus Between Case Complexity And Delay In Florida’S Death Penalty System, Corey Daniel Burton

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last few decades, there has been greater recognition that increased time on death row is a significant problem in the United States that is getting worse. Beginning with the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Lackey v. Texas (514 U.S. 1045, 1995), numerous defendants have attempted to assert Eighth Amendment claims of cruel and unusual punishment on the grounds that the length of their death row confinement combined with their subsequent execution is unconstitutional. Although such claims have been unsuccessful in the U.S. Supreme Court, other federal courts have examined the issue. In 2014, the Central District …

“The Lifeblood Of College Sports”: The Ncaa’S Dominant Institutional Logic And The Byproducts Of An (Over)Emphasis On Recruiting, Chris Corr

Theses and Dissertations

In big-time college football, successful recruiting is the foundation on which winning programs stand. Power-5 football and men’s basketball operate under a dominant institutional logic that values generating revenue above all else. Winning generates revenue and, accordingly, Power-5 stakeholders are often engulfed in their unique athletic roles. The system propagates adherence to a singular focus that emphasizes winning and revenue generation. This dominant institutional logic governing big-time college football has been dubbed jock capitalism (Southall & Nagel, 2009). While prominent theorists have analyzed college sports through an institutional logic perspective, a systematic examination of the Power-5 football recruiting process has …

Hydrothermal Synthesis And Structural Investigation Of A Crystalline Uranyl Borosilicate, Kristen A. Pace, Vladislav V. Klepov, Mark D. Smith, Travis Williams, Gregory Morrison, Jochen A. Lauterbach, Scott T. Misture, Hans Conrad Zur Loye

Faculty Publications

The relevance of multidimensional and porous crystalline materials to nuclear waste reme-diation and storage applications has motivated exploratory research focused on materials discovery of compounds, such as actinide mixed-oxoanion phases, which exhibit rich structural chemistry. The novel phase K1.8 Na1.2 [(UO2)BSi4 O12 ] has been synthesized using hydrothermal methods, rep-resenting the first example of a uranyl borosilicate. The three-dimensional structure crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Cmce with lattice parameters a = 15.5471(19) Å, b = 14.3403(17) Å, c = 11.7315(15) Å, and V = 2615.5(6) Å3, and is composed of UO6 octahedra linked by [BSi4 O12 ]5− chains to …

Measuring Strain-Mediated Magnetoelectric Effects In Magnetically Self-Assembled Multiferroic Janus Nanofiber Chains: A Quest For New Techniques To Study Multiferroic Nanomaterials, Bryan Lucas Chávez

Theses and Dissertations

Bi-phasic composite multiferroics couple piezoelectric and magnetostrictive proper- ties via an interfacial strain, allowing for control of their magnetic properties with electric fields and vice versa. Nanofibers have a larger area-to-volume ratio than thin films and are not affected by substrate clamping, leading to a predicted magnetoelec- tric coupling an order of magnitude higher than those found in thin-film multiferroics. Nanofibers have potential applications in photonics, nanoelectronics, biosensing, and optoelectronics. This work focuses on measuring magnetoelectric effects in electro- spun nanofibers made of barium titanate (BaTiO₃) and cobalt ferrite (CoFe₂O₄). To transform the disordered …

Memorialization Of J. Marion Sims In Columbia, South Carolina, Nicole Chandonnet

Senior Theses

The Heritage Act in South Carolina prevents the General Assembly from changing historic names of buildings and removing war memorials from the statehouse grounds without a supermajority. This highly controversial bill prohibits altering the landscape of the state and ensures a permanent place for white supremacy. The Repeal the Heritage Act coalition formed in 2020 to challenge this legislation, and this thesis examines one of its most recent targets: the memorialization of J. Marion Sims in Columbia. To this end, this thesis studies the South Carolina Medical Association’s Journal from 1910-1940 to study the legacy of Sims and why he …

John Holladay Latané And American Diplomatic History In The Era Of The Lost Cause, Scott Dranginis

Senior Theses

This thesis examines the impact of the Lost Cause on the writings and ideas of John Holladay Latané, an American historian of foreign policy who was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1869, and died in 1932. Latané had ties to several prominent southern individuals and institutions throughout his life, such as Captain William Latané (his uncle) and Johns Hopkins University, which he both attended (both as an undergraduate and graduate student) and taught at. With this background in mind, a study of Latané’s stances reveals how the Lost Cause ideology intersected with analysis of foreign policy in the early twentieth …

Discursive Power And Resistance In The Information Worlds Maps Of Lgbtqia+ Community Leaders, Vanessa Kitzie, Travis L. Wagner, Alexander N. Vera

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This qualitative study explores how discursive power shapes South Carolina LGBTQIA+ communities' health information practices and how participants resist this power. Design/methodology/approach: Twenty-eight LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina engaged in semi-structured interviews and information worlds mapping – a participatory arts-based elicitation technique – to capture the context underlying how they and their communities create, seek, use, and share health information. We focus on the information worlds maps for this paper, employing situational analysis – a discourse analytic method for visual data – to analyze them. Findings: Six themes emerged describing how discursive power operates both within and outside …

The Prevalence And Efficacy Of Cross-Training In A Professional Ballet Environment: A Literature Review, Kate Bonham

Senior Theses

Fear of ruining the aesthetic integrity of the ideal “ballet body” once barred many dancers from cross-training for endurance and strength, but evidence suggests that these concerns are largely unsubstantiated, and several major dance companies have started integrating supplementary training into their class and rehearsal regimens. Ballet-specific risk factors, busy performance schedules, and the disparity between class and performance demands all limit the extent to which fitness training can be incorporated into professional environments. In addition, the applicability of objective technique analysis in subjective sports and a lack of reliable research within the population of interest have constrained the development …

B-Cell-Intrinsic Mhcii Signaling Shapes Microbiota Composition, Sergei Alexeev

Senior Theses

Recent studies demonstrate that immunoglobulin A (IgA) is critical for limiting chronic inflammation, but the mechanism by which this occurs is undefined. Regulation of the composition of the commensal bacterial community in the gut (i.e. the microbiota) could be one mechanism. IgA can be produced through T-cell-dependent (TD) and T-cell-independent (TiD) pathways. While TiD IgA is the most abundant IgA secreted into the gut, the relative contribution of TD and TiD IgA in regulating microbiota composition is controversial. Antigen presentation by B cells to T cells is essential for TD responses, and this is carried out by MHC class II …