Digital Commons Network^™

A Case Study Exploring Student Engagement With Technology As Measured By The Arcs And Samr Models, Kyle Ashley Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

This action research case study describes how varying the levels and format of technology integration into high school social studies classroom lessons impact students’ motivation to learn and how the teacher’s effort to support student motivation through the integration of technology supports student achievement. This research study was grounded in the conceptual framework that motivating and engaging students in the classroom (with the introduction of technology) can be very difficult. This study seeks to determine the relationship between student engagement and motivation as classroom lessons are moved along the different levels of the SAMR model, which stands for substitution, augmentation, …

Five Dollar Ticket, Gabe Reitemeier

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the fact that American culture seems to hold tightly to the notion that happiness is only deserved by those who work for it, experiences which require some work to fully appreciate struggle to survive due to an apparent unwillingness to undertake said work by the vast majority of American consumers. In Five Dollar Ticket, I examine the struggles of such experiences to find purchase in the American market and offer suggestions on how to make the “work” aspect of their appreciation more appealing and worthwhile. Specifically, I use the examples of attending foreign language operas and eating spicy foods …

Role Of Ahr Ligands In Immune Modulation To Suppress Inflammation Through The Regulation Of Microrna And Gut Microbiome, Osama Azeldeen Abdulla

Theses and Dissertations

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor and an environmental sensor that is highly conserved evolutionarily. It was first discovered in the early 1970s for its ability to bind with high affinity to 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), an environmental pollutant and induce a xenobiotic-metabolizing enzyme known as aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH). AhR was shown to regulate TCDD-mediated toxicity against a variety of tissues including the immune system. More recently, AhR has been characterized as key regulator of the immune system, specifically the differentiation of T cells. Also, several AhR ligands have been characterized in addition to TCDD such as …

The Rising Of The Avant-Garde Movement In The 1980s People’S Republic Of China: A Cultural Practice Of The New Enlightenment, Jingsheng Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, entitled “The Rising of the Avant-garde Movement in 1980s People’s Republic of China: A Cultural Practice of the New Enlightenment,” deals with Chinese avant-garde literature and art in the reform era of the 1980s, when the People’s Republic of China was turning from high socialism to state capitalism. Scholars of Chinese studies have deemed avant-garde texts as counter-narratives of enlightenment, which was a main ideology and national agenda of the reform era. This dissertation reexamines this established statement by shifting focus from the traditional hermeneutic approaches to a sociological study of the generative conditions of avant-garde literature and …

Information Production And Price Discovery In The Syndicated Loan Market, Yafei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation studies information production and price discovery in the syndicated loan market. Over the past twenty years, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) and the market-flex model have changed the landscape of the loan market. In the first chapter, I document that CLOs make up more than 60% of the investments in syndicated loans in recent years. A syndicated loan is in the portfolios of dozens of CLOs and they often disagree on the value of the loan. I examine how the disagreement affects the trading behavior of CLOs and the loan illiquidity in the secondary market. I find that such …

Investigating Technology Integration In A Technology Driven School: A Descriptive Research Study On Skill, Self-Efficacy, Barriers, And Integration Practices, Kela L. Sharpton

Theses and Dissertations

Administrative observations show the use of digital technologies to facilitate learning and technology skill development are inadequate among teachers at a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) accredited magnet school with International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) based student technology guarantees. The purpose of this descriptive research study is to describe teachers’ skill and confidence levels of technology use, teachers’ perception of barriers to their technology integration, and levels of in-class technology integration in a STEAM accredited middle school with student Technology Guarantees in order to develop recommendations for future professional development and technology acquisition.

The research study …

Religion, Senses, And Remembrance: Brooklyn’S Sumter Club In Postbellum Charleston, S.C., Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses and Dissertations

Civil War historians are slowly coming to realize the need to explicitly analyze the senses of those who lived in, and survived, the Civil War era. Although vision has reigned as the “supreme” sense, the nonvisual senses, with the help of historians of the senses, are becoming just as important to Civil War research. However, scholars are still unraveling the lived experiences of Civil War Era Americans and the perceptions and meanings these Americans gave to those experiences, with Northerners receiving comparatively little attention. To understand the world of antebellum and Civil War Americans, we should take them at their …

Defining The Pathophysiology Of Gut Humoral Immunodeficiency, Ahmed Dawood Mohammed

Theses and Dissertations

Mucosal antibodies maintain gut homeostasis by promoting spatial segregation between host tissues and luminal microbes. Antibody-deficiency is the most common form of primary immunodeficiency observed in humans. In antibody-deficient humans, abnormal composition of the gut microbiota ('dysbiosis') is associated with chronic inflammatory responses and gastrointestinal complications. However, the mechanisms by which dysbiosis promotes inflammatory disease are poorly defined. In the studies described in this dissertation, we utilize CD19-/- mice as a model of antibody deficiency to test the hypothesis that antibody deficiency negatively impacts gut physiology under steady-state conditions. Chapter #1 is an overview of B cell development and how …

Effect Of Oxidative Stress On Lifespan And Cellular Survival, Benedicth Onyeka Ukhueduan

Theses and Dissertations

When cells experience oxidative stress, the integrated stress response (ISR) signaling pathway is activated. One of the first outcomes of such ISR-activated response is to temporarily halt protein synthesis, which aids in cellular recovery. However, if cells cannot recover from the stress, they activate the cell death pathways which kills the affected cells, usually by apoptosis, which can then lead to either acquisition or prevention of diseases depending on the situation. In physiological aging, a compromised stress response is observed as an organism ages, which leads to disrupted homeostasis and elevated risk of disease. Thus, longevity of an organism is …

Removal Of Selected Organic Contaminants By Various (Nano) Adsorbent-Ultrafiltration Hybrid Systems, Sewoon Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Organic contaminants, which result from overuse and discharge of dyes, pharmaceutically active compounds, personal care products, and endocrine-disrupting compounds, have been received attention as contemporary water issues. However, conventional water and/or wastewater treatment system cannot sufficiently control for these contaminants for their stability and complexity. In this study, combined novel adsorbent with ultrafiltration (UF) hybrid system (termed ‘adsorbent-UF’) was applied to removal selected organic contaminants. UF with upstream adsorption has positive effects on performance in terms of the removal of selected organic contaminants, separating used adsorbents and reducing foulants. Activated biochar, metal organic frameworks, and Ti3C2TX MXene were used as …

Balance Check, Anne Louise Hilenski

Theses and Dissertations

This novel-length work of fiction seeks to explore the world of women’s elite gymnastics and the way it invites glory as much as it invites sacrifice, mental fortitude, physical pain, and suffering. When gymnast Rachel Wallerstein secures four gold medals at the World Championships a year before the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, her destiny as an American Olympic hero is preemptively written into the history books. What happens in the gym stays in the gym, but not for long, as the ever-present approach of the Olympics casts light on the cracks in her parents’ seemingly perfect marriage. On the …

The Impact Of Interactive Journaling On Seventh-Grade Students’ Writing Self-Efficacy, Writing Performance, And Attitudes Towards Writing, Nicholle Morgan Arman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the impact of interactive journaling on the writing self-efficacy, writing performance, and attitudes towards writing of seventh-grade students. According to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Writing Test, only one-fourth of 8th and 12th graders are proficient at writing. This means thousands of people are entering the job market with inadequate writing skills (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Research suggests that if people feel more confident in their writing abilities, writing performance will improve. This study was guided by several research questions. First, the study aimed to reveal …

Politics Of Belonging: Identity, Integration, And Spatial Practices Of Algerian Immigrants And Their Descendants In Paris, France, Elizabeth Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Using a geographic framework, this dissertation explores how Algerian immigrants and their descendants perform identity and negotiate belonging in French society. Bringing together critical theorizations of race, identity, space, and place, this work investigates what it means to be a racialized minority in a postcolonial context and to learn and experience the boundaries of ‘Frenchness.’ It is based on the narratives of Algerian immigrants who have migrated to Paris, France, and their French-born children. The empirical evidence of the case studies highlights the myriad ways in which Algerian immigrants and their descendants encounter and structure their interactions with French society, …

When The Learning Environment Becomes E-Learning: A Narrative Inquiry Into High School Honors Students’ Motivation, Tyesha L. Deas

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 forever changed the landscape of the world, especially education. Due to the guidelines the pandemic caused, education abruptly moved the e-learning setting in the Spring of 2020, when students and teachers had to quickly adjust to new methods of teaching and learning. As a result, students were bearing the responsibility for their own motivation for learning as they took on the of learning from home (Rake & Dunn, 2010, p. 79). Therefore, this study seeks to better understand four high school honors students changes in motivation as the school environment changed to e-learning, determine what …

An Acoustic Emission And Artificial Intelligence Approach To Structural Health Monitoring For Aerospace Application, Joseph Chandler Garrett

Theses and Dissertations

In the area of aerospace and other applications, structural health monitoring (SHM) has been a significant and growing area of research in recent years. Throughout the operational life of aerospace structures, various damage scenarios may manifest, and it is of great concern to the aerospace community to develop methodologies for detecting and assessing these damage scenarios. In this paper, fundamental research on the use of the acoustic emission (AE) approach to SHM for fatigue crack growth is presented. In general, the AE approach to SHM and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) involves the sensing of ultrasonic Lamb waves propagating through a structure. …

Spatial Orphans: Cultural Mobility And The Extranatural In Black American Literature, Kelsey Nichole Flint-Martin

Theses and Dissertations

In his 2005 book Conjure in African American Society, Jeffrey Anderson notes that America’s historical and academic interest in conjure has come in waves with each wave correlating to a different significant period in the fight for Black equality: Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and the Civil Rights Movement. In each of these movements, Black people have fought to find a way to belong in the United States as an equal, often undergoing travel and moving to different towns where they could have better economic, physical, or other freedoms. Since the start of the 21st century, there has been another revival …

Enhancing Recruitment Efforts In School Mental Health: Pilot Assessment Of A Certificate Training Program, Samantha Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

The expansion of school mental health (SMH) has been critical for children and adolescents to access needed mental health services. Though SMH is needed to support children and adolescents, there have been challenges with recruitment and mental health professional retention. Individuals within the field indicate burnout as a primary predictor for retention issues, but little research has been done on intentional strategies to increase recruitment and retention. The South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH), a leader in SMH services, developed a strategic plan to address recruitment and retention concerns of clinicians working in schools within the state. The purpose …

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 …

14 Minutes In Purgatory, Jennifer Moody Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

14 Minutes in Purgatory is about the trials and tribulations of growing up female. Inspired by the Greek myth, Prometheus, and the #MeToo movement, this solo show takes a cold hard look at the social, economic, and cultural oppression of women. In the story of Prometheus, he was found guilty by giving the gift of fire to the humans. In 14 Minutes in Purgatory, the character is held in purgatory for the crime of giving wisdom to another generation of women, in a world of privileged men. Using real life stories, I was able to portray individuals that molded me …

Molecular Basis Of Xenobiotic Metabolism And Resistance In Tetranychus Urticae, Leily Daneshian

Theses and Dissertations

Invasive pest species are a major cause of crop loss around the world and adversely affect the agricultural industry. We are focusing on Tetranychus urticae (two-spotted spider mite; TSSM), which is a polyphagous pest that targets more than 1100 plant species. The TSSM alone causes a loss of roughly $1.6 billion per year globally due to acaricide resistance. It is developing resistance to most acaricides due to rapid growth and reproduction. Therefore, new acaricides are needed to combat TSSM resistance and infestation [1]. To address this problem, four enzymes of TSSM, intradiol ring cleavage dioxygenases, a glutathione S-transferase, a β …

Mitigating Corrosion And Enhancing Energy Density Of Zinc-Based Anodes In Primary And Secondary Aqueous Batteries, Ehsan Faegh

Theses and Dissertations

Today Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the most-emphasized battery technology among the many different battery systems in the market. However, due to their high cost (especially for electric vehicle applications), flammability and toxicity, the development of inexpensive and safer alternative battery chemistries has been the focus of a significant amount of recent research. Among various battery chemistries, Aluminum-based (Al-based) and Zinc-based (Zn-based) batteries have been touted as promising options to compete with Li-ion batteries. However, the practical realization of Al battery chemistries has been difficult over a long period of time (170 years) due to a number of fundamental and intrinsic …

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, …

Monitoring Of Carbon Dioxide Injection In The Southeastern United States, Adil Murad Awad Alshammari

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few decades, measured levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have substantially increased. One way to limit the adverse impacts of increased carbon dioxide concentrations is to capture and store it inside Earth's subsurface, a process known as CO2 sequestration. This method's success is critically dependent on the ability to confine injected CO2 for up to thousands of years. Establishing effective maintenance of sealing systems of reservoirs is of importance to prevent CO2 leakage. Understanding the nature and rate of potential CO2 leakage related to this injection process is essential to evaluating seal effectiveness and ultimately mitigating global warming. …

A Study Of Prosocial Behavior, Workplace Civility, And Work Engagement Among Employees In Higher Education, Shelley Haddock Dempsey

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative research study examined the relationship between prosocial behavior, work engagement, and workplace civility among higher education professionals. The specific university employees it studied were student affairs staff, academic affairs administrators, and faculty. Responses to a survey by a national random sample allowed the researcher to determine the relationship between a respondent’s prosocial nature and both their workplace civility and their work engagement. In the end, all three hypotheses were supported by the data: (a) prosocial behavior scores of student affairs staff and academic affairs administrators are higher than those of faculty, (b) the prosocial behavior scores were positively …

A Simulation-Based Study Of Location-Shift Models Under Non-Normal Conditions, Ummay Khayrunnesa Anika

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, we compare ordinary least squares (OLS), generalized least squares (GLS), M- and quantile regression (QR) estimators for a continuous response variable under different scenarios by conducting a simulation study. We assess the performance of the estimators in terms of bias, average distance, mean squared error, coverage probability, and ratio of estimated standard error and empirical standard deviation. OLS estimator performs the best when the errors are homoscedastic normal or homoscedastic but skewed (exponential) having no outliers. GLS estimator shows good comparative results to QR when the errors are heteroscedastic normal or heteroscedastic heavy-tailed (t-distributed). The most satisfactory …

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 …

Plasmids Bring Novel Functions To Caulobacter Genomes, Taylor Howell Carter

Theses and Dissertations

Caulobacter is a well-studied bacterial genus, but little is known about the plasmids that are found in some wild Caulobacter isolates. I identified nine plasmids from seven different Caulobacter strains and grouped them based on their size and the similarity of their repABC, parAB, and mobAB genes. Protein pathway analysis of the genes on the K31p1, and K31p2 plasmids showed many metabolic pathways that would enhance the metabolic versatility of the host strain. In contrast, the CB4 plasmid contained 21 heavy metal resistance genes organized into 9 operons. The majority of the CB4 heavy metal resistance genes code for …

An Examination Of Sport Ticket Price Acceptability And Surcharge Transparency In Partitioned Pricing, Misun Won

Theses and Dissertations

There has been a recent price policy change in the sport industry that ticket resale companies attempted to reveal any additional fees upfront to increase price transparency and protect consumers in the marketplace. This policy change was announced in early 2020 (Thompson, 2020). However, as the coronavirus outbreak affected live events to be canceled, become virtual, or have a limited facility capacity (Apstein, 2020; Perry, 2020), it disabled the resale companies to see consumer responses to their policy change that may increase or decrease ticket revenues. In addition, charging additional fees to the ticket face value is a form of …

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 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 …