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Iv Prenatal Nicotine Exposure Modulates Α6, Α7, And Α4Β2 Nicotinic Acetylcholinergic Receptor Subunit Expression In Male And Female Neonatal And Adolescent Rat Offspring: An Autoradiographical Analysis, Amanda Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

Maternal smoke exposure produces long-term adverse cognitive and behavioral outcomes in offspring, including an increased likelihood of attention problems (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; ADHD) and drug abuse. Preclinical research shows that gestational exposure to nicotine, the primary psychoactive compound in tobacco smoke, influences the neurodevelopment of attention and reward neuronal circuits. This study investigated hypotheses about five brain regions, to determine if prenatal nicotine (PN) exposure altered expression of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). A low dose, intravenous nicotine (IV) exposure method was used to administer nicotine (0.05 mg/kg/injection) or saline, 3x/day on gestational days 8–21 (Treatment). Brain tissue was …

Quality Over Quantity: Positive Interactions During Family Meals In Food-Insecure Households Compensate For The Negative Impacts Of Household Chaos On Child Emotional Well-Being, But Not Diet Quality, Tiara Nicόl Rosemond

Theses and Dissertations

Family meals are important family activities that have many positive nutritional and emotional benefits for children. Positive family meal experiences may provide opportunities for children to strengthen emotional bonds, leading to a sense of security and, fostering improved children’s self-regulation of healthier food intake and emotional well-being. Unfortunately, children in food insecure households experience higher amounts of chaos, lower diet quality, and worry about having enough to eat compared to children in food-secure households, all of which may affect both family meal frequency and interpersonal quality. Yet, the relationships between food insecurity, household chaos, and family meal frequency and interpersonal …

In The Belly Of The Whale: Archive And Access In Melville’S Moby-Dick, Garrett Urban

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Melville’s depiction of archival anxiety as it appears in Moby-Dick. This narrative is fixated on the archive, brimming with motifs that equate whaling with the creation of an archive—and which associates the hunt for the whale with an obsession resembling Derrida’s vision of archive fever. As Melville depicts it, the archive is rooted in a fundamental anxiety concerning inaccessible and unknowable information. Ishmael constantly presents whales as physical repositories of information, attempting to archive the social and historical contexts of every scrap of flesh on them and every substance they produce. Yet his archival mission is perpetually …

The Poetry Of Wilmer Mills, Rachael Acheson

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to contextualize the work of Wilmer Mills, a late, minor Southeastern American poet, within the complex and frequently misread tradition of New Formalism, as this manifested in the United States shortly after World War II. The analysis places Mills‟s work in conversation with the formalist philosophy of former U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur, and it suggests that both Mills‟s poetry and his reception amongst fellow academics who adhered to a more progressive philosophy demonstrates the continued relevance of this older, less-often discussed strain of formalism in American poetry. An appendix presents the first checklist of Mills‟s published …

Familial Betrayal And Trauma In Select Plays Of Shakespeare, Racine, And The Corneilles, Lynn Kramer

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I will argue that familial betrayal is a central element in sixteenth-century British tragedy and seventeenth-century French tragedy. Family relationships help to define who the characters are and provide a point of identification between the audience and the play. This identification, as Aristotle argues, is necessary for the arousal of pity and fear and thus creates the possibility of catharsis. Fear is a key component of psychological trauma. This is the main link between Aristotle’s theories and modern trauma theory but there are other overlapping ideas that form a basis as to why old tragedies still resonate …

The Roots Of Perspective In The American Context: News Media Discourse And Stakeholder Perspectives About The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Nicholas Younginer

Theses and Dissertations

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program serves 46 million people but is controversial. The media is positioned to influence political and public opinions about SNAP policy. This study identifies the SNAP media discourse and investigates perspectives of SNAP participants and frontline workers about the program.

I employed a mixed-methods design with two aims. Aim 1 gathered 295 articles across six news outlets, semi-inductively coding the articles for characters, assignment of responsibility, and framing of the article. I then ran chi-square tests for difference between employed frame and responsibility and employed frame and political ideology.

Aim 2 collected a sample of 20 …

The Effect Of Economic Inequality On Perceptions Of Merit, Nicholas Heiserman

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that the rewards people receive are often taken as indirect evidence of their competence. Meanwhile, economic inequality has increased in the US over the past several generations. I propose that variation in economic inequality – the distribution of rewards in society – alters perceptions of the merits of people at different strata in society according to an assumption of equity. I use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) to experimentally manipulate the level of inequality (high vs low) participants perceive in an anonymized country, and I measure participants’ perceptions of merit for people in that country’s 90th and …

Empowering The Enemy: The Cold War And The East-West Battle For Information Superiority, 1945 - 1969, Stan Trembach

Theses and Dissertations

This comparative study employs a historical perspective to narrow the gap in the existing knowledge of the origins of an information explosion phenomenon that dates back to the early decades of the twentieth century. It argues that the root cause of the unprecedented growth of the overall amount of documents was the rapid expansion of scientific and technical advances across the world and the subsequent spread of modern technologies, particularly those applied to scientific and technical information (STI).

This research is based on the premise that the thriving of the Soviet militaryindustrial complex went hand in hand with the rise …

The Impact Of The Choice Of The Item Response Theory Model Used In The Analysis Of Student Response Data From Statewide Educational Assessments, Maureen O’Gorman Petkewich

Theses and Dissertations

The practical significance of the item response theory model (IRT) choice on the results of a statewide assessment was investigated at multiple decision making levels: the examinee level, school and district summary levels, and in terms of impact to subgroups. Data for the study included the student response matrix for South Carolina’s 2014 Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS). The Rasch model, used with PASS and in nearly half of PASS-like multiple-choice statewide assessments in other states, was compared to another popular IRT model used in similar statewide assessments: the 3PL model.

Model fit checks indicated that the 3PL had …

Exploring The Relationship Between Church Level Predictors Of Status And Obesity Risk In African American Women Of Faith, Kinjal Pandya

Theses and Dissertations

Although obesity is a nationwide epidemic, there are large racial, gender, socioeconomic, and geographical disparities in the rates of this condition. Specifically, African American women are more likely to be classified as obese as compared to all other gender and racial groups. Scholars have targeted African American churches to implement dietary and physical activity interventions in an attempt to combat the racial disparity in obesity rates. One of the main correlates studied in regards to obesity has been individual level markers of status such as socioeconomic status and subjective social status. Even though we focus on churches as a place …

Nursing Attitudes Towards Suicidal Patients In The Emergency Department: Assessment Interview Training, Belinda Beaver

Theses and Dissertations

This project sought evidence for the effectiveness of pedagogy in professional nursing continuing education and its effect on emergency department nurse attitudes towards patients seeking crisis intervention for suicide. Approximately 12 million emergency department (ED) visits annually were for patients suffering with mental illness and/or suicidal ideation. Emergency department staffs were often not adequately prepared to manage these problems. The purpose of this project was to examine the impact of an educational initiative on nurses’ attitudes about patients expressing suicidal ideation in the emergency departments 2 rural southeastern towns.

The project question was; in two different rural community emergency departments …

An Investigation Of Mannequins’ Effect On Consumer Attitude And Intention, Hannah Shealy

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effect of mannequin type on consumers’ purchase decisions. Data was collected from a convenience sample of 165 respondents through an online survey to measure the variables of envisioning, consumer attitude toward the display, and purchase intention in their relationship to mannequin type. Hypothesis 1, 2, and 3 were confirmed, confirming the conceptual model and the overall investigation into whether mannequin type effects consumer purchase decisions. Mannequin type was found to have a significant effect on envisioning, and the relationships between envisioning and consumer attitude toward the display and between attitude and purchase intention were found to …

The Effects Of Exercise On Sleep Parameters Among Older Women, Charity B. Breneman

Theses and Dissertations

Sleep is a modifiable behavior that commonly fluctuates from night to night within the same individual and varies across the lifespan. Over the years, sleep research has identified physical activity (PA)/exercise as a non-pharmacological approach to improving sleep. The overall goal of this dissertation was to investigate the acute effect of exercise on sleep outcomes as well as examine the relationship between night-to-night fluctuations in sleep parameters with exercise training among healthy older women.

Two studies, both utilizing a longitudinal study design, were conducted to 1) understand how acute exercise affects both behavioral and physiological sleep outcomes during the corresponding …

Finding Sanctuary In Sisterhood: A Middle School Literacy Group Critically Analyzes Race, Gender, And Size, Dywanna E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This critical qualitative study documented intersectionalities of race, gender, body image, and literacies as interpreted by five eighth grade Black female students during an eight-week after school literacy group. Ethnopoetic methodologies were used to represent findings and provide insights about how critical literacy engagements can be used to create discursive spaces where young Black girls describe and define these intersectionalities, how they are socialized into current beliefs, make meaning of beauty ideals portrayed in media, and interpret gender, obesity, and race. Through content analysis of field notes, audio recorded sessions, research partner interviews, researcher journals, and genre artifacts, this study …

Exploration Of Appropriate And Inappropriate E-Disclosure: A Qualitative Investigation Of The Decision-Making Process Of Counselors In Training, Katherine H. Dewitt

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored how counseling students in CACREP accredited counselor education program made meaning of and categorize appropriate and inappropriate self-disclosure in the digital age. In particular, how do future counselors consider and apply ethical codes to personal behavior on social media? Utilizing a qualitative design, the researcher explored student decision making and understanding of ethical considerations in the personal use of social media. A vital component to the professionalism of counseling is the constancy of the presentation-of-self in all identities (public, private, in-person, or online) of the counselor. The researcher asserts that there is an ethical obligation of all …

Some Issues In Markov Chain Monte Carlo Estimation For Item Response Theory, Han Kil Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Both the marginalized Bayesian modal estimation (MBME) and Metropolis-Hasting within Gibbs (MH/Gibbs) are the popular estimation methods for Item Response Theory (IRT). However, predictions from MBME and MH/Gibbs are not directly comparable because of two problems. First, the examinees with the same response pattern do not produce the same ability estimates from MH/Gibbs while MBME provides identical estimates. This problem can be handled by updating each response pattern instead of updating each examinee. Second, standard errors from MBME are smaller than standard error estimates from MH/Gibbs. This pattern occurs because of two speculated reasons; correlation between item parameter estimations and …

The Evolution Will Not Be Televised: A Comparative Study Of Women Of Color And Their Pursuit Of The Community College Presidency, Simone Annika Francis Gause

Theses and Dissertations

Although the career paths of presidents have been documented, the personal considerations an individual makes for choosing these pathways are not articulated. This study sought to uncover the decision-making of sitting presidents and presidential aspirants in their proposition of advanced leadership roles and their personal career choices. Conceptually framed by the Theory of Planned Behavior and Career Construction Theory, this dissertation examined the attitudes, motivations and considerations of select minority female community college presidents and presidential aspirants to understand their pursuit of the community college presidency. Using purposive sampling, semi-structured interviews were used to collect narrative data from both groups …

The Relationship Between Peer-Self Concept And Academic Self-Concept In Elementary Students: A Person-Oriented Perspective, Catherine Jorgensen Snyder

Theses and Dissertations

Self-concept is one of the most researched constructs in educational psychology (Marsh, Xu, & Martin, 2012). It has been established that there are different domains of self-concept which fall into two main categories, academic and non-academic (Shavelson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976). Unfortunately, little research has been conducted on the non-academic areas of self-concept and little is known about how social self-concept interrelates with academic self-concept. The focus of this study was to contribute to the research base by investigating the relationship between a facet of nonacademic self-concept, namely peer self-concept, and achievement self-concept among elementary students.

The current research utilized …

Exploratory Analysis Of Ptsd Severity And Objective Measures Of Physical Activity Among Combat Veterans, Danny O. Sauceda

Theses and Dissertations

Strong levels of motivation, relatedness and self-determination support the likeliness of participating in habitual exercise. Compared to nationwide estimates, research has demonstrated fitness and performance is significantly lower among those suffering from PTSD. Meeting established recommended daily levels of physical activity (PA) for individuals with PTSD is critical for their physical and mental health status over a lifetime and factors supporting or hindering adherence to habitual exercise are lacking. Furthermore, regular PA among combat Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a viable and substantial treatment option to improve physical health status and cognitive well-being. The purpose of this exploratory …

Public Perceptions Of Genetically Modified Food On Social Media: A Content Analysis Of Youtube Comments On Videos, Nanlan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

Controversy about genetically modified (GM) food prevails on social media. Discussion about GM food includes the implementation of mandatory labeling as well as public concerns about potential health hazards posed by GM food. Previous studies mainly focus on traditional press and broadcast media, few investigate such controversial topics on social media. Interested in public opinion about this issue and possible influences of social media on public opinion, this study uses quantitative content analysis to examine the characteristics of user comments on a specific social media platform, YouTube. The purpose of the study is to investigate YouTube comments from several aspects, …

Teachers’ Influence On Black/White Biracial Student Identity Development, Dawn M. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to report on what teachers and parents see as significant factors affecting Black-White biracial student identity development. Through a qualitative case study using individual interviews with parents and grandparents of a Black/White biracial child and the child’s teachers, various factors affecting Black/White biracial identity development emerged. Historical laws, court cases, U.S. Census reports, theoretical data, and identity models were examined and explored to provide a clear argument that Black/White biracial individuals have historically been marginalized and that this marginalization within society has carried over into our current curricular and instructional practices within schools. This …

Sustainability Of Food And Nutrition Security Policies During Presidential Transitions: Integrating Socio-Political And Nutritional Sciences, Jessica Liana Escobar-Alegría

Theses and Dissertations

Presidential transitions are uncertain periods in which relationships among power, accountability, and electoral support of a democratic process do not hold. Transitions challenge collaboration towards implementing policies contributing to food and nutrition security (FNSP). Sustaining these policies during transitions is critical for reaching long-term goals. Knowledge gaps remain on how to perform strategic multisectoral work during transitions to maximize FNSP sustainability.

This study aimed to examine what determines FNSP sustainability during presidential transitions and responded to the questions: How do policy actors define sustainability? What are the mechanisms determining policy sustainability? What are the implications of terminal logic behavior (TLB) …

Implicit Causality And Consequentiality In Native And Non-Native Coreference Processing, Wei Cheng

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of two studies that examined the role of implicit causality and consequentiality in coreference processing. Implicit causality (IC) refers to the phenomenon that certain interpersonal verbs bias the causation of the events described by the verbs towards either its subject (the first noun phrase NP1) or its object (the second noun phrase NP2). Implicit consequentiality (IR) refers to the phenomenon that certain verbs bias the consequence towards either NP1 or NP2. These IC and IR biases have been found to influence language comprehenders’ establishment of coreference.

The first study examined whether intentionality of an event affects …

Getting To Outcomes® In Clinical Practice An Empirical Exploration Of A Framework That Supports Quality For Graduate Student Therapy Training, Jennifer Castellow

Theses and Dissertations

Getting To Outcomes® in Clinical Practice is an innovation being developed and disseminated in a clinical training center for psychology doctoral students. The innovation is a step-wise framework posited to enhance clinical practice by supporting the planning, implementation, and evaluation of specific evidence-based practices in psychology. The current study introduces and defines the innovation and uses a multiple case study, mixed method analysis to evaluate current innovation use behaviors as well as attitudes about the innovation. The guiding research themes for this study include: (1) innovation use behaviors, (2) attitudes about the innovation, and (3) influential contextual factors that impact …

Determining The Validity Of A Web-Based, Self-Rating Checklist Assessment Of Vocabulary Knowledge, Sheida Abdi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the validity of a web-based, self-rating checklist of vocabulary knowledge. One hundred fifty-nine participants took two norm-referenced assessments in addition to one of three conditions of a developed self-rating checklist. Each condition employed a different combination of follow-up questions (synonym generation to verify participants’ self-ratings) and feedback for student responses (whether or not synonyms are correct). Condition 1 did not provide any follow-up questions or feedback, Condition 2 included follow-up questions and feedback, and Condition 3 presented follow-up questions but no feedback. Results show that participants moderately overestimated vocabulary knowledge. Moderate-to-high statistically …

Spending Someone Else’S Money: The Impact Of Inheritances On Charitable Giving, Jacob Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Experimental literature has documented a ‘house money effect’, in which subjects using unearned endowments are less risk averse and more willing to consume than when they use an endowment they have not earned. I use Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to test for this effect outside the laboratory by estimating the impact of inherited money on charitable giving. When I control for differences between individuals, I find that the impact of inheritances is significantly reduced. My results indicate that the correlation observed in previous econometric analyses is largely driven by non-random allocation of inheritances to individuals predisposed to …

Implementation Processes And Impacts Of School Store Policies In South Korea, Seul Ki Choi

Theses and Dissertations

With the concern of unhealthy school food environments, the South Korean government enacted two school nutrition policies to reduce unhealthy foods in school stores. The first policy banned on soft drinks sales in school stores enacted in 2007. The second policy restricted energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) food sales in school stores enacted in 2009. This study aims to examine the changes in adolescents’ food intake and foods sold in school stores due to the two policies and to understand the policy implementation processes.

The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys were used to examine trends in adolescents’ energy intake from …

The Repeated Name Penalty And The Overt Pronoun Penalty In Japanese, Shinichi Shoji

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated the Repeated Name Penalty (RNP) and the Overt Pronoun Penalty (OPP) in Japanese. The RNP was first reported by Gordon, Grosz and Gilliom (1993), who observed that English sentences with repeated-name subject anaphors were read slower than sentences with overt-pronoun subjects when the antecedents were either the grammatical subject or the first-mentioned surface-initial noun phrase of the previous sentence. The OPP has been reported in studies of Spanish (Gelormini-Lezama & Almor, 2011) in which sentences with overt-pronoun subject anaphors were read slower than sentences with null-pronoun subject anaphors for subject antecedents.

A concern with the RNP and …

Undocumented Students In Higher Education: How Liminal Legality Influences The College Experience, Michelle Simon

Theses and Dissertations

Undocumented students’ pursuit of higher education mirrors in many ways the path of traditional American students. However, there are policies in place that create barriers unique to undocumented students. While the policies directly influence these students’ educational plans, their emotional states are influenced as well. This paper will explore the policies that have had historical impacts on undocumented students’ access to higher education. Through interviews with students at universities in the southeast region of the United States, this paper will identify the impact these policies have on students’ educational pursuits. The hope is that this paper will serve as a …

Aging, Discourse, And Ideology, Julia Mckinney

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the language practices of members of the Andrus Center, a recreational senior center located in the southeastern United States. It specifically examines how “young-old” members, or those who had relatively recently made the transition to older identity, invoked and contested widely circulating ideologies of aging in the course of constructing their local age identities. Rather than treating age as an objective, individual characteristic, as commonly presumed in sociolinguistics, this study highlights the ways in which age identities were relationally and emergently coconstructed. Through analyses of interactional and ethnographic data collected over 18 months, I argue that mainstream …