Digital Commons Network^™

Echoes Of Heritage: Documenting Contemporary Works From Singapore Featuring The Cello, Eunice Koh

Theses and Dissertations

Multiculturalism is prevalent in many countries around the world, including Singapore, and music is used as a way to reflect and represent cultural influences in societies worldwide. Singapore is a multicultural nation renowned for its diversity, and the fusion of influences from Asian heritages and Western cultures. This study echoes the heritage in Singapore, showing a brief history and development of the country, cultural integration, and representation of musical identity. The artistic tapestry of the country is achieved with endeavors from government initiatives and various music ensembles that contributed to the vibrant musical ecosystem in Singapore. This is represented through …

The Control And Operation Of Optical Sensors For Environmental Monitoring With Microcontrollers As Data Acquisition And Processing Systems, Zechariah Kitzhaber

Theses and Dissertations

Phytoplankton are microscopic unicellular organisms, and they are ubiquitous in marine and freshwater environments across the globe. They play a critical role in primary production, carbon fixation, and O2 production through photosynthesis. Phytoplankton comprise an abundant variety of genera and species, and the taxonomic makeup of a community can be an important indicator of environmental health. Phytoplankton are spatially and taxonomically diverse; they change in size and cellular content throughout their lifetime, and they can also alter their pigmentation in response to environmental factors, so it is important to understand the variability in size and pigmentation between individuals of the …

A Plug-And-Produce Connectivity Framework For Manufacturing Systems, Theodros Abraham Tarekegne

Theses and Dissertations

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) movement has birthed technologies that enable the fusing of physical and digital environments. However, the extensive number of available options for industrial communication and data formatting has remained a barrier to achieving digital knowledge synonymy in industry. There have been previous attempts to establish standards for industrial connectivity and communication, but legacy machines, as well as custom and non-proprietary devices, still face issues communicating data with other manufacturing equipment. To address these challenges, the Industrial Internet of Things initiative has led to the creation of the Plug and Produce (PnP) concept to facilitate the …

Beyond The Plastic Facade: Unveiling The Multifaceted Discourse And Impact Of Barbie In Film, Sarah Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents an exploration into the multifaceted dimensions of public discourse surrounding Barbie, the film released in 2023 directed by Greta Gerwig, by leveraging advanced natural language processing techniques. Employing BERTopic for topic modeling, I analyzed conversations embedded in YouTube comments from Warner Bros.'s own promotional content as well as third-party YouTube content pre- and post- the film’s release to unearth the themes and sentiments associated with the iconic character. Our primary objective was to look beyond the stereotypical perception of Barbie as a two-dimensional figure and shed light on the diverse and complex discussions surrounding her cinematic representation. …

Perception Of Alzheimer’S Actionability Among End Users Of Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests, Emily Mason

Theses and Dissertations

The APOE ε4 allele is the best-known genetic risk factor for developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Although new evidence is emerging, the extent to which lifestyle improvements can reduce Alzheimer’s risk needs further investigation. Research suggests that individuals with a higher genetic risk may be more likely to engage in risk-reducing health behavior changes following results disclosure. This study aimed to better understand these findings by assessing the health behavior and perceptions of Alzheimer’s actionability among consumers of DTC genetic tests. Our study revealed that individuals with 2 copies of the APOE ε4 allele were less likely to make lifestyle modifications …

Medieval To Modern: Morgan Le Fay As Folk Icon Of Women In Power In Modern King Arthur Stories, Colleen Victoria Etman

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation interrogates the ways that society views women with/in power through Arthurian adaptation. The body of work that makes up the Arthurian story is a sort of folk legend, a myth being told and retold by various authors in their own way. By using folk studies to analyze both medieval and modern texts, we can dissect what is important enough to remain over time. This signifies cultural values; things that have remained over time are reflective of the values of the writers producing these works, as well as the audiences consuming them. By interrogating these stories, we can make …

Detection And Analysis Of Solid-Phase Nutrients In Complex Benthic Cyanobacterium Communities, Cassidy Ann Crandell

Theses and Dissertations

Eutrophication is one of the most serious water quality issues affecting aquatic systems in the United States. Densely populated urban areas as well as mining and agriculture are major sources of anthropogenic nutrient loading into lakes and rivers. Excess loading of nutrients like phosphorus (P) into these ecosystems can cause native algal species to be outcompeted by harmful algal bloom (HAB) species. Increases in these HAB events are a growing public health concern as contact with excreted toxins can be harmful for human, aquatic, and land species. Remediation techniques like total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) have been implemented to reduce …

South Carolina School District Takeover: A Critical Policy Analysis, David Osworth

Theses and Dissertations

School takeover is a reform strategy where a school or district is placed into the control of a state or municipal government agency. Takeover has become increasingly popular in many states as an attempt to improve schools and district that are struggling either academically or financially. Takeover, however, is more likely to be implemented in districts serving a higher proportion of Black students. Due to the racialized nature of this policy this study uses a Critical Race Theory (CRT) methodology to engage in a critical policy analysis of school takeover in one rural school district in South Carolina. This study …

Systemic Moves, Individual Impacts: Narratives Of Best Practices In Supporting Immigrant Women In Rural Community Colleges In The Canadian Prairies, Katherine Jean Stevenson

Theses and Dissertations

Rural Canada is in decline, and as such has begun recruiting immigrants to rural areas to fill crucial labour gaps. This study explores the ways in which rural community colleges can best support immigrant women in Canada. Using narrative inquiry, it captures the voices of women who successfully completed programs in a rural community college in the prairies. The study reveals best practices in supporting immigrant women and highlights the importance of creating programming that is tailored to student needs to ensure success.

Queer Eye For Costume Design: An Insight Into The Creative Process From The Perspective Of An Lgbtq+ Designer, Andrew Simon Burns

Theses and Dissertations

From the page to the stage, the creative process manifests itself differently for every theatre artist. During my time in the Costume Design and Technology Program at the University of South Carolina, I have analyzed and adapted my design process through rigorous curriculum and experiential learning. This thesis explores my artistic and professional growth by showcasing my production designs in educational and professional practice. Through these experiences, I was able to acquire a well-rounded set of skills in construction, pattern making, draping, and costume rendering that aide and elevate my designs and ability to communicate effectively with production teams. My …

The Effect Of Voluntarily Disclosing An Earnings Surprise On Management Operating Decisions, Jonathan Gay

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research extensively examines the external implications of voluntarily disclosing an earnings surprise, yet the internal implications remain understudied. Using two experiments, I examine whether the preemptive voluntary disclosure of an earnings surprise influences management operating decisions. Drawing upon mental accounting and the realization effect, I predict that managers are more likely to make inefficient operating decisions when an earnings surprise is expected and that a quantitative, but not qualitative, voluntary disclosure will mitigate this value-sacrificing behavior. I find that managers are more likely to make inefficient operating decisions when a negative, but not a positive, earnings surprise is expected …

The Effect Of Covid-19 Restrictions On The Social Support Experiences Of Black Women Giving Birth In South Carolina Hospitals During The First Year Of The Covid-19 Pandemic (2020) As Compared To A Previous Birth, Tiffany Eva Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

The United States is experiencing a maternal health crisis, which disproportionately affects Black women. Black women die from pregnancy-related causes two to three times as often as their White counter parts, and the majority of maternal death are preventable. In recent years, public health and national governing authorities have devoted resources to monitoring the health crisis and raising the public’s knowledge of warning signs; however, maternal mortality rates continue to rise. Noted contributors to Black maternal mortality include, but are not limited to, racism, delayed treatment and response to health emergencies, and lack of social and emotional support during childbirth, …

“I’M Speaking”: Black Women Leading School Public Relations, Managing Communications And Personal Challenges, Keisa Gunby

Theses and Dissertations

Operationalizing feminist communication theory with a critical lens, this research analyzes virtual, semi-structured interviews with 13 Black women who are integral to impacting organizational culture through the brand management and narratives to the stakeholder groups of employees, parents and community members for a public school district. This study aims to describe the oppression and invisibility of Black women in school public relations and amplify their voices as they lead the communication, marketing, and promotional efforts in public school districts across the United States. The interview transcripts were analyzed utilizing NVivo software through the first round of coding initial and the …

Reading Ecogothic Memory In Contemporary Southern Swamp Novels, Megan Caroline Brockhard Knight

Theses and Dissertations

The ecogothic is a lens through which to engage memory, southern constructivism and identity, environmental intervention, and the literature of the American Southeast. This project establishes a framework of literary criticism that defines the ecogothic, interprets memory as truth imagined, and identifies the position of memory in the environment as a construction with which it is necessary to grapple to understand identity. This framework, compiled of existing and original scholarship, is then applied to three contemporary swamp narratives written by three different southern women writers. The swamp setting creates a unique microcosm of gothic liminality, neither fully land nor water, …

Estuarine Microbial Community Composition And Efficiency Changes In Response To Vibrio Parahaemolyticus Exposure, Sarah Mulligan

Theses and Dissertations

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a pathogenic bacterium whose full impact on natural estuarine phytoplankton communities has not been fully resolved. The primary goal of this research was to test how the addition of V. parahaemolyticus to a natural estuarine microbial community would impact the other microbes present. We hypothesized V. parahaemolyticus exposure would reduce phytoplankton biomass and alter the composition of phytoplankton and bacterial communities. Experimental bioassays (60h) were used to assess the effects of the presence of V. parahaemolyticus . Samples for measurements of chemotaxonomic photopigment concentrations, 16S sequencing-based community composition, photosynthetic efficiency, cell density, and V. parahaemolyticus abundance were …

Scene Text Detection And Recognition Via Discriminative Representation, Liang Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Scene texts refer to arbitrary text presented in an image captured by a camera in the real world. The tasks of scene text detection and recognition from complex images play a crucial role in computer vision, with potential applications in scene understanding, information retrieval, robotics, autonomous driving, etc. Despite the notable progress made by existing deep-learning methods, achieving accurate text detection and recognition remains challenging for robust real-world applications. The challenges in scene text detection and recognition stem from: 1) diverse text shapes, fonts, colors, styles, layouts, etc.; 2) countless combinations of characters with unfixed attributes for complete detection, coupled …

Cancer Screening For Patients With Intellectual Disability: Exploring Parent And Caregiver Perspectives, Jennifer Ryan

Theses and Dissertations

Intellectual disability (ID) is defined as a combination of deficits in cognitive and adaptive function, both of which must be present early in life. Adults with ID frequently have unique healthcare needs; however, they also require care that is routine for all adults. This includes cancer screening. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether or not adults with ID are undergoing cancer screening, understand the barriers they have faced in obtaining screening, and collect recommendations from parents and caregivers on ways to improve access to and facilitate screening for this population. We surveyed parents and caregivers of adults …

Four Essays On Banking, Bank Management, And Bank Lending, Jiarui Guo

Theses and Dissertations

This abstract synthesizes findings from four studies examining the liquidity creation, bank-borrower relationships, corporate capital structure, and managerial impact on firm performance, particularly within the context of banking and financial crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research first identifies the dual shocks of the pandemic—disease and policy-driven (government shutdowns)—on bank liquidity creation. I find that these shocks prompted banks to reallocate liquidity creation from assets (decreasing loans) to liabilities (increasing liquid deposits), which reduced profits and heightened risks.

In exploring bank-borrower relationships, the study highlights the role of banks in utilizing soft private information, such as the moral character of …

Histories Of Stress: A Life Course Approach To Population Health In Late Medieval And Early Modern Berlin, Emily Brennan

Theses and Dissertations

Given our current climate crisis and urban population increases, researchers are increasingly interested in the health outcomes at the intersection of climate change and urbanization. Since climate change and urbanization affects human health in a variety of ways, more work is needed in diverse cultural contexts to understand temporal and geographic variations of such phenomena more fully. Using skeletal individuals from 13^th – 18^th century Berlin (n = 387), this project analyses demographic and health trends from the founding of the city in the late medieval period (c. 1200 – 1500) to the early modern period, when the …

In The Search Of Cosmopolitan Literacies: A Case Of Formerly Expatriated Language Teacher, Asiye Demir

Theses and Dissertations

Cosmopolitanism refers to becoming a world citizen who can live harmoniously with different cultures. Today, our classes in the United States have become diverse daily. While we teach students who can speak more than one language, our teachers are primarily monolingual and monocultural. Hence, teachers who can speak multiple languages are celebrated in the system (Pacheco et al., 2019). Expatriation refers to teacher mobility that can entail learning other languages and being exposed to different cultures. Expatriation, as a form of travel, is an essential construct for cosmopolitan literacies because cosmopolitan dispositions can be developed through traveling (Molz, 2006). Thus, …

Towards The Induction Welding Of Complex, Curved Thermoplastic Composite Structures, Andrew Cole Cromer

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in the aerospace industry, coupled with the anticipated future significance of air travel, have spurred research aimed at increasing manufacturing production and aircraft flying efficiency by implementing new materials and assembly methods. Advanced air mobility (AAM), a subset of the aerospace industry, is anticipated to become a crucial component of the transportation infrastructure in densely populated regions. To meet the expected demand, there is a need for investigations into novel manufacturing and joining methods. This industry necessitates materials that are lightweight, durable, and amenable to high-rate production. One potential avenue under exploration is the utilization of thermoplastic composites. …

A New Approach To Oboe Gouging Machines Using Router Tips And Traction Wheels, Pedro Falcon

Theses and Dissertations

This study will investigate different types of oboe gouging machines; describe the development of a newly-conceived product that uses routing machine technology; and compare the new machine to the other commercial gougers. The newly-conceived gouger described here uses spindle motors attached to router tips. Two spindle motors will be attached to a micrometric platform (z-axis). One motor will pre-gouge the piece of cane, and the other will gouge.

Dynamic Response Evaluation Of Loose Gravelly Soils In Centrifuge Modeling Experiments, Siwadol Dejphumee

Theses and Dissertations

Dynamic behavior of gravelly soil has gained more attention in recent years as several case histories of liquefaction of gravelly soil have been reported. Liquefaction can cause failure of infrastructure, leading to economic damage and loss of life. Gravelly soil has unique characteristics and engineering benefits, providing a prevalent and versatile construction material for various infrastructure projects. Therefore, understanding of the gravelly soil behavior under seismic load is critical for assessing the resilience of infrastructure located in seismically active regions. To date, only a few experimental research studies have focused on the dynamic response of gravelly soil, and these studies …

Native American Nationalism: Chickasaw Identity And The Music Of Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, Austin Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Native American nationalism in classical music has yet to be seriously researched and is not taught in music academia. One of the more well-known contemporary Native American composers is Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (b. 1968). Throughout his career, Tate has explored and expressed his identity as a Native American and Chickasaw citizen through his music. As a result, his compositional output is a rich resource for examining what Native American nationalism in classical music looks like and how it is utilized in his works.

In this document, I analyze three of Tate’s pieces written for orchestra: Tracing Mississippi, Ghost …

Impaired Waters: New Treatments And Improved Methods For Pfas And Algae Toxins, Alexandria Forster

Theses and Dissertations

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are high-profile environmental contaminants, many having long persistence in the environment and widespread presence in humans and wildlife. Following phase-out of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in North America and restrictions in Europe, PFAS replacements are now widely found in the environment. While liquid chromatography (LC)-mass spectrometry (MS) is typically used for measurement, much of the PFAS is missed. To more comprehensively capture organic fluorine, we developed sensitive and robust methods using activated carbon adsorption, solid phase extraction, and combustion ion chromatography (CIC) to measure total organic fluorine (TOF) in industrial wastewaters, river …

State Estimation And Prediction Based On Simplified First Principle Model Of Lithium-Ion Batteries In Lebesgue Sampling Framework, Enhui Liu

Theses and Dissertations

State-of-charge (SOC) and remaining-dischargeable-time (RDT) are critical states of Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). SOC indicates the available charge stored in LIBs compared to the total charge capacity of LIBs, while RDT refers to the remaining dischargeable time that LIBs can support under given loading profiles. Accurate SOC estimation and RDT prediction play important roles in guaranteeing the safe and efficient operation of batteries in real applications.

Taking advantage of high fidelity of simplified first principle (SFP) model of LIBs, this research aims to accurately estimate SOC and predict RDT. Firstly, this research establishes an SFP model to describe the battery internal …

Use Of Improvement Science To Build The Instructional Capacity Of Faculty In A Community College, Marianne Yohannan

Theses and Dissertations

Up to 78% of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students experience poor academic achievement as defined by course grades of D, F and W in college. Students entering these fields are often not prepared (Chen & Soldner, 2013) and struggle to succeed in gateway STEM courses, with one-third of them possibly failing (Freeman et al., 2011). The success rates are lower among first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented minoritized groups (Doerschuk et al., 2016). At Tri-County Technical College, 30-40% of introductory biology students are unsuccessful and receive low grades (Institutional Research, n.d.). Low academic achievement has a huge impact on our …

Developing A Curriculum For An Online Group Piano In The Philippines: An Ideological, Historical, And Practical Approach, Lady Abigail Imperio

Theses and Dissertations

Online distance learning, a modern educational practice, has permeated music pedagogy in the past several decades. It involves synthesizing interdisciplinary studies in philosophy, music, technology, and sociology. In this study, the integrated approach aims to develop a unique curriculum for an online group piano in the Philippine setting. This goal involves coalescing ideological, historical, and practical perspectives to develop a coherent, learner-centered approach.

The ideological approach surveys educational philosophies, music learning theories, cooperative learning theories, online learning theories, and socio-cultural perspectives relevant to forming a unique framework. The nature of online distance music learning itself presents complex challenges of international …

Enslaved Women: Reproductive Choices And Medicine, Adedoyin Adekunle

Theses and Dissertations

Enslavement in the American South persisted as a form of subjugation that endured into the nineteenth century. The origins of slavery stemmed from enslavers’ aspirations for dominance. This compelled displacement involved the removal of Africans from their native lands and their subsequent transport as chattels to America. Slavery gave rise to paternalism, an attempt to justify exploitation to resolve the fundamental contradiction inherent in slavery. Paternalism gave rise to the false idea of ultimate submission, which historians have agreed that most enslavers never attained because of slave resistance. However, the study of slave resistance had been primarily focused on enslaved …

The Impact Of Mathematical Justifications On Conceptual Understanding, Jessica Raley

Theses and Dissertations

Mathematical justifications offer an approach to which students deepen and extend their mathematical thinking. This process has the potential to enhance students’ conceptual understanding. Mathematical practices and process standards ask students to use critical thinking skills to justify their reasoning, but this is usually seen as proofs in high school geometry. This convergent mixed method research study aimed to increase students' use of writing mathematical justifications and investigate the influence of this practice on mathematical and conceptual understanding. Eleven eighth-grade students participated in the study conducted in the Midwest United States. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews, students’ artifacts of …