Digital Commons Network^™

The Schoolyard As An Outdoor Classroom: Learning Through Experience, Jason W. Spray

Dissertations

When teaching ecology concepts, teachers often overlook utilizing the schoolyard as an outdoor classroom. This study examined the use of the schoolyard to teach ecology concepts in order to improve environmental knowledge and attitudes among fifth grade African-American students. The “Nature Unleashed” curriculum was the primary source for the lessons. This curriculum encompasses experiential learning and place-based education. The curriculum, taught over a six-week period, utilized hands-on activities inside and outside of the classroom. There were 248 fifth grade African-American students (N = 248) who participated in the research study. Students responded to a pre- and post-assessment to measure knowledge …

Educational Entrepreneurship As Reform Strategy For St. Louis Public Schools From 2003 To 2009, Nathalie Henderson

Dissertations

“Educational Entrepreneurship” has increasingly become a buzz word, theory of change, silver bullet for countless so called education reformers who look to fix urban education by allowing alternative routes to teacher certification, public- private partnerships and the creation of charter schools. I have chosen autoethnography to highlight critical events from my own professional experience to illustrate the effects of educational entrepreneurship on The St. Louis Public Schools. This study used critical race theory as a lens to probe my narrative not only as a participant in educational entrepreneurship but also as Black, female educator. The end result is a reflective …

Exploring How Older Adults Who Qualify For The Association On Aging With Developmental Disabilities (Aadd) Programs And Services Learn To Successfully Age In Place, Tina Grosso

Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored the ways in which older adults with developmental disabilities (DD) learn to successfully age in place. As more persons with DD reach old age and outlive their natural caretakers, such as parents, it is becoming apparent that there are a multitude of age-related challenges and educational needs that must be addressed. However, information pertaining to the unique learning needs of older adults with DD is scarce. Andragogy (the art and science of teaching adults) and geragogy (teaching the elderly) provided the theoretical frameworks for this study. The main research question in this study was: How …

Perceived Barriers And Solutions: Engineering Design Implementation, Ken L. Turner

Dissertations

Engineering Design, part of the practices dimension of the Next Generation Science Standards, NGSS, is widely recognized as the most challenging piece for teachers to implement. It involves practices that teachers are unfamiliar with, have not taught before, have not been taught, and have not experienced as a student. This manuscript documents a mixed-methods survey of over 200 K-12 teachers on their perceptions of both the greatest barriers to implementation of Engineering Design, and those items that will be of most value as a solution to those barriers. A systems approach to understanding Engineering Design was utilized; with data collection …

Fast And Sensitive Genome-Hashing Software And Its Application In Using Ngs As A Detection Agent For Bacterial Presence In Oral Metagenomic Samples, Paul Michael Gontarz

Dissertations

Next generation sequencing has increased the throughput of sequenced DNA into the range of billions of nucleotides sequenced per day. With the increased speed of DNA sequencing and the short length of reads produced by next generation sequencers, a significant challenge has been created in quickly and accurately assembling the hundreds of millions of short reads created by modern sequencing instruments into their full genomic sequences. With the increase in throughput in next generation sequencing and the decrease in time and cost to perform DNA sequencing, novel applications for DNA sequencing are being considered. Among them is a methodology by …

Psychological And Social Variables Impacting Young Adults Caring For Severely Mentally Ill Mothers, Courtney Gale Deloney

Dissertations

This dissertation study examined the psychological and social functioning of young adults who care for their severely mentally ill mothers; in doing so this study examined the independent variables coping style, perceived stress, quality of life, and resilience. The dependent variables considered were race, socioeconomic status, support group participation, and living in the same household as one’s mother. Young adulthood was examined as a distinct period of human development. The policy of deinstitutionalization led many families to become caregivers for their severely mentally ill relatives. While some knowledge on this exists, little is known about the experiences of young adult …

Exploration Of Stimulus Current Energy Reduction And Bifurcation Dynamics In Conductance-Based Neuron Models Using Optimal Control Theory, Michael E. Ellinger

Dissertations

Hodgkin-Huxley type conductance-based models can simulate the effect of time-varying injected stimulus currents on the neuron membrane voltage. The dynamics simulated by these model types enables investigation of the biophysical basis of neuronal activity which is fundamental to higher level function. Broadened understanding the basis of nervous system function could lead to development of effective treatment for related diseases, disorders, and the effects of trauma. In this dissertation, optimal control is used with conductance-based neuron models to develop a "Reduced Energy Input Stimulus Discovery Method." Within the method, an objective function balances two competing criteria: tracking a reference membrane voltage …

A Study Of Conceptual And Language Issues Surrounding Weight, Weightlessness, And Free Fall: Textbook Analysis, Instructional Design, And Assessment, Rex Taibu

Dissertations

Science education is an interdisciplinary field that has developed from and continues to rely on research in the fields of cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, sociology and history. This clearly reflects that learning and teaching can be studied from multiple perspectives. Despite these wide ranging roots, contemporary science education by and large is not informed by the work of research on linguistics, and in particular, the role of language in mediating conceptual understanding. The term “weight” has multiple meanings in both science and everyday language, and this unfortunately creates inherent difficulties for teaching and learning. The present study addresses a need …

Electron Transmission Through Micrometer Sized Funnelshaped Tapered Glass Capillaries And Electron Micro-Beam Production, Samanthi Jayamini Wickramarachchi

Dissertations

The prime motivation of this work is to understand the fundamental transmission process of an electron beam through a funnel-shaped capillary taking into account its shape together with the energy, angular and time dependence of the transmitted electrons produce a microsized electron beam. The utilized capillaries had inlet/outlet diameters of 800/16 μm, 800/100 μm and lengths of 35 mm. Considerable transmission of 800 and 1000 eV electrons for tilt angles up to 1.5^o and only small transmission for 500 eV electrons was observed for the capillary with the smaller outlet diameter of 16 μm. Incident electrons with energies of …

Implementation Of Traditional Printing Techniques For The Development Of Flexible Printed Sensors, Sai Guruva Reddy Avuthu

Dissertations

Printed electronics has gained a remarkable interest over the past decade for the fabrication of cost efficient electronic devices, with a major focus on the development of flexible sensors. This dissertation focuses on the fabrication of flexible sensors using traditional printing processes such as screen, inkjet and gravure printing.

A flexible organic thin film transistor (OTFT) was successfully fabricated on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate and employed as a humidity sensor. Aluminum gate electrode was thermally evaporated on PET and UV clear dielectric layer was spin coated. Source and drain silver interdigitated electrodes were screen printed. 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl) pentacene, a humidity …

Tongues Untied Truth Revealed: Body Image, Social Media, Identity Development, And Meaning-Making In Overweight And Obese Black Gay Msm, Amari Ja-Lynn Enam

Dissertations

This phenomenological study explored the meanings attributed to internalized messages about body image within the context of identity development from the perspectives of overweight/obese men of African descent (OMAD) among a group of 6 men who have sex with men (MSM). I was interested in those messages that have been incorporated, adopted, or integrated into OMAD-MSM’s sense of self. Informants shared body image-related experiences from interactions with family, friends, dating/sex partners, and the media/social media.

Academic literature has explained identity development processes among African Americans through various lenses but research has not adequately explored the convergence of multiply oppressed social …

Regulation Of Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (Gdnf) Production In Voluntary And Involuntary Muscle, John-Mary Vianney

Dissertations

Glia cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a survival factor for subpopulations of neurons, including somatic and autonomic motor neurons. These neurons depend, in part, on GDNF that is synthesized and secreted by their target tissues. It has been shown that a number of tissues in the periphery express GDNF and these target tissues differ in their composition, function, and in the case of different muscle cell types, their contractile characteristics. Whether the processes regulating GDNF production in these different tissues is similar or different is poorly understood. The broad goal of this study is to examine factors that normally …

Protein Domain Linker Prediction: A Direction For Detecting Protein-Protein Interactions, Maad Mohammad Shatnawi

Dissertations

Protein chains are generally long and consist of multiple domains. Domains are the basic elements of protein structures that can exist, evolve, and function independently. The accurate and reliable identification of protein domains and their interactions has very important impacts in several protein research areas. The accurate prediction of protein domains is a fundamental stage in both experimental and computational proteomics. The knowledge of domains is an initial stage of protein tertiary structure prediction which can give insight into the way in which proteins work. The knowledge of domains is also useful in classifying proteins, understanding their structures, functions and …

Protein Domain Linker Prediction: A Direction For Detecting Protein – Protein Interactions, Maad Mohammad Hasan Shatnawi

Dissertations

Protein chains are generally long and consist of multiple domains. Domains are the basic of elements of protein structures that can exist, evolve and function independently. The accurate and reliable identification of protein domains and their interactions has very important impacts in several protein research areas. The accurate prediction of protein domains is a fundamental stage in both experimental and computational proteomics. The knowledge is an initial stage of protein tertiary structure prediction which can give insight into the way in which protein works. The knowledge of domains is also useful in classifying the proteins, understanding their structures, functions and …

Characterization Of Carbapenemase Producer Enterobacteriaceae Isolated In The United Arab Emirates, Amna Eisa Al Baloushi

Dissertations

The efficient control of the spread of carbapenemase producer Enterobacteriaceae, a major public health treat world-wide, requires knowledge on the molecular epidemiology and genetic background of the emerging carbapenemase genes.

Our aim was to investigate the genetic support of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase and OXA-48-type carbapenemase genes in carbapenem resistant Enterobacteriaceae isolated in the United Arab Emirates. Since these isolates are extremely drug resistant, leaving few treatment options, the efficacy of alternative antimicrobials was also assessed.

Seven NDM-producer Enterobacteriaceae, collected during 2009-2011, and subsequently five NDM and OXA-48-type carbapenemase co-producer Klebsiella pneumoniae isolated during 2011-2013 in three hospitals of the …

Effects Of Exercise And Pharmacological Intervention On Electromechanical Function Of The Heart In The Goto-Kakizaki Type 2 Diabetic Rat, Khawla Abdulla Al-Ali

Dissertations

Type 2 diabetes mellitus accounts for more than 90% of cases of diabetes mellitus. Cardiovascular diseases are the major causes of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients. A variety of diastolic and systolic dysfunctions have been reported. The severity of the abnormalities depends on the patients’ age and diabetes duration. The aim of the study was to investigate the age-dependent, exercise and pharmacological intervention on electromechanical function of the heart in the Goto-Kakizaki (GK) type 2 diabetic rat. mRNA expression was assessed in ventricular muscle with real-time RTPCR. Ventricular myocytes shortening, intracellular Ca2+ transport and L-type Ca2+ current were measured …

New Screening Methodology For Selection Of Polymeric Materials For Transdermal Drug Delivery Devices, Roberto P. Falcone

Dissertations

As medical advances extend the human lifespan, the level of chronic illnesses will increase and thus straining the needs of the health care system that, as a result, governments will need to balance expenses without upsetting national budgets.

Therefore, the selection of a precise and affordable drug delivery technology is seen as the most practical solution for governments, health care professionals, and consumers.

Transdermal drug delivery patches (TDDP) are one of the best economical technologies that are favored by pharmaceutical companies and physicians alike because it offers fewer complications when compared to other delivery technologies. TDDP provides increased efficiency, safety …

Data Mining In Computational Proteomics And Genomics, Yang Song

Dissertations

This dissertation addresses data mining in bioinformatics by investigating two important problems, namely peak detection and structure matching. Peak detection is useful for biological pattern discovery while structure matching finds many applications in clustering and classification.

The first part of this dissertation focuses on elastic peak detection in 2D liquid chromatographic mass spectrometry (LC-MS) data used in proteomics research. These data can be modeled as a time series, in which the X-axis represents time points and the Y-axis represents intensity values. A peak occurs in a set of 2D LC-MS data when the sum of the intensity values in a …

Multiple Testing Procedures For Complex Structured Hypotheses And Directional Decisions, Anjana Grandhi

Dissertations

Several multiple testing procedures are developed based on the inherent structure of the tested hypotheses and specific needs of data analysis. Incorporating the inherent structure of the hypotheses results in development of more powerful and situation-specific multiple testing procedures than existing ones. The focus of this dissertation is on developing multiple testing procedures that utilize the information on this structure of the hypotheses and aims at answering research questions while controlling appropriate error rates.

In the first part of the thesis, a mixed directional false discovery rate (mdFDR) controlling procedure is developed in the context of uterine fibroid gene expression …

Designing Novel Abstraction Networks For Ontology Summarization And Quality Assurance, Christopher Ochs

Dissertations

Biomedical ontologies are complex knowledge representation systems. Biomedical ontologies support interdisciplinary research, interoperability of medical systems, and Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) encoding. Ontologies represent knowledge using concepts (entities) linked by relationships. Ontologies may contain hundreds of thousands of concepts and millions of relationships. For users, the size and complexity of ontologies make it difficult to comprehend “the big picture” of an ontology's content. For ontology editors, size and complexity make it difficult to uncover errors and inconsistencies. Errors in an ontology will ultimately affect applications that utilize the ontology.

In prior studies abstraction networks (AbNs) were developed to provide a …

Information Filtering By Multiple Examples, Mingzhu Zhu

Dissertations

A key to successfully satisfy an information need lies in how users express it using keywords as queries. However, for many users, expressing their information needs using keywords is difficult, especially when the information need is complex. Search By Multiple Examples (SBME), a promising method for overcoming this problem, allows users to specify their information needs as a set of relevant documents rather than as a set of keywords.

Most of the studies on SBME adopt the Positive Unlabeled learning (PU learning) techniques by treating the user's provided examples (denoted as query examples) as positive set and the entire data …

Development Of Flexible Batteries Using Nano-Carbons And Polymers, Zhiqian Wang

Dissertations

Flexible electronics such as wearable equipment, displays, cell phones and smart cards require flexible power sources like batteries. In this thesis, the development of flexible batteries and supercapacitors are presented. Different types of flexible batteries including zinc carbon batteries, primary alkaline batteries, secondary alkaline batteries and zinc air cells are presented, These were designed, fabricated and improved using polymers and nano-carbons like carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNTs are found to be effective as conductive additives compared to the traditional graphite. Purification is important to remove impurities that lead to side reactions/ corrosions. However, further treatment like carboxylation lead to higher electric …

Piezoelectric Scaffolds For Osteochondral Defect Repair, Sita Mahalakshmi Damaraju

Dissertations

Osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent causes of disability affecting nearly 27 million Americans. Osteoarthritis is caused when extensive damage occurs to the articular cartilage later spreading to the underlying subchondral bone, resulting in osteochondral defects. The current clinical therapies aim at regenerating the hyaline cartilage, but instead fibrocartilage forms at the osteochondral defect site, which is inferior in structure and function and fails to integrate with the surrounding tissue. A biomimetic scaffold, which can provide cues similar to the native extracellular matrix, may facilitate osteochondral defect repair. Articular cartilage and bone extracellular matrix have been shown to produce …

An Efficient Boundary Integral Method For Stiff Fluid Interface Problems, Oleksiy Varfolomiyev

Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to formulate and investigate a boundary integral method for the solution of the internal waves/Rayleigh-Taylor problem. This problem describes the evolution of the interface between two immiscible, inviscid, incompressible, irrotational fluids of different density in three dimensions. A mathematical model of this interfacial flow problem in 3D is derived. The motion of the interface and fluids is driven by the action of a gravity force, surface tension at the interface, elastic bending and/or a prescribed far-field pressure gradient. The presented models include derived equations for the evolution of the interface and dipole density on …

Climate-Driven Change In Himalayan Rhododendron Phenology, Robert Evan Hart

Dissertations

Phenology – the seasonal timing of life-history events – is a critical dimension of natural history. It is also one of the earliest and most noticeable traits by which organisms respond to climate change. However, these responses are complex, and only beginning to be understood, especially in the montane and alpine environments that are among the ecosystems most vulnerable to climate change. Drawing from diverse data sets and employing multiple methodologies, I examined how climate affects phenology in Himalayan Rhododendron spp. Comprehensively monitoring flowering phenology over gradients of season and elevation on Mt. Yulong, China – home to a diverse …

Functional Analysis Of Gambling, Mack S. Costello

Dissertations

Given high rates of gambling and the growing population of disordered gamblers, there is a need to develop assessment strategies with improved treatment validity. More specifically, assessment strategies are needed that identify the controlling variables for disordered gambling and, thus, provide guidance in the selection of treatment and prevention strategies. This study sought to develop a functional analysis for gambling by utilizing a simulated gambling environment in which contextual variables hypothesized to be causally linked to disordered gambling could be systematically manipulated. Seven experienced gamblers participated in the multi-element, single-subject experimental study. Participants who endorsed at least some problems from …

Teaching At The Top Of The Class: Black Female Educators' Perspective On Teaching High Achieving Black Children, Sheandra P. Brown

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to examine the action steps that Black female educators take when teaching high achieving Black students. More specifically this study investigated the way that the participants implement instruction in their classroom for high achieving students. This study included five Black female educators from four predominately Black school districts in a small town in the Midwest. Critical Race Theory and Othermothering were used as theoretical frameworks to examine the importance of the role that Black female educators play in today's urban classrooms. The terms gifted and high achiever are often used interchangeably in …

“Alone In Our Grief:” Exploring How Surviving Siblings Make Meaning After The Death Of A Brother Or Sister, Jodi M. Flesner

Dissertations

Sibling loss is an important, yet often overlooked topic in the literature on grief. The purpose of this study was: (a) to better understand the phenomenon of sibling grief through personal narratives, (b) to explore common meanings made by bereaved siblings, and (c) to investigate strategies used by bereaved siblings to make meaning out of their siblings’ deaths. A narrative research design was used to identify core themes with regard to both meaning making outcomes and processes. Seven young adults who lost a sibling in adolescence each completed two in-depth interviews averaging almost 90 minutes each. Sibling profiles were created …

Investigating The Utility Of A Mindfulness-Based Intervention With Men On Probation Or Parole, Reginald Wynn Holt

Dissertations

Using a mixed-method design of quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study investigated the utility of implementing an adapted version of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors (MBRP; Bowen, Chawla, & Marlatt, 2011) with six men on probation or parole. The researcher integrated a focus on anger management into the eight MBRP sessions and taught mindfulness meditation exercises during a weekly group. Outcome variables of mindfulness, anger, and empathy were measured at baseline and immediately after the intervention. Field violation and parole revocation data were provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections 30 days following completion of the program. The participants’ …

In Search Of Spirit: The Making And Meaning Of Gay Spirituality, David Willilam Hart

Dissertations

Over the past two decades, a substantial number of scholarly studies have examined the confluence of religious and sexual minority identities (Kocet et al., 2011; Love, Bock, Jannarone, & Richardson, 2005; Rodriguez & Ouellete, 2000; Schuck & Liddle, 2001). Religious identity was often framed within a traditional Judeo-Christian context. A major limitation of this body of work is the neglect of spiritual identity as a construct separate from religious identity. Many Protestant, Judaic, Islamic, and Catholic doctrines regard homosexuality and gender non-conformity as deviant and view the expression of same-sex attraction as errant and immoral (Haldeman, 2002). While reconciliation of …