Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Pictorial And Imagery Encoding On False Memories, Paul D. Loprinzi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior research demonstrates that viewing matched pictures is ineffective in reducing false memories for related lures that have not been previously externally presented during the experiment. However, other types of visual processing, such imagery encoding, have been shown to reduce false memories when evaluated from paradigms where the critical item is also thought to be internally activated, such as when using DRM lists. The prior work showing that imagery encoding can reduce false memories when using DRM lists may be confounded by a potential mismatch between the mentally-generated image and the visual word. Using a category associate procedure, as opposed …

Formulation And Development Of Curcumin Implants For Treatment Of Colorectal Cancer: Application Of Hme And 3d Printing, Neha Rajendra Sali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Targeted drug delivery for preventing colorectal cancer (CRC) reoccurrence after surgery can be one of the potent tumor reduction methods among other therapies, such as chemotherapy, ablation, embolization, and radiation therapy. Curcumin has been reported to target the growth factors in carcinoma cells and thereby reducing the proliferation and accelerating the apoptosis of the cancerous cells. Due to its poor bioavailability, it has several limitations for its use in anti-cancer therapy. Piperine has increased the solubility and bioavailability of curcumin and acts synergistically to suppress cancer cell growth. The current study intended to develop novel curcumin implants by coupling hot …

The Impact Of Increasing Dietary Levels Of Hybrid Rye On Growing-Finishing Pig Performance, Carcass Characteristics, And Meat Quality, Caitlyn Sullivan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this trial was to determine the effects of increasing dietary levels of hybrid rye on growth performance, carcass characteristics, and product quality of growing-finishing pigs. A total of 2,400 barrows and gilts (FAST x PIC 800, initial wt. 44.9 kg) were utilized, as pigs were randomly assigned to one of the four dietary treatments. Diets were corn-soybean based and hybrid rye replaced corn at 0, 40, 70, or 100%. All diets were formulated to meet or exceed the 2012 NRC requirements for all nutrients and fed through a five-phase feeding program (44.9 to 125 kg, respectively). Pigs …

Feeding Strategies To Improve Gastrointestinal Health And Growth Performance Of Confinement Fed Ruminants, Forest Laine Francis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation was to investigate how feed additives, orally administered direct fed microbials, and dietary management strategies may be beneficial in improving gastrointestinal health and growth performance of confinement fed ruminants. Four studies were conducted using confinement fed steers (n = 3) and wether lambs (n = 1) to determine the effects of the products and management strategies used. The first study was conducted on finishing steers to investigate the effects of increasing doses of an encapsulated butyric acid and zinc supplement (BZ) on growth performance, efficiency of dietary net energy utilization, carcass characteristics, and gastrointestinal health. …

Genome-Wide Association Studies And Advanced Genomic Selection Strategies: Towards The Optimization Of Oat (Avena Sativa L) Breeding, Girma Ayana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Oats are important cereal crops worldwide, primarily valued for their nutritional and health benefits. The primary goal of oat breeding programs is to accelerate genetic gain to develop oat varieties with the desired product profiles, with the aim of meeting the needs and expectations of growers, processors, and consumers. Achieving this goal involves conducting extensive and resource-intensive field trials, particularly for traits such as crop yield and grain quality, which are strongly influenced by environmental factors. The availability of cost-effective molecular markers and tools like genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and genomic selection have the potential to accelerate the oat breeding …

Develop Biochar-Based Control Release Nitogen Fertilizers Using Biodegradable Polypropylene, Abdulkarim Aldekhail

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen (N) is an indispensable key nutrient for crop plant growth, health, and yield, which significantly affects crop productivity. N fertilizers are wildly utilized in agriculture. Managing N application stands as a necessity to achieve optimal crop yield. Urea is one of the most common N fertilizers in agricultural practices due to its high N content and cost-effectiveness. Due to its commercial scale, feasibility, and reliability, it is demonstrating potential as a medium to improve agricultural sustainability. However, economic challenges, and environmental pollution remain as setbacks. This research focuses on selecting cost-effective and environmentally friendly coating materials for the fabrication …

Extraction, Characterization, And Utilization Of Yellow Pea Starch, Abdulmalik Albu Tuwaybah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dry peas, a leguminous crop, are one of the world's oldest crops, accounting for 35–40% of total pulse trade. Pea starch is an inexpensive source of starch since it can be obtained as a by-product of protein extraction. Recovering the starch from protein isolation streams (i.e., before or after) improves the environmental impact of the protein isolation process. The goal of the study was to transform low-value pea starch into highvalue starch through starch extraction and food application. Two methods of starch extraction were used (47.5% ethanol treatment and SC CO2 + EtOH extraction). Starch samples were analyzed for chemical, …

Quantitative Change Analysis Of Undisturbed Lands In Eastern South Dakota: 2012-2021, Riley W. Wollschlager

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The actual rate of loss of undisturbed prairie and woodland in eastern South Dakota is unknown, and the landscape composition of the region continues to change. Undisturbed land is land with no proven prior cropping or other disturbance history. Agriculture, development, recreation, and other land use practices create disturbances resulting in the further conversion of undisturbed prairies and woodlands. Previous work by South Dakota State University (SDSU) quantified the remaining undisturbed land in eastern South Dakota as of 2012 (Bauman et al 2016). Farm Service Agency (FSA) common land unit (CLU) and National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery were the …

Impact Of Virtual Fence Technology On Yearling Steer Behavior, Performance, And Energetic Expenditure, Logan Riley Vandermark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beef cattle production in the U.S. is largely dependent upon extensive rangelands like the Northern Great Plains. Solutions are needed to meet both the demand of animal-based protein products for a growing world population and the desire for producers to manage for several different ecosystem functions. Virtual fencing (VF) is an emerging precision technology that has the potential to revolutionize livestock management on extensive rangeland systems. However, the need to quantify animal behavior and performance differences using emerging precision technologies, like VenceTM, is ever growing. Thus, the objective of this research was to determine the impact of virtual fencing on …

Modulatory Effects Of Deacetylated Sialic Acids (A Sugar Residue) In Nk-Mediated Cytotoxicity And Targeted Therapy By Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors, Mathias Tawiah Anim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The complex nature of the biology of cancer is still an unraveling science, yielding several biomarkers that have served as molecular targets for detection and treatment of the disease. How sugars, glycans, play a role has remained relatively uninvestigated. Sialic acid (Sia), a sugar residue on the surface of cells, has been identified as a hallmark of cancer and its progression. Sialic acid can be highly functionalized, but we became interested in acetylated Sias. This functional group is modulated by Sialate O- acetylesterase (encoded by the gene SIAE) and Sialate O-acetyltransferase (encoded by CASD1), enzymes that play a crucial role …

Relating Predator Community Ecology And Duck Nest Survival In Eastern South Dakota, Samantha R. Fino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As conversion of native grasslands and wetlands to croplands continues in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), managers are tasked with maintaining sustainable waterfowl populations. Mesopredator community dynamics is a hypothesized mechanism driving spatiotemporal variation of waterfowl nest survival in the PPR, yet studies often lack detailed information on mesopredator species occurrence and abundance. Therefore, understanding spatial and temporal variation in behaviors of mesopredators provides valuable insights for understanding predator-prey interactions between mesopredators and upland duck nests. Further, differences in a predator community resulting from lethal removal of dominant species may influence composition and space use patterns of subordinate and non-target …

Fighting For What Is Right: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Fan Campaign To Save Anne With An E From Cancellation, Marie E. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Anne with an E fan campaign highlighted storylines of social issues that fans felt were important for society. Of particular interest to the fan community was a storyline from the series in which Anne and her friends organized a protest following incidents of sexual assault and censorship aimed at silencing girls from speaking out on gendered issues. This storyline was heavily referenced in the billboards that the fan-based campaign displayed in Toronto and New York City (Anne Nation, 2020). In this analysis, I used fantasy theme analysis (Bormann, 1972) and metaphorical criticism (Osborn, 2018) to conduct a visual and …

The Effects Of Body Weight, Feed Intake, And Weather On Total And Liquid Water Intake In Growing Beef Cattle, Madison Rae Kovarna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research conducted in the 1950s to determine water requirements utilized cattle that vary greatly from the animals being raised today. Additionally, most of the previous research has been conducted on animals being fed for slaughter, rather than bulls or reproductive females. The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of weather variables, dry matter intake (DMI), and body weight (BW) on total daily water intake (TDWI) and liquid daily water intake (LDWI) in growing beef bulls and heifers. Two contemporary groups of Angus and Simmental x Angus bulls and heifers over a two-year period were utilized in this …

Customer Experience With Service Robots In Hospitality And Tourism: Scale Development, Olena Ciftci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This study aims to create a measurement scale of customer experience with service delivered by robots in hospitality and tourism settings to address the industry need and gap in the academic literature.

Methods: This study follows a widely accepted psychometric procedure for scale development. The scale development consists of four stages: item generation, item purification, item reduction and dimensionality, and scale validation. The items for the scale are generated from the literature on customer experience with and perception of service robots in hospitality and tourism and semi-structured interviews with customers who experienced service from robots in hospitality and tourism …

Plot Twist: Vomiting Is Good! Online Psychoeducational Intervention Among Internet Support Group Users, Jennifer Petell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emetophobia is a specific phobia of vomit (SPOV) characterized by persistent and chronic symptoms with severe impairment across domains. Research on emetophobia is limited, with even fewer studies examining the impact of intervention. Available treatment studies have broadly been examined through behavioral interventions, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) of which psychoeducation is an important foundational component. The positive role of psychoeducation on symptom reduction has been examined among a variety of psychopathology, including anxiety disorders. However, to date, research has not examined the role of psychoeducation itself (psychoeducational intervention, PI) among specific phobias broadly or emetophobia specifically. Therefore, the …

Saudi Perspective On Using Efl Resources To Improve Their English Pronunciation In Saudi Public Institutions, Khadija Abdullah Alzahrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the lack of a pronunciation curriculum and materials in Saudi universities, EFL students individually select use different resources to help with their English pronunciation difficulties. Therefore, this study aims to describe (a) Saudi students' perspectives and attitudes toward pronunciation resources that may help with their pronunciation (b) if they use them to help with their weaknesses, and (c) the teachers’ perspectives on their students' pronunciation difficulties, their knowledge of the resources the universities provide, and what they use to help the students' pronunciation learning and development. This study investigates what Saudi students think they need to learn pronunciation, …

L2 Perception Of The S-Aspirated Phone In Spanish, Raúl A. Gamboa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation deals with the perception of the aspirated coda /s/ by Spanish L2 learners. Second language research, with some exceptions, focuses on whether L1English–L2 Spanish learners can perceive the aspirated variant, showing that only advanced learners with time spent in s-weakening regions succeed at the task. L2 studies about s-aspiration have yet to investigate the perception of the aspirated coda /s/ in different environments across actual phrases and sentences. This study focuses on the intelligibility of pairs of ambiguous phrases and sentences perceptually differentiated only by the aspirated coda /s/. Additionally, it investigates the prosodic stress´ influence on the …

Ground Level: Poems, Margaret Graber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“Ground Level” is a full-length poetry collection situated at the intersection of ecopoetics and psychology, where the theme of “grounding” one’s self continually emerges in the midst of personal geographical changes and experiences of collective social trauma during a period of prolonged immersion in the natural world. By exploring through an array of poetic forms, structures, and experimentations including golden shovels, contrapuntals, haikus, an abecedarian, a sestina, grounding exercises, poems featuring 20th century children’s television host Fred Rogers, and a sonnet crown which also explores queerness in the 21st century Southeast, the speaker engages with a number of different methods …

Effects And Mechanisms Of Cognitive Impairment During Vigorous-Intensity Exercise, Myungjin Jung

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research indicates that vigorous-intensity exercise concurrent with a prefrontal cortex (PFC)-dependent cognitive task can temporarily deactivate the PFC, leading to impaired cognition. Shifting attentional focus from a cognitive task to exercise or vice versa during exercise may also affect cognitive performance. However, the underlying mechanisms of this effect remain unclear. Therefore, this dissertation aimed to evaluate whether changes in attention and PFC oxygenation mediate cognitive impairment during vigorous-intensity exercise. Seventy-five young healthy adults (37 males, 38 females; 20.3 ± 1.6 years) completed three visits. The initial visit consisted of a max cycle test to measure VO2max via indirect calorimetry. …

Dear God The Light, Suado Abdirahman Sheikhhassan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This creative thesis contains original poetry by Suado Sheikhassan.

"No Redemption In Nonfiction": Portfolio Reflection On The Queer, Anticapitalist Directions Of Creative Nonfiction, Bethany Fitts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I reflect on the current state of my artistic practice and discuss rapidly changing documentary methods in the 21st century as they relate to broader evolutions in the creative nonfiction genre. I then discuss these methods alongside my experimental short-doc Gameplay.

Impact Of Flow Conditions On Graphene-Coated Soil And Geotextile Materials, Brennan Power

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Levees are fundamental infrastructures for reducing and mitigating flood risk during extreme weather events. Unfortunately, levees do not eliminate flood risk entirely due to floods potentially exceeding a levee’s capacity. Graphene has become a significant material for enhancing the mechanical properties of materials such as concrete and soil. The focus of this study was to determine methods to coat two materials commonly used in levee sites, sand and geotextile, with graphene to determine the stability of the coating on the materials under different flow conditions simulating real-life scenarios such as wet and dry periods. These graphene-coated materials could then be …

Design, Synthesis, And Application Of Indolizine-Donor Containing Fluorophores For Near-Infrared And Shortwave-Infrared Biological Imaging, William E. Meador

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Low energy light in the near infrared (NIR, 700 – 1000 nm), shortwave infrared (SWIR, 1000 – 1700 nm), and extended SWIR (ESWIR, 1700 – 2700 nm) has numerous important applications including fluorescence biological imaging, secure display technologies, and photodetectors. While inorganic materials have dominated each of these spectral regions, organic molecules that absorb and emit light in these regions are being heavily researched due to their high degree of molecular tunability via structure-function relationships, cheap production due to the avoidance of precious metals, ease of manufacturing through solution processability, and operation under physiological and ambient conditions. This dissertation illustrates …

Ceremony On The Frontier: An Analysis Of A Thirteenth And Fourteenth Century Multi-Phase Mississippian Structure At The Carter Robinson Site, Lee County, Virginia, Taylor Greene

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Carter Robinson (44LE10, occupied from ca. A.D. 1200-1400) is a Mississippian mound site located on the frontier between the edge of the Mississippian world and the beginning of the Radford culture area in southwestern Virginia. Although several structures have been identified and studied in the past, only one structure has been featured intentional burning and reconstruction throughout the occupation of the site, and is designated as Structure 2. This structure is also unique due to its location at the site, on a small rise about 80-meters east of the mound, a construction area typically reserved for the homes of minor …

Gym Theory: A Guide To Maximize Your Gains & Minimize Your Trauma By The End Of The World, Joshua Nguyen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A collection of poems with a critical introduction.

Novel Formulation Strategies For Oral And Ocular Drug Delivery, Samir Senapati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nanoformulations such as nanoemulsions (NE), solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) are colloidal particulate systems in the submicron size range and act as carriers of drug molecules. Their size varies from 10 to 1,000 nm (1). The capacity of these nanoparticles to permeate through many anatomical barriers, the prolonged release of their contents, and their stability on the nanometer scale have widely contributed to their efficacy in drug delivery. Owing to the advantages of nanoformulations, they were further explored in our studies to target different diseases like Dry eye disease (DED), glaucoma, and malaria.

Chapter 2 discusses …

Milk And Water Kefir: Microbial Diversity And Sensory Properties, Xia Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kefir is a fermented beverage that has become increasingly popular because of its proposed probiotic functions. It can be classified into two types: milk kefir and water kefir depending on the medium and inoculated starter culture. This dissertation summarizes work exploring the similarities and differences between milk and water kefir with respect to sensory properties and microbial composition. For the kefir sensory test, six milk and six water kefirs were evaluated on the sensory attributes (color, aroma, taste, and mouthfeel). Milk kefirs were assessed as sour and cheesy, followed by a creamy and thick mouthfeel. In contrast, water kefirs were …

An Assessment Plan To Analyze Nudges And Their Effectiveness In A Learning Management System At Educational Institutions, Nishanth J. Rodrigues

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Procrastination is a significant problem in academia with some estimates suggesting that this occurs in as high as 70-90% of college students (Abdi Zarrin & Gracia, 2020) that manifests in numerous harmful ways including postponement of weekly reading assignments, delay in writing term papers, and inadequate preparation and beginning too late when studying for exams. The effects of procrastination vary from the immediate, such as a failed grade on an assignment, to the long-term, including delayed graduation or even failure to graduate, all of which have the “knock-on” effect of harming the students’ self-esteem and future success following their studies. …

I Say See You Later, Lillian Slaughter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This MFA thesis continues the work that was completed in the master’s thesis “This Is Home: Stories of H2-A Placemaking in the U.S. and Mexico,” by creating a short film about the farm in Kentucky. Through research on ethics and positionality, I explore the ideas that shaped this filmmaking process. The film highlights the experience of working on a mid-sized organic farm that utilizes the federal H2-A visa program for seasonal farmworkers through the lens of a co-worker. This supplemental written thesis includes research, personal accounts of the process of filmmaking, and a reflection of influential films.

Can Graphene-Coated Sand Enhance Water Reuse By Improving Water Quality In The Presence Of Municipal Treated Wastewater?, Madelyn Barber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The need for alternative water sources is dramatically increasing. Therefore, it is essential to develop alternative water sources to meet the current water scarcity challenges. Water reclamation, recycling, and reuse involving treated municipal and or animal wastewater address these challenges by resolving water resource issues and creating new sources of high-quality water supplies. However, the presence of bacteria, high levels of nutrients, and turbidity, as well as the occurrence of chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) in the treated wastewater, combined with the willingness of the public to use treated wastewater can undermine the wide application of water reuse. Implementing affordable …