Digital Commons Network^™

Role Of Machine Learning In Early Diagnosis Of Kidney Diseases., Mohamed Nazih Mohamed Ibrahim Shehata

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches have been used as indispensable tools in modern artificial intelligence-based computer-aided diagnostic (AIbased CAD) systems that can provide non-invasive, early, and accurate diagnosis of a given medical condition. These AI-based CAD systems have proven themselves to be reproducible and have the generalization ability to diagnose new unseen cases with several diseases and medical conditions in different organs (e.g., kidneys, prostate, brain, liver, lung, breast, and bladder). In this dissertation, we will focus on the role of such AI-based CAD systems in early diagnosis of two kidney diseases, namely: acute rejection (AR) post …

Exploration Of New Physics In B To Dstar Muon Neutrino Using A New Monte Carlo Tool, Quinn Campagna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent experimental results in $B$ physics from Belle, BaBar and LHCb suggest new physics (NP) in the weak $b\to c$ charged-current and the $b\to s$ neutral-current processes. Here we focus on the charged-current case and specifically on the decay modes $\overline{B}^0\to D^{*+}\ell^- \bar{\nu}$ with $\ell = e$ and $\mu$. The world averages of the ratios $R_D$ and $R_D^{*}$ currently differ from the Standard Model (SM) predictions by $3.4\sigma$ while recently a new anomaly has been observed in the forward-backward asymmetry measurement, $A_{FB}$, in $ \overline{B}^0\to D^{*+}\mu^- \bar{\nu}$ decay. It is found that $\Delta A_{FB} = A_{FB}(B\to D^{*} \mu\nu) - A_{FB} …

The Ongoing Collegiate Anxiety Pandemic: It’S A Dangerous Business Going Out Your Front Door, Daniel Pineau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anxiety is an emotion that consists of worrisome thoughts, physical tension, and physiological arousal regarding the perceived potential of danger. College students have increasingly endorsed anxiety as a primary difficulty during the collegiate years. Due to this increase in anxiety and an increase in utilization of therapy services, the overall study aim was to identify the factors that influence anxiety presentations and whether or not a brief, online, therapeutic intervention could be effective for symptom reduction. A group of participants (N = 96) volunteered to complete a longitudinal study providing a brief, online, psychological intervention through the University of Mississippi. …

Measurement Of Inclusive Upsilon(4s) To Upsilon(1s) Decays At Belle Ii, Justin Wade Guilliams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using data collected by the Belle II experiment at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider, a measurement of the branching fraction for inclusive $\Upsilon(4S)$ decays to $\Upsilon(1S)$, where $\Upsilon(1S)$ decays to $\mu^{+}\mu^{-}$, is investigated. A similar study has not been conducted for decades. Such an inclusive measurement may be compared to the sum of exclusive branching fractions in order to check the completeness of the known exclusive decays. A disparity between the measured exclusive decays and the inclusive measurement would be suggestive of additional decay modes that are accessible beyond naive expectations. This analysis is further extended to include measurements of …

3d Reinforced Composite Face Sheets And Functionally Graded Polymeric Foam Cores For Blast And Impact Hazard Mitigation, Suman Babu Ukyam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lightweight sandwich structures are being used in aeronautics, marine, automotive, and offshore structural applications considering their high specific strength and stiffness along with energy absorption features. Sandwich structures comprise of face sheets typically made of aluminum or fiber-reinforced composites bonded to core materials like metallic foams, honeycomb, polymeric foams or balsa wood having a cellular structure. One main limitation of composite material face sheet is the absence of fibers in thickness direction, which greatly reduces damage tolerance and impact resistance. Current research is focused on investigating the dynamic behavior of sandwich structures having composite laminates with 3D reinforcement as face …

Teaching In A Remediation Nation: Exploring Journalism And Mass Communication Faculty Perceptions Of Their Professional Practice, Andrew Mark Abernathy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research shows many new college students may be remedial in English language arts or mathematics (Jaggers & Bickerstaff, 2018). For faculty in journalism and mass communication (JMC) fields, teaching struggling student writers can be especially challenging as these students may not have the fundamental knowledge to build applied writing skills upon. Thus, this lack of readiness for collegiate writing poses challenges to not only these students’ academic success, but also their transition into media professions. Embedded remediation—an alternative to traditional, prerequisite remediation—is one strategy that JMC faculty can use to support struggling student writers. This dissertation explores how JMC faculty …

Continuance Intention Of Using Online Food Delivery Applications: Customers With Food Allergies, Jeongyeon Ahn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the predictors of the continuance intention of using online food delivery applications (OFD apps) in the context of U.S. consumers with food allergies. Extending the UTAUT2 model with two context-specific variables, perceived risk, and trust, the current study tested the relationships in the extended model. A self-administered online survey was conducted to collect a sample of 293 U.S. OFD app users with food allergies and the extended UTAUT2 model was tested using a three-step hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results of the study revealed that habit and trust were the only significant constructs that predict the continuance …

Transformation From Orality To Literacy: Studying The Effect Of Orality In Al-Jahiz’S Al-Bayan Wa Al-Tabyeen., Faiz Alasmari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The transition from orality to literacy is the focus of this dissertation. Studying orality and literacy in Western Academic scholarship focuses on the transitional phase (transition from orality to literacy) of the Western transitional. This project widens the focus of the transitional phase and analyzes the transitional phase of the old traditional Arabic culture. The dissertation analyzes both oral and transitional phases of the old Arabic culture. It studies the unique characteristics of these two phases (oral and transitional). Isnad was the main feature of the Arabic transitional phase. Isnad is a chain of narrators who convey sayings. Every narrator …

Examining Overrepresentation In Special Education Amongst African Americans Diagnosed With Emotional Disturbance In The State Of Pennsylvania, Krisa Franzetta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the disproportionality in special education, regarding African American students being overrepresented, specifically under the disability category of Emotional Disturbance (ED) within the state of Pennsylvania. Demographic information was collected with the use of secondary data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, using 648 educational programs across 29 intermediate units. Data were analyzed with statistical representation of percentages as related to risk composition and the E-Formula. The results yielded an average risk of African American students being two times more likely to be diagnosed with ED than their White peers. Additional results from the calculation of the …

The Self Compassionate Side Of Awe: The Relationship Between Awe And Self-Compassion Via Self-Diminishment And Connectedness, Rachael Marie Cavallaro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given that having a self-compassionate attitude is linked to positive psychological functioning, it is important to identify factors that promote self-compassion. Several self-transcendent experiences and emotions, which perceptually blur the lines between the self and others, predict self-compassion. Awe, a mixed-valance emotion defined by vastness and need for accommodation, seemed a likely candidate to promote self-compassion, as it is also a self- transcendent emotion with intra and interpersonal functions (e.g., increased humility, openness, and connection) that theory and empirical research has linked to self-compassion. Thus, we hypothesized that awe would promote self-compassion both directly and indirectly via boosted feelings of …

Design And Fabrication Of Additively Manufactured Arm Cast Using Topology Optimization, Tereza Janatova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The traditional approach to casting non-operative arm fractures involves fully covering a large portion of the forearm, often including a portion of the palm. The use of gypsum plaster and plaster materials often results in cutaneous problems or in more severe cases swelling, pressure sores, or deep vein thrombosis. Other disadvantages include the weight, time it takes to harden, or the damage in contact with water. The objective of the project is to create a durable but breathable custom-made design for an arm brace that will replace the traditional solutions by overcoming their disadvantages. Several research groups and companies provide …

Empirical Essays In Law And Economics, Bright Addiyia Osei

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I examine the effect of laws and policies regulating the use of drugs onthe decision making of economic agents. In the first paper, I estimate the effects of legalized recreational marijuana on entry into the foster-care system by exploiting state-level variation in legalization and its timing, I estimate that legalization decreases foster-care placements by at least 10%, with larger effects in years after legalization. I find even larger decreases in admissions due to parental drug and alcohol abuse, implying that substitution towards marijuana from other substances is an important part of how legalization affects admissions. I find similar effects for …

Bridging Souths: Interdisciplinarity And Knowledge Production In Southern Studies, Matthew David Streets

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the viability of southern studies, a regional studies project on the study of the U.S. South, as an academic field of study and institutionalized site of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary knowledge production. Southern studies has undergone numerous turns and paradigm shifts since its institutionalization in the 1970s. These ontological, epistemological, and methodological developments have reoriented the objectives of interdisciplinary knowledge production. Despite the present permeability of disciplinary boundaries, the institutional structure and its racial, capitalist, and disciplinary hierarchies hinder communication and collaboration across disciplines and fields and between the “ivory tower” and “real world.” Understanding the impact …

Our Bodies, Our Stories: Mental And Physical Self Connection As A Protective Factor In Sexual And Gender Minorities, Emerson A. Todd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The mind and body connection has been actively examined in neuroscience and developmental psychology backgrounds. Sociological theorists posit ways that individuals develop a sense of self through mind, body, and the social world. While research on the connection between the mind and body in disabled and aging populations is common, less is known of the everyday impact of these connections for other minority populations. The present study uses mixed-methods research to explore the relationship between mind and body and the impacts on internal and social life. The quantitative aspect of the study found significant relationships between physical and mental health …

Educator Perceptions Of The Working Environment In Tennessee Elementary Schools That Actively Employ Positive Behavior Supports And Restorative Practices, Scott Thomas Lamie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study captured the experiences of elementary educators with the purpose of gathering their perceptions of the use of restorative practices and positive behavior supports in their schools with a particular focus on how these programs influenced school climate, their professional efficacy, and their job satisfaction. Results of interviews lead to the emergence of seven major themes, which were the importance of understanding the underlying causes of student behavior, change, common practices of positive behavior supports and restorative practices, benefits for students, benefits for educators, struggles with implementation, and suggestions for implementation. These findings led to the identification of …

Community Structure Analysis Of Turtles With Application To The Early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, Julian Conley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are important components of ecosystems around the world, with diverse ecological niches and adaptations. However, there are few detailed studies of how turtle community structure reflects local environments. This project applied techniques of community structure analysis to sites across the United States to infer past ecosystem and environmental conditions of the early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site (GFS) in northeastern Tennessee based on the ancient turtle community. Results indicate extant turtle community structure closely reflects environmental conditions, and that ancient turtle communities can be used to infer climate and habitat conditions of past ecosystems. Application to the GFS turtle community …

Performance Cultures And Black Atlantic Literature, 1750-1833, Chinaza Amaeze Okoli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation approaches performance cultures as integral components of early black Atlantic writing, and considers how meaning is produced at the intersection of writing and vernacular performance. It asserts that black writers, in their portrayal of performance practices, encode avenues and strategies for accessing other black voices in their communities. Pairing writing by black authors and a selection of comparable vernacular practices, my dissertation examines how these forms signify upon each other, offering new contexts for interpreting the black experience in the long eighteenth century. In exploring this thesis, my work approaches Olaudah Equiano’s narrative as illustrative of the ways …

Solving The Challenges Of Concept Drift In Data Stream Classification., Hanqing Hu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rise of network connected devices and applications leads to a significant increase in the volume of data that are continuously generated overtime time, called data streams. In real world applications, storing the entirety of a data stream for analyzing later is often not practical, due to the data stream’s potentially infinite volume. Data stream mining techniques and frameworks are therefore created to analyze streaming data as they arrive. However, compared to traditional data mining techniques, challenges unique to data stream mining also emerge, due to the high arrival rate of data streams and their dynamic nature. In this dissertation, …

A Computational Model Of The Line-1 Retrotransposon Life Cycle And Visualization Of Metabolic Networks In 3-Dimensions., Michael D. Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Computational modeling of metabolic reactions and cellular systems is evolving as a tool for quantitative prediction of metabolic parameters and reaction pathway analysis. In this work, the basics of computational cell biology are presented as well as a summary of physical processes within the cell, and the algorithmic methods used to find time dependent solutions. Protein-protein and enzyme-substrate interactions are mathematically represented via mass action kinetics to construct sets of linear differential equations that describe reaction rates and formation of protein complexes. Using mass action methods, examples of reaction networks and their solutions are presented within the Virtual Cell simulation …

“I Don' Want To Upset Anyone - I Just Want To Exist": Nonbinary College Student Experiences At A Public Mid-Southern University., Cat Renee Alexander

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed the experiences of twenty-four nonbinary students at Sunnydale University, using a grounded theoretical approach with a standpoint perspective. Snowball sampling, e-mail advertising, and poster advertising were utilized. Themes and findings came from two areas, those of contrasting experiences and those of consensus opinions. Participants had contrasting experiences based on gender, pronouns, race/ethnicity, student classification, and major. Consensus opinions include suggested changes for campus inclusiveness that many participants discussed. A pre-interview survey was used to filter participants and collect demographic information and then interviews were collected from August 2021 – December 2021. This study found that although Sunnydale …

Unraveling Dna And Identity: A Humanistic Perspective On Epistemologies And Ethics Of Genetic Ancestry Testing., Eve Carlisle Polley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The advent of DNA ancestry testing motivated a burst of human activities that constitute a scientific-technological-industrial-personal-social movement of immense scale, infused with epistemological and ethical questions of great and important variety. This movement has motivated many discourses in the social sciences, with study subjects ranging from the language usage of geneticists, to moral conundrums faced by test-takers, to potential ramifications in global structures of political power. At the same time, and especially in recent decades, the discourses of the comparative humanities have included with increasing frequency and urgency research and theorization about concepts and consequences of human social identities, alongside …

Tiktok As Art: Visual Culture Art Education In An Afterschool Art Program, Chloe C. Morrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research and the objective were to investigate the firsthand experience of

visual culture art education in an after-school art program. The after-school

program was focused mainly on an underserved population. We focused our

concentration on the social media app TikTok. The author investigated visual

culture theorists and discovered ideas from Terry Barrett and his use of

denotations and connotations and their relationship to art. The participants were

members of the Boys and Girls Club of Nacogdoches who analyzed TikTok

videos using annotations and denotations, then in return created their own

individual videos inspired by an original TikTok video. The …

The Effects Of Interactive Object Provisioning On Corticosterone, Stress-Related Behaviors, And Cognition In Juvenile And Adult Zebra Finches (Taeniopygia Guttata), Lucas West

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identification and reduction of unnecessary stress in lab animals is important for welfare, and for scientific validity. Providing animals with infrastructure and objects that encourage exercise and species-typical manipulative behaviors can help reduce stress by meeting physical and psychological needs. The effects of such "environmental enrichment" (EE) have been heavily studied in both zoo animals "where it has been shown to reduce maladaptive behaviors" and in lab animals such as rodents, where it clearly reduces stress and anxiety, dampens reactions to stressful events, and increases cognition and the volume of related brain regions. While there is some evidence that EE …

Determining Implementation Barriers For Green Stormwater Infrastructure (Gsi) Practices For Urban Flood Control, Liya Abera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An increase in impervious land covers, such as asphalt and buildings from new construction and land development projects, results in cities experiencing flooding events. In 2021, the US was impacted by significant weather and climate disasters, including two flooding events and 11 severe storms. In addition to flooding events, excess runoff carries pollutants to receiving waters causing low water quality and habitat loss. To minimize flooding events and maintain the quality of receiving water bodies, stormwater runoff should be handled near its source. The installation of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) is one sustainable method of addressing stormwater runoff problems. GSI …

Using Quantum Fluctuations To Regularize An Analytic Continuation Problem From Many-Body Physics, Lucretius Coleman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Extracting spectral information via inversion from Quantum Monte Carlo sampled data isa difficult task. There is a need to analytically continue noisy and often incomplete imaginary-time data into the full complex domain. A new approach is proposed that uses the quantum fluctuations of spin momenta to regularize the inversion. A one-dimensional Heisenberg chain in the presence of a transverse field is first encoded with synthetic data representing several classes of spectral functions and then run through a Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm to find its ground state. This solution corresponds to a probable, high quality solution to the inversion. Using …

Sales Technology: A Three-Part Multi-Method Approach To Examining Sales-Stacks, John Galvan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Salespeople depend on sales-related technologies to make themselves more efficient and effective. The extant sales-technology research tends to examine specific sales technologies in sales settings with the emphasis on the impact on salespeople. With the growth of technological capabilities, sales technology has become more integrated, thus making it harder to separate individual technologies from one another. The current research conducts a typological literature review of sales technology. Next, with an eye toward the development of indigenous theory, it introduces the term sales-stacks as capturing the aggregate of sales technologies that, when effective, provide a powerful, connected, easy-to-use experience for every …

Organizational Green Claims And Consumer Green Perceptions In The Foodservice Industry, Jangwoo Jo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the ever-growing consumer demands and global pressures for more sustainable business operations, corporations disclose their sustainable practices, products, and services to enhance their environmental image. Consumer green perceptions resulting from those organizational green claims have not been the focus of foodservice research. The application of green performance dimensionality of the foodservice domain identified that organizational green claims regarding food, environment and administration increase consumer green confusion and green trust at the same time. Based on the results of CFA, SEM, and multigroup analyses, this study suggests implications both theoretical and practical.

Fighting Exclusion: Women In The Palm Oil Industry In Ghana Since 1957, Grace Okine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women were integral to the production of palm oil in the region that is currently known as Ghana. Right from the start, they have worked in the palm oil industry as farmers, oil processors, and traders of palm fruits and oil. Yet, the story of the unique challenges and experiences of women who worked in the Ghanaian palm oil sector have largely been left out of history books. This thesis contributes to addressing this gap partly by focusing on how relevant colonial and post-colonial government policies and strategies shaped the place and roles of women who were involved in the …

Development And Evaluation Of Performance Models For Asphalt, Concrete, And Composite Pavements Using Machine Learning, Rulian Ferreira De Almeida Barros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transportation infrastructures account for a considerable portion of public investments, which serve as the backbone of a country’s economy by providing essential services to businesses and people. In the United States, public investments in transportation infrastructure assets represent trillions of dollars. The U.S road network consists of about 4 million miles, being the world’s largest, longest, and biggest transportation system. Paved roads account for 2.6 million miles, and 93% of them are surfaced with asphalt. However, a portion of the paved roads consists of asphalt overlaid concrete pavements, also known as composite pavements. When concrete pavements start to fail, they …

Challenges Of Leading During Covid-19: A Qualitative Study Of K-12 Administrators, Jerry Bradford Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research discusses the impact of environmental and social crisis events, how