Digital Commons Network^™

The Social Obligation To Reduce Stigma In Order To Increase Utilization Of Mental Health Services, Melissa Sue Berdell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many mental health organizations have developed campaigns that concentrate on reducing the stigma towards mental health with the intentions of increasing access and utilization for people with mental illnesses that are not receiving appropriate mental health services. The mental health campaigns predominantly focus on establishing awareness and education related to the number of people with mental illnesses and diagnoses so that people will not be ashamed or embarrassed to have mental illnesses or access mental health treatments. However, societal prejudices have caused many people diagnosed with mental illnesses to lose jobs, homes, and families; therefore, in general, people are afraid …

Inequity Within Chinese Higher Education With The Focus On Henan Province, Zhe Ji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of students from China's Henan province regarding inequities they experience in the Chinese higher education system based solely on their geography. Henan students are required to score higher than students from other provinces on the Chinese National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) in order to apply for admission into Chinese top tier universities. Yet despite having higher scores than their peers from other provinces and meeting all admissions requirements, Henan students have little guarantee of admission. The study systematically reviews the history of the Chinese higher education system to contextualize the …

Metabolomics Of Mammalian And Cellular Models Of Aging, Nathan Gonzales Duval

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Aging is often associated with impaired cognition and a progressive loss of organ function over time accompanied by an increased susceptibility for many disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), heart disease, osteoporosis, type II diabetes, and many forms of cancer. With a rapidly aging population, the negative impacts of aging and age-related disorders is a major cause of increased human suffering both for affected individuals and for families and caregivers. Metabolic changes are also apparent in normal aging, but may increase in magnitude or nature with accompanying disease states or with accelerated aging. Thus, studying aging in a …

Exploring New Chemical Entities From Traditional Medicine: Docking, Synthesis And Specific Bioactivities, Chinni Yalamanchili

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional medical systems contributed significantly to medicine with a number of their phytochemicals found to possess good biological properties. Recently, Dr. Youyou Tu was awarded the Nobel Prize (2015) for her discovery/isolation of Artemisinin from the TCM plant Artemisia annua. Our first aim is to identify active phytochemicals against botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT/A), and diabetes from Ayurveda and TCM, respectively, by using in silico, in vitro and in vivo approaches. In our second aim, we wanted to enantioselectively synthesize scalable quantities of phytoestrogenic isoflavans such as equol and sativan. The following three chapters summarize results of the three research goals. …

Computation Of Acoustic Ressure Fields Produced In Feline Brain By High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound, Nazanin Omidi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1975, Dunn et al. (Jasa 58:512-514) shothat a simple relation describes the ultrasonic threshold for cavitation induced changes in the mammalian brain. The thresholds for tissue damage were estimated for a variety of acoustic parameters in exposed feline brain. The goal of this study was to improve the estimates for acoustic pressures and intensities present in vivo during those experimental exposures by estimating them using nonlinear rather than linear theory. In our current project, the acoustic pressure waveforms produced in the brains of anesthetized felines were numerically simulated for a spherically focused, nominally f1-transducer (focal length = 13 cm) …

How Can A Focus On The Ethical Notions Of Dignity And Respect For Autonomy Help To Improve Healthcare For Elderly People In Islamic Countries?, Abeer Alamri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to identify how can a focus on the ethical notion of dignity and respect for autonomy help to improve health care for elderly people in Islamic countries. An ethic for aging relies on the principle that the losses of age do not detract from a person's essential autonomy. Thus, care should be provided without assuming that older people are different from those of other ages. It is possible to determine that ethical values are similar in Islamic cultures as well as, Western countries. But these values are often neglected when people face the need …

Trans Mississippi, Jessi Hotakainen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is the accompanying paper to the documentary thesis Trans Mississippi, which explores the lives of two transgender individuals living in Mississippi. This thesis outlines the theoretical underpinnings, as well as the director's methodology in producing the film and its justification.

Independent Domination Of Subcubic Graphs, Bruce Allan Priddy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let G be a simple graph. The independent domination number i(G) is the minimum cardinality among all maximal independent sets of G. A graph is subcubic whenever the maximum degree is at most three. In this paper, we will show that the independent domination number of a connected subcubic graph of order n having minimum degree at least two is at most 3(n+1)/7, providing a sharp upper bound for subcubic connected graphs with minimum degree at least two.

The Bawdy Bluff: Prostitution In Memphis, Tennessee, 1820-1900, Aran Tyson Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “Bawdy Bluff” is a study of prostitution in Memphis, Tennessee, between the city’s founding and the end of the nineteenth century. Its focus is on the relationship of prostitutes to the wider community as well as their lived experience. The bulk of scholarship on prostitution in nineteenth century America examines Northeastern cities and Western mining camps. Outside of New Orleans, there is a dearth of research into prostitution in the urban South. This dissertation seeks to correct this oversight. By examining prostitution through the lenses of race, class, and gender, the “Bawdy Bluff” illuminates the ways power operated in …

Novel Approaches For Ungual And Trans-Ungual Delivery Of Drugs, Avadhesh Singh Kushwaha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Topical therapy is commonly used for the treatment of nail diseases such as onychomycosis and nail psoriasis due to less severe side effects, non-invasiveness, direct drug delivery at the site of infection, patient compliance and lower cost of treatment. However, topical treatment is limited due to poor permeability and hard nature of nail plate. The main objective of first project was to investigate the penetrability of apremilast into and across the nail plate, folloby the preparation of a novel nail lacquer formulation to improve its ungual and trans-ungual permeation for the treatment of nail psoriasis. Dexpanthenol and salicylic acid were …

Nemo No More? Spatial Demographic And Population Genetic Analyses Of The Two-Band Anemonefish, Amphiprion Bicinctus, In The Gulf Of Eilat, Red Sea, Jacob Seth Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anemonefishes' obligatory mutualism with sea anemones dictates their occurrence on coral reefs. I examined spatial distribution, settlement, habitat usage, and survival patterns of the two-band anemonefish, Amphiprion bicinctus. In a 300 X 30 m study site off the coast of Israel in the Gulf of Eilat, fish and anemone populations were monitored for 13 censuses from October 1996 to August 1997. Based on size, anemonefish were categorized as adults, juveniles, or settlers. Settlers tended to cluster together but displayed significantly dispersed distributions in relation to adult individual fish and breeding pairs. Adult and juvenile anemonefish associated more with, and exhibited …

Stress, Sexual Signaling, And Alternative Mating Tactics In Male Green Treefrogs, Hyla Cinerea, Sarah Crocker-Buta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the endocrine stress response mediates the expression of courtship signals and alternative mating tactics in male green treefrogs, Hyla cinerea. Males of this species produce acoustic signals that stimulate production of the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT) in vocal competitors, suggesting a role of CORT in intrasexual competition. I predicted that modulation of CORT level during intraspecific contests plays a pivotal role in regulating the expression of male courtship signals and behavior. Consistent with this prediction, CORT administration to calling males, simulating CORT production during male vocal contests, decreased attractiveness by compromising energetic investment in vocalization, increasing …

Critical Quality Attributes Of Topical Semi-Solid Dosage Forms: Solvent Activity, Muralikrishnan Angamuthu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Critical quality attribute has been defined as “a physical, chemical, biological or microbiological property or characteristic that should be within an appropriate limit, range, or distribution to ensure the desired product quality”. Deviations from preset quality metrics may potentially result in drug products with inferior therapeutic efficacy and unacceptable clinical safety profile. Topical cream formulations may possess numerous quality attributes that can affect the permeation of the drug through skin and consequently therapeutic efficacy. CQAs of topical formulations are often aimed at characterizing either the physicochemical properties of APIs or bulk characteristics of the formulation itself. Solvent systems constitute a …

A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads, Cameron Smith Howell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shovel testing and controlled surface collection are commethods of archaeological site investigation that are generally approved by state and federal agencies as well as the academic community for cultural resource management projects and research. While both techniques are equally utilized, little research has been conducted on how equivalent these techniques are in terms of their efficacy for finding site. This thesis seeks to find a way to compare these techniques by creating mathematical models to describe how well the methods behave when tested on known datasets generated from Mississippian period farmsteads. The predicted performance can then be compared to real …

Linearly Stressed To Death: Consideration Of Early Childhood Stress As A Main Contributor To The Regional Variability In Classic Maya Mortuary Profiles, Nicholas Billstrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Late and Terminal Classic periods were times of great social, economic, and political change in Maya civilization. Scholars have suggested that increasing levels of dietary stress during this time may have been the result of ecological instability, drought, warfare, and significant levels of population movement across the Maya lowlands. All of these processes may have affected human health and left measurable markers of stress in human skeletal material. The burial population recovered from two sites on Ambergris Caye, located near the coast of Belize, have significantly more sub-adult individuals than sites in inland Belize, such as Actuncan, suggesting the …

Investigation Of Parameters Enabling Admicellar Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (Raft) Polymerization, Poh Lee Cheah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To date, enormous studies on admicellar polymerization have been recorded since the initial reports in the 1980’s. This technique which offered the advantage of using inexpensive materials and facile procedures, proven to be a successful surface modification technique. Nevertheless, one has to tailor every particular case due to the contribution of various factors in the process. Therefore, understanding the fundamentals parameters affecting the characteristics of polymer formed by admicellar polymerization have become a great interest. The effect of oxygen on the requisite amount of initiator and the polymer formed through the admicellar polymerization of styrene on silica particles was studied …

Strangers Among Us: Invasive Plants In British Literature, 1669-1800., Thomas Lance Bullington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Exotic flora in the long eighteenth century (1666-1800) embodied a point of contact between the natural and imaginary worlds, bearing witness to the ways that ideology relocates living things according to human desire. Most accounts view these exotics through the lens of ecological imperialism and “invasive” species. Both of these terms are twenty-first century metaphors that materialize the role of imperialism in circulating exotics, applying the narrative of invading British empire to the behavior of foreign plants. However, such accounts do not fully acknowledge the cultural work that images of foreign plants do. I opt instead for an ecocritical reappraisal …

Spine Lifting Biomechanics Between Varying Occupational Activity Levels And Recreational Physical Activity Levels, Caitlin Rose Francis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Moderate to vigorous physical activity as the optimum movement patterns for health have continued to be the dominant focus of health and fitness research. Yet, emerging evidence of deleterious, adverse health effects of prolonged inactivity, independent of regular physical activity, presents a new element to establishing the ideal model of movement patterns for health. The musculoskeletal trunk of the body becomes unbalanced as a result of prolonged inactivity, and a biomechanical analysis can help to identify high-risk loading behavior associated with these unbalances. Moreover, poor spine biomechanics can indicate a need for adjustment to present recommendations for optimum movement …

On Topological Indices And Domination Numbers Of Graphs, Shaohui Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Topological indices and dominating problems are popular topics in Graph Theory. There are various topological indices such as degree-based topological indices, distance-based topological indices and counting related topological indices et al. These topological indices correlate certain physicochemical properties such as boiling point, stability of chemical compounds. The concepts of domination number and independent domination number, introduced from the mid-1860s, are very fundamental in Graph Theory. In this dissertation, we provide new theoretical results on these two topics. We study k-trees and cactus graphs with the sharp upper and lower bounds of the degree-based topological indices(Multiplicative Zagreb indices). The extremal cacti …

Examining The Association Between Leisure Coping Strategies And Mental Health Among College Students, Karolyne Helen Rehner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Payer Perspectives On Preemptive Pharmacogenetic Testing, Nicholas Keeling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: As preemptive pharmacogenetics expands in the academic healthcare setting, further study is needed to assess the views of additional stakeholders in the marketplace on this technology and the barriers and facilitators to their uptake. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perspectives and opinions about coverage policies for preemptive pharmacogenetic testing of third-party payers. Methods: A qualitative study utilizing a blended inductive and directed approach was conducted. A screener survey determined interview eligibility as well as demographic data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with payers from organizations of varying structure and beneficiary populations. Meaning units and codes were …

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave: Cyberbullying, Anxiety, Depression, And Loneliness, Kristen Laprade Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cyberbullying can be defined as any intentionally aggressive act occurring through electronic forms of communication. Drawing on literature examining traditional, face-to-face bullying, it is likely that this relatively contemporary form of victimization is associated with emotional distress. This has yet to be examined with any empirical rigor, however, as there are few studies of the construct. The present research assessed prevalence rates of cyberbullying in youth in North Mississippi using a psychometrically sound measure. These rates were found to be towards the higher end of previous studies (67.6% with exposure to cyberbullying and 6.3% with clinically elevated levels of cyberbullying). …

The Associations Between Values, Committed Action, And Cardiovascular Reactivity, Bianca Marie Crudup

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High stress levels can have profound physical and emotional effects. Several coping mechanisms have been shown to decrease levels of stress. Values, a form of coping, have been implicated in reducing psychological and physiological indicators of stress. The behavioral component, committed action has also demonstrated treatment efficacy in ACT treatments of depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. However, few studies have examined the effects of values and committed action on acute responses (e.g., cardiovascular reactivity) to stress. The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between values, committed action, and physiological responses to stress. Participants were 107 students …

Bacteria Prediction For Recreational Waters Through The Use Of Artificial Neural Networks, Christopher Douglas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many scientists and government agencies rely on Fecal Indicator Bacteria (FIB) to determine the risk of exposure to pathogens in water. If there is a presence of these indicator bacteria, pathogenic microorganisms may also be present. These bacteria in recreational water bodies pose a health threat to people if ingested during activities such as swimming or from the consumption of marine life. The most commonly tested FIBs are total coliforms, Fecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, Fecal streptococci, and enterococci. The measurement of bacteria can be time consuming (up to 48 hours) and expensive, creating a difficulty in warning the public of …

Biological And Psychosocial Risk Factors Of Stroke In African Americans Enrolled In The Jackson Heart Study (Jhs), Sasikiran Nunna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: the objective of this study is to estimate the impact of biological, psychosocial and other risk factors on stroke in African Americans enrolled in the JHS and determine the population attributable risk of risk factors. Methods: this study used a nested case control design. Cases were patients with stroke during the follow up period. Corresponding controls were selected from subjects who are alive at that time period and who are at risk of stroke by matching on the person-years spent in the cohort. Odds ratios (OR) and population attributable risks (PAR) were calculated to understand the association of risk …

Black Students Resisting And Coping With Racism At Predominately White Institutions, Latierney Frazier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black students attending predominately white institutions (pwis) have many obstacles to overcome while navigating their college career. Black students at pwis experience micro-aggressions and different forms of racial discrimination. Various studies have focused on the experiences of black students and some focused on the responses to their experiences in terms of coping; however, literature is lacking when it comes to how students of color at pwis are also effectively simultaneously resisting racism through their coping mechanisms. My research question is "how do black students at pwis cope with and resist the micro-aggressions found within the structure of new racism?" To …

The Frequency Of The Passive Voice In Freshman Academic Books, Basma Moreb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of passive voice has long been an area of difficulty for English learners. Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (2015) noted that it is learning when to use the English passive that presents the greatest long-term challenge to ESL/EFL students (p. 352). Because textbooks are a source of language input for English learners, this study investigated the frequency of passive voice verbs in samples from four academic textbooks in courses commonly taken by freshmen. The study also examined whether there are significant differences between the frequencies by textbook. The data was collected from four General Education Plan (GEP) subject textbooks used …

Beautiful People Are Better, At Least Online: Associations Between Photo Attractiveness And Text Attractiveness In Women's Online Dating Profiles, Collette Celani-Morrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Do physically attractive individuals truly possess a multitude of better characteristics? The current study aimed to answer the age old question, "Do looks matter?" within the context of online dating and framed itself using cursory research performed by Brand and colleagues (2012). Good Genes Theory, Halo Effect, Physical Attractiveness Stereotype, and Social Information Procession theory were also used to explore what function appearance truly plays in online dating and how it influences a user's written text.

83 men were surveyed and asked to rate 84 women's online dating profiles (photos and texts) independently of one another to determine if those …

Battle On The Homefront: An Auto-Ethnographic Perspective On Domestic Violence Post-Deployment, Michelle Craske

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Domestic and sexual trauma that occurs during the time a soldier is actively serving in the military are difficult for researchers to measure in large part because the Department of Defense does not report these offenses to the public. Recent combat missions to the Middle East have increased mental health issues among soldiers, but it is unclear whether these issues are related to domestic violence and sexual trauma soldiers may have endured. The purpose of this study is to investigate how combat operations may have increased domestic violence and sexual trauma among soldiers. An auto ethnographic method is used to …

Visual Scanpath Training For Facial Affect Recognition In A Psychiatric Sample, Chi Chan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social cognition is essential for functional outcome and quality of life in psychiatric patients. Facial affect recognition (FAR), a domain of social cognition, is impaired in many patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There is evidence that abnormal visual scanpath patterns may underlie FAR deficits, and metacognitive factors may impact task performance. The present study aimed to develop a brief, individually-administered, computerized training program to normalize scanpath patterns in order to improve FAR in patient with a psychosis history or bipolar I disorder. The program was developed using scanpath data from 19 nonpsychiatric controls (NC) while they completed a FAR …