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Dual Investigations Into Broiler Health: Mitochondrial Gene Expression In Ascites Susceptibility And G-1,25(Oh)₂D₃-Driven Modulation Of Bone And Gut Integrity In Lameness, Layla Hussein Al-Mitib Sep 2025

Dual Investigations Into Broiler Health: Mitochondrial Gene Expression In Ascites Susceptibility And G-1,25(Oh)₂D₃-Driven Modulation Of Bone And Gut Integrity In Lameness, Layla Hussein Al-Mitib

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern broiler production faces persistent challenges from metabolic and skeletal disorders, particularly ascites and bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO), which compromise animal welfare and production efficiency. This dissertation examines two key factors that contribute to these conditions: mitochondrial gene expression associated with pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS) and the role of intestinal barrier integrity in mitigating lameness. In the first study, the expression of mitochondrial genes COXII and ATP6 was evaluated in the breast, thigh, and lung tissues of three broiler genetic lines—ascites-susceptible (SUS), ascites-resistant (RES), and unselected relaxed (REL). While no significant expression differences were observed in muscle tissues, SUS …


Stay Woke: Understanding Critical Consciousness Development In Adults And Its Relationship To Psychological Constructs, Christin Alexandra Mujica Sep 2025

Stay Woke: Understanding Critical Consciousness Development In Adults And Its Relationship To Psychological Constructs, Christin Alexandra Mujica

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Racism confers numerous measurable health risks for people of color. Interventions to mitigate the impact of racism on health are necessary and important to reduce disease burden and improve health outcomes for people of color. While communities of color have developed resiliency tactics that have allowed them to survive, even thrive, in the face of racial oppression, the evaluation and promotion of promising tools that counteract racism’s negative impacts are essential (Phillips et al., 2015). Critical consciousness is just such a tool. Research with children suggests it holds promise (Diemer et al., 2016; Heberle et al., 2020; Maker-Castro et al., …


Constraining The Properties And Formation Pathways Of Low Mass X-Ray Binaries In Early-Type Galaxies, Andrew Paul Ferrell Sep 2025

Constraining The Properties And Formation Pathways Of Low Mass X-Ray Binaries In Early-Type Galaxies, Andrew Paul Ferrell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we explore how low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) form and evolve in nearby early-type galaxies. We investigate X-ray binary (XRB) luminosity function (XLF) scaling relations for Chandra-detected populations of LMXBs within the footprints of 24 early-type galaxies. Our sample includes Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope observed galaxies at D ≲ 25Mpc that have estimates of the globular cluster (GC) specific frequency (SN) reported in the literature. As such, we are able to directly classify X-ray-detected sources as being coincident with unrelated background/foreground objects, GCs, or sources that are within the fields of the galaxy targets. We model the …


Rumination And Inhibitory Control In Suicidal Ideation: The Role Of Explicit And Implicit Emotional Processing, Arooj Abid Sep 2025

Rumination And Inhibitory Control In Suicidal Ideation: The Role Of Explicit And Implicit Emotional Processing, Arooj Abid

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and suicidal ideations (SI; thinking, considering, or planning suicide) are a strong predictor of suicide attempts. Prior literature describes inhibitory control as an important facet of regulating negative thoughts, and studies suggest that inhibitory control deficits and engagement in brooding rumination are risk factors of SI. Recent studies have found implicit cognitive markers of suicidality suggesting that level of processing may variably be linked to SI. This study examined the relation between aspects of inhibitory control across explicit and implicit emotional contexts and levels of brooding rumination among …


The Intersection Of Race And Nativity: Exploring Criminal Justice Contact Among Black Adults In The United States., Uchenna Makuochukwu Onuoha Sep 2025

The Intersection Of Race And Nativity: Exploring Criminal Justice Contact Among Black Adults In The United States., Uchenna Makuochukwu Onuoha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Black immigrants in the United States navigate a dual identity as both Black and immigrant, yet their unique experiences remain underexplored in research on immigration and crime. While prior studies have documented generational differences and negative associations between immigration and crime, the intersection of race and nativity in shaping criminal justice contact for Black immigrants is unknown. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, this study examines the role of race and nativity on various forms of criminal justice contact. Specifically, we investigate (1) the extent to which nativity plays a role in criminal legal …


Ab Initio Studies On Mechanical Properties Of Freestanding Ferroic Monolayers, John Malcolm Davis Sep 2025

Ab Initio Studies On Mechanical Properties Of Freestanding Ferroic Monolayers, John Malcolm Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of mechanical properties and elastic couplings in freestanding paradigmatic ferroic monolayers within the framework of density functional theory. This dissertation is comprised of three interconnected published studies: (i) establishing the elastic behavior across a temperature-driven phase transition in SnSe monolayers; (ii) thermally-driven phase transitions in graphene-like silicene, germanene, and stanene, examining the structural stability and band gap occlusion; and (iii) magnetoelastic coupling in an Ising-like CrSiTe3 monolayer, focused on assessing magnetic contributions to the material stiffness by establishing a proper non-magnetic reference.


Assessment Of Social Media Use And Strategies For Combating Misinformation Among Extension Educators In Arkansas, Enoch Teye Kwao Ametepey Aug 2025

Assessment Of Social Media Use And Strategies For Combating Misinformation Among Extension Educators In Arkansas, Enoch Teye Kwao Ametepey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assessed the use of social media by Extension educators in Arkansas and examines strategies for identifying and combating misinformation within agricultural extension services. Guided by the Uses and Gratifications Theory, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and the Third-Person Effect Theory for objectives one, two, and three, this research employed quantitative and qualitative approaches, specifically, two quantitative cross-sectional surveys and a qualitative focus group study developed into a three article dissertation. The first article assessed the extent to which Extension educators utilize social media for professional activities, revealing that social media is predominantly used …


Analysis And Predictive Modeling Of Stall And Spin Accidents In General Aviation Fixed-Wing Aircraft, Mehedi Hasan Aug 2025

Analysis And Predictive Modeling Of Stall And Spin Accidents In General Aviation Fixed-Wing Aircraft, Mehedi Hasan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stall and spin accidents represent a persistent safety concern in General Aviation, with approximately 41% resulting in fatalities despite their relatively low occurrence. This study analyzes 1,079 General Aviation stall and spin accidents from 2008 to 2023 using the National Transportation Safety Board accident database. Our analysis identified the top phases of flight, injury outcomes, and causal factors in stall/spin accidents. Findings indicate that over 93% of stall/spin events involved General Aviation aircraft, with most accidents occurring during initial climb, takeoff, or low-altitude maneuvering. Pilot-related control errors, especially poor airspeed and angle-of-attack management, were the most common causes. To assess …


Pricing The Unknown: An Analysis Of Expected Value Of Young Horses And Price-Determining Factors, Rupasri Sura Aug 2025

Pricing The Unknown: An Analysis Of Expected Value Of Young Horses And Price-Determining Factors, Rupasri Sura

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From a seller’s point of view in a market, it is crucial to plan the pricing strategies based on perceptions of buyer preferences and their willingness to purchase to ensure market success in selling and pricing. Applying this to the equine industry, this paper studies the factors determining the price of young horses (age ≤ 2 years) in digital auction platforms. Using data from Professional Horse Services, LLC (2012–2023), a Heckman’s two-step approach was employed, which involves a probit model as the first step and a hedonic price model as the second, aiming to correct for sample selection bias in …


The Upcoming Moral Crisis In Primitive Artificial Intelligence, Justin E. Edens Aug 2025

The Upcoming Moral Crisis In Primitive Artificial Intelligence, Justin E. Edens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As we continue to develop artificially intelligent systems, there is an increasingly high chance that we will develop a system that is both conscious and capable of suffering. Furthermore, it is likely that the development of this conscious machine will be entirely unintentional. While this machine will have moral status, identifying it will be extremely difficult, leading to it being treated the same as its inert predecessors. For these reasons I believe that a crisis in ethics is looming. This paper aims to argue that it is possible for a machine to have moral status, that the first such machine …


Measuring The Impact Of Ged Preparation On Ged Testing Outcomes, Matthew Utz Aug 2025

Measuring The Impact Of Ged Preparation On Ged Testing Outcomes, Matthew Utz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study investigates the relationship between participation in GED preparation programs and GED test outcomes among adult learners at a single Adult Basic Education (ABE) center located in an urban area of a south-central U.S. state. Recognizing the significance of the GED as an alternative credential to a traditional high school diploma, the research examines how instructional hours and structured preparation correlate with students’ final scores in mathematics, English language arts, social studies, and science. The study also describes the demographic characteristics of the learners, including gender, race, and age groups, and analyzes their performance on the Test of …


Using Interpersonal Motives To Identify Latent Profiles Of Borderline Personality Pathology: Implications For An Overcontrolled Style Of Bpd, Regina Schreiber Aug 2025

Using Interpersonal Motives To Identify Latent Profiles Of Borderline Personality Pathology: Implications For An Overcontrolled Style Of Bpd, Regina Schreiber

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is conceptualized as a disorder of undercontrol (i.e., behaviorally impulsive, emotionally expressive), with affective, interpersonal, and identity instability. BPD related impairment is high, yet diagnostic accuracy remains a problem for individuals who present with greater overcontrol (i.e., behavioral inhibition, expressive suppression), which occurs in some BPD subtypes. The current study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to expand on prior research by identifying latent profiles based on interpersonal motives for agency and relatedness, desire for predictability, perceived dependency, and self-efficacy in a sample of people with elevated BPD features (n = 136). Individual differences in overcontrol, undercontrol, …


Utilizing The Horseshoe Prior In Exploratory Factor Analysis And Gaussian Graphical Networks, James Thomas Roddy Aug 2025

Utilizing The Horseshoe Prior In Exploratory Factor Analysis And Gaussian Graphical Networks, James Thomas Roddy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High-dimensional data analysis frequently involves extracting meaningful structure from noisy, sparse signals. In recent years, Bayesian shrinkage priors—particularly global-local shrinkage priors—have emerged as powerful tools for inducing sparsity while preserving signal fidelity. Among these, the Horseshoe prior has gained notable attention for its capacity to simultaneously shrink irrelevant parameters and retain substantial signals. This dissertation explores the Horseshoe prior as a unified framework for sparse Bayesian inference across theory, simulation, and real-world application. The first component develops new theoretical results establishing the asymptotic Bayes optimality of the Horseshoe prior in Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). We consider sparse precision matrix estimation …


Resilience Redefined: Exploring The Impact Of Childhood Trauma On The Value Systems Of High-Achieving Corporate Men, Lana B. Henry Aug 2025

Resilience Redefined: Exploring The Impact Of Childhood Trauma On The Value Systems Of High-Achieving Corporate Men, Lana B. Henry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study employed Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore how childhood trauma influences the value systems of high-achieving corporate men. In contemporary corporate culture, where stoicism, performance, and independence are often rewarded, little attention is paid to how early adversity informs internal frameworks of meaning, leadership, and success. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six high-achieving men, all executives and leaders in high-performing industries, who self-identified as having experienced childhood trauma. Data were analyzed using a six-step IPA process and interpreted through the lens of Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values and social constructivism. Findings revealed that childhood trauma deeply …


A Grounded Theory Investigation Of The Experiences Of Rehabilitation Administrators, Counselors, And Supervisors Providing Services To Women With Disabilities Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence, Dana Posey Aug 2025

A Grounded Theory Investigation Of The Experiences Of Rehabilitation Administrators, Counselors, And Supervisors Providing Services To Women With Disabilities Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence, Dana Posey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract There is a noticeable gap in the literature as it relates to how rehabilitation and disability service providers have worked with women with disabilities who have experienced intimate partner violence. To address the dearth of knowledge, a qualitative grounded theory study was conducted with 12 rehabilitation administrators, counselors, and supervisors regarding their experiences providing services to women with disabilities who have been in or are in an intimate partner violence relationship. Semi-structured interviews were administered, recorded, and transcribed verbatim in an ongoing manner throughout the process. As data was collected, it was analyzed using NVIVO 15, which is a …


Impact Of Three Professional Development Models (Online, Face-To-Face, And Hybrid) On Bhutanese Inservice Science Teachers' Conceptions Of Aspects Of Nature Of Science (Nos) With Reports Of Translation Of Nos Content Into Classroom Teaching Practices, Pabi Maya Das Aug 2025

Impact Of Three Professional Development Models (Online, Face-To-Face, And Hybrid) On Bhutanese Inservice Science Teachers' Conceptions Of Aspects Of Nature Of Science (Nos) With Reports Of Translation Of Nos Content Into Classroom Teaching Practices, Pabi Maya Das

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Having a scientifically literate citizenry is an asset nationally and globally, and knowledge of the nature of science (NOS) is a crucial element in such literacy. Science teachers are a vital link if students are to understand key elements of the NOS, yet teachers themselves often lack knowledge of NOS and how to integrate NOS content into science lessons. Investigating the impact of a series of inservice professional development experiences using three distinct delivery modes (face-to-face, hybrid, online) for teachers in my home country of Bhutan is the overarching goal of the study reported here. The study used a mixed-methods …


Classifying Advanced Persistent Threat Stages And Techniques Via Graph-Enhanced Network Flow Representations, Md Taef Uddin Nadim Aug 2025

Classifying Advanced Persistent Threat Stages And Techniques Via Graph-Enhanced Network Flow Representations, Md Taef Uddin Nadim

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are complex, stealthy attacks that involve multiple stages and many attack techniques used in each stage, making them difficult to defend against. Although many solutions can detect APTs, most of them only detect the existence of attack, but cannot produce fine-grained classification over the stage of the APT and the specific attack technique used. Some existing solutions can classify the stages of APT, but few of them provide attack technique classification, and existing work do not provide interpretability for the classification or countermeasures for the attack. In this thesis work, we propose a solution named CAPTure, …


The Bacteria Who Lived: Uncovering And Mitigating The Persistence Of Pathogens In Low-Moisture Food Processing, Kavita Shripati Patil Aug 2025

The Bacteria Who Lived: Uncovering And Mitigating The Persistence Of Pathogens In Low-Moisture Food Processing, Kavita Shripati Patil

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Low-moisture food (LMF) processing environments pose a persistent food safety risk due to Salmonella survival and harborage on surfaces. This work investigates persistent bacterial populations (PBPs) in LMF production environments, focusing on identifying a suitable surrogate and evaluating sanitation strategies. Three potential surrogates, Escherichia coli MP 26, Enterococcus faecium, and Pediococcus acidilactici, were compared to Salmonella PBPs formed in nonfat dry milk (NFDM) on stainless steel coupons stored at 25°C under 30% or 70% relative humidity (RH) using two different inoculation methods. E. faecium showed survival patterns most similar to Salmonella, with no significant differences in log reductions (p > 0.05), …


Advancing Point-Of-Care Diagnosis Of Joint Infection Using A Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (Drs) System, Erin Elizabeth Drewke Aug 2025

Advancing Point-Of-Care Diagnosis Of Joint Infection Using A Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (Drs) System, Erin Elizabeth Drewke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Septic arthritis is a severe joint infection that can rapidly destroy cartilage and cause lifelong disability if not diagnosed and treated promptly. Faster, bedside diagnostic tools are needed to reduce delays and support timely treatment decisions while preserving standard laboratory workflows. A syringe-mounted diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) system was developed for rapid, sterile, point-of-care measurement of synovial fluid optical properties. Broadband light (400–650 nm) was delivered and collected through the syringe barrel without contaminating the sample. An empirical lookup table (LUT) and a boundary-aware Monte Carlo (MC) model were implemented to extract absorption (μₐ) and reduced scattering (μs′) coefficients from …


Prone To Prejudice: Trans Experiences And Structural Harm In The U.S. Prison System, Margaret-Maria Pemu Aug 2025

Prone To Prejudice: Trans Experiences And Structural Harm In The U.S. Prison System, Margaret-Maria Pemu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examines transgender individuals' experiences within the justice system. This study seeks to illuminate the complex realities of incarceration using social constructionism and reflexive thematic analysis. The social constructionist perspective offers a framework for understanding how gendered identities are shaped, constrained, and policed within institutional contexts. The analysis of narratives from Large Reddit communities allows this study to examine how transgender individuals make sense of and survive correctional environments. A comprehensive analysis of the data generated the following six major themes: (1) Solitary Confinement Universally Induces Horror, (2) Discriminatory Treatment Leads to Disillusionment with the Criminal Justice System, …


Effect Of Dietary Tryptophan Supplementation And Heat Stress On Pasture Broiler Welfare And Performance, Jaelen Matthew Cherry Aug 2025

Effect Of Dietary Tryptophan Supplementation And Heat Stress On Pasture Broiler Welfare And Performance, Jaelen Matthew Cherry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pasture-raised broiler chickens face temperature extremes that can threaten welfare. In the study, we evaluated whether a 0.26 % tryptophan-supplemented diet (T) improved heat stress (HS) resilience in Ross-708 broilers raised on pasture. At D14, birds began the T or remained on the control diet (C) and were moved outdoors. On D20 and 41, half of each group underwent six-hour HS; the remainder stayed under thermoneutral (TN) conditions. Weekly body weight, feed intake on D20 and D41 were recorded, and fear was measured using the Tonic Immobility (TI) test. Neither diet nor HS affected body weight. However, tryptophan supplementation resulted …


Cultural Vibrations: Student Power, International Exchange, And Black America In Mai 1968, Noah Micheal Roberts Aug 2025

Cultural Vibrations: Student Power, International Exchange, And Black America In Mai 1968, Noah Micheal Roberts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract This thesis examines the prominence of Black Americans in the 68’ student movement in France. May 68’ incorporated a diverse and global network of social movements and political organizations, and had a notable connection to the American student movement. Black Americans had formed a large expatriate community in France which overlapped with many of the transnational connections forged by the student movements of 68’. This community was extremely notable in the French public sphere for popular works of literature and music, but its political contributions have been minimized or understudied. By utilizing student accounts, state and organizational records, and …


Lifetime Stressor Exposure, Race And Ethnicity, And Habitual Stress Processes: An Evaluation Of Repetitive Negative Thinking And Hair Cortisol Concentration, Harrison Dickens Aug 2025

Lifetime Stressor Exposure, Race And Ethnicity, And Habitual Stress Processes: An Evaluation Of Repetitive Negative Thinking And Hair Cortisol Concentration, Harrison Dickens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Habitual stress processes are thought to influence acute stress reactivity and stress-related disease. Habitual stress processes have been shown to adapt in response to stressor exposure experienced across the lifespan. The current study seeks to explore whether two habitual stress processes, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and repetitive negative thinking (RNT), were associated with lifetime stressor exposure (self-reported and objective neighborhood-level stressors). Additionally, the current study attempts to quantify how this process may be moderated by race and ethnicity. Participants (N = 134, Mage = 18 [SDage= 1.69], 56.7% female) consisting of White (N = 52), Black (N = 37 ), …


Host-Virus Interaction Dynamics Using Sulfolobus Spindle-Shaped Virus And Host Sulfolobales System, Yeasin Ahmed Aug 2025

Host-Virus Interaction Dynamics Using Sulfolobus Spindle-Shaped Virus And Host Sulfolobales System, Yeasin Ahmed

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Sulfolobus Spindle-shaped virus (SSV) is among the most studied archaeal viruses, particularly in extreme environments. This virus predominantly infects multiple Crenarchaea from the Sulfolobaceae family. These hosts thrive in extreme environmental conditions, such as sulfuric hot springs, with a pH of 2 to 4 and a temperature of 76-80˚C. Sulfolobales exhibit a wide geographical distribution across volcanic hot springs. The Sulfolobus Spindle-shaped Virus (SSV), encompassing strains such as SSV1 and SSV8, employs a non-lytic replication strategy in hosts belonging to the order Sulfolobales. The SSV-Sulfolobales system can be cultured in liquid and gellan gum solid media. A comprehensive study …


Synthesis, Structural Characterization And Optical Studies Of Silver-Indium-(Zinc)-Chalcogenide Fluorescent Quantum Dots, Sujal Acharya Aug 2025

Synthesis, Structural Characterization And Optical Studies Of Silver-Indium-(Zinc)-Chalcogenide Fluorescent Quantum Dots, Sujal Acharya

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Developing a non-toxic, high-performance fluorescent nanomaterial is crucial for overcoming the environmental and health restrictions of current cadmium, and lead based quantum dots (QDs), which limit the application of quantum dots in optoelectronics and bioimaging. In this thesis, we synthesized environmentally friendly AgInS2 QDs by a colloidal method, systematically altering the In/Ag precursor ratio from 2 to 6 to study the impact on their optical and photophysical properties. Our goals were to find the optimal stoichiometry for maximum quantum efficiency and stability. We also investigated further improving optical and photophysical properties through shelling with ZnS. The emission spectra appeared broad, …


The Effects Of Background Child-Directed And Adult-Directed Singing On Reading Comprehension Performance, Agnes Yeboah Amfo-Adu Aug 2025

The Effects Of Background Child-Directed And Adult-Directed Singing On Reading Comprehension Performance, Agnes Yeboah Amfo-Adu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although music features in speech, such as those found in child-directed speech and song, are known to enhance language processing, the underlying mechanism of this benefit remains unclear. Prior research has primarily compared verbal materials presented in a musical, child-directed style to those in a less musical, adult-directed style, leaving it uncertain whether the benefit stems from the music style of verbal presentation or mere exposure to musical features. This study examined whether the language benefits of child-directed input persist when it is presented as background auditory stimuli rather than the primary focus of cognitive tasks. Experiment 1 found that …


Structure, Thermodynamics, And Dynamics Of Acetonitrile In Titan-Like Conditions, Sagar Chandra Roy Aug 2025

Structure, Thermodynamics, And Dynamics Of Acetonitrile In Titan-Like Conditions, Sagar Chandra Roy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Titan is one of the most interesting satellites in the solar system. It is the only other place in the solar system containing stable deposits of liquid and a hydrological cycle other than earth. The abundant existence of N2 and CH4 in Titan’s atmosphere makes nitrile formation highly likely both in the atmosphere and surface. Infrared spectrometer data from Voyager 1 expedition revealed the presence of acetonitrile (CH3CN) in the atmosphere along with several other nitriles such as hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and cyanoacetylene (HC3N). According to theoretical models nitrile formation is caused by photodisscociation of nitrogen in the tholin haze …


Navigating Stigma And Privacy: Health-Related Communication Among Bangladeshi Women, Nazmul Shajib Aug 2025

Navigating Stigma And Privacy: Health-Related Communication Among Bangladeshi Women, Nazmul Shajib

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women in Bangladesh often silently bear the burden of stigma tied to their bodies, minds, and societal roles. This study examines the coping strategies women use to manage health-related stigma and their privacy while facing issues like reproductive health, mental health, and postpartum challenges. The study was conducted by utilizing in-depth interviews with 17 Bangladeshi women. Stigma Management Communication Theory (SMC) and Communication Privacy Management Theory (CPM) are the two frameworks that guided the study. The findings of the study reveal that stigma often silences women and threatens their social identities, and women feel that having a health problem means …


Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Material Rhetoric Of Becoming Fascist In Parachurch Scouting Organizations, Madeline Aubrey Studebaker Aug 2025

Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Material Rhetoric Of Becoming Fascist In Parachurch Scouting Organizations, Madeline Aubrey Studebaker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a material rhetorical analysis of Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls, two Christian nationalist scouting organizations that aim to renew and restore their cultural dominance across America. In examining how these programs route children’s bodies through ritual and affective indoctrination, I find that a fascist becoming underpins these groups’ (re)production of perfect, patriotic children. The first chapter discusses how boys enrolled in Trail Life USA become fascist as self-defense against American boyhood’s perceived eradication. Trail Life USA restores masculinity through rituals of autogenetic sovereignty, returns to originality through homosocial and affective intensity, and invocations of exceptional …


Intention To Take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (Prep) As An Hiv Preventive Medication: An Application Of The Health Belief Model And Theory Planned Behavior, Besuthu Nakekelwa Nkambule Aug 2025

Intention To Take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (Prep) As An Hiv Preventive Medication: An Application Of The Health Belief Model And Theory Planned Behavior, Besuthu Nakekelwa Nkambule

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

South Africa (SA) has 7.7 million citizens (12.6% of its 2023 population) living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as an antiretroviral medication for HIV-negative individuals is a promising HIV prevention strategy in SA that can help the attainment of an HIV free generation. PrEP offers greater than 90% protection against HIV acquisition. Despite SA’s efforts in increasing PrEP coverage for its citizens, primarily to those at substantial risk, its adoption remains relatively low. Structural barriers related to access, costs, lack of awareness, and, more recently, US funding cuts exacerbate the challenges of PrEP’s potential …