Digital Commons Network^™

Preparation Of Organofluorine Compounds: Exploring Mono-, Di-, And Tri-Fluorination, Diandra M. Rudzinski

Master's Theses

Organofluorine compounds exhibit biological activity and have advantageous properties for drug design. Natural occurring fluorinated molecules are rare, demanding new synthetic methods for their preparation. A novel route to access trifluoromethyl ketones from Weinreb amide precursors is discussed. This is the first documented method for the use of the Ruppert-Prakash reagent, (trifluoromethyl)trimethylsilane, for the production of trifluoromethyl ketones from amide starting materials. This method is tolerant of aryl and alkyl substrates exhibited by their moderate to excellent yields. A discussion of the unusual reactivity of these amides, their selectivity for mono-trifluoromethylation, and other mono-, and di-fluorination attempts are reported.

A Case Study Of Sex Trafficking In Romania, Iulia Badea Caramello

Master's Theses

Romania is undergoing a severe crisis. The country is confronted with a transnational issue of dramatic proportions. Romania has become what experts in the sex trafficking field call “a global center for human trafficking” (Batstone, Romania a Global Center for Human Trafficking, 2011, February 17th). It is a source, transit, and destination country for women, children, and even men subjected to sex trafficking. Romania is one of the biggest exporters of human flesh to Western European and Middle Eastern societies.

This research paper will analyze the historical context of modern-day slavery in Romania as well as the economic background and …

Measurement Invariance Of Assessment Center Ratings: Consistency Of Dimensional Constructs Across Exercises, Jin Lee

Master's Theses

The criterion-related validity of assessment centers (ACs) has been consistently supported. However, there has been an ongoing debate about AC construct validity in regard to low dimension variance and overriding exercise variance. Many studies that showed weak dimension effects in ACs have been based on the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) framework which posits cross-situational variance as error and all capability dimensions can be equally represented from different exercises. The goal of this study is to introduce a measurement invariance (MI) framework for evaluating the construct validity of AC dimensions. Specifically, MI analysis was used to test whether the construct meaning of AC …

Perceptions Of Psychology Among Seminary And Biology Students At Andrews University, Sandro Moraes

Master's Theses

Problem. Both pastors and biologists frequently interact with individuals. These contacts often involve conversations that deal with an individual’s feelings, behaviors, and the relationship between mind and body. Thus, how seminarians and biologists perceive psychology will greatly affect such interactions. Therefore it is important to know how both professionals perceive psychology. This is not all that different from the research biologists perform as they learn about the brain. Because of the interrelatedness between these two professions, what are the perceptions of psychology among seminary and biology students at Andrews University? -- Method. The data gathered from the responses of biology …

The Role Of At Epistemic Community In Haitian Education Reform Post Earthquake 2010, Joy Okeefe

Master's Theses

This is a study of the role of an epistemic community involved in the policymaking of education reform in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010. It uses Peter M. Haas' (1992) framework as a theoretical lens. According to Haas, epistemic communities are conceptualized as "a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy relevant knowledge within a domain or issue area" (3). The epistemic communities involved in the policymaking of the current education reforms specifically related to privatization in Haiti are identified and analyzed through the content analysis of …

Examination Of Presenter Characteristics On Satisfaction And Learning In A Treatment Readiness Program, Haley M. Siler

Master's Theses

Determining factors that encourage thinking and attending to information is an important aspect of working to help people learn more effectively. Characteristics of presenters have been found to be cues for information processing, related to the results of those being presented to. It was found that both client's liking and perceived expertise of the presenter were related to both program satisfaction and learning of educational materials. Determining factors that encourage thinking and attending to information is an important aspect of working to help people learn more effectively. Characteristics of presenters have been found to be cues for information processing, related …

Analysis Of The Minimal Promoter From The Hatching Enzyme A Gene, Anna Matejczyk

Master's Theses

Hatching, defined as a biochemical or biophysical mechanism that allows the embryo to leave its protective envelope, is found in most animals. In fish, reptiles and amphibians, mostly oviparous animals, this means the emergence of the embryo from an egg. In mammals, viviparous animals, hatching is performed by the blastocyst in order to shed the zona pellucida.

Fish, an oviparous animal, takes advantage of a biochemical mechanism in order to hatch and emerge from their chorion, or egg envelope. The mechanism includes the use of hatching enzymes that are secreted in order to digest the envelope membrane. The genes controlling …

The Hook Up Hangover: The Decline In Traditional Dating Beyond The College Campus - Before Formal Commitment, Reginald Nievera

Master's Theses

The early 21st century is seeing unprecedented changes to the dating lives of American adults. Fewer than ever before are getting married and those that do want to marry, are waiting longer than ever before. This is breeding a new stage of development in our personal lives. It is a stage characterized by a prolonged gap between finishing school, becoming an "adult" and getting married or starting a family. It may be distinguished by years of being single and independent; simultaneously coming to terms with the responsibilities of adulthood, meeting romantic partners, casual dating, or courting potential lifelong companions. This …

Women's Access To Secondary Education In Colonial And Postcolonial Tanzania And Rwanda, Emlyn Ashley Ricketts

Master's Theses

This paper will examine how the politics of colonialism and independence during the twentieth century, as well as the culture of each country, have created and limited secondary educational opportunities for women in Tanzania and in Rwanda. I will argue that the English and Belgian colonizers' goals of the education systems in colonial Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi-how much education they thought was appropriate for women to have and their overarching goals in creating the education systems in the colonies-shaped the place of women within Tanzania and Rwanda today. I will argue that English and Belgian colonizers imposed a western, Christian, patriarchal …

Ecotourism As A Tool For Conservation Of Coast Redwoods In Santa Cruz County, California, Chandana Rao

Master's Theses

According to the World Tourism Organization, ecotourism is the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry, generating $300 billion in annual revenue. Ecotourism aims to control the damaging effects of conventional mass tourism and tries to overcome tourism's environmental and socio-cultural challenges. In an ideal situation, ecotourism can help conserve fragile biodiversity, build ties between parks and communities, and increase awareness of environmental issues; it also includes a profit impetus for businesses.

This research was conducted to evaluate the potential for developing ecotourism as a conservation tool in the four redwoods state parks of Santa Cruz County. The study assessed …

Natural Recovery Of Second-Growth Coast Redwood Stands In The Santa Cruz Mountains, Jeffrey M. Sinclair

Master's Theses

The natural recovery of coast redwood forests following a logging event is not fully understood. Recent studies, in the redwood central range, have found that un-restored and unmanaged second-growth forest stands can begin to recover and exhibit characteristics of old-growth stands within 100 years or less. The goal of this study was to determine if redwood stands in their southern range are recovering naturally. A total of 160 sample plots were selected randomly within old-growth and second-growth study sites. The data collected included stand density, tree size structure, canopy cover, species diversity, and species composition. Special habitat features were analyzed …

Supporting Minority Students Through Mentoring: Best Practices For Formal Mentoring Programs, Elizabeth Stockslager

Master's Theses

Approaches such as universal education, state and national standards, and reform acts have sought to ensure that all students in America receive the same level of education. However, education systems are limited by institutionalized racism. An analysis of the education system through the lens of Critical Race Theory highlights the need to look outside of the traditional school setting, while Culturally Relevant Pedagogy gives insights for understanding the best practices in meeting the needs of minority students. This research considers how mentoring provides support and success for minority students by working with students outside of the school structure. Using the …

The Independent Influences Of Relational And Physical Victimization On Subsequent Physical Aggression In Middle School Children, Michelle D. Mioduszewski

Master's Theses

Using Agnew's strain (1992) and integrative (2005) theory, this study hypothesized that relational and physical victimization would be independently associated with self-reported physical aggression at six months and one year after victimization. Secondary data analysis was conducted using three waves of a longitudinal multisite dataset used for the "Outcome Evaluation of the Teens, Crime, and the Community/Community Works (TCC/CW) Training Program, 2004-2005." Independent variables at wave one were relational victimization occurring none or one time (56.2%), or two or more times (43.8%), and physical victimization occurring none or one time (77.8%), or two or more times (22.2%). The dependent variables …

A Dancing Paradox: Oral Histories Of Dance Pedagogy, Stephanie Marie Anderson

Master's Theses

This research investigates how dancers constitute and make sense of themselves and the worlds they live in through the interstitial, and intersectional processes of remembering. I investigate the following two research questions within this thesis: 1) How do dancers remember their pedagogical experiences in dance studios? 2) What happens to oral histories when they are approached as dances, and when they are literally danced? I frame the first research question within my literature review and I investigate what I call Traditional Western Dance Pedagogy. While the characteristics of Traditional Western Dance Pedagogy are not universal, unchanging, and absolute, they are …

Internalized Oppression: Latino Narratives On Educational Experience, Carolina Avalos

Master's Theses

A qualitative study investigated the lived experiences and impact of internalized oppression within educational contexts. Six Latino-identified people--ages 22-38--who are current or former college students were interviewed about their early and adult educational experiences. A constant comparative methodology was used to identify commonalities found in participant narratives. Interview transcripts and field notes were analyzed to organize data into themes. Emergent themes included: (a) identity formation, (b) experience of racial micro-aggression in school, and (c) the value of acquiring an occupation being valued higher, in the household, than educational attainment. Findings provided insight into participant experiences with internalized oppression and educational …

Amphibian Mortality On Roads: A Case Study In Santa Cruz Long-Toed Salamander Habitat, Michael Thomas Hobbs

Master's Theses

Amphibian populations have been declining at higher rates than bird and mammal populations. Agriculture, urbanization, including roads, and resource extraction continue to put pressure on all species. Roads in particular, are major sources of mortality. The Santa Cruz long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum croceum), one of the most critically endangered species in the US, is one amphibian that is declining as a result of anthropogenic impacts, especially habitat loss and fragmentation due to urban development. Migration across roads puts these salamanders at risk from road-related death. This thesis quantified the rate of road mortality to these salamanders and other common amphibians …

The Impact Of Trajectory Prediction Uncertainty On Reliance Strategy And Trust Attitude In An Automated Air Traffic Management Environment., Sarah Marie Hunt

Master's Theses

Future air traffic environments have the potential to exceed human operator capabilities. In response, air traffic control systems are being modernized to provide automated tools to overcome current-day workload limits. Highly accurate aircraft trajectory predictions are a critical element of the automated tools envisioned as part of the evolution of today's air traffic management system in the United States, known as NextGen. However, automation accuracy is limited due to the effects of external variables: "errors" such as wind forecast uncertainties. The focus of the Trajectory Prediction Uncertainty simulation at NASA Ames Research center were the effects of varied levels of …

Benthic Invertebrate Response To Habitat Complexity In South Bay Salt Ponds, Jessica Louise Murphey

Master's Theses

Wetlands are unique ecosystems that support specific flora, fauna, hydrology, and geology. These ecosystems increase groundwater availability, improve water quality, decrease flood water impacts, and help decrease shoreline erosion. In the south San Francisco Bay, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project is restoring over 6,000 hectares of former salt ponds to tidal marshes and managed pond habitats. These habitats will support endangered species as well as migratory birds, diving ducks, invertebrates, and algal species. Benthic invertebrates are a vital piece of the South Bay food web as they provide the sustenance for other invertebrates, fish, shorebirds, and waterfowl. Improving …

Attention Restoration Theory In Gaming As It Pertains To Subsequent Academic Learning, Joseph Daniel Zoland

Master's Theses

This thesis addresses how attention restoration pertains to subsequent academic learning and whether natural video game settings facilitate attention restoration like physical environments. The researcher hypothesized that participants who played in a virtual nature setting of a video game would perform better on a comprehension test and obtain greater improvements on the SART from pretest to posttest than the simulated urban group. In addition, the experimenter expected the nature group to perform better on both of the aforementioned measures when given 15 min to play rather than 5 min. Finally, it was hypothesized that improvement on the SART would be …

Local Adaptation Of Two Cryptic Species, Lasthenia Californica And Lasthenia Gracilis, To Distinct Regions Within A Serpentine Outcrop, Teri Barry

Master's Theses

Intraspecific variation providing tolerance to specific edaphic conditions may contribute to population differentiation, speciation, and species coexistence. This process is often examined using reciprocal transplant experiments of closely related species in contrasting edaphic conditions. The two cryptic species Lasthenia californica and L. gracilis occur on a serpentine outcrop in parapatry at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. I hypothesized that each species would demonstrate greater fitness in its home range. A reciprocal transplant experiment was conducted in the field to determine home site advantage. Seedlings from each species were planted in both home ranges and in the transition zone where both species …

Made Marian: Myth And Reality In The Redondo Beach Public Library, 1895-1924, Lisa Blank

Master's Theses

Librarians have been depicted in the literature as missionaries, apostles, and crusaders, militant maid Marians spreading the gospel of the library spirit. This thesis examines the historical depiction of the "typical" early librarian by posing two key questions. First, to what extent was the work of librarianship different or unique compared to that of other middle-class female occupations? And second, in what way was the librarian herself distinct from other middle-class women; that is, what defining characteristics or life events brought her to and kept her in librarianship?

Utilizing local newspapers, official reports, and census and vital statistics data, this …

The Intergenerational Transmission Of Attitudes On Divorce And Marriage, Rebecca Elizabeth Bivona-Guttadauro

Master's Theses

The present study shed light on the process of intergenerational transmission of attitudes as it occurs for women from divorced and intact families. Taking into account how women from divorced and intact homes view their parents' relationship, this study examined how attitudes of marriage and divorce are transmitted from parents to children. This study utilized quantitative survey methods including surveys to gather data and nested multiple linear regression to analyze the data to determine how the process of intergenerational transmission of attitudes was occurring, if at all, for the women in the sample. Utilizing sample data from a large public …

System Level Modeling And Circuit Design For Low Voltage Cmos Equalizer For Coaxial Cable For Video Application, Han Zhang

Master's Theses

A new method of modeling coaxial cable frequency response with genetic algorithm was introduced. A system-level multi-stages adaptive equalizer model with QFB block was generated and tested with multiple cable models, pathological PRBS-23 data with data rate 1.5 GHz was used. This thesis also provided analysis of influences on output by using different parameters in simulations. Two adaptive equalizer circuits with different pre-amplifiers were implemented in GPDK 45 nm CMOS technology. Related simulations about adaptive ability, single stage compensation ability, and cascade stages compensation ability were completed. A tradeoff between output eye height and peak-to-peak jitter was discussed based on …

A Pilot Program To Evaluate The Effect Of Training Table-Based Nutrition Education And Menu Modification On The Nutrition Knowledge And Dietary Intake Of Collegiate Football Players At A Ncaa Division I University, Rida Wali

Master's Theses

Since collegiate football is a revenue generating sport for many institutions, it is likely that these athletes are under pressure to maximize performance and thus may resort to unsafe or unproven nutritional practices. Athletes lacking nutrition knowledge may not be able to adequately nourish themselves, which may negatively impact their performance and overall health. In the literature, it is indicated that the athletic staff is a source of nutrition knowledge for athletes. However, the training table - which is a meal provided by the athletic staff, has previously not been explored as an avenue for nutrition education and intervention. This …

Classification Of Web Pages In Yioop With Active Learning, Shawn Cameron Tice

Master's Theses

This thesis project augments the Yioop search engine with a general facility for automatically assigning "class" meta words (e.g., "class:advertising") to web pages based on the output of a logistic regression text classifier. Users can create multiple classifers using Yioop's web-based interface, each trained first on a small set of labeled documents drawn from previous crawls then improved over repeated rounds of active learning using density-weighted pool-based sampling.

The classification system's accuracy when classifying new documents was found to be comparable to published results for a common dataset, approaching 82% for a corpus of advertisements to be filtered from content-providers' …

Basking Western Pond Turtle Response To Trail Use In Mountain View, California, Paul Eric Nyhof

Master's Theses

The western pond turtle (Emys marmorata) is the only native freshwater turtle in California, and it is listed as a California Species of Special Concern. One population near Moffett Naval Air Station in Northern California uses a highly altered water channel along a recently opened section of the Bay Trail, exposing western pond turtles (WPT) to high rates of human activity through recreational trail use. This research assessed whether human recreational trail use had a measurable effect on WPT basking behavior. WPTs were also trapped and marked to collect data on the structure and stability of the current population.

The …

Reviving Student Interest In Classic Literature: A Field-Experimental Study Of New Edition And Shelf Display As Promoting Strategies, Maggie Huff

Master's Theses

Librarians often keep classic books in school libraries because the books have educational merits, yet they are rarely checked out for recreational reading. Current research on low circulation of classic literature in school libraries is limited to anecdotal evidence from school and young adult librarians suggesting that lack of promotion and especially the inferior condition of old editions contribute to low circulation. This research fills the gap by examining the effect of new editions and display on circulation in a field experimental study at a middle school library in 2011.

Set up as 2 X 2 factorial design, the field …

Spatiotemporal Patterns In Diet And Habitat Use Of Black-Legged Kittiwakes (Rissa Tridactyla) And Thick-Billed Murres (Uria Lomvia) In The Bering Sea, Nathan M. Jones

Master's Theses

This study quantified the multi-trophic influence and spatial structure of a cross-shelf δ15N gradient in the Bering Sea and used it to contrast foraging patterns and seasonal changes in niche width between thick-billed murres and black-legged kittiwakes during July and August, 2008 and 2009. Gut contents of collected seabirds were characterized and stable isotope analyses (δ13C, δ15N) were conducted on whole prey tissues and seabird cheek feathers, pectoral muscle, and liver tissues. Gut contents of both seabird species were spatially auto correlated and varied with habitat type. Feather and muscle tissues indicated that murres underwent a trophic niche contraction with …

The Sjsu Ecological Footprint Challenge And Its Impacts On Pro-Environmental Behavior, Matthew Eugene Lambert

Master's Theses

Estimates suggest that humanity requires one-and-a-half Earths to sustainably provide the resources demanded. Observed consequences of this are rising atmospheric carbon, loss of arable land, fishery collapse, drinking water scarcity, and irreparable degradation to the Earth's ecosystems. The ecological footprint is a tool that calculates the amount of land needed to support a population or an individual's level of resource use. The action of calculating an individual's footprint has been shown to improve knowledge about environmental issues, change attitudes about natural resources, and increase understanding about the connection between one's actions and the environment.

This research examined the impacts of …

The Effectiveness Of Experiential Environmental Education: O'Neill Sea Odyssey Program Case Study, Lauren Elizabeth Hanneman

Master's Theses

Environmental education programs aim to develop participant awareness, sensitivity, and understanding of their affective relationship to the natural environment through conceptual knowledge and personal experiences. Previous findings have suggested that participation in environmental education programs leads to short-term positive increases in environmental knowledge, pro-environmental attitudes, and intentions to act in environmentally responsible behaviors; however, few studies have included long-term, follow-up assessment. This research provided an analysis of the effectiveness of the O'Neill Sea Odyssey (OSO) education program in fostering a long-term awareness of personal responsibility about ocean pollution among student participants.

A survey administered to 261 students from the greater …