Digital Commons Network^™

A Positive Behavior Intervention’S Effect On Student Tardiness To School, Catherine A. Egan

Master's Theses

Abstract

Developing and implementing proactive interventions within a Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework creates a positive instructional environment that results in desired outcomes for students (e.g., improved behavior) and staff (e.g., improved organizational health). To date, most descriptive and empirical studies of PBIS have occurred at the elementary and middle school levels (Horner, Sugai, & Anderson, 2010). If PBIS strategies are to positively impact student success at the high-school level, more examples of evidence-based effective strategies are required. I investigated the effects of a proactive approach of acknowledging appropriate behavior across four high school students using a multiple-baseline …

Uh, Um, And Autism: Filler Disfluencies In Children With Optimal Outcomes From Autism Spectrum Disorder, Christina Anne Irvine

Master's Theses

Spontaneous speech is marked by the presence of frequent disfluencies, including fillers like um and uh, which are thought to serve distinct social-communicative functions (Clark & Fox Tree, 2002). People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with social communication. The current study examines a) the production of fillers in spontaneous speech among children and adolescents with ASD as well as individuals who have achieved “optimal outcomes” (OO) from ASD, and b) the association between filler rate and autism symptom severity versus general cognitive factors, in order to illuminate the processes implicated in filler production. Speech samples from 64 individuals …

Risk And Protective Factors That Affect Married Women’S Reproductive Health In A Low-Income Community In Mumbai, India, Benjamin D. Hallowell

Master's Theses

In low and middle-income countries (LMICs), symptoms of reproductive morbidities are the most common health problem reported by women. Women in developing countries are often at higher risk for these problems due to the social, behavioral, cultural, infrastructural, and demographic barriers they face in daily life and in receiving medical treatment. Previous studies conducted in LMICs have found an association between women’s self-reported symptoms of reproductive morbidity and negative life situations and have suggested, that rather than a biomedical issue, women in LMICs may express these symptoms to reflect other problems in their lives. Currently, however, women who self-report symptoms …

A Closer Look At Violent Crimes Among Severely Mentally Ill Patients Who Use Cocaine, Deepa Jayanti Mavani

Master's Theses

It is estimated that one in four U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly half will develop a mental illness during their lifetime, with one in 17 people in the general population suffering from a severe mental illness (SMI). The high prevalence of SMI in conjunction with its presumed link with violence, suggests substantial risk to the public. Evidence remains inconsistent in determining if this link exists. Some suggest that specific SMI’s such as schizophrenia and other psychosis–related disorders increase risk for violence, while others have reported no association (Fazel, et al., 2009). Establishing the validity of this …

Efficacy Of Plant Compounds For Reducing Foodborne Pathogens On Fresh Produce, Tyler E. Mattson

Master's Theses

Four plant derived compounds, namely carvacrol (CAR), trans-cinnamaldehyde (TC), eugenol (EUG) and β-resorcylic acid (BR) were investigated as wash treatments for reducing Salmonella spp. on tomatoes. In addition, the efficacy of TC and CAR in inactivating E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes on iceberg lettuce in the presence and absence of 10% organic matter was studied. Results suggest that CAR, TC, EUG and BR were effective in rapidly reducing large populations of Salmonella spp. on tomatoes when used in wash water, and CAR rapidly decreased E. coli O157: H7 and L. monocytogenes populations on lettuce even in …

The Role Of Nrf2 In The Differential Susceptibility Of Male And Female Mice To Acetaminophen-Induced Hepatotoxicity, Philip Rohrer

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Gender Differences In Co-Rumination, Co-Worry, And Internalizing Symptoms In Late Adolescence, Caitlin Virginia Dombrowski

Master's Theses

Beginning in adolescence and continuing into adulthood, internalizing disorders have higher rates of prevalence in females. Cognitive and interpersonal theorists have described etiological factors in the development these symptoms, which may contribute to the symptom disparity across gender. Drawing on aspects of both models, repetitive conversations found in close female friendships have been proposed as a potential contributing factor to this gender disparity in internalizing arising in adolescence. Co-rumination, although associated with both depression and anxiety, does not fully consider anxiety-specific aspects of dyadic conversations, which may be important to understanding the differential developmental trajectory of the disorder. Co-worry, defined …

The Diagnostic Stability Of Developmental Delay And Developmental Language Disorder In Infants And Toddlers, Alexander J. Hinnebusch

Master's Theses

Numerous children are diagnosed with Developmental Delay (DD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) each year in the US. There are inconsistent diagnostic definitions for these disorders because individual states determine diagnostic criteria, complicating prevalence and diagnostic stability estimation. In the current study, 37 children received a diagnosis of DD and 21 received a diagnosis of DLD at an initial evaluation as part of participation in a study investigating the early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), and were seen for a follow-up evaluation. The DD group was significantly more likely to retain this diagnosis at follow-up than the DLD group. …

Dna-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles For Chemiresistive Vapor Sensing, Kan Fu

Master's Theses

Chemiresistive sensing with functionalized gold nanoparticles is a powerful new technology for vapor sensing. Utilizing changes in behavior of electron tunneling through conductive gold nanoparticles and insulating organic capping layers upon analyte adsorption, this system can achieve intrinsically high sensitivity and rapid response time. A number of thiol-based small-molecule organic ligands have already been successfully used to functionalize gold nanoparticles, yielding an array of organic sensors having various sensitivities towards different organic vapors. With the aid of chemometric analysis tools, gold nanoparticle-based chemiresistive sensors have been rapidly maturing into a vapor quantification and identification technology.

A limiting factor for its …

Characterization Of Changes In Composition And Physicochemical Properties Of Casein Micelles From Raw Milk To Buttermilk, Melissa Ann Looney

Master's Theses

It is well-documented that buttermilk has poor coagulation properties due to changes that occur to the casein micelles during the butter-making process. These modifications are generally attributed to the pasteurization of the cream upon which interactions between the proteins are promoted. It was hypothesized that churning is also a critical step for the changes that occur in composition of the casein micelles. The objective of this work was to learn more about the interactions that occur between casein micelles and MFGM components during the butter making process.

Raw cream was processed using a rotary churn at 18°C for approximately 30 …

Gender Identity, Ethnic Identity, And Self-Esteem In Latino Adolescent Males, Miriam Asya Reder

Master's Theses

The relationship between gender identity and psychological adjustment has long been investigated, but it is only in the 21^st century that gender identity has been examined as a multi-faceted construct. According to Egan and Perry (2001), there are five dimensions comprising a person’s gender identity and they have demonstrated a significant relationship between these dimensions and youth’s psychological adjustment. Three of their gender identity constructs are pertinent to this study: gender typicality, gender contentedness, and felt pressure. While subsequent studies have had similar significant results (Carver, Yunger, & Perry, 2003; Yunger, Carver, & Perry, 2004), one study found that …

Quantifying The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of Hazards: Incorporating Disaster Mitigation Strategies In Climate Action Plans, Michael Germeraad

Master's Theses

Reconstruction after natural disasters can represent large peaks in a community’s greenhouse gas emission inventory. Components of the built environment destroyed by natural hazards have their useful life shortened, requiring replacement before functionally necessary. Though the hazard itself does not release greenhouse gasses, the demolition and rebuilding process does, and these are the emissions we can quantify to better understand the climate impacts of disasters.

The proposed methodology draws data from existing emission and hazard resource literature and combines the information in a community scale life cycle assessment. Case studies of past disasters are used to refine the methodology and …

Development Of Safety Standards For Cubesat Propulsion Systems, Liam Jon Cheney

Master's Theses

The CubeSat community has begun to develop and implement propulsion systems. This movement represents a new capability which may satisfy mission needs such as orbital and constellation maintenance, formation flight, de-orbit, and even interplanetary travel. With the freedom and capability granted by propulsion systems, CubeSat providers must accept new responsibilities in proportion to the potential hazards that propulsion systems may present.

The Cal Poly CubeSat program publishes and maintains the CubeSat Design Specification (CDS). They wish to help the CubeSat community to safety and responsibly expand its capabilities to include propulsive designs. For this reason, the author embarked on the …

The Relationship Between Obesity And Occupations Among The U.S. Population Based On Occupational Tasks, Luz D. Flaherty

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Social Ecological Approach: Understanding The Factors Associated With Hiv Risk In Fishing Communities In Lake Victoria, Uganda., Paola Chanes-Mora

Master's Theses

Uganda has an estimated 1.4 million Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) -positive adults (United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS [UNAIDS], 2011). The initial cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Uganda were identified in fishing villages on the shores of Lake Victoria in 1985 (Serwadda et al., 1985). Fishing villages continue to remain at high risk of HIV transmission (United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS [UNAIDS], 2012). Evidence suggests that the HIV- prevalence rates among fishermen and commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the Wakiso District are more than 20 percent (Alex, Michael, & Nordin, 2011). The purpose of this study was to …

Child Abuse Reporting: When Given The Option, Do Youth Choose To Report?, Michelle L. Vos

Master's Theses

Christensen and Prout (2002) explain, "The task of the social scientist is to work for the right of people to have a voice and to be heard. In the case of children, `age' is perhaps one of the most dominant factors used to discriminate against children being heard and listened to" (p. 483). And in the case of children experiencing neglect or abuse, the opportunity for them to be heard is even more limited. This project analyzes data from the National Runway Safeline - one place where children's voice can be heard. NRS, established in 1971, offers confidential and anonymous …

Loose Coupling Within Special Education, Christina Sedrel

Master's Theses

Since the Salamanca Framework was established in 1994, countries have made a concerted effort to work to promote special education, namely inclusive education or inclusion. The recognition of students with special educational needs (SEN) has lead to national policies in which students with SEN are brought into the classroom along side their peers. Despite these efforts, there is an interruption between policy and practice which ultimately prevent students with SEN to enter the classroom or to receive an education. This thesis looks at the loose coupling of policy and practice with in special education by analyzing the practices of nine …

Utilization Of Crowdsourced Maps In Catastrophic Disasters, Makiko Hong

Master's Theses

Crowdsourced data, the collective messages from citizens through social media like Twitter® or Facebook®, have been increasingly recognized as a vital information source in a catastrophic disaster. Because there is often insufficient emergency personnel to gather situational information during a big disaster, the crowdsourced data can offer a supplemental means for data collection or dissemination immediately after the disaster. In addition, crowdsourced maps can empower citizens with their involvement.

In the Haiti earthquake of 2010, crowdsourced data was first used to create a web map application to aid the humanitarian effort. With some success in Haiti, these crowdsourced maps have …

Effects Of Temperature On Sexual Competition In Kelps: Implications For Range Shifts In Foundation Species, Alexis Cynthia Howard

Master's Theses

Kelp populations inhabit some of the most dynamic environments on the planet and often exist close to the limits of their temperature tolerances. Temperature cues reproductive processes in many kelps and fluctuating temperatures can affect kelp recruitment and population persistence. Some kelps compete sexually through their microscopic life history stages by releasing a pheromone that triggers the premature release of spermatozoids of neighboring species, leading to recruitment failure. It is unknown, however, whether changing temperature modifies competitive hierarchies among kelp species. To address this issue, I investigated how temperature affects sexual competition between microscopic stages of three co-existing and possibly …

Experiences Of Immigration Among Women From Taiwan, Robert Johnston

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the transformative effects of immigration from the 1960s through the 2010s among women from Taiwan living in the County of Santa Clara. The study focused on three substantive areas: (1) early life experiences and factors leading to immigration; (2) shifts in social identities after leaving Taiwan (e.g., political, national, and ethnic self-concepts in various contexts); and (3) practices of child-rearing. Several methodological tools were employed during the data collection phase of the research process, including interviews, surveys, and participant observations. The findings of this study suggested a dynamic process of change in which informants adapted to, were …

Adaptive Filtering For Heart Rate Signals, Samira Jaafari

Master's Theses

This work focused on the effects of suppressing the motion artifact of wrist photoplethysmographic heart rate signals. Monitoring of the heart can offer important insight with regard to health and wellness. The objective of the experiment conducted here was to recover the distorted signal resulting from body movement while measuring the heart rate signal non-invasively from the wrist.

The class of filters, known as adaptive filters, that can extract meaningful information from the distorted signal, used predetermined initial conditions to equalize the signal distortion due to motion. These filters do not require prior knowledge about the system.

Adaptive filters of …

Using Vegetation To Reduce Nitrogen Runoff In California Caneberries, Rebecca Riesenfeld

Master's Theses

With a 700% rise in global fertilizer use in the last 50 years, agricultural lands are a significant source of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Record high levels of nitrate-contaminated runoff from agricultural sources in California's Central Coast are affecting drinking water supplies in the Pajaro Valley and increasingly threatening the ecological health of the Monterey Bay. Bands of vegetation strategically planted to control runoff and soil erosion, or vegetative filter strips (VFS), are used in urban landscapes and at some farm peripheries. On-farm vegetative diversity has been promoted for its contribution to biodiversity and pest control. …

The Effects Of "Stress Inoculation" On Anxiety-Related Behaviors In A Rodent Model, Rebecca Ruth Clouse

Master's Theses

Problem. Humans may face psychological stressors in their everyday life due to their ability to contemplate future events. While long-term stress exposure may be detrimental to health, this study examines the possibility that exposure to unpredictable/controllable, moderate stress may cause resilience against future stressors. This is referred to as the "stress inoculation hypothesis." The effects of unpredictable/controllable stress can be illustrated as a rightward shift in an inverted U-shaped curve, where optimal performance (the top of the curve) can be maintained at higher stress levels. -- Method. Thirty-three male Sprague-Dawley rats were tested on the elevated-plus maze (EPM) for trait …

Non-Additive Toxicity Of Bi-Metal Mixtures To Fathead Minnows, Natalie Rae Lynch

Master's Theses

Much research has been conducted to assess the toxicity of metals to aquatic organisms. Most of the research has focused on the toxicity of individual metals. Recently, attention has been paid to metal mixture toxicity because metals are usually present as mixtures in contaminated environments. The literature review indicates that metal mixtures may be additive, synergistic, or antagonistic to freshwater species. However, the data is not consistent and is dependent on the metal and organisms. The goal of this research is to use a systematic experimental design to characterize the toxicity of Cu, Zn, Cd and Ni mixtures to Pimephales …

Teaching Reading As An Integrated Skill: An Evaluation Of Two Popular Esl Textbooks, Ingrid Mcvanner

Master's Theses

As the population of non-native English speakers rises in the United States, so too does the need for effective English language instruction, and with that, effective instructional materials. With a growing population of adult English language learners with below basic prose literacy, the need for effective adult English language literacy instruction is also evident. Because people do not use one skill at a time, this project evaluates the reading materials in two adult English language integrated skills textbooks from major publishers of ESL materials in order to provide insight into the preparation of effective integrated skills textbooks designed for adult …

Countering The Dreamer Narrative: Storytelling, Immigration Reform, And The Work Of 67 Sueños, Drew Schmenner

Master's Theses

Research question: How has the practice of storytelling been used in the current U.S. conflicts over immigration?

Telling an effective story is an essential part of a complex strategy to bring about social change, but storytelling as a part of collective action has not been extensively studied. For activists in the United States fighting for immigrant rights, especially the passage of the DREAM Act, storytelling has been an important tactic, but the nature of the narrative that was constructed has its drawbacks because it excluded some members of the immigrant community. In 2010, the Bay Area-based group 67 Sueños (“67 …

Drinking To Belong: The Effects Of Friendship Interactions On College Student Drinking, Hannah R. Hamilton

Master's Theses

Previous research shows that college students consume large quantities of alcohol (Fillmore & Jude, 2011; Wechsler et al., 2002). One theory suggests that this may be a means of regulating negative emotions (Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar, 1995), which may include unmet belongingness needs. However, implicit self-esteem has also been found to affect how people respond to relationship interactions (Longua Peterson & DeHart, 2013). Therefore, the current study examines the moderating influence of implicit self-esteem on the relation between belongingness needs and alcohol consumption among college students. A 2 (belongingness threat condition: threat or control) by continuous (implicit self-esteem) between-participants …

Identification Of Clinical Markers That Predict The Outcomes Of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Infections And Identification Of Synergistic Antibiotic Combinations For The Treatment Of These Infections, Virginia Long

Master's Theses

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) is a prominent nosocomial infection. Vancomycin is the mainstay of treatment, but it has a high rate of failure. Combination therapies can be used, but synergy is often not tested in clinical laboratories. Physicians are at a disadvantage because they cannot predict MRSA outcomes. The first aim of the study was to identify clinical and demographic markers that could predict infection recurrence or prolonged bacteremia. This was accomplished using retrospective chart review and statistical analysis. The second aim of the study was to identify which combinations, of those commonly used for MRSA treatment at Loyola, demonstrate the …

Functional Characterization Of A Novel Thioredoxin Domain-Containing Protein Of The Malaria Parasite Plasmodium, Rachel Kooistra

Master's Theses

A novel thioredoxin domain-containing protein of the malaria parasite Plasmodium was identified and found to be conserved among eukaryotes. This protein belongs to the phosducin-like family of proteins (PhLPs), and was therefore assigned the name PhLP1, since it is the first phosducin-like protein to be identified in Plasmodium. PhLPs have been found to have various roles in G-protein signaling, cell cycle progression, and protein folding. However, the biochemical mechanism by which PhLPs perform their function is unknown. Here is described the cloning and biochemical characterization of both PhLP1 and its human homolog TXNDC9. Both purified PhLP1 and TXNDC9 showed enzymatic …

High-Stakes Testing: The Student Voice, Julianna Marie Cechowski

Master's Theses

There has been an intense debate about standardized testing since they were first introduced into public schools in the nineteenth century. In this research, it is important to know why standardized tests were created and how they have been debated. Roy C. Owens said. "We cannot know where we're going if we don't know where we've come from." Past information is important in this research because it will show how far we have progressed since the start of the standardized testing movement.

What started out as standardized testing later changed into high-stakes testing. The high-stakes were created by tying student …