Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Dax-1 In Regulating Pluripotency In Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells, Anthony Torres

Master's Theses

The orphan receptor Dax-1 is highly expressed in pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells and shows a correlative reduction in expression as these cells differentiate. While it is known that Dax-1 is expressed in pluripotent mouse ES cells, the precise function of Dax-1 in these cells is not as well understood. Recent studies employing RNA interference (RNAi) to specifically reduce the expression of the Dax-1 gene in mouse ES cells found that upon the knock down of Dax-1, ES cells differentiated. These findings indicate that Dax-1 functions in a novel role in the maintenance of a relatively undifferentiated state in ES …

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 …

Exercise Motivators And Exercise Causality Among Andrews University Students: A Correlational Study, Anna T. Piskozub

Master's Theses

Purpose of the Study. A healthy, fit body and well-developed mind have been known to be very effective in helping students succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. Understanding what motivators influence students in exercise participation, and how such motivators may influence choice in undertaking physical activities can be valuable information when planning college physical fitness courses and wellness activities. Further, it may reverse the trend of the findings that Andrews University students’ fitness declines while being in college as measured by 10 years of Microfit aggregated data. The purpose of this study was to identify the most important exercise motivators …

Naturalism, Murder, And Identity In Three Short Stories Of Ramon Ferreira, Haley Lee Osborn

Master's Theses

En sus varios cuentos premiados el autor cubano Ramón Ferreira le enseña a su lector el lado más oscuro y violento de la sociedad cubana de manera crudamente verosímil. Durante la época en que escribió, entre 1950 y 1960, mientras que el país sufría turbulencia política y social, Ferreira creaba historias sensacionalistas que mostraban escenas de asesinatos, ladrones, prejuicios, obsesiones, vicios, y cuestiones relacionadas con la falta de justicia en Cuba. Desde Cuba, Ferreira se inspiró en la evolución y el gran viaje del naturalismo que comenzó en Francia con Zola, pasando por España con Pardo Bazán, Sudamérica con varios …

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 …

The Influences Of Parental Expectations On Children's Academic Achievements: A Comparative Analysis Of The United States And China, Xiaoyu Wang

Master's Theses

Parenting is very important to children, and it directly or indirectly influences children's outcomes in schools. Parents express passions and strong desires to help their children to succeed regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, and they are highly interested in their children's education in school.

This paper is concerned with parental expectations for school-aged children in the United States and China under the influences of historical, cultural and social context. I will comprehensively compare relevant literature parts in both America and China, determining the distinctions in terms of various parenting patterns. Research about parental expectations in the two countries …

The Effect Of Vitamin D On Human T Regulatory Cell Differentiation, Stephanie Anne Chapman

Master's Theses

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are required for the induction and maintenance of immune homeostasis. Singh et al. demonstrated that depletion of Tregs in mice results in a loss of self-tolerance that manifests in the development of autoimmune diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). In humans, autoimmune diseases such as IBD, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and Type 1 Diabetes are thought to occur due to a deficiency in the number or function of Tregs. The importance of Tregs in modulating the human immune system is perhaps best exemplified by IPEX (immune dysregulation, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, x-linked syndrome), a severe autoimmune disease characterized …

Nowhere: Blank Verse Concerning Small-Town Life In California, Daniel Scarpa

Master's Theses

I wanted to explore the process of using place - specifically, small towns in California that I visited - as inspiration for the writing of a book of poetry. This has been done in the past, most notably by poets such as Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder. I was inspired by these poets and several others and my own experience in these often overlooked small towns to create a collection of syllabic blank verse poems that touch on their economies, practical reasons for isolation, and unique micro-cultures. While on the whole, I am pleased with the way the collection turned …

The Actor Within: An Exploration Of Present Moment Awareness In Business Presentations, Billie Shepard

Master's Theses

This thesis explores incorporating the use of acting skills in business presentations using present moment awareness techniques. Present moment awareness is defined in this study as the use of improvisation, intention, voice, and body/sensory awareness and is drawn primarily from the theoretical work of Patsy Rodenburg.

The research project followed nine adult student-participants through a five-week course of study in business presentation methods, which incorporated the present moment awareness acting techniques. Data were collected throughout the five weeks and included a pre and post survey, participant journaling prompts, a researcher journal, peer reviews, and participant interviews. The study concluded that …

Immobilization Of Rhodococcus Erythropolis As A Potential Treatment For Atherosclerosis, Srikanth Darbha

Master's Theses

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and isprimarily due to hypercholesterolemia. The novel approach of combatting atherosclerosis presented in this research entails delivery of microencapsulated Rhodococcus erythropolis immobilized in biodegradable alginate-based microcapsules and utilizing the bacterium's cholesterol oxidase enzyme pathway to degrade cholesterol from intermediate-stage arterial plaque. The bacterial growth medium was optimized using Taguchi design methods to enable growth characterizations hindered by biosurfactant by-product. Methodologies for extraction and quantification of biosurfactant and cholesterol were developed and conducted simultaneous to bacterial growth assessment. Bacteria were encapsulated using atomization (850±50 μm) and inkjet bioprinting (32±5 …

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 …

Boom And Whoosh: Verbs Of Explosion As A Change-Of-State Class, Antonio De Jesus Hernandez

Master's Theses

Much research has been done on various semantic verb classes, most notably on break-verbs. In this study, a new class of change-of-state verbs is proposed, namely verbs that encode an explode-event. The research presented here not only offers a new organization of certain change-of-state verbs, but also highlights the issues that are ever-present in the classification of verbs.

Eight verbs are investigated as possible members of this class: blast, blow up, burst, erupt, explode, detonate, go supernova, and pop. Using data from three corpora and survey results from 20 participants, this study …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Pittsburgh Courier: Advocate For Integration Of The U.S. Armed Forces (1934-1940), Shelly Lynette Watson

Master's Theses

This study is a quantitative and qualitative content analysis designed to determine how the Pittsburgh Courier reported the issue of African-American military participation and integration of the U.S. Armed Forces prior to World War II and how that news coverage changed over time. The researcher analyzed 368 news items from 312 weekly editions of the Courier published between September 1, 1934, and September 21, 1940. The researcher compared news content across two periods within the time range specified for the study. The researcher found that the Courier consistently and extensively reported on the issue during the time period. The Courier …

The Evolution Of An Image: An Analysis Of Defining Depictions Of Native Americans In Popular Cinema 1913-1970, Gerald Theodore Olson

Master's Theses

Native Americans have been depicted in the movies since the birth of the medium. In this thesis, the depiction of Native Americans in seven exemplary films is analyzed. The films chosen illustrate the evolution of Native American depiction from the silent era through the classic studio era of the 1930s and 1940s, the post WWII era, and the 1960s Civil Rights period to 1970 when the Native American Civil Rights movement was at its most public. Classic tropes such as the Indian Princess/Squaw, the Screaming Savage, and the Noble Savage/Vanishing American that were defined in 19th Century literature and by …

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' …

Foraging Behavior, Habitat, Health, And Survival Of Resident And Translocated Hawaiian Monk Seals At Nihoa Island, Hawaii, Tenaya A. Norris

Master's Theses

Translocations aimed at promoting population recovery for threatened and endangered species also can function as forced dispersals. To assess the efficacy of translocating Hawaiian monk seals (Monachus schauinslandi) and examine post-dispersal effects on monk seals, in 2008-2009, 12 weanling seals were translocated from French Frigate Shoals (FFS) to Nihoa Island (NIH). In addition, nine adult and eight weanling resident seals were captured at NIH. Satellite instrument attachment, biological sampling, and morphometry were conducted on seals at capture. Focal video camera drops also were conducted at 45 sites around NIH (< 100 m) in 2010-2011. Translocated and resident weanlings primarily dove to 40-60 m and used sandy-bottomed habitat < 13 km from NIH. In contrast, resident adults had greater variability in foraging behavior and habitat use. There also was a low prevalence of infectious disease in translocated and resident seals, excluding Chlamydophila abortus and enteric bacteria. First-year survival was greater for …

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 …

Big Shot, Annie Joy Heath

Master's Theses

There are many forms of child abuse. Some forms leave visible scars, and other forms leave invisible ones. Both forms, and especially a combination of the two, change the behaviors as well as the decision making of the person who has been abused, whether a child or an adult. And while an adult may choose not to have the abuser in her life, a child rarely has that choice. The child usually loves her parents unconditionally and cannot comprehend why she is being mistreated. As a teenager and then an adult, she often times looks for the same type of …

Framing Iran: The Islamic Revolution And The Green Movement As Told Through Time Magazine, Nadia Maiwandi

Master's Theses

FRAMING IRAN:

THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION AND THE GREEN MOVEMENT AS TOLD THROUGH TIME MAGAZINE

by Nadia Maiwandi

This framing analysis was conducted to study how Time portrayed Iran and Iranians during the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79 and the Green Movement uprising of 2009. In this study, particular attention was given to how the magazine framed the leaders of Iran and their opposition during these times, as well as to any correlation between Time's portrayal and the United States government's positions on these events. The analysis shows that magazine adhered to the United States' strong defense of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ("the …

Unmanned Aircraft System (Uas) Delegation Of Separation In Nextgen Airspace, Caitlin Ailis Kenny

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to determine the feasibility of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) performing delegated separation in the national airspace system (NAS). Delegated separation is the transfer of responsibility for maintaining separation between aircraft or vehicles from air navigation service providers to the relevant pilot or flight operator. The effects of delegated separation and traffic display information level were collected through performance, workload, and situation awareness measures.

The results of this study showed benefits related to the use of conflict detection alerts being shown on the UAS operator's cockpit situation display (CSD) and to the use of full …

My Team Drinks: An Analysis Of Alcohol Consumption Norms Among Adolescent Athletes, Laura Beth Jones

Master's Theses

Alcohol use among adolescents results in a greater risk of lifetime alcohol abuse and dependence. Some research suggests that perceived peer norms about drinking are the strongest predicting factor of alcohol–related behaviors (ARBs) among adolescents. Previous research on whether sports participation is related to adolescent alcohol consumption has resulted in mixed findings. For this study, perceived norms were further delineated between descriptive and injunctive norms. The goal of this research was to determine whether there were differences between sport types (team vs. individual) in alcohol consumption patterns and whether sport type moderated the predictive strength of perceived norms on alcohol …

The Prevalence Of The Uncultivated Bacterium Tm7a In Human Subgingival Plaque, Jamsheed Adrian Ghadiri

Master's Theses

Most bacteria are yet to be cultivated, and some uncultivated bacteria have been associated with human diseases. TM7, an uncultivated candidate division of bacteria, has been recently associated with periodontitis, a disease if left untreated causes tooth degradation and gum decay. A subgroup of TM7, known as TM7a, has been found in both human samples and activated wastewater. TM7a from these two locations are as high as 99.7% similar by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, leading researchers to believe both TM7a strains are very similar functionally. TM7a has been extensively studied in activated wastewater. However, little is known of its …

Performance And Gta Training: Understanding An Adaptation Of Boal's Forum Theatre For New Teachers, Tiffany Harbrecht

Master's Theses

The Communication Studies Department at San José State University adapts Boal's Forum Theatre to provide its graduate teaching associates (GTAs) a space for cooperatively re-imagining their way through challenges and concerns they may (or do) face during teaching. This research fills a gap in our disciplinary understanding of how new teachers experience forum theatre and the substantive differences and difficulties that arise when implementing it in trainings that are not focused on challenging oppression. Chiefly, participants risk conflating forum theatre with role-play and losing Boal's theory; while fusing its ideas this way might appear as a way to problem-pose with …

Propriety Of Self-Disclosure On Facebook: An Examination Of Its Impact On Credibility, Katherine Colleen Ireland

Master's Theses

This experimental study examined the effects of the propriety of computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on perceptions of teacher credibility and how that relationship is moderated by ethnicity. Participants were assigned to one of four conditions: White Appropriate, Latina Appropriate, White Inappropriate, and Latina Inappropriate. Participants answered questions about the instructor's perceived credibility. Results suggest that teachers who engaged in appropriate self-disclosure were rated higher on teacher credibility than those with inappropriate Facebook® profiles. There was no main effect for ethnicity. Implications for classroom pedagogy, technology use, and areas for future research are discussed.

In Pursuit Of A Globalized University: An Analysis Of The Sjsu Salzburg Program, Elizabeth Diane Ohlhausen

Master's Theses

Colleges and universities are responding to the force of globalization by encouraging faculty and administrators to develop programs that support students in the global worlds of work and of citizenship. Through a partnership with the Salzburg Global Seminar's International Study Program (ISP), San José State University (SJSU) is making efforts to "globalize the campus" through institutional change. The ISP draws on the Salzburg Global Seminar's experience with the Universities Project and with other institutions of higher education in the United States to create the desired change. This paper examined the progress of the SJSU Salzburg Program (the Program), drawing on …