Digital Commons Network^™

Quantum Mechanics And Dynamical Models For Finite Unlabeled Simple Graphs, Nathan M. Lewis

Master's Theses

This thesis constructs quantum mechanical theories of finite simple graphs for both labeled and unlabeled graphs.These theories may provide a description for discrete spacetime in a quantum gravity theory. Finite simple graphs and their properties are introduced. The first and second quantization of the standard quantum mechanics of particle systems are reviewed. A quantum mechanical theory of graphs similar to first quantization of standard quantum mechanics is developed via a correspondence of graph edges to particles in particle systems. An algorithm for constructing quantum states of graphs which is independent of graph vertex labeling is developed. It builds antisymmetric graphstates …

Intrinsic Motivation By The Principles Of Non-Linear Dynamical Systems, Phu C. Nguyen

Master's Theses

The design of appropriate control rules for the stabilization of dynamical systems can require quite substantial domain knowledge. Modern AI methodologies, such as Reinforcement Learning, are often used to mitigate the need for such knowledge. However, these can be slow and often rely on at least some hand-designed reward structure, and thus human input, to be more effective. Here, we propose an alternative route to construct rewards requiring only minimal domain knowledge, essentially relying on the structure of the dynamical system itself. For this, we use truncated Lyapunov exponents as rewards to calculate the stabilizing controller from samples. Concretely, the …

Bosons In Anti De Sitter Spacetime, Thi Khanh Linh Pham

Master's Theses

I am extremely grateful to Dr. Kassahun Betre for his support and guidance throughout my thesis journey. His wisdom, knowledge, and encouragement have been invaluable to me. His willingness to take me on making this project and the collaborative friendship is the highlight of my master’s program. Many thanks to Dr. Curtis Asplund and Dr. Ehsan Khatami for participating on my committee and with regard to their valuable feedback on my thesis draft, ensuring the completion of this work. Finally, I am grateful to my family for their unwavering love and all the support and absolute patience over the years …

Advertisement Blindness In Social Media Apps, Nora Szladovics

Master's Theses

Advertisement blindness (ad blindness) is a general term that refers to people’s tendency to automatically and unconsciously ignore advertisements. The phenomenon was originally identified in banner ads, then later in text and native ads on websites. Today, social media is an effective tool for advertisers, yet research investigating users’ interaction habits with social media ads in mobile applications (apps) is unexplored. This study expands the ad blindness concept to mobile social media apps, examining its presence and whether target position has an influence. Further, it investigates the relationship between social media use and ad blindness. Employing a novel approach, the …

Central Americans At A Crossroads: Asylum Seekers’ Testimonios Of Mental Health After Detention And Family Separation, Corie E. Schwabenland Garcia

Master's Theses

Though Central American asylum seekers are presently hypervisible in the U.S. consciousness, this population continues to be inadequately understood or cared for. Discussion of this population often presents them as a helpless and damaged population, in need of saving, fixing, or shelter -- beyond their trauma, they cease to exist. This qualitative study utilizes first-person testimonio methodology to understand the psychological experiences of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States, the stressors they face, and the mental health support that can and should be provided to them. Their stories speak to a space of sociopolitical precarity in the …

Motives For (In)Effective Giving: Comparing Rural And Urban Groups In South Africa., Luvuyo Bulelani Magwaza

Master's Theses

Different cultures have their own set of norms and values that not only shape people’s motives but also influences their decision making. What may be viewed as logical and ethical in one culture, may be seen as illogical or unethical in another. One area that is consistently affected by cross-cultural differences in motives is charitable giving. Recently, there has been an increase in interest around effective altruism— a social movement and philosophy that argues, people should give to charities that do the most good. Prior research that has found that people do not give based on efficiency; instead, people give …

Finding Balance: A Content Analysis Of How Newspaper Authors Framed Simone Biles Before, During, And After The 2020 Olympic Games, Hadley Howell

Master's Theses

Simone Biles was considered the GOAT, Greatest of All Time, going into the 2020 Olympic Games. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the Larry Nassar trial, and the weight of the world on her shoulders, Biles would withdraw from the women’s gymnastics team final competition for mental health reasons. Thus, the following study examines how Biles was framed in the ten most circulated newspapers in the United States before, during, and after the 2020 Olympic Games. Results show that an author’s race and gender, topic of the article, type of article, and if an article contained an image or not ultimately …

Militant Maids: Domestic Workers’ Participation In Bus Boycotts, Voter Registration, And Head Start Programs In The Deep South, Brittany Ann Carey

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the participation of domestic workers in the Civil Rights Movement, specifically in Gulf South bus boycotts in Baton Rouge, Montgomery, and Tallahassee; voter registration efforts in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida; and Head Start work in those same Deep South states. Domestic workers engaged in activism by joining unions, women's movements, and the Communist Party to improve their treatment in Northern and Southern cities. Modern historians have expanded their research to explore the participation of domestic workers in the Civil Rights Movement, especially in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In some cases, researchers also have explored the complicated …

Impacts Of The Poultry Industry In Mississippi, Sara Watts

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impacts of the poultry industry in seven counties in the Piney Woods region of South Mississippi: Wayne, Jones, Forrest, Lamar, Jefferson Davis, Marion, and Pike. Current research indicates that the poultry industry has a significant impact on the cultures and economies of rural towns throughout the United States. There is no current research that examines the effects of the poultry industry on residents of the Piney Woods. This thesis addresses that gap in the research and contributes to current understanding of how the industry molds and impacts the lives of those intimately associated with it.

I …

A Meta-Analysis Of Antecedent Exercise On Children’S Classroom Behaviors, Chelsea Johnson

Master's Theses

The purpose of the current study was to systematically review the literature investigating the effects of antecedent aerobic exercise on students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Eighteen studies met inclusion criteria, which included single case design studies and group studies, participant age, and an exercise intervention. Tau U was used as the procedure to calculate an effect size for A-B contrasts for single case design studies and effect size ranged from small to moderate for multiple variables such as disruptive behavior and academically engaged behavior. Hedges g was used to calculate an omnibus effect size for all single case design …

How A Book Changed A Nation [2022], Teodora Buzea

Master's Theses

“We don’t believe in vampires.”

I didn’t bother to turn away from the TV to look at my parents. On screen, a crew of young men were interviewing an old woman. She spoke only Romanian, and a too-perfect female voice spoke for her in English. I could see the confident fear in her expression as she exclaimed that vampires were indeed real and that she was always scared of them. She wasn’t alone. All of Transylvania were aware of the existence of vampires. Truly, these young men— ghost hunters and cryptologists—were right to come here to this haunted nation. The …

Post Pandemic Cyberbiosecurity Threats From Terrorist Groups, Haley D. Dodge

Master's Theses

The research in this thesis explored the research question: Are United States (US) health systems accessible to cyber-bio terrorist attacks post-pandemic, within the context of the emerging discipline of cyberbiosecurity? Key findings of the analysis demonstrated how US health systems are more accessible to cyber-bio terrorist attacks specifically from cyber hacking groups based on the increasing sophistication of their cyber capabilities and the lack of cyber protection for biological systems. The concept of cyberbiosecurity was first introduced in 2018 by researchers exploring the converging threat landscape of the cyber and biology domains. As biology is growing more dependent upon vulnerable …

Identifying And Minimizing Underspecification In Breast Cancer Subtyping, Jonathan Cheuk-Kiu Tang

Master's Theses

In the realm of biomedical technology, both accuracy and consistency are crucial to the development and deployment of these tools. While accuracy is easy to measure, consistency metrics are not so simple to measure, especially in the scope of biomedicine where prediction consistency can be difficult to achieve. Typically, biomedical datasets contain a significantly larger amount of features compared to the amount of samples, which goes against ordinary data mining practices. As a result, predictive models may fail to find valid pathways for prediction during training on such datasets. This concept is known as underspecification.

Underspecification has been more accepted …

Biodegradation Of Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether And Tert-Butyl Alcohol Using Bioaugmentation With Biowish® Aqua, Elizabeth Villanueva

Master's Theses

Aqua, a commercial product manufactured by BiOWiSH® Technologies, was utilized in this research to study its effectiveness to biodegrade methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and tert-butyl alcohol (TBA). Microcosms containing varying concentrations of MTBE and TBA as well as a growth media and mineral salt solution were examined. Analytical instrumentation used in this study included the use of a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC/MS) to determine concentrations of MTBE and TBA and a spectrophotometer to extrapolate approximate active biomass concentrations in each experiment. Four different environmental conditions were tested for both MTBE and TBA. The environmental conditions tested for each contaminant included: …

The Rise Of Terrorism In Africa And What It Means For U.S. Policymakers, Bridget Mary Hughes

Master's Theses

This thesis utilizes three case studies to measure the rise of terrorism in Africa. This qualitative data leads the reader to one ultimate question: what does the rise in terrorism in Africa mean for the United States (U.S.) and U.S. policymakers, National Security academia, students in National Security, if anything at all? The answer is: if civilian and military compounds are being targeted by these violent extremists, as these three case studies demonstrate, it is my recommendation that U.S. policymakers cease sending troops to the African theater and, instead, allocate funding to the citizens and nonprofits of the countries whom …

Finding One's Artistic Voice Through Use Of Movement Exploration, Improvisation, And Reflective Writing, Maureen Glennon Clayton

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore how dance students will use movement exploration, improvisational experiences and reflective writing in the creation of personal movement choices and development of the artistic voice. The researcher developed three essential questions to guide this research: Q1 How does improvisation and movement exploration aid students in finding their own artistic voice?

Q2 What did the participants learn about the processes of improvisation and movement exploration through their reflective journal writing?

Q3 Do the participants feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the study?

The research instruments included pre- and post-surveys and …

Loading Rate Of Two Maximalist Shoes Compared To A Traditional Running Shoe, Elizabeth Ray

Master's Theses

The transition of running footwear to maximalist constructions has been largely spearheaded by runners’ desires for reduced risk of injury. Loading rates have been used as a measure of a shoe’s ability to attenuate vertical ground reaction forces. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of maximalist running shoes of two differing constructions upon loading rate compared to a traditional shoe condition. A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate any interaction between footwear condition and speed on loading rate. Eight runners (4 women, 4 men; mean age = 29 yr ± 6.5 ; mean body …

Make Up! An Exploration Of Choreographic Methods: Transforming Sailor Moon Into Concert Dance, Nathaniel Drake Parrott

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effectiveness of certain choreographic tools for the task of translating visual and literary material into concert dance, specifically through translating the source material Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. The research sought to determine which choreographic tools used in the study were more effective than others and more preferred than others in terms of participant responses. This was achieved through translating the animated series Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon into a series of virtuosic dance solos for public performance through the use of various choreographic tools, including abstract translation, literal translation, Forsythe …

Immunological Effects Of Berberine And Physical Activity In A Murine Breast Cancer Model, Janae Mudge

Master's Theses

Berberine (BBR) is a plant-derived alkaloid popularly used in a complementary context to treat splenomegaly and chronic disease states such as rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and cancer. Recent research has examined BBR as a regulator of lipid and glucose metabolism in association with the AMPK pathway; but little is known concerning its immunological impacts. It is also known that exercise is a potent AMPK activator exhibiting immunological benefits, but nothing is known about the combination of these complementary approaches for treating breast cancer. The purpose of this study is to determine if oral consumption of BBR when paired with physical activity …

Finding The Right Combination: An Exploratory Study Of Business Acumen, Community Engagement, And Success Criteria In Colorado Dance Studios, Ann Hunt

Master's Theses

The primary purpose of this study was to discover similarities and differences between Colorado dance studio owner’s definitions of success and data pertaining to community engagement and business strategies. This may help to inform current and future dance studio entrepreneurs of the variety of interpersonal skills needed to maintain a dance studio, how community engagement may be an instrumental part of studio culture, and how business strategies and goals realized an owner’s vision. The essential questions that focused this research study were: Q1 Why is it important for dance studio owners to define success for themselves? Q2 What can be …

Wildfire Spread Prediction Using Attention Mechanisms In U-Net, Kamen Haresh Shah, Kamen Haresh Shah

Master's Theses

An investigation into using attention mechanisms for better feature extraction in wildfire spread prediction models. This research examines the U-net architecture to achieve image segmentation, a process that partitions images by classifying pixels into one of two classes. The deep learning models explored in this research integrate modern deep learning architectures, and techniques used to optimize them. The models are trained on 12 distinct observational variables derived from the Google Earth Engine catalog. Evaluation is conducted with accuracy, Dice coefficient score, ROC-AUC, and F1-score. This research concludes that when augmenting U-net with attention mechanisms, the attention component improves feature suppression …

Switching “Leader” And “Follower” Roles: The Wedding First Dance As A Representation Of A Modern Relationship, Anna Magidson

Master's Theses

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine whether introducing switch dancing as an alternative to the traditional “leader” and “follower” role dynamic in a wedding first dance could be an effective tool of empowerment for people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. It was particularly important to understand whether this could have a positive impact on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other (LGBTQIA+) community. To the researcher’s knowledge, no other academic research paper has ever examined the intersectionality between the wedding industry, the LGBTQIA+ community, and switch partner dancing. This study was developed …

Social Emotional Learning And Its Development Through Dance: Comparing The Opinions Of Dance Educators And Non-Dance Educators, Teresa Pachniak

Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to identify connections between what is learned in a dance classroom within public schools and the five components of a Social Emotional Learning Curriculum: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. The research was designed to answer the following questions: Q1 Are the five components of SEL demonstrated regularly by dance students in compared to non-dance students? Q2 Can SEL be taught using a dance curriculum of movement exploration and dance scholarship? The researcher hoped to accomplish this goal by comparing the opinions of dance teachers and those of non-dance teachers, regarding …

Empathy, Inclusion, Equity, Integration, Oneness: Best Practices In Lower Elementary Dance Education, Charity Metzger

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research was to determine ways in which dance could assist kindergarten to second-grade student comprehension of Empathy, Inclusion, Equity, and Oneness. To answer the research questions, the researcher used an integrative approach to gain qualitative data and investigated the ways in which students internalize these concepts. Administrators, general education teachers, social-emotional educators, and special education instructors collaborated with the dance educator to observe lessons, give feedback, and complete surveys based on the guided questions of the research. Research tools also included surveys from students, guardians, educators, and school staff that work closely with the classes involved. …

Conservation Genomics: Utilizing Genetic And Transcriptomic Sequencing For Effective Conservation Management Of Astragalus Osterhoutii, Christine Mowad

Master's Theses

Astragalus osterhoutii M.E. Jones (Fabaceae) is a federally listed, rare, endemic species restricted to seleniferous soils in Grand County, CO (Anderson, 1989). This research utilized both RADseq and RNAseq to generate neutral and adaptive genomic datasets. Neutral data analysis aimed to determine i) the genetic diversity of A. osterhoutii and each of its populations level, ii) how genetic structure is partitioned across the species range, and iii) the closest relative to A. osterhoutii. Analysis of adaptive, RNAseq data aimed to identify i) differentially expressed genes, ii) if patterns of expression are similar to neutral data, and iii) differences in Se …

Dance Education In Pennsylvania Charter Schools: Advocating For Parity Among The Core Arts Disciplines, Donna Lynch

Master's Theses

The goal of this research was to collect data on existing dance programs and activities in Pennsylvania charter schools, and to advocate for the presence of dance in school arts offerings for academic credit, creating parity among the four core arts disciplines of visual arts, music, theater, and dance. The researcher developed three essential questions to guide this research:

Q1 What dance education programs currently exist in Pennsylvania charter schools, and what certifications are held by dance educators in these schools?

Q2 What obstacles, other than the teacher certification process, are preventing schools from hiring dance specialists and implementing dance …

Emerging Trends In The Dance Competition Industry: A Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis Of Key Stakeholder Experiences, Alyssa Hinz

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to assist dance competition participants in understanding the advantages and disadvantages of participating in dance competitions. The researcher evaluated the experiences and perceptions of the dance students, parents, and teachers that partake in dance competitions with the goal of uncovering the positive and negative effects dance competitions have on them. The research instruments used in this study included a multiple-choice survey, which was analyzed quantitatively, and a short answer survey, which was analyzed qualitatively. Limitations to this study included the survey questions, the number of participants, and the survey demographics. The survey was created …

Who’S Teaching Whom? A Dance Concert Exploring Teacher-Led, Student-Led, And Collaborative Choreographic Methods, Robin Suing

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to create a positive learning environment where students with a range of dance backgrounds can flourish. The goal was to discover the feeling responses of college students to teacher-led, student-led, and collaborative choreography to determine the importance of a balance between teacher-led and student-centered instruction. Information from this project will be used to inform curriculum planning in future dance courses. The following essential questions were used as a guide when assessing the qualitative and quantitative answers to the surveys and interview questions given to the participating students: Q1 What similarities and differences are found …

Are Competition Trained Dancers Ready For A College Dance Program?, Alison Durham

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research was to explore the opinions of competition trained dancers and college dance professors to see if dancers in college dance programs were prepared for all the aspects of dance that college offered. The research instrument used was an electronic survey that utilized qualitative and quantitative questions for gathering data. Participants in this study were located throughout the United States and included thirty college dance students and eight college dance professors. The data showed that some students believed they were prepared for a college dance program, while others felt they had holes in their training. The …

Use Of National/State Dance Standards And The Effect On High School Student Preparation Levels For College Admission Requirements, Rebbecca Meyers

Master's Theses

Meyers, Rebbecca. Use of National/State Dance Standards and the Effect on High School Student Preparation Levels for College Admission Requirements. Unpublished Master of Arts thesis, University of Northern Colorado, 2022.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the gap between high school dance student preparation levels and college dance entrance expectations and requirements within the state of California. To guide the research, it was important to consider the following essential questions: Q1 Are the use and effective implementation of the National Arts Standards in Dance, as well as the California Arts Dance Standards, in a given high school dance …