Digital Commons Network^™

Mechanisms Of Substrate Selectivity And Transport By Escherichia Coli Atp- Binding Cassette (Abc) Transporter Metni, Yuchun Chen

Master's Theses

ABC transporters are central in many cellular functions including nutrient uptake, signal transduction membrane assembly, and cellular detoxification. Both structural and functional studies have revealed insights into the high-affinity uptake mechanism of the MetNI methionine ABC transporter. Using the energy from ATP binding and hydrolysis, the MetNI-Q system can import L-Met, D-Met, and other methionine derivatives against concentration gradients. Many mechanistic studies of ABC transporter propose a model in which cognate binding proteins sequester substrates in the periplasm and deliver them to the transporter. In contrast, recent in vivo and crystallographic studies of MetNI-Q suggest that some substrates may be …

Topo-Climatic Effects Of Fuel Loading In Ponderosa Pine (Pinus Ponderosa) Forests Of The Colorado Rocky Mountains, Justin Yow

Master's Theses

A key restoration focus is the mitigation and prevention of intense wildfires. This is done using a regularly prescribed fire regime and forest thinning practices to reduce surface fuel loads. Prediction of fuel loads at the forest floor is pivotal when assessing the hazard level a forest fire may present. Scientists already have much data correlating fuel characteristics to fire effects and behavior. However, links between montane climate variability and relative effects on fuel load characteristics have not been extensively explored in the Front Range and southwestern Colorado. This study system was uniquely located along a North-South monsoonal gradient and …

Understanding Species Boundaries Between Penstemon Acaulis And Penstemon Yampaensis: Implications For Conservation And Management, Juliet Simpson

Master's Theses

Effective conservation management relies upon accurate taxonomic information and an understanding of the genetic health and population structure for each species. Penstemon acaulis and P. yampaensis are endemic species to Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and have been considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). There is little biological data published about either and there remains taxonomic uncertainty surrounding the two. Phylogenetic analyses showed P. acaulis and P. yampaensis to be distinct, monophyletic lineages and morphological data further supported taxonomic recognition of both species, however these results did not support the previous species boundaries. Eastern populations of P. acaulis …

Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks

Master's Theses

This project infuses Lacanian psychoanalysis further into the rhetorical study by exploring authoritarian discourses on Reddit. I analyze the alt-right community that found a home on the subreddit r/The_Donald and chart their discourse as it shaped from the quarantine to the establishment of an independent forum called TheDonald.win. I selected memes and the comments around them to build the analysis. The second aspect of this thesis examines authoritarian communist discourse on Reddit. The leftist community splintered when r/socialism banned a community member because the person made catgirl art. The ban sent shockwaves through the leftist community on Reddit and generated …

Population Genetics Of Cownose Rays, Rhinoptera Spp. In The Western Atlantic, Helen Weber

Master's Theses

Using molecular tools (e.g., the NADH subunit II mitochondrial gene), this study was the first to document the Brazilian cownose ray, Rhinoptera brasiliensis, within the northwestern Atlantic (NWA), and was the first study to examine population structure in R. brasiliensis within the NWA or northern Gulf of Mexico (GMX), revealing novel insights into the population biology of the animal and extending its range by nearly 1,500 km. This study also examined the sympatrically occurring American cownose ray, R. bonasus, and found population structure between the NWA and the GMX and the NWA and the southwestern Atlantic (SWA). High …

The Impact Of Environmental Variability On Perceptions Of Parental Ability From Bodily Cues, Kaitlyn Boykin

Master's Theses

This study aimed to extend work considering how bodily cues appear diagnostic of parental ability. I examined body adiposity and sexually dimorphic features for women (i.e., breast size) and men (i.e., muscularity). I further considered how salience of resource scarcity might heighten perceptions of a potential mate as an effective parent when possessing features that connote underlying resource availability (e.g., body fat). Participants were primed with resource scarcity or a control condition before assessing parental affordances of female and male targets. Targets were orthogonally manipulated to possess high and low levels of adiposity. Female targets were manipulated for breast size …

"Conserving" The Middle Ground: Tennessee's Unionist Press In The Secession Crisis, 1860-1861, Michael Singleton

Master's Theses

This thesis advances scholars’ understanding of how newspaper editors framed and presented news during the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Methodologically, it draws on the publications of seven Unionist editors from Tennessee who initially resisted secession but later pursued different courses during the Civil War. Through this period, editors balanced their roles as journalists and political actors working to advance an ideological cause. Guided by existing practices and their unique journalistic styles, these editors presented a near unified message—influenced by Whig political culture—that framed their response to outside events. This unanimity fractured in 1861 as local pressures, business interests, and personal …

Sedimentary Characteristics And Associated Carbon And Nutrients Of Overbank Sediments Deposited During The 2018, 2019, And 2020 Floods In Embanked Floodplains Along The Lower Mississippi River Near Natchez, Mississippi, Rachel Kelk

Master's Theses

The Lower Mississippi River (LMR) experienced major floods in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Sediment deposition in the embanked floodplains during floods represent important storage and sequestration opportunities for carbon and nutrients from ~40% of the continental USA. This research aims to compare depositional thicknesses, organic matter (OM), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) concentrations, and grain sizes in floodplain sediments deposited by the combined 2018-19 floods to the 2020 flood along the LMR near Natchez, Mississippi. Greater depositional thicknesses in 2018-19 are best explained by their combined flood durations; the 2019 flood was the longest in recorded history. Slightly higher …

Psychosocial Maturity And Alcohol Outcomes: The Mediating Role Of Alcohol Protective Behavioral Strategies, Skyler Hoover

Master's Theses

The present study evaluated the mediating role of alcohol protective behavioral strategies on the relationship between temperance, responsibility, perspective (i.e., the facets of psychosocial maturity) and alcohol use outcomes. Potential invariant paths among graduate and undergraduate students were also explored. All participants were undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Southern Mississippi aged 18 to 25. Participants reported demographic information and completed measures of temperance, responsibility, perspective, alcohol use, and alcohol consequences. Results indicated the full mediation model showed poor fit the data; greater temperance predicted greater alcohol protective behavioral strategy use, greater responsibility and perspective predicted less alcohol …

The Effects Of Cofermentation Of Cider And Apple Pomace On Cider Attributes, Abigail D. Affonso

Master's Theses

Phenolics are critical to the sensory attributes and health benefits of hard cider due to their contribution to the flavor, mouthfeel, and antioxidant activity. With the increase in demand for cider, the use of dessert apple varieties has become more common leaving ciders lacking in phenolics. However, a promising method to increase their phenolic content is through maceration with apple pomace. This study evaluated the effect maceration with apple pomace during cider fermentation on the extraction of phenolic compounds, as well as its effect on the sensory properties of the final product. For this study, ciders were fermented with 0% …

A Comparative Study Of The Effects Of Microalgae On Poultry Production, Taylor Kaitlyn O'Lear Reid

Master's Theses

Research has shown Spirulina to be a viable feedstuff in poultry production. Other species of microalgae are being studied to determine their effects on poultry production. This project compared four microalgaes: Hydrodictyon, Vaucheria, Uronema, and Spirulina and was broken down into three trials. The first experiment investigated the digestibility of an algae species, Spirulina, in broiler chicken diets. Eighty, 25-day-old Ross 708 broiler chicks were sorted into 20 metabolism cages and received one of two diets: Control Diet or Test Diet (75% basal diet + 25% Spirulina). The apparent ileal amino acid digestibility (AIAAD) of lysine, methionine, cysteine, threonine, isoleucine, …

Wildfire Risk Assessment Using Convolutional Neural Networks And Modis Climate Data, Sean F. Nesbit

Master's Theses

Wildfires burn millions of acres of land each year leading to the destruction of homes and wildland ecosystems while costing governments billions in funding. As climate change intensifies drought volatility across the Western United States, wildfires are likely to become increasingly severe. Wildfire risk assessment and hazard maps are currently employed by fire services, but can often be outdated. This paper introduces an image-based dataset using climate and wildfire data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The dataset consists of 32 climate and topographical layers captured across 0.1 deg by 0.1 deg tiled regions in California and Nevada between …

Model-Based Design Of An Optimal Lqg Regulator For A Piezoelectric Actuated Smart Structure Using A High-Precision Laser Interferometry Measurement System, Grant P. Gallagher

Master's Theses

Smart structure control systems commonly use piezoceramic sensors or accelerometers as vibration measurement devices. These measurement devices often produce noisy and/or low-precision signals, which makes it difficult to measure small-amplitude vibrations. Laser interferometry devices pose as an alternative high-precision position measurement method, capable of nanometer-scale resolution. The aim of this research is to utilize a model-based design approach to develop and implement a real-time Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) regulator for a piezoelectric actuated smart structure using a high-precision laser interferometry measurement system to suppress the excitation of vibratory modes.

The analytical model of the smart structure is derived using the …

Examining Revolution Through Breakfast Politics, Zachary Axel Clausen

Master's Theses

Analyzing the Black Panther Party and its activities, this study develops a framework for evaluating revolution through a process-oriented examination of discourse and practices surrounding the Free Breakfast Program’s emergence and operation from around 1968 to 1975. The program began in Oakland and quickly spread to over 36 cities in less than two years. Using a swath of interviews, radio shows, movies, newspapers, magazines, documents, pictures and other forms of media from the time period, I analyze the Breakfast Program to explicate the political terrain of food provision, the unique community-based approach to non-hierarchical resource distribution, and the production of …

Sexual And Reproductive Health Care For Undocumented Californians: Universal Health Care & Reproductive Justice, Josephine Emily Roberts

Master's Theses

Universal Health Care can hardly be achieved if the Sexual Reproductive Health needs of a population are not met. In other words, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Universal Health Care are mutually reinforcing, and the state of California should consider this when implementing Medi-Cal health care for all Undocumented Californians. In 2016, California implemented an extension of Medi-Cal treatment to undocumented children up to 26 years of age. Comparable to the United States Federal Medicaid program aimed to help cut health care costs for low-income and vulnerable populations, Medi-Cal offers some coverage for emergency medical services to undocumented individuals of …

Women's Rights As Human Rights: A Spotlight On Women's Reproductive Rights And Structural Violence In Nigeria, Dominique C. Blakely

Master's Theses

My research aims to shed light on the injustices that women and girls are facing in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Furthermore, my research intends to reveal how international human rights law and human rights law are confronting these violations and show the shortcomings of these laws. Women in SSA have continued to be at the forefront of devastation due to their exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) such as rape (including marital rape), domestic violence, femicide, “feminization” of HIV/AIDS, early/child marriage, and maternal mortality, in addition to lack of access to proper and sufficient reproductive health care. I will use women’s rights …

Borders, Bodies And Abuse: Exposing The Collusion Of Australia And The United States In Transnational Refugee Deterrence, Kaytlin Hancock

Master's Theses

This research explores a comparison of the use and abuse of deterrence policies, namely the externalisation of borders, and spatial control aimed to disallow entry for refugees and asylum seekers arriving by boat to both the United States and Australia. Paying particular attention to the immigration occurrences in the US from the early 1980s and present day responses in Australia, this research explores the rise in offshore detention centres and the ways in which these countries shirk their international obligations in a bid to strengthen sovereignty, by creating zones of exemption that expel refugees and asylum seekers to liminal spaces. …

The Role Of African Non-National Storytelling In Challenging Xenophobic Discourses In Post-Apartheid South Africa, Kelly Allyn Cruchett

Master's Theses

A growing body of literature on xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa has shown that this form of violence targeted towards African non-nationals is closely linked to a xenophobic discourse of national chauvinism that has been deployed by powerful institutions since the nation’s independence. This capstone project seeks to highlight the role that non-national storytelling plays in addressing the issue of anti-African xenophobia and xenophobic violence in post-apartheid South Africa by challenging the discourses that contribute to it. Through the analysis of a NGO’s youth summit that revolved around the stories of four non-national speakers, this study examines the impact …

"Los De Abajo Reconstruimos": Zapatismo & Indigenous Gender Transformation, Elizama R. Rodas

Master's Theses

Indigenous women's voices have long been silenced in society, including the academic realm. The brutality of colonization toward Indigenous women's gender and racial identities has kept them isolated and suppressed up to the present time. For the last twenty-seven years, the Ejército Zapatista Liberación Nacional (EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico, has campaigned against the Eurocentric ideologies that permeated post-colonization and influenced the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples significantly the discrimination of Indigenous women and other non-binary genders outside these Eurocentric definitions. This research aims to determine the effects of colonial gender existence and, through its deconstruction, also examines the destruction of environments. …

Degrowth And Catholic Social Thought: Rethinking Socio-Economics For A Planet In Crisis, Chad G. Baron

Master's Theses

It is assumed within both degrowth literature and the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (CST) that socio-economic transitions and transformations are needed due to the failings of the dominant capitalist paradigm. Both bodies of thought engage with issues of socio-economic transitions by considering what constitutes globally just development, and by outlining key principles they espouse to be foundational to global justice. By highlighting these principles, and locating the affinities between the two, these theories of socio-economic development can benefit from engaging with the other’s promoted framework. What could follow is a more coherent and holistic approach to development, …

My Generation Will Never Forget: Oral Histories Of Chinese American Students In “Separate But Equal” Oriental Schools, Kelsey Owyang

Master's Theses

Asian Americans occupy a contradictory position in the American educational landscape, at once glorified for their academic success and vilified for their “invasion” of White academic spaces. This narrative first took root in the 19^th century, when the California Supreme Court ruled in the 1885 case Tape v. Hurley that Chinese American youth had a right to public education. Simultaneously, the state legislature declared that Chinese Americans must be educated in separate facilities from Whites. The first segregated “Oriental school” opened in San Francisco Chinatown that year. This study explores the oft-erased history of Asian American school segregation in …

The Belt And Road Initiative In Kenya, As Represented By The Standard Gauge Railway (Sgr), Its Effects And The Response Of Kenyans To It., Kiplangat Arap Yegon

Master's Theses

China has sought to strengthen ties with many countries in the Global South, and many African countries have signed Memorandum of Agreements(MoU) with China leading to trade treaties, foreign direct investments, loans and grants flowing into the African continent from China. This aggressive push by China into Africa has come under intense scrutiny with different actors, scholars and powers having mixed takes on the move. In my thesis, I look at the ways in which China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been undertaken in Africa. I use Kenya as a main case study in looking at the ways in which …

The Importance Of The Process: Recommendations And Thoughts For A Colombian Teacher Training Plan Framed In Global Citizenship, Human Rights, And Peace Education, Edwin Mauricio Martínez Callejas Sj

Master's Theses

The Importance of the Process states that Global Citizenship Education, Human Rights Education, and Peace Education can significantly change the normalized violent context in Colombia. The change should start with a teacher training process. So, Teachers will go to their classrooms to educate their students with dialogue and reflection about processes and actions to move the country to a culture of peace. Thus, after reviewing current literature and interviewing educators, the research shows how it is not enough to have information and content but also to have an active, participatory, and sustainable work plan in which the importance of the …

Predictors Of Intensive Supervision Placement Among Committed Youths Within A Maximum-Security Residential Facility, Tiffany Harris

Master's Theses

Some youths committed to juvenile justice residential facilities struggle to adjust and may exhibit institutional rule violations that necessitate an intensive supervision placement (ISP). ISPs require substantial institutional resources and may result in additional negative outcomes for these committed youths (e.g., additional charges, longer commitment). To date, only two studies have examined factors that place committed youths at greater risk of ISPs, and it was found that commitment length, number of arrests, age at admission, impulsive/reactive and psychopathic traits, and anger-irritability were predictive of ISPs (Taylor et al., 2007; Butler et al., 2007). The present study considered additional predictors that …

The Politicization Of School Reopenings: Media Coverage Of Teachers Unions, Sarah King

Master's Theses

The process of school reopenings during the COVID-19 pandemic has garnered a significant amount of attention from various stakeholders including parents, school administrators, teachers, teachers’ unions, and the media. Negotiations over elements of school reopening policies, such as mask mandates and remote-learning options have, in certain school districts, been fraught with contention. The politicization of school reopening policies has been the source of a growing body of research, which tends to analyze policy decisions in conjunction with COVID data. However, a large gap in the literature has appeared concerning the politicization of school reopenings and the impact of the media, …

"Yours For Freedom": The Life And Legacy Of Civil Rights Leader Victoria Gray Adams, Meridian Mcdaniel

Master's Theses

Understanding the life and legacy of Victoria Gray Adams (1926-2006) is key to appreciating the role of middle-aged African-American women activists in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. She was born and raised in Palmers Crossing, a self-sustaining black community just south of Hattiesburg. Her upbringing fostered pride and a sense of independence in herself as a black person, which eventually influenced her efforts to inspire the local community’s involvement in the movement. Her participation and remarkable leadership in various Civil Rights groups helped solidify her role as a local, state, and national leader. The roles she held throughout her …

The Impacts Of Cooperative Learning In Classrooms On Student Social Skills, Joseph Larson

Master's Theses

This mixed-methods action research study investigates potential effects of cooperative learning strategies on observed and self-reported student social skills in a fourth grade classroom. Baseline data is collected at a time when the classroom is predominantly whole-group and is then compared to ensuing data collected during and after cooperative learning interventions. Opportunities for students to work in interdependent partnerships and small groups ramps up gradually and culminates in a 3-week period which includes 3 different jigsaw-style lesson activities. Data suggests that students who are unaccustomed to working with peers may struggle to exhibit required social skills that make cooperative learning …

The Mythos Of Lilith: A Collection Of Madwomen, Megan Mau

Master's Theses

For too long, women’s stories have been mitigated, translated, truncated, and censored, if they were even recorded at all before the world could hear them. What could women be writing that would be so threatening to incite such censorship? To a male-dominated world, anything that could disrupt their illusions of power is a threat. If a woman penned a narrative of her experiences in this world, or if she were to begin speaking on a new way of thinking that called for change, that must be stopped. The ultimate goal is to prevent women from writing or stepping out of …

Familial Weight And Diet Talk's Relationship To Weight Satisfaction And Life Satisfaction, Jasmine Gilbert

Master's Theses

Today, body weight can be a sensitive topic, and a person’s insecurities and sensitivity to this topic may be rooted in their childhood experiences. Because of the sensitive nature of the weight issue, investigating early life experiences around familial weight and diet talk of young adults will provide information about their current feelings regarding weight satisfaction. Establishing the sources of this talk beyond that of parents and whether they affect later life and weight satisfaction has yet to be determined.

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is an association between familial weight and diet talk, its …

Analysis Of Selection Bias In Online Adversarial Aware Machine Learning Systems, Victor Barboza Morais

Master's Theses

As is evident in areas of privacy, security, and ethics, the hindrances to research is the lack of validated real-world data. Therefore, people resort to creating their own dataset and/or artificially increasing the size of existing datasets. However, in areas like countermeasures of phishing, this is not only insufficient but could introduce bias in the dataset in the process.

To raise the awareness of bias in Machine Learning (ML) / Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its consequences, this work tries to gauge one of its occurrences reliably, namely selection bias when generating more samples from existing samples in a dataset. However, …