Digital Commons Network^™

From Instability To Civil Liberties: Nonviolent Resistance In Afghanistan, Rachel L. Knowles

Master's Theses

When people have a fundamental issue at stake, giving in is not an option. For these types of conflict, when people’s rights are being violated, when their countries are occupied, or when they are oppressed and humiliated, they need a powerful way to persist and fight back. Oftentimes when people are left with no choice they will use the terrible and destructive nature of violence. For decades nonviolent resistance (NVR) movements have been associated with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, but people have been using nonviolent action for years. In fact, NVR has been a part of political life for …

Child Soldiers & Juveniles In Gangs: Opposite Sides Of The Same Coin With Dissimilar Legal Liabilities In International And American Constitutional Law, Jason Blevins

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Impacts Of Topobathymetric Data On Storm Surge Model Predictions, Sydni Crain

Master's Theses

The topobathymetric characteristics of a region are regularly altered by natural and anthropogenic causes. This directly impacts the resulting storm surge during a hurricane. The primary goal of this research was to gain a better understanding of the impact that topography and bathymetry have on storm surge models, particularly the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) Model. Hurricane Zeta (2020) and Hurricane Ida (2021) were chosen as case studies; therefore, the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was chosen as the study site. This research was completed by comparing ADCIRC storm surge results which were based on older, lower-resolution data with results derived from more …

Determining The Refractive Index Of Phytoplankton Via Direct Measurement Of Cellular Structures, Michael Kamowski

Master's Theses

The refractive index of phytoplankton has never been directly measured before despite its importance towards studying the optical characteristics of marine particles. Previous attempts to measure it have been done through indirect methods. While these methods have proven useful, they contain assumptions about the particles morphology and composition that cause for uncertainty with the measurements. Through the use of the 3D Cell Explorer, a high precision holotomographic microscope, the RI of phytoplankton can be directly measured for the first time. With volume measurements, the phytoplankton were found to not display a single bulk RI, instead the bulk RI was different …

Ramie (Boehmeria Nivea): An Underutilized Plant For A Multipurpose Industrial Application; A Perennial Plant With Protein Identification Using Maldi-Ms, A Biosorbent For Hg (Ii) Removal From Water And As A Bast Fiber Production Via Enzymatic Degumming, Abdul Rashid Issifu

Master's Theses

Identifying plant species that can offer life support to humans and animals without damaging the environment is quite challenging. Ramie, one of the oldest fiber crops was studied due to its nutritional value as fodder and other multipurpose applications in, e.g., medicinal, environmental, and textile industrial fields.

With a brief discussion of background in Chapter I, Chapter II focused on using a proteomic method to investigate unknown proteins in the leaves of ramie and to study their benefits to the biological system. PPiase and RuBisCO with molecular weight 15 and 52 KDa were identified as the proteins after peptide mass …

Comparative Analysis Of Rhizosphere And Endosphere Microbiome Of Different Blueberry Species (Vaccinium Sp.), Niladri Bhowmik

Master's Theses

Blueberries are an important agricultural commodity in all over the United States. Due to its health benefits, there is a huge demand globally, thus expanding the industry. Breeding programs are essential to maintain such industries. Challenges that play a role in contemporary breeding programs are various biotic and abiotic stress factors. Studies have shown that microorganisms are recruited by plants to alleviate them during stressful conditions. Though blueberries have been cultivated for about 100 years, how the microbiome has been affected due to this is poorly understood. We hypothesized that interspecific crosses and artificial selection have significantly changed the microbiome …

Caregiver Augmentative And Alternative Communication (Aac) Education And Training: A Survey Of Caregiver And Slp Perspectives, Michelle Hasenkampf

Master's Theses

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must address caregiver education and training throughout early intervention, including when implementing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Previous research has made recommendations describing practices for SLPs in this area, such as incorporating direct instruction and caregiver participation, as well as addressed how recommendations compare to implementation of these strategies in actual practice. Two parallel surveys were created to examine SLP and caregiver experiences and opinions of various topics and methods utilized in AAC caregiver education and training. 19 SLPs and 5 caregivers completed the surveys. SLPs notably exhibited differences in practice and opinions related to the methods …

Fourthspace: The Role Of Active Social Inclusion In The Workforce Entry Of Syrian Refugees In Scandinavia, Anisa Abeytia

Master's Theses

The 2015 displacement of Syrian refugees into Scandinavian countries provoked a refugee integration policy adjustment that focused on workforce and higher education entry. It is a policy approach that requires attention on barriers to workforce entry to ensure effective policy implementation. This article provides insight into the larger, often overlooked barriers of Eurocentrism and historical biases on refugee labor integration and provides policy solutions to reduce their impact. Active social inclusion (ASI) and Fourthspace are introduced as a framework to reduce biases to workforce entry and integration time barriers faced by Syrian refugees. ASI can provide mechanisms to increase access …

Predicting Suicide Risk Among Youths Using Machine Learning Methods, Saswati Bhattacharjee

Master's Theses

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among youths in the USA. Although machine learning approaches have provided great potential for predicting suicide risk using survey data, prediction accuracy may not meet the need for clinical diagnosis due to the intrinsic characteristics of datasets. In this study, I perform a comparative study of six classification algorithms including naïve Bayes (NB), logistic regression (LR), multilayer perceptron (MLP), AdaBoost (Ada), random forest (RF), and bagging using YRBSS dataset and investigate the effectiveness of several data handling techniques to improve the overall performance of suicide risk prediction.

The dataset consists of 76 …

Heating Systems And Households’ Expenditure, Svitlana Holyk

Master's Theses

The heating energy expenditure has been frequently taken to the consideration across different studies of poverty reduction. However, there is an unresolved question related to understanding how households’ expenditures might be distinct due to the heating system characteristics. This research implements matching methods to investigate the causal effect of the heating system on households’ gas and electricity expenditure in Ukraine. The result indicates that there is a significant difference in the utility expenditure between the District heating system (DHS) and the Individual heating system (IHS) households. The inherited from the past the Soviet District heating system Model in Ukraine doesn’t …

New Insights Into The Paleovegetation Of The Ancient Underwater Forest Located In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Karla Lizarraga Garcia

Master's Theses

A well-preserved remnant of an ancient bald cypress forest (hereafter, Underwater Forest) constitutes the only known archive of a glacial refuge on the once exposed continental shelf of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. This forest existed around 41-72 yBP (MIS 3-5) according to the existing dating methods applied on previous studies. As the climate conditions and sea levels changed, the vegetation of this glacial refuge shifted from bald cypress forests to open marshes, altering the vegetation dynamics. The present research analyzed four new cores (21DF-5A, 21DF-5B, 15DF-6, and 16DF-3A), which provided additional insights into the vegetation that once existed in …

An Investigation Of Resistance Training Behavior, Non-Specific Psychological Distress, And Perceived Barriers To Resistance Training In Self-Identifying Female Undergraduate Students, Jody Sobel

Master's Theses

The prevalence and severity of depression symptoms amongst college students, specifically female identifying undergraduate students, is worrisome. There is a great deal of research that suggests a relationship between exercise, specifically resistance training (RT), and mental health. That said, current literature suggests that many female identifying students are not engaging due to perceived barriers. This, perhaps because of the plethora of barriers one can perceive. The purpose of this study was multifold 1) to examine the prevalence and severity of non-specific psychological distress; 2) to determine if there were differences between Kessler 6 Non-Specific Psychological Distress Scale (K6) categories (i.e., …

Nutritional Adequacy Of Dietary Intake Among College Students Who Follow A Veget, Kayanna L. Pulliam

Master's Theses

In recent years, forms of the vegetarian diet have been popularized for various reasons, including health benefits, support of animal rights, and greater sustainability claims. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the diet quality and adequacy and iron status of college students’ diets, and compare eating disorder (ED) risk between self-proclaimed vegetarians and non-vegetarians. The study sample was a convenience sample of students at Louisiana Tech University who were 18 years of age or older (N = 179). Students were recruited via email, flyers, and classroom announcements. Participants completed an online questionnaire with multiple validated tests; The …

Nutrition-Related Factors Impacting The Bone Health Of Female Sports And Performance Collegiate Athletes, Elizabeth Doll

Master's Theses

Low bone mineral density is commonly found in female athletes and has been related to the energy adequacy and nutrient density of the athlete’s diet. Insufficient dietary energy intake and/or excessive energy expenditure can lead to low energy availability in female athletes, which has been shown to disrupt endocrine, metabolic, and physiological functions. Psychological distress in competitive athletes may affect dietary choices and patterns. To meet their personal or performance standards/goals, an athlete may go to extremes to achieve those standards/goals, including altering their dietary intake.

This study aimed to evaluate the nutrition-related factors affecting the bone health of collegiate …

A Model Knight: Sir Gawain, Chivalric Contradictions, And Grief In Medieval Literature, Kennis Jobe

Master's Theses

Scholarship on medieval and Arthurian chivalry in recent decades has focused largely on the Gawain Poet’s 1375 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Sir Thomas Malory’s 1470 Le Morte D’Arthur. These two romances seem to offer more critical looks at the chivalric system than the glorification of knightly life provided by romances from the previous centuries of the high medieval period. In past works such as L’atre Périlleux and Claris et Laris, Sir Gawain is depicted as the ideal knight—in these poems he is humble, strong, noble, and always perfectly in accord with the chivalric code. In Sir Gawain …

An Evaluation Of The Effect Of Degradation On Irisplex Snps, Maria Gruber

Master's Theses

The information from short tandem repeats (STRs), the current standard forensic DNA typing technology, does not always result in identification. In these cases, there are other informative markers in DNA that can be used to help generate investigative leads, one of which is single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One of the uses of SNPs is for phenotype determination. Among the phenotypic characteristics that can be predicted is eye color. A commonly used tool for eye color prediction is the free, online statistical prediction model IrisPlex, which includes 6 SNPs known to control eye color.

While SNPs can be useful, they, like …

Select Pathways Revealed In A. Thaliana During Spaceflight Via Meta-Analysis Of National Aeronautics And Space Administration Genelab Data, Zachary Thomas Baham

Master's Theses

In this study, a combination analysis using the pathview and pathfindR packages for the R programming language was performed on a collection of openly available Arabidopsis thaliana sequencing data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) GeneLab to discover broad connections between three primary spaceflight stressor types and altered pathway regulation to provide focused targets for future research. Studies were divided into groups based on their exposure to microgravity, cosmic radiation, or a theorized heat-stress factor caused by reduced convection in certain technologies. Through this study, three major pathways were identified: the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, proteasome, and starch and sucrose …

The Impact Of Leaf Litter Diversity On The Colonization Of Aquatic Insects, Daniel Edwards

Master's Theses

Ephemeral pools provide habitat to a wide diversity of aquatic insects which colonize pools to establish new populations in higher quality habitats. These pools rely on nutrient inputs from the surrounding terrestrial landscape, predominantly through leaf litter. Using mesocosms, we tested for the effect of leaf litter diversity (richness and functional diversity) on the colonization of aquatic insects. Leaf litter influences characteristics of a pool (tannins, water color, and nutrients) which may make them more or less desirable to potential colonizers. I added unique mixtures of leaf litter with different numbers of species (0, 3, 5, 7, and 9) and …

Deadwood Facilitates Increased Predators Resulting In Distinct And Functionally Different Leaf Litter Communities, Nicholas Benedetto

Master's Theses

Community structure and ecosystem function may be driven by the amount and size of habitat or energy within an environment, but these metrics (space and energy) are difficult to separate, especially in systems where habitat is also a source of energy such as detritus (dead organic matter including deadwood). Deadwood can impact forest food webs through the creation of habitat and provision of resources and initial differences in wood characteristics may differentially impact food webs. Bark beetles attack and kill pine trees, inoculating them with bluestain fungi (Ascomycota: Ophiostomataceae). Bluestain fungi may increase termite presence in deadwood, and possibly in …

Nutritional Adequacy Of Dietary Intake Among College Students Who Follow A Vegetarian Diet As Compared To Non-Vegetarian Students, Kayanna L. Pulliman

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Incorporating Active Learning Into Breastfeeding Education And Lactation Management Training Of The Future Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Madelyn Sesser

Master's Theses

Background: Breastfeeding has been shown to have multiple benefits for mother and child, yet rates of breastfeeding continue to stay insignificant. Infant nutrition is the base of future health of an individual, yet Registered Dietitians are not provided in depth breastfeeding education during their education.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the active learning component of breastfeeding and lactation education modules meant to increase self-efficacy and confidence in the ability to perform lactation education and to obtain feedback regarding the usefulness of the developed education modules in graduate-level dietetic interns.

Design: This study was part of a …

The Role Of Notch3 In Human Adipose Stem Cell Fate, Sydney Mashaw

Master's Theses

Stem cell-based therapies are the future of medicine, as their natural abilities of self-renewal and differentiation have the potential to treat currently incurable diseases. Stem cells are categorized based on differentiation potential, with multipotent stem cells being the most differentiated while still having the ability to divide down defined lineages. Adipose stem cells (hASCs) are easily derived multipotent, mesenchymal stem cells with already demonstrated therapeutic potential. Despite current success, there are a multitude of factors that regulate the physiology and role of adipose stem cells, including transduction pathways and transcription factors, that remain to be researched and fully understood. One …

Rattus Norvegicus As A Biological Detector Of Clandestine Remains And The Use Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations As A Locating Mechanism, Gabrielle M. Johnston

Master's Theses

In investigations, locating missing persons and clandestine remains are imperative. One way that first responder and police agencies can search for the remains is by using cadaver dogs as biological detectors. Cadaver dogs are typically used due to their olfactory sensitivity and ability to detect low concentrations of volatile organic compounds produced by biological remains. Cadaver dogs are typically chosen for their stamina, agility, and olfactory sensitivity. However, what is not taken into account often is the size of the animal and the expense of maintaining and training the animal. Cadaver dogs are typically large breeds that cannot fit in …

Trace Dna Detection Using Diamond Dye: A Recovery Technique To Yield More Dna, Leah Davis

Master's Theses

This study aspires to find a new screening approach to trace DNA recovery techniques to yield a higher quantity of trace DNA from larger items of evidence. It takes the path of visualizing trace DNA on items of evidence with potential DNA so analysts can swab a more localized area rather than attempting to recover trace DNA through the general swabbing technique currently used for trace DNA recovery. The first and second parts consisted of observing trace DNA interaction with Diamond Dye on porous and non-porous surfaces.

The third part involved applying the Diamond Dye solution by spraying it onto …

Effects Of Triptorelin On Global Deoxyribonucleic Acid Methylation In Skeletal Muscle In Male Adolescent Rats, Max Boland

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate how treatment with triptorelin, a gonadotropin releasing hormone agonist, to block puberty in adolescent male rats affects their epigenetic regulation via global DNA methylation changes in skeletal muscle and to determine if physical activity has an effect on DNA methylation status during treatment. Twenty-four male, Sprague-Dewey rats were randomly assigned to different groups: 12 treated with 1 μg of triptorelin daily (PB group) while the other 12 received an equivalent volume of saline as a placebo (control, CON) for four weeks. In order to determine the interaction with physical activity, six PB …

A Cross Sectional Comparison Of The Mental Health, Sleep, And Anaerobic Power Of Cannabis Users, Cannabidiol Users, And Non Users, Taylor Tamanaha

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences among groups of individuals who regularly use cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD), or who are non-users with respect to mental health, sleep, and anaerobic power measures. A total of 24 participants (21 males and 3 females) were recruited and placed into groups based on their regular cannabis/CBD or non-cannabis/CBD use. The cannabis user group was using cannabis at least three times per week for the past 8 weeks (CA; n=8), the CBD user group was using CBD at least three times per week for the past 8 weeks (CB; n=8), …

Exploring The Effect Of 8 Weeks Of Cannabidiol On Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, Seth T. Kofman

Master's Theses

Studies have shown that cannabidiol (CBD) consumption may lead to neuroprotective effects. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a circulating biomarker of neural health and studies exploring the effects of CBD on BDNF concentrations are limited. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine whether a longer-term CBD intervention would significantly change BDNF concentrations in human serum. Methods: This study used a double-blind placebo-controlled design where thirty-five healthy adult participants were randomly assigned into two groups. Participants were 25.94 ± 6.5 years of age with a body weight of 72.35 ± 13.89 kg and a body fat percentage of 22.61 …

An Update On The Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale: Current Evidence Of Reliability, Edward Worden

Master's Theses

The psychometric properties of the Abbreviated Math Anxiety Scale (AMAS) are often reassessed not using the population for which it was developed. While the scale was initially created for US undergraduate students, research has focused on testing the reliability of the AMAS within other populations, often modifying and translating them for use with children or speakers of other languages. The “replication crisis” calls into question the reliability and reproducibility of findings from many disciplines, including the social sciences, so in order for researchers to have a high degree of confidence in their data and results, measurement tools must be periodically …

Arts-Integrated Teaching Of English Literature: Using Dance Making Methods To Enhance High School Student Comprehension Of Short Stories And Self-Confidence In Reading Skills, Ashley Carney

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefit of utilizing creative dance making methods in the study of literature at the high school level. The researcher developed the following essential questions to investigate how dance making impacts student performance on comprehension questions as well as what impact this has on student confidence and self-efficacy:

Q1 What effect does the use of dance making methods have on student comprehension of short stories?

Q2 What effect does increasing the amount of dance creation time have on student comprehension of short stories?

Q3 What effect does the choreographic process have on …

Analyzing Grassland Bird Song And Success: The Impact Of Landscape Characteristics On Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella Neglecta), Leah Crenshaw

Master's Theses

Grassland birds across both North America and globally are in rapid decline, and these population losses are primarily due to agricultural practices driving land-conversion and habitat degradation. While the effects of landscape characteristics like land cover, fragmentation, anthropogenic features, and land use on bird abundance and diversity are well-studied, the mechanisms behind those effects are poorly understood for many species. In our studies, we considered how individual condition and behavior may be underpinning some population losses in Western Meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta). First, we investigated what natural, anthropogenic, and climatic landscape characteristics best predicted Western Meadowlark song structure. We used 421 …