Digital Commons Network^™

Performance Of Elastomeric Coatings And Coated Structures Subjected To Aggressive Marine Environments, Irine Neba Mforsoh

Open Access Dissertations

Marine structures are routinely coated with elastomers to enhance their survivability and reliability. These elastomeric coatings are corrosion and abrasion resistant, and substantially mitigate the damage caused by shock, blasts, and impact loading on the structures. These coated structures are exposed to aggressive marine environments (saline water and UV radiation) during service, which can deteriorate and alter the material properties of the elastomer and the strength of the interface over time. The constitutive behavior of the elastomer after exposure to saline water and UV radiation will be studied. In addition, the effects of saline water and UV radiation exposure on …

A New Paper-Based Microfluidic Device For Sensitive Detection Of Nitrate In Seawater, Amer Charbaji

Open Access Dissertations

Nitrate is a naturally occurring nutrient that is part of the nitrogen cycle. Monitoring of this nutrient in water bodies ensures its safety for consumption, guards against water nutrient pollution, and provides oceanographers and marine scientists with data to better understand nitrogen cycling and other phenomena of interest. Currently, there are several techniques available for nitrate detection. However, they either lack the required sensitivity for use in the field, or are costly, time consuming, and require special handling of the water sample as it gets sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Paper-based technologies possess several advantages that can facilitate sensitive …

Pd-Aware: A Contextual Mhealth Platform Serving Wearable-Assisted Pros For Parkinson’S Disease, Nicholas Constant

Open Access Dissertations

This work is motivated by the impact of chronic diseases such as Parkinson's disease (PD) on the world. In particular, this work aims to expand digital health's ability to understand a disease's progression. The progression of the research walks through the current methods for tracking this progression, to find that this information is captured mainly in the healthcare office, starting with the initial evaluation and treatment plan formation. Afterward, roughly 2-3 times a year, the clinician uses various assessments to observe the patient through writing, speaking, and motor tasks to understand the current state of health. These efforts included 100+ …

Probing Interactions Of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes At The Nano-Bio Interface, Mitchell Gravely

Open Access Dissertations

Non-covalent hybrids of single-stranded DNA and single-walled carbon nanotubes (DNA-SWCNTs) have demonstrated applications in biomedical imaging and sensing due to their enhanced biocompatibility and photostable, environmentally-responsive near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence. Significant progress has been made in developing robust biological probes based on the sensitive optical properties of SWCNTs, however biological environments introduce complex and dynamic conditions that interact with, and ultimately modulate, their intrinsic properties. These fundamental interactions within biological settings can determine whether a nanomaterial is biocompatible and robust, or cytotoxic and disruptive to biological processes. Thus, a mechanistic understanding of such interactions and their effect on cellular function is …

Dietary Fermentable Carbohydrate (Fc) Consumption And Associations With Diet Quality And Health Parameters, Ajita Jadhav

Open Access Dissertations

Excessive body fat and related dysmetabolic complications concern both emerging and developed countries. An important environmental cause of these conditions is the altered composition of gut microbiota, which is influenced by the host diet. A number of clinical trials target gut microbiome composition or functions with fermentable carbohydrates (FCs) to promote a healthier profile. Total dietary fiber, which includes both FC and non-fermentable carbohydrates, is considered a promising tool for the prevention of chronic diseases. This has led to significant changes in food and health recommendation with an increase in dietary fiber intake advised. However, reference to other FCs such …

The Loud Impact Of A Quiet Ego: How Positive Psychology Increases Salesperson Performance And Well-Being, Jonathan Ross Gilbert

Open Access Dissertations

The role of business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals is adapting to meet ever-changing customer expectations. B2B buyers are now demanding more complex, customized solutions and more personalized after-sales support and service. This profound change in the nature of professional selling has spurred a global race to scale up digital platforms that seamlessly support buyer needs and expectations throughout the purchase journey. However, this emphasis on the marriage of technology and human interaction prior to the sale has created a dearth of attention to, and related scholarship on, the role of salesperson support after the sale [emphasis added]. The “quiet ego” (QE), …

Training And Professional Practices Of School Psychologists Serving U.S. Indigenous Communities: A Qualitative Descriptive Study, Erin D. Churchill

Open Access Dissertations

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) is committed to supporting the academic, behavioral, social, and emotional needs of students from historically underserved and/or marginalized backgrounds. However, there continues to be a lack of attention given to U.S. Indigenous populations in the school psychology literature. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the training and professional practices of school psychologists serving U.S. Indigenous communities. Fifteen certified and/or licensed school psychologists practicing in a school setting with three or more years of experience serving high-density Indigenous school populations participated in the study. Qualitative methods were employed, and data were …

Functional Analysis Of Virulence In Vibrio Coralliilyticus Re22 And Probiotic Mechanisms Of Phaeobacter Inhibens S4, Christian W. Schuttert

Open Access Dissertations

Infections by pathogenic marine bacteria present a major problem for both the shellfish and finfish aquaculture industries, resulting in severe disease and high mortality. Pathogen infection seriously affect aquaculture production, and cause significant economic loss. Marine pathogens like Vibrio coralliilyticus frequently cause disease in a variety of shellfish. The use of antibiotics in large-scale aquaculture settings leads to the development, and potential transfer, of antibiotic resistance. In order to mitigate this emerging threat, an understanding of pathogenic mechanisms of infection and novel preventative strategies, such as probiotic treatment, is paramount for understanding and preventing future disease.

In manuscript I, “Two …

Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry System Based On Semiconductor Lasers, Zheyi Yao

Open Access Dissertations

In modern society, the amount of data being transferred is growing at an exponential rate, about 2.5 quintillion bytes data created per day. Such data can be realized in the form of include the audio, video, or text. Furthermore, due to the many advantages of the optical fiber, including the low-cost, immunity to electromagnetic interface, light weight, and high carrier frequency, it is taking over the industry. The question then arises as how to diagnose the inner fault and maintain the integrity becomes the crux for the telecommunication system based on optical fiber.

There are two main high-precision measurement methodologies …

Feeling Good: Happiness And Health In Dutch Older Adults, Joshua Ray Tanzer

Open Access Dissertations

Statement of the problem: Positive psychology research has sought to identify cost efficient and intuitive ways to increase subjective happiness, with broad implications to personal health and overall quality of life (Lee Duckworth, Steen, & Seligman, 2005; Rashid, 2009; Seligman, 2008; Seligman, Ernst, Gillham, Reivich, & Linkins, 2009; Seligman, Rashid, & Parks, 2006). A complication in this research has been conflicting findings in the longitudinal stability of happiness (Easterlin, 2006). This analysis examines age related changes in happiness and physiological immune responsiveness to clarify the implications of positive health interventions.

Methods: Pretest-posttest structural equation modeling is employed to examine longitudinal …

North Atlantic On The Edge: Ocean Circulation Through Gateways At The Subpolar-Subtropical Boundary, Afonso Gonçalves Neto

Open Access Dissertations

Labrador Sea Water (LSW) is a major component of the deep limb of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, yet LSW transport pathways and their variability lack a complete description. A portion of the LSW exported from the subpolar gyre is advected eastward along the North Atlantic Current and must contend with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge before reaching the eastern basins of the North Atlantic. In Chapter 1, we analyze observations from a mooring array and satellite altimetry, together with outputs from a hindcast ocean model simulation, to estimate the mean transport of LSW across the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ), a primary …

Geotechnical Effects On Fiber Optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing Performance, Meghan C. L. Quinn

Open Access Dissertations

Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is a fiber optic sensing system that is used for vibration monitoring. At a minimum, DAS is composed of a fiber optic cable and an optic analyzer called an interrogator. The oil and gas industry has used DAS for over a decade to monitor infrastructure such as pipelines for leaks, and in recent years changes in DAS performance over time have been observed for DAS arrays that are buried in the ground. This dissertation investigates the effect that soil type, soil temperature, soil moisture, time in-situ, and vehicle loading have on DAS performance for fiber optic …

Seismological Investigation Of The Ontong Java Plateau And Surrounding Pacific Upper Mantle, Aaron C. Hirsch

Open Access Dissertations

The southwest Pacific is a tectonically complicated region consisting of two large igneous provinces (LIPs) on the ocean floor formed approximately 120 Ma. The formation of these two plateaus, the Ontong Java Plateau (OJP) and Manihiki Plateau (MP), along with one further south, is difficult to ascertain due to their remote location. Through the use of seismic modeling, we investigate these two features and the surrounding southwest Pacific to better understand their formation and deformation history.

3-dimensional vertical and tangential seismic wave speed models were computed for the two plateaus and surrounding upper mantle in the southwest Pacific. Pseudo 2D …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Undergraduate Degree Completion At The University Of Rhode Island, John Olerio

Open Access Dissertations

Over a period of several years, the University of Rhode Island (URI) implemented a number of strategies aimed to improve (a) undergraduate retention; and, (b) four-year degree completion. These efforts started amid continual increases in undergraduate tuition rates at the University and after just 38.5% of the first-time, fulltime undergraduates who began attendance in the fall of 2008 had graduated from URI by the summer of 2012. For the cohort of first-time, fulltime undergraduates who started at URI in the fall of 2014, the four-year graduation rate was 53%. Despite this increase in the statistic at the institution, it still …

A Marketer’S Symphony: Essays On The Power Of Musical Structure And Its Influence On Consumers With Foundations For Future Research In Audio Sensory Marketing, Shawn P. Scott

Open Access Dissertations

Music surrounds us in our daily lives and lives within us as consumers. It has the power to elicit deep emotions in us. Because of music’s power over people, marketers have used music to enhance and direct an emotional response in consumer behavior for decades. These uses of music ranged from ambient forms of music such as in restaurants, at retail, or in public open spaces to more directed forms of music such as in TV commercials or digital advertisements. Despite this expansive use of music used in marketing, this body of research has tremendous opportunity for further exploration. The …

Turning Points: A Case Study Of Motivation In Foreign Language, Shawna C. Iula

Open Access Dissertations

Enrollment in foreign language courses has been declining. Fewer students are studying foreign languages and those that do often discontinue after the introductory levels. This single-embedded case study looks into why students who initially wanted to continue on to more intermediate levels did not, and also why students who initially only wanted to complete introductory levels changed their plans and continued on to more intermediate levels. Participants included two groups with nine participants total. The first group consists of five students who initially planned on discontinuing after introductory levels and changed their minds and decided to continue. The second group …

Carrot Or Stick: Nudging Consumers Towards Healthier Choices Through Customized Price Incentives, Xintong Guan

Open Access Dissertations

In a market where consumers are increasingly concerned with maintaining a healthy diet and demand healthier foods, the role of retail grocery stores has been highlighted, as they exert a powerful influence on food choices. To increase more healthful food purchases, some food retailers have implemented marketing efforts to influence consumer food decision-making. However, due to the mixed findings on the effect of existing marketing interventions on improving purchasing of healthier foods, it is unclear which interventions work best to shift purchasing and what benefits they can bring to the retailer.

A promising approach to nudge healthy purchases with behavioral …

Fantasizing Reproduction: The Biologization Of The Desire For Progress In Victorian Literature, Xinqiang Chang

Open Access Dissertations

The preoccupation with reproduction in Victorian literature has, by and large, received little critical attention. This dissertation seeks to contribute to Victorian scholarship and examines the representations of reproduction in Victorian literature in relation to the contemporaneous desire for progress. Adopting a historiographical approach, this dissertation analyzes five Victorian novels: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, George Du Maurier’s Trilby, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, and Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins. In this dissertation, I demonstrate the different ways in which these Victorian novelists explored, accommodated, and concretized the Victorian desire for and pursuit …

Social Justice And Evolutionary Biology: A Natural Fit, David I. Upegui

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation is an extended prescription for the inclusion of social justice in high school biology (HSB) curricula. Chapter 1 is context: a review of social injustice (mainly racism) in the US, and the specious scientific justifications for it. Chapter 2 explores how three veteran teachers introduce social justice in HSB classes. A case-study, semi-constructed interview-based approach is used. Chapter 3, the culmination of these ideas, adduces a practical curriculum module that provides the theory, lessons and activities for HSB student exploration the inferior science used to sustain racial inequities. The dissertation thus reviews the moral imperatives for introducing social …

Longitudinal Decision-Making In A Transtheoretical Model For Pursuing Living Donor Kidney Transplant, Zoe Mushkat

Open Access Dissertations

The transtheoretical model (TTM) is a comprehensive theory of health behavior change that has informed a wide range of health promotion interventions. Despite substantial empirical support for the TTM, our understanding of the mechanisms of behavior change is primarily guided by cross-sectional research. Considerably fewer studies have examined longitudinal relationships between TTM constructs with methods comparable to cross-sectional models. The overarching goal of the present study was to improve our understanding of longitudinal relationships between Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, and Self-Efficacy. Kidney transplant decision-making was used to exemplify longitudinal patterns through secondary data from the trial Your Path to …

Examining The Leadership And Literacy Practices In Effective Title 1 Schools: A Multiple Case Study Of Schools That Foster Efficacy So All Can Learn, Wendy K. Amelotte

Open Access Dissertations

Under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2001, professional learning activities and curricula, particularly in the area of literacy, were limited by the definition of reading put forth by the 2000 report of the National Reading Panel (see Duke & Carlisle, 2011). When NCLB was reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states and districts were allowed more freedom to redefine student achievement and school success, with hopes that a more “holistic approach” would allow for equitable learning opportunities for all children. Yet, today’s school leaders continue to grapple with how to bring research-based practices to life …

Self-Gravitating Fermi-Dirac And Bose-Einstein Clusters With Planar, Cylindrical, And Spherical Symmetry, Michael A. Kirejczyk

Open Access Dissertations

We investigate self-gravitating clusters of an ideal Bose-Einstein gas with nonrelativistic energy-momentum relation and Fermi-Dirac gas with both relativistic and nonrelativistic energy-momentum relation. The clusters are subject to Newtonian gravity and are considered to be at thermal and mechanical equilibrium. We examine clusters with planar, cylindrical, and spherical symmetry in varying spatial dimension. By combining the conditions of thermal and mechanical equilibrium we derive a deferential equation for the fugacity, from which we calculate density profiles. Our work focuses primarily on the acquisition and analysis of these density profiles, as well as an energetic description of the problem mainly through …

Marine Microbial Interactions: Diversity And Function Of The Thalassiosira Rotula Phycosphere Community, Olivia Marjorie Ahern

Open Access Dissertations

Interactions between diatoms and bacteria impact global-scale biogeochemical cycling, through regulating the biological pump, impacting productivity of the marine food web, and regulating fluxes of chemicals. The most intimate of these interactions occur in the diatom’s phycosphere, akin to the mammal’s microbiome or rhizosphere. Research into terrestrial systems has shown intimate connections between an organism’s microbiome or rhizosphere and the genetic structure of the host organism’s species. However, little research has been done to elucidate these interactions in the diatom’s phycosphere. The goal of this work is to explore how diatom population structure impacts the phycosphere microbiome, by surveying the …

Functional Consequences Of Apoptosis Gene Diversification In Eastern Oyster Immunity, Erin Michele Witkop

Open Access Dissertations

The eastern oyster is an ecologically and economically important filter feeding bivalve mollusc endemic to the east coast of the United States. Outbreaks of disease, such as Dermo disease caused by the parasite Perkinsus marinus, threaten natural oyster populations, and oysters have evolved a complex innate immune system containing large, expanded gene families to combat the diverse array of pathogens in their environment. Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a critical immune response to Dermo disease involving a series of expanded gene families, including the Inhibitor of Apoptosis (IAP) family of apoptosis regulatory molecules. The goal of this research is …

Massively Parallel Stochastic Terrain Models In Undersea Mapping And Navigation, Kristopher Krasnosky

Open Access Dissertations

This thesis examines ways to improve the quality of bathymetric maps generated from multibeam sonar data. In particular, it focuses on techniques for improving the real time computation of bathymetric models and related navigation solutions. Currently, there are many computational limitations that render applications such as path planning and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) unfit for real time use on vehicles in the field. Much of the work presented here focuses on re-framing previously proposed mapping and navigation solutions in a way conducive to massively parallel processing on a graphics processing unit (GPU).

Terrain models produced from multibeam sonar data …

Characterization Of Impact Pile Driving Signals And Fin Whale Vocalizations At The Block Island Wind Farm Site, Jennifer L. Amaral

Open Access Dissertations

Offshore wind farm development is rapidly expanding and with that comes the need for assessment of the potential short and long term environmental impacts. As a by-product of the construction, operation, and eventual decommissioning of offshore wind farms, sound is generated both in air and underwater through various activities and mechanisms. With the rate of wind farm development continuing to increase worldwide, regulatory agencies, industry, and scientists are attentive to the potential physiological and behavioral effects these sounds might have on marine life living in the surrounding environment. The impact pile driving used to install the wind turbine foundations is …

Gatekeepers And Access Agents: How Admissions Officers Understand Their Roles In Shaping College Access In The 21st Century Market For Higher Education, Brian Stevens

Open Access Dissertations

Many scholars (Cox, 2016; Harklau & McClanahan, 2012; Niemann & Maruyama, 2005; Solórzano, 2005) have explored the causes of opportunity gaps in higher education. Those studies have looked at the various impediments to accessing higher education that have led to the persistence of gaps in college attendance rates, but few have specifically explored the complex relationship between college admissions officers and institutional admissions policies. This study will contribute to literature related to higher education access by examining the roles of admissions officers and adding their perspectives to a body of work where their voices have been largely absent. Grounded in …

Development Of A Low-Overhead And Transceiver-Integrated Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer, Thomas Mauldin

Open Access Dissertations

Optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDRs) are the most widely used tool to diagnose an optical fiber in a telecommunication network; however, current OTDR systems cannot be efficiently utilized in industry due to their modularized design and bandwidth limitations. Furthermore, even when used as a standalone diagnostic technique, they lack the ability to have high spatial resolution and dynamic range concurrently which is essential for troubleshooting fiber optic cables in both shortreach networks, such as those in a datacenter, as well as long-haul networks, such as fiber-to-the-home. This study tackles these limitations by taking a statistical approach to replace the required high-end …

Fragmentation Resilience Energy Mass Spectrometry – Novel Method For Structural Elucidation And Compound Differentiation, Alexander Yevdokimov

Open Access Dissertations

Compound identification, characterization and quantification has been the key elements behind development of analytical chemistry as a field. Mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the predominant techniques used for such purposes. To enhance its capabilities, it is often integrated with orthogonal methods such as gas and liquid chromatography, which offer analytes separation prior to MS detection. Another approach is to combine multiple mass spectrometers into tandem, e.g. triple quadrupole, or hybrid, e.g. linear ion trap-Orbitrap, designs, which provide another level of characterization, usually via compound fragmentation. All these designs exist because none, on their own, offer a perfect solution for …

Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, And Comfort Towards Lgbtq+ Students, Crassandra Mandojana-Ducot

Open Access Dissertations

In school settings, teachers are on the front lines for supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) adolescents and have direct contact with students daily. Previous research establishes that LGBTQ+ adolescents are at a higher rate of experiencing mental health disorders compared to their cisgender and heterosexual peers due to high social stress from discrimination and bullying. The current study expanded upon previous literature by examining preservice teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and comfort towards LGBTQ+ students, the relationship between these factors, and teachers’ intention to engage in school-based LGBTQ+ advocacy. Participants were 168 undergraduate and graduate level preservice teachers currently …