Digital Commons Network^™

Community College Mission Statements In An Era Of The New Community College Baccalaureate, Kelly Hernandez

Open Access Dissertations

Community colleges have long suffered an identity crisis since their inception. Throughout history, community colleges have shifted their missions due to various environmental forces such as the economic climate and societal needs. By employing qualitative content analysis, this study first investigated the salient themes of mission statements from 295 community colleges belonging to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Schools (SACSCOC), and secondly, explored whether there were major variations in the missions depending on their classification as an associate’s degree-granting institution or as a bachelor’s degree-granting institution. Thirdly, the study revealed how the themes of community college …

The Influence Of Social Environment And Hypercholesterolemia On Sympathetic Nervous System Innervation Of Vascular Tissue In Rabbits, Crystal M. Noller

Open Access Dissertations

Behavioral and psychosocial factors have been shown to influence cardiovascular disease. While interventions targeting these risk factors demonstrate clinical improvement, mechanisms underlying these effects remain to be determined. Research has also defined a relationship between psychosocial stress and immune function, and revealed stress related increases in lymphatic sympathetic nerve density. Considering that inflammation characterizes the various stages of heart disease, the current study assessed whether social stress could influence vascular sympathetic innervation in the presence or absence of hypercholesterolemia. We found dense sympathetic innervation extending into the vascular media and intima throughout the aortic arch and thorax in diseased as …

Grit And Academic Performance: Is Being Grittier Better?, Winnie Chang

Open Access Dissertations

Completing a college degree benefits both the individual and society and as data show, students are starting college, but not persisting through graduation. The purpose of this study was to examine the importance of a non-cognitive trait, grit, in predicting first year academic performance, as academic performance has been found to be the best indicator of students persisting through graduation. The secondary data obtained from the first year students at a private highly selective institution was analyzed using Hierarchical Multiple Regression analysis. The results of the study showed that gender, SAT scores, race, and the perseverance subscale score of grit …

Dietary Carbohydrates Influence The Structure And Function Of The Intestinal Alpha-Glucosidases, Mohammad Chegeni

Open Access Dissertations

As the primary products of starch digestion by pancreatic α-amylase, maltooligosaccharides (including maltose) are the main substrates for the α-glucosidases at the intestinal brush border. Here, maltose was shown to induce the formation of a higher molecular weight (HMW) sucrase-isomaltase (SI) species in Caco-2 cells that sorts more quickly to the enterocyte surface to act as a digestive enzyme. As this finding suggested a maltose sensing ability of small intestinal enterocytes, molecular mechanisms associated with the maturation and trafficking of HMW SI were further investigated. A pulse-chase experiment using [ ³⁵S]-methionine revealed a higher rate of early trafficking and …

Epistemic Uncertainty Quantification In Scientific Models, Xiaoxiao Chen

Open Access Dissertations

In the field of uncertainty quantification (UQ), epistemic uncertainty often refers to the kind of uncertainty whose complete probabilistic description is not available, largely due to our lack of knowledge about the uncertainty. Quantification of the impacts of epistemic uncertainty is naturally difficult, because most of the existing stochastic tools rely on the specification of the probability distributions and thus do not readily apply to epistemic uncertainty. And there have been few studies and methods to deal with epistemic uncertainty. A recent work can be found in [J. Jakeman, M. Eldred, D. Xiu, Numerical approach for quantification of epistemic uncertainty, …

Graduate Students' Motivation To Teach Plant Sciences To K-12 Audiences, Melissa Leiden Welsh

Open Access Dissertations

Graduate students' motivation to share their knowledge and research with K-12 audiences as future scientists is informed by their beliefs and perceived value of science literacy outreach. Graduate training programs in academia integrate outreach teaching components to equip future scientists with a variety of communication skills, which may reflect either a transmission of knowledge to the learner or through engagement with the learner. As such, the education component of the "Partnership for Research and Education in Plant Breeding and Genetics" grant sought to train graduate plant science students ( N = 17) to disseminate their research to K-12 audiences. Graduate …

A Stochastic Multi-Criteria Assessment Of Security Of Transportation Assets, Michelle Sophie Dojutrek

Open Access Dissertations

Transportation project evaluation and prioritization use traditional performance measures including travel time, safety, user costs, economic efficiency, and environmental quality. The project impacts in terms of enhancing the infrastructure resilience or mitigating the consequences of infrastructure damage in the event of disaster occurrence are rarely considered in project evaluation. This dissertation presents a methodology to address this issue so that in evaluating and prioritizing investments, infrastructure with low security can receive the attention they deserve. Secondly, the methodology can be used for evaluating and prioritizing candidate investments dedicated specifically to security enhancement. In defining security as a function of threat …

La Leche League, The Media, And The Nursing Mother: A Broader Perspective On Persona Theory, Erin F Doss

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation builds on current breastfeeding-related scholarship by suggesting that the lived experiences of nursing mothers could be effective arguments for initial and continued breastfeeding. To do this, I analyzed archival materials related to La Leche League, specifically League newsletters, and media articles from publications across the United States to determine how the "nursing mother" functioned as a persona throughout the second half of the twentieth century. First, in my analysis of League newsletters I theorized a new category of personae, the constitutive persona, which includes personae used by a collective to attract new members and provide them with language …

The Quixote Code: Reading Between The Lines Of The Cervantes Novel, Massimiliano Adelmo Giorgini

Open Access Dissertations

This study in two parts reexamines the notion that Don Quixote was originally seen as no more than a humorous story, and suggests that due to a variety of factors, a closer, more exegetical reading of the text may well be appropriate. In the first section of this work, focus is placed on the long history of the reception of the Cervantes novel as containing some deeper truth beneath the literal surface of the novel. This is complemented by a review of some examples of when several esoteric readings—done without academic rigor and adequate contextual research—have struck dramatically off-target and …

Quantifying Aesthetics Of Visual Design Applied To Automatic Design, Ali Jahanian

Open Access Dissertations

In today's "Instagram" world, with advances in ubiquitous computing and access to social networks, digital media is adopted by art and culture. In this dissertation, we study what makes a good design by investigating mechanisms to bring aesthetics of design from realm of subjection to objection. These mechanisms are a combination of three main approaches: learning theories and principles of design by collaborating with professional designers, mathematically and statistically modeling good designs from large scale datasets, and crowdscourcing to model perceived aesthetics of designs from general public responses. We then apply the knowledge gained in automatic design creation tools to …

Embodied Interaction With Visualization And Spatial Navigation In Time-Sensitive Scenarios, Yu-Ting Li

Open Access Dissertations

Paraphrasing the theory of embodied cognition, all aspects of our cognition are determined primarily by the contextual information and the means of physical interaction with data and information. In hybrid human-machine systems involving complex decision making, continuously maintaining a high level of attention while employing a deep understanding concerning the task performed as well as its context are essential. Utilizing embodied interaction to interact with machines has the potential to promote thinking and learning according to the theory of embodied cognition proposed by Lakoff. Additionally, the hybrid human-machine system utilizing natural and intuitive communication channels (e.g., gestures, speech, and body …

Multidimensional Approach To Comparative Avian Visual Systems, Bret Alan Moore

Open Access Dissertations

Since the birth of visual ecology, comparative studies on how birds see their world have been limited to a small number of species and tended to focus on a single visual trait. This approach has constrained our ability to understand the diversity and evolution of the avian visual system. The goal of this dissertation was to characterize multiple visual dimensions on bird groups that are highly speciouse (e.g., Passeriformes), and test some hypotheses and predictions, using modern comparative tools, on the relationship between different visual traits and their association with visual information sampling behaviors. First, I developed a novel method …

Explaining Associations Between Relational Turbulence, Communal Coping, Stressors, And Relational Satisfaction During Military Reunions: At-Home Partners' Perspectives, Jennifer Sue Owlett

Open Access Dissertations

The current study examined how 179 romantic partners of U.S. service members perceived that they and their service members experienced the reintegration transition following a recent deployment. The relational turbulence model (Solomon & Knobloch, 2004) and the theoretical model of communal coping (TMCC; Afifi, Hutchinson, & Krouse, 2006) were used to frame this study. These frameworks had not been previously joined in this context. A revised communal coping measure was constructed to examine 17 hypotheses and 8 research questions because of challenges with the construct and external validity in prior measures. Participants completed an online questionnaire that assessed their perceptions …

Acquisition, Retention And Transfer Of Heavy Equipment Operator Skills Through Simulator Training, Chung Yin So

Open Access Dissertations

Initiatives and collaborations among heavy construction equipment manufacturing companies and training technology firms to develop and employ simulators for varied training purposes are becoming commonplace. However, human factors research on simulator training for operators of construction equipment is still sparse. For simulator training to be effective, it is necessary to understand how skills are learned using the simulator, how those skills are transferred to other tasks, devices, and real scenarios, and how well skills are retained after simulator training. ^ This research is on skill development, specifically as it applies to operator training for two specific types of heavy construction …

Role Conflict, Uncertainty In Illness, And Illness-Related Communication Avoidance: College Students Facing Familial Chronic Illness, Meghana Suchak

Open Access Dissertations

The focus of the current study was on examining possible differences in college students' adjustment based on residency status (i.e., international Asian vs. domestic students) and illness status (i.e., having a family member with a chronic illness vs. not having a family member with a chronic illness). The study also examined the associations between overall college student adjustment and the family and illness-related factors of role conflict, uncertainty in illness, and illness-related communication avoidance for students will a chronically ill family member. The literature review drew from the fields of college student development, family studies, communication, and nursing. Data were …

Role Of Group Ii Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Subtype 2 (Mglur2) In Appetitive And Consummatory Aspects Of Ethanol Reinforcement, Kyle Allyson Windisch

Open Access Dissertations

Background: Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR2/3) are predominately presynaptically located G_i/o coupled receptors that are highly expressed in the cortex, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus. Previous studies suggest that group II mGluRs are involved in regulating ethanol (EtOH) consumption and seeking following extinction (Backstrom and Hyytia, 2005; Kufahl, et al., 2011). The sipper tube model, which allows for procedural separation of seeking and consumption, was used to further clarify the role of mGluR2/3 in EtOH-seeking and consumption. The non-selective group II mGluR agonist LY379268 (LY37) and selective mGluR2 positive allosteric modulator (PAM) BINA were used to determine the …

An Exploratory Factor Analysis And Reliability Analysis Of The Student Online Learning Readiness (Solr) Instrument, Taeho Yu

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective instrument to measure student readiness in online learning with reliable predictors of online learning success factors such as learning outcomes and learner satisfaction. The validity and reliability of the Student Online Learning Readiness (SOLR) instrument were tested using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and reliability analysis. Twenty items from three competencies, i.e. social competencies, communication competencies, and technical competencies, were designated for the initial instrument based on the Student Online Learning Readiness (SOLR) Model as a new conceptual model. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed that four factor-structures of the instrument …

Image Analysis Using Visual Saliency With Applications In Hazmat Sign Detection And Recognition, Bin Zhao

Open Access Dissertations

Visual saliency is the perceptual process that makes attractive objects "stand out" from their surroundings in the low-level human visual system. Visual saliency has been modeled as a preprocessing step of the human visual system for selecting the important visual information from a scene. We investigate bottom-up visual saliency using spectral analysis approaches. We present separate and composite model families that generalize existing frequency domain visual saliency models. We propose several frequency domain visual saliency models to generate saliency maps using new spectrum processing methods and an entropy-based saliency map selection approach. A group of saliency map candidates are then …

The Effects Of A Humorous Instructional Video On Motivation And Learning, Hans P. Aagard

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the effects of humor within an instructional video on student learning and motivation. Humor in education has been shown to improve students' perception of the instructor and learning environment, with mixed results on gains in actual learning. Humor has been suggested as a strategy to gain and maintain attention, improving motivation to learn. With the dramatic increase of online multimedia instruction, research on the use of humor on multimedia instructional materials can help us determine if it can be used to improve learning and motivation.

In a pretest-posttest controlled design, students viewed a short multimedia instructional video. …

Disentangling Fluency, Comprehensibility And Coherence: Toward A Better Understanding Of Oral Proficiency Profiles, Haiying Cao

Open Access Dissertations

This study is an empirical attempt to examine how removal of all possible disfluency markers can help disentangle proficiency components assessed by the Oral English Proficiency Test (OEPT) in order to help build empirical foundations for establishing OEPT profiles. Silent and filled pauses, false starts and repetitions were removed from 50 test recordings in WAVEPAD SOUND EDITOR. Five trained OEPT raters rated the original and edited speeches. Statistical analyses addressed three research questions: 1) do fluency, comprehensibility and coherence ratings significantly change after the disfluency manipulation; 2) do correlations between fluency, comprehensibility, coherence and coherence subcomponents change after the disfluency …

The Composition Of First-Year Engineering Curricula And Its Relationships To Matriculation Models And Institutional Characteristics, Xingyu Chen

Open Access Dissertations

The preparation of technically excellent and innovative engineering graduates urges for a reform of the engineering curriculum to meet critical challenges in society (National Academy of Engineering, 2005). An examination of the current engineering curricula is needed to offer a baseline to further discuss if the curriculum reform meets the critical challenges. Meanwhile, concern about engineering retention prioritizes a review of the first-year engineering curricula. The existing literature does not include a nationwide examination of the first-year engineering curricula and introductory engineering courses. This study aspired to fill the gap by providing a detail description of the composition of first-year …

Energy Conservation And Efficiency In Manufacturing: Employee Decisions And Actions, Marla Dee Corson

Open Access Dissertations

Energy conservation and intensity reduction efforts are becoming increasingly more prevalent and ultimately necessary, especially for energy-intensive manufacturing companies in particular to stay in business. Typical actions are to change technology, and thus, realize an energy cost savings in overall utilities. However, in today's competitive market, with climate change and other environmental impacts as well, it is necessary for the cost of energy to be valued as a cost of making a product, and thus, managed at the same level as the cost of labor or materials. This research assessed human behavior at the individual and organizational levels both at …

Diagnosing Undergraduate Biology Students' Experimental Design Knowledge And Difficulties, Annwesa Dasgupta

Open Access Dissertations

Experimental design is an important component of undergraduate biology education as it generates knowledge of biology. This dissertation addresses the challenge undergraduate educators face for assessing knowledge of experimental design in biology by examining knowledge of, and difficulties with, experimental design in the context of first-year undergraduate biology students at Purdue. The first chapter reviews several recent reports that highlight the necessity to increase understanding of the experimental research process as a core scientific ability (for e.g., AAAS, 2011; AAMC-HHMI, 2009; NRC, 2007). Despite its importance, there is limited information about what students actually learn from designing experiments. In the …

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying The Acquisition, Extinction And Reinstatement Of Cocaine-Associated Memory: Relevance To Addiction Processes, Shervin Albert Liddie

Open Access Dissertations

An important target for combating drug addiction is to understand the neurobiological mechanisms that sub-serve relapse to drug use. Drug addiction is thought to usurp the neural mechanisms of learning and memory. The conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm which employs the principles of Pavlovian learning is often used to investigate the incentive value of drugs of abuse and the formation of drug-associated memory. One caveat to conditioned reward studies is the use of a fixed daily dose of the addictive drug during training. However, the transition from drug use to addiction in human addicts involves an escalation in drug intake. …

Moral Knowledge Without Justification? A Critical Discussion Of Intuitionist Moral Epistemology, Philipp Schwind

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation I discuss the epistemology of ethical intuitionism, in particular the claim that mature moral agents possess self-evident moral knowledge. Traditional intuitionists such as W.D. Ross have claimed that by reflection, we can acquire knowledge of our basic moral duties such as the duty of veracity or benevolence. Recent defenders of intuitionism such as Robert Audi have further developed this theory and argued that adequate understanding can be sufficient for moral knowledge. I criticize this view and argue that such accounts fail to make a convincing case for a foundationalist moral epistemology. Instead, I propose to separate the …

A Comparison Of Physiological And Psychological Characteristics Among Sport Baton Twirlers, Competitive Cheerleaders, And Modern Dancers, Melissa Marcus

Open Access Dissertations

Baton twirling is a competitive sport that has grown in popularity throughout the United States and around the world, with the hope of being recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a sport worthy of Olympic competition. Unfortunately, a paucity of research exists on physical characteristics of sport baton twirlers. The present study examined anthropometric, physical, and psychological characteristics of sport baton twirlers (n = 18) in comparison to competitive cheerleaders (n = 20) and modern dancers (n = 18) between the ages of 12 and 23. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with a Tukey’s post hoc test for the …

Violence And History In South Asian Partition Literature, Devi Prasad Sharma Gautam

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation I examine literary texts of Saadat Hasan Manto, Khushwant Singh, Chaman Nahal, Bhisham Sahni, Bapsi Sidhwa, and Amitav Ghosh in order to explore the historical sense of South Asian Partition writing that exhibits less and less the pain of diaspora, and opens up more and more to a cosmopolitan mode of living. I argue that in a first phase of response to Partition, writers concentrated on the depiction of overwhelming violence; in the next phase, they gave space to reconstruction as well as loss; and in the third phase, represented here by Ghosh, they have concentrated on …

Brief Psychological Intervention For Acute Posttraumatic Stress: Individual And Trauma Factors Affecting Recovery In Low-Ses Minorities., Lindsay M. Bira

Open Access Dissertations

Low-SES minorities in urban areas experience higher rates of trauma and greater need for treatment than the general population. Individual and trauma factors may determine who benefits most from treatment. Brief intervention and group format may be particularly helpful to fully utilize minimal resources and maximize treatment gain. This study is part of a larger NIH-funded study. We worked in an underserved area with recently traumatized individuals to compare Psychological First Aid (PFA: group format, control), Stress Management Therapy (SMT: group format, trauma-writing component)and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR: individual format) to determine the impact of the interventions and …

The Effect Of A Community-Based Exercise Program On Inflammation, Metabolic Risk, And Fitness Levels Among Persons Living With Hiv/Aids, Stacy E. Cutrono

Open Access Dissertations

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) pandemic remains a top national health priority. Chronic inflammation may be a critical component in the disease course of HIV as C-reactive protein (CRP) is elevated and associated with increased mortality. This study examined the effect of three months of combined aerobic and resistance exercise training among a diverse cohort of HIV-infected men and women. The fixed effect of time for CRP was found to be non-significant (F[1,57.3]=1.7, p=0.19). There was a significant fixed effect for time for upper body (F[1,51.6]=18.1, p<0.05) and lower body strength (F[1,48.0]=15.7, p<0.05) and significant declines in diastolic blood pressure (p=0.002) and waist circumference (p=0.027). Though levels of CRP were not impacted after three months training, participants demonstrated a significant increase in muscular strength as well as beneficial changes in metabolic risk factors. Future studies should focus on determining the optimal exercise intervention length and mode to reduce inflammation.

The Perceived Quality Of Parent-Child Relationships And Dating Violence Experiences Among A Predominantly Heterosexual, Female, And Hispanic-Identified Sample Of Emerging Adults, Amanda M. Cummings

Open Access Dissertations

Dating violence has been identified as a serious public health problem among adolescents and emerging adults. Recently, there has been an increase in research focused on identifying risk and protective factors for dating violence across the individual-, relationship-, community-, and societal-levels, yet studies exploring associations between parent-child relationships and dating violence have been lacking. The present study examined the associations between the perceived quality of mother-child relationships and father-child relationships and dating violence victimization and perpetration experiences among a sample of emerging adults. A cross-sectional sample of 454 undergraduate men and women from three universities were assessed at one time …