Digital Commons Network^™

Factors Influencing Farmers’ Adoption And Intentions To Adopt Pollinator Conservation Programs And Practices In Illinois, U.S.A., Christopher M. Sedivy

Theses

Due to the growing recognition of the social and ecological consequences of the global decline in pollinator species, the need for more effective policies for the conservation of pollinator habitat is now more than ever. These trends call for research that provides a deeper understanding of farmers' decision-making processes. In this regard, this study tested a modified version of the Theory of Planned Behavior as a conceptual model for explaining farmers' perceptions and behavior regarding the adoption of pollinator conservation programs and practices. Specifically, the study tested how farmers' perceived behavioral control, attitudes, subjective norms, concern about herbicide resistance issues, …

Implantable Microsystem Technologies For Nanoliter-Resolution Inner Ear Drug Delivery, Farzad Forouzandeh

Theses

Advances in protective and restorative biotherapies have created new opportunities to use site-directed, programmable drug delivery systems to treat auditory and vestibular disorders. Successful therapy development that leverages the transgenic, knock-in, and knock-out variants of mouse models of human disease requires advanced microsystems specifically designed to function with nanoliter precision and with system volumes suitable for implantation. The present work demonstrates a novel biocompatible, implantable, and scalable microsystem consisted of a thermal phase-change peristaltic micropump with wireless control and a refillable reservoir. The micropump is fabricated around a catheter microtubing (250 μm OD, 125 μm ID) that provided a biocompatible …

A Patient-Specific Approach For Breast Cancer Detection And Tumor Localization Using Infrared Imaging, Jose Luis Gonzalez Hernandez

Theses

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer among women in the United States; approximately one out of every 24 women die of related causes. BC screening is a critical factor for improving patient prognosis and survival rate. Infrared (IR) thermography is an accurate, inexpensive and operator independent modality that is not affected by tissue density as it captures surface temperature variations induced by the presence of tumors. A novel patient-specific approach for IR imaging and simulation is proposed. In this work, multi-view IR images of isolated breasts are obtained in the prone position (face down), which allows access to …

The Impact Of Visa Liberalization On Kosovo’S Migration Patterns, Urtina Zeka

Theses

European integration and state development are two processes that complement one another. In adherence to the Copenhagen Criteria of 1993, legal and economic reforms are compulsory conditions that have to be fulfilled by aspiring EU members. With the unfolding of the events in 2018, Kosovo is getting closer to obtaining visa liberalization. After it has successfully fulfilled the 95-point-conditions presented by the EU, on 13 September 2018, the European Parliament has voted in favor of visa liberalization for Kosovo. Besides the concerns whether Kosovo will pass the final stages of visa liberalization, another concern remains its aftermath; will visa liberalization …

Gender Bias In Managerial Positions In The Private Sector In Kosovo, Diona Hoxha

Theses

This project analyzes gender bias and gender barriers in managerial positions by focusing on private the sector in Kosovo. The study specifically analyzes the barriers that women in the private sector face, such as disregarding qualifications, traditional gender based occupations, discriminatory language in job ads, maternity leave and the lack of contracts that make the employee-employer relationship legally binding. It further elaborates on the concept of gender quotas in management and analyzes their effects in managerial positions and the workplace in general. The study also analyzes best practices outside Kosovo, in which gender equality has been integrated as a part …

The Relationship Between Religion And Diet-Related Disparities In African American Men., Joel Hamilton

Theses

This study utilized a cross-sectional design to report quantitative results. Equal numbers of African American men, religious and non-religious, were sought out for comparison. Participants must have identified as African American, been 30 years of age or older, and lived within 10 miles of Carbondale, IL during the time of the study. African American men are at an increased risk of developing many diet-related disparities. This study aimed to see if religion influenced these factors.

A Preliminary Investigation Of A Values Intervention And A Values Reminder On Clinically Relevant Outcomes, Bruce Clark

Theses

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is designed to target psychological flexibility, broadly defined as engagement with personal values regardless of the presence of difficult private events. As engagement with valued behaviors is imperative to psychological flexibility, clarification of values is an essential skill for clients to learn. Practicing of skills in treatment has historically been a difficult hurdle for clinicians to implement between sessions for clients as well. The present study examined the utility of a novel values card sort activity, as well as the utility of a rubber band to act as a reminding agent for engagement with values. …

Universal Healthcare Coverage And The Future Of Healthcare In Kosovo, Jona Jaha

Theses

The aim of this Honors project paper is to identify and analyze policy issues that will affect the health sector in Kosovo once universal health coverage scheme is implemented. More specifically, the study will focus on three pillars of the health sector, namely health institutions, medical personnel and citizens. Besides assessing changes on the pillars of the health sector, this study aims at evaluating the receptiveness of stakeholders to this policy issue, more specifically the citizens’ perspective on the implementation of universal health coverage in Kosovo. This study is based on a combination of qualitative research methods—primary and secondary research. …

Plasmid Mediated Colistin Resistance In Enterobacteriaceae Isolated From Feces Of Broiler Chicken In The United Arab Emirates, Sara Abdelkafi Mahmoud Ali

Theses

Although human infections with colistin-resistant Mcr-producing Enterobacteriaceae have been reported from the Arabian Peninsula, the presence of mcr gene in strains of animal origin has not been studied.

Ten composite faecal samples were collected in each of four geographically distant poultry farms in Abu Dhabi Emirate. Ten colonies from McConkey agar containing 1 mg/L colistin from each sample were PCR-screened for mcr-1, mcr-2, MCR-3, mcr-4, mcr-5. Of the positive ones, one isolate representing each distinct plasmid profile was selected for susceptibility testing and for whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Transfer of the MCR-1 gene into Escherichia coli …

Predicting The Emotional Intensity Of Tweets, Intisar M. Alhamdan

Theses

Automated interpretation of human emotion has become increasingly important as human-computer interactions become ubiquitous. Affective computing is a field of computer science concerned with recognizing, analyzing and interpreting human emotions in a range of media, including audio, video, and text. Social media, in particular, are rich in expressions of people's moods, opinions, and sentiments. This thesis focuses on predicting the emotional intensity expressed on the social network Twitter. In this study, we use lexical features, sentiment and emotion lexicons to extract features from tweets, messages of 280 characters or less shared on Twitter. We also use a form of transfer …

Making Tricks More Accessible: Empowering Adults With Intellectual Disabilities To Create E-Textiles, Taylor Gotfrid

Theses

E-textiles are a newly emerging technology that can be seen in consumer, educational, and hackerspace environments. Specifically, the development of e-textiles requires a minimum level of familiarity with a variety of concepts; one of which is circuit design and prototyping.

Unfortunately, people with disabilities are rarely included in the design and development of e- textiles, so methods to manipulate these wearable interactive technologies are not always accessible to creators with disabilities. Therefore, we conducted this study to begin understanding how adults with intellectual disabilities perceive and interact with this new type of electronic technology.

This research explores an accessible process …

Registration Of Diffusion Tensor Images In Log-Euclidean And Euclidean Space, Kevin Tuttle

Theses

Diffusion Tensor Imaging is a type of Magnetic Resonance Imaging that allows for the examination of brain connectivity and axonal integrity. Diffusion Tensor Images are created by capturing Diffusion-Weighted MRI images with specific RF pulses, inputing the images and the RF pulse gradient vectors into a set of equations, and solving the equations with linear algebra. To compare one DTI image with another, the images can be aligned using Image Registration. Image Registration works by defining a metric that describes the similarity between two images and iteratively transforming one of the images until the similarity measure is minimized. Existing methods …

Development Of Topography Monitors For Inhaled Nicotine Delivery Systems, Samantha "Emma" Sarles

Theses

Significance – Tobacco related disease is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. The global inhaled tobacco product market is rapidly evolving as new products such as ‘electronic cigarettes’ and ‘heat not burn’ grow in popularity around the world. It is not yet fully understood whether these relatively recent tobacco products will have a negative, neutral, or positive impact on public health in the USA and around the world. This thesis is focused on the design, development, and deployment of a family of monitors which can be deployed with users in their natural environment to better understand …

Sustainability Implications Of Consumer Electronics Adoption In The United States, Shahana Althaf

Theses

High rates of technological innovation and consumer adoption in the consumer electronics sector has led to increasing concerns about the potential implications on resource consumption and waste generation. Despite growing public and policy attention on recycling as a strategy to curb resource demand and waste management impacts, less than 50 percent of end-of-life electronics are recovered for recycling in the U.S. A critical barrier to sustainable management of electronics is the lack of data and tools to proactively estimate consumption and waste flows, to create solutions that respond to the dynamic nature of this product sector. For sustainable solutions to …

The Role Of Insurance Agents In The Prevention Of Environmental Loss And Damage, Leslie Ellen Arnold

Theses

Over the past several decades, businesses have been placed under great pressure from government and the public to avoid environmental loss and damages. To mitigate environmental loss and damages, companies purchase environmental insurance, which protects companies from direct financial liability and transfers the risk to the insurance agency. Thus, insurance companies to have a vested interest in preventing payouts to businesses by ensuring that their clients protect against environmental losses.

Past literature in the field of environmental management has paid little attention to the role of insurance companies and their agents in the prevention of environmental loss and damage. However, …

Attracting Investment From Kosovar Diaspora, Dritëro Bajrami

Theses

The economy of Kosovo for decades has been fueled by remittances sent from Kosovar diaspora. These remittances have improved the standard of living in Kosovo, however, the full potential of diaspora for economic development of Kosovo has not been utilized properly by Kosovo’s institutions. Thus, this study focuses on analyzing the current framework of institutions in Kosovo that aim to translate the contribution of diaspora from sending remittances, which in short term increases the budget of their families, to direct investments that have an impact in the overall economy of Kosovo. Using both primary and secondary data this study will …

The Feasibility Of Conducting Epidemiological Studies In Kosovo, Anila Abazi

Theses

Environmental pollution remains a salient global problem because of the impacts it has on climate change, economic activity and human health. Increases in the level of pollutants such as PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2 and O3 have been correlated with increases in the number of people diagnosed with various respiratory, circulatory diseases and cancers as well as death from these diseases. Therefore, for policymakers to be able to address this issue, a plethora of epidemiological studies, using time-series and longitudinal data, have been conducted in different countries to study the linkage between health and environmental pollution. The results from these …

Automatic Cancer Tissue Detection Using Multispectral Photoacoustic Imaging, Kamal Jnawali

Theses

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have become increasingly popular in recent years because of their ability to tackle complex learning problems such as object detection, and object localization. They are being used for a variety of tasks, such as tissue abnormalities detection and localization, with an accuracy that comes close to the level of human predictive performance in medical imaging. The success is primarily due to the ability of CNNs to extract the discriminant features at multiple levels of abstraction.

Photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a promising new modality that is gaining significant clinical potential. The availability of a large dataset of …

An Exploration Of Emirati Parents’ Involvement In Their Children’S English Reading Of Primary Grades: A Mixed-Method Study, Shaikha Mohammed Ali Saeed

Theses

This study aimed at exploring the Emirati parents’ involvement in their children’s English reading in primary grades (1 through 3). The Study used an Explanatory Sequential Mixed Method Design. In the first phase of the study, a questionnaire (PIQ) was distributed to parents (n=498) who have children in those grades. In the second phase of the study, parents (n=10) were interviewed with regards to their involvement with their children in English language reading. The study found that: Parents have high involvement in their children’s English reading. Parents also reported high involvement in terms of communication, followed by involvement in academic …

Breaking The Stigma: Major Depressive Disorder, Joanna Cox

Theses

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a mood and mental disorder affecting the brain; it is caused by the reduction of three monoamine neurotransmitters: serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine (Rot, M. A., Mathew, S. J., & Charney, D. S. 2009). MDD is one of the world’s most common mental disorders, affecting a predicted 4% of the world’s population and roughly 16.1 million adults in United States alone (Major Depression. 2019; Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. 2018). The concentrations of these neurotransmitters are reduced in the brains of people with MDD due to their increased reabsorption from synapses in the brain back into …

An Exploration Of Microaggression Awareness In Real-Time Conversations And Long-Term Tracking And Learning System, Feifei Guo

Theses

Microaggression is a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group. Microaggressions are often subtle and ambiguous, it's often hard to know if you're committing one or if you're on the receiving end. The recipients of microaggressions always feel a sense of powerlessness and invisibility, while the aggressors are often unaware of the harm they’ve brought. The impact of microaggressions always negatively affects both mental and physical health of recipients and results in persistent health problems.

My goal of the thesis is to make the invisible visible. …

Decadal Changes In Salt Marsh Succession And Assessing Salt Marsh Vulnerability Using High-Resolution Hyperspectral Imagery, Sarah Goldsmith

Theses

Change in the coastal zone is accelerating with external forcing by sea-level rise, nutrient loading, drought and over-harvest is impacting salt marshes. Understanding marsh resilience, including recovery from coastal storms and detection of stress, is essential for conservation and prediction of ecosystem services. The ‘chronosequence approach’ of predicting future state change by examining ecosystem structure and function in existing ecosystems of different ages is a powerful tool, but assumes that the past mimics the future, and time is the dominant driver of change. This approach was evaluated by replicating a 1995 salt marsh chronosequence study in back-barrier marshes ranging from …

Modular Synthesis Of Targeted Molecular Imaging Agents For Mri, Pet, And Pet-Mri Of Cancer, Kelsea Jones

Theses

Molecular imaging is a field widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. We offer here a modular method for the synthesis of targeted molecular imaging agents (TMIAs), which will improve the accuracy of current molecular imaging methods, as well as allow for earlier detection of tumors. The use of TMIAs in molecular imaging yields increased signal at cancerous cells and reduced signal from healthy cells. Our modular approach is useful as a facile method for the synthesis of dual-modal TMIAs for PET-MRI, which combine the sensitive detection of functional activity from PET with the high-resolution structural information obtained …

State Policies Of Medical Marijuana Versus Food & Drug Administration Policies Of Pharmaceutical Drugs, Kayla Stephan

Theses

In the past 22 years, 32 states have legalized and regulated marijuana for medical use. However, marijuana is scheduled as a Schedule I drug according to the federal government. This means that states have no specific regulations to follow for regulating marijuana for medical use. Because of this, states may be risking the safety of medical marijuana patients. Research was conducted to analyze the policies set out by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the regulation of a prescription drug. Since the FDA is responsible for the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs, this analysis included what types of …

Design And Implementation Of An Automated Oil Distribution System For A Homogenizer Machine In Gea Mechanical Equipment – Niro Soavi, Luca Gandolfi

Theses

This thesis shows the steps that have been followed and done in order to improve a critical operation of a technological process of the GEA Mechanical Equipment. The critical operation was the filling with different types of oils the homogenizing machine because it was characterized by a lot of inefficiencies and, in particular, by huge risks for job security. These critical issues gave the opportunity and the chance to realize a project in order to give a process optimization and security improvement.

After having faced all the aspects and steps needed for this project, it has been realized a system …

Sedentariness, Productivity, Perception And Long Term Health Effects Of Sit-Stand Workstation At Work: A Literature Review, Danielle Mengistab

Theses

Sedentary behavior has been increasingly identified as a contributor to poor health outcomes and sit-stand workstations (SSW) have been introduced in offices to potentially reduce these adverse effects. This thesis presents a review of literature on SSW as they relate to musculoskeletal complaints, sedentary behavior, users’ perception after short- and long-term use, productivity and cardiometabolic markers. To be included in the review, studies were required to include the adult working population subject to a sit-stand workstation intervention with above outcome measures. The review indicates that on an average, SSW has decreased sitting time by about 85 minutes per eight hour …

Tomato Puree Convective Heat Transfer Simulation Using Boussinesq Approximation, Matteo Fabbri

Theses

With the advance of new technologies, the food industries are requiring systems that allow to produce the desired products with faster rates at cheaper costs. In this case, the study was initiated with the purpose to better understand what happens inside a package containing tomato puree when this is heated above 343 K in a tunnel pasteurizer. If the fluid must reach the thermal and microbiological condition of “pasteurization”, the system must guarantee that the temperature (around 343° Kelvin) is kept for a certain time allowing to pasteurize even the cooler package’s fluid-particle. The faster the system can heat the …

Understanding The Relationship Between Sedimentation, Vegetation And Topography In The Tijuana River Estuary, San Diego, Ca., Darbi Berry

Theses

The aim of this study is to identify and characterize key geomorphic properties and relationships within the study site, the Tijuana River Estuary. This is a first step in contributing data to and assisting current and future restoration projects in employing a holistic management approach. The study identifies specific physical parameters, grain size and metal concentrations, within the estuary whose relationship to one another is not mutually exclusive and therefore should be addressed in tandem. This study also tests a remote sensing method for use as a tool for monitoring habitat changes in the estuary.

Electrification Of Monroe County’S Vehicle Fleet: A Cost Benefit Analysis, Jordan Kirkpatrick

Theses

This analysis determines the financial and environmental value in electrifying the vehicle fleet owned and operated by Monroe County, New York. Due to economies of scale, the capital cost of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHEVs), and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) have dropped to a point that regardless of environmental benefits, these vehicles can be cost effective in their own right. Monroe County has consistent turnover in its fleet anyway, replacing older vehicles with new ones.

I conducted a cost benefit analysis of converting Monroe County’s vehicle fleet to electric alternatives in order to maximize financial value. To …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Impulsivity In Individuals With And Without Trauma Exposure, Amanda K. Hautmann

Theses

Around 80% of adults indicate being exposed to at least one traumatic event within their lifetime. Some individuals may develop PTSD, which is comprised of four main symptom clusters: Intrusions, Avoidance of event related stimuli, Negative Alterations in Mood and Cognitions (NAMC), and Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity (AAR). Impulsivity is a multi-faceted construct assessed through both self-report and behavioral measures. Prior literature has suggested an association between impulsivity and trauma/PTSD but has been limited in terms of assessment. The current study examined different facets of impulsivity through self-report and behavioral measures in individuals with and without trauma exposure while …