Digital Commons Network^™

Preschool Teachers' Early Perceptions Of Education For Sustainable Development In Early Childhood Education, Shannon Susan Green

Theses

This study explored five preschool teachers' perceptions about Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Early Childhood Education (ECE). Participating teachers provided a wide range of responses about ESD and its related subthemes. The findings of this study show that the participating teachers indicated a willingness to reflect on the principles of sustainable development, a commitment to developmentally appropriate practice, a value for participatory and problem-based curriculum, and appreciation for the benefits of community engagement. Teachers also expressed values of fairness and equality, and being open, honest, and matter-of-fact with children. Teachers were new to the ideas of interdependence, social justice, …

Facebook As Social Support For A One-Time Weight Loss Intervention Among College Students, Erica Seely

Theses

Approximately 32% of college-aged individuals are overweight or obese, yet few weight loss programs have effectively motivated this population to adopt a healthier lifestyle. A majority of this population frequently uses the social networking site Facebook. This study examined the impact of a Facebook social support group on weight loss efforts of college students. A total of 24 students were randomly assigned to either the intervention group, which consisted of a Facebook support group, or control group after attending a one-time weight loss class. Assessments were taken at baseline and four weeks. Of participants in this study, 83.3% were Facebook …

Under Construction: Viewing Manipulated Space, Michael David Farrell Jr.

Theses

North America, the United States in particular, has established an unique and distinct connection to the the wildspaces outside of urban environments. The two spaces, urban and wilderness, are placed in opposition to one another in a sliding valuation scale that is based on the degradation experienced in these urban areas, due to industrialized capitalist means of production, by the inhabitants. These effects are the source of both literary and visual art protests that originate in the 19th century in both generations of the Hudson River School painters, American pastoral writing, philosophy, and photographs. These romanticized views of natural space …

Prognostic Health Assessment Of An Automotive Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell System, Christopher J. Rukas

Theses

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are a promising technology for the automotive industry. However, it is necessary to develop effective diagnostic tools to improve system reliability and operational life to be competitive in the automotive market. Early detection and diagnosis of fuel cell faults may lead to increased system reliability and performance. An efficient on-line diagnosis system may prevent irreparable damage due to poor control and system fatigue. Current attempts to monitor fuel cell stack health are limited to specialized tests that require numerous parameters. An increased effort exists to minimize parameter input and maximize diagnostic robustness. Most methods use …

Natural Resource Management Knows No Bounds: A Case Study Of The Cache River Joint Venture Partnership, Jennifer Ann Behnken

Theses

In southern Illinois, multiple state, federal, and private ownerships are implementing various management tactics in the Cache River watershed. Although some aspects are coordinated under the Cache River Joint Venture Partnership (CRJVP), individual agencies and entities retain specific ownership priorities and approaches to management. This case study explores how agency/organizational characteristics and interrelations affect land management decision-making among land managers employed by federal agencies, state agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-five participants, including land managers, staff members who maintain active participation with on-the-ground activities, and individuals who have worked closely with CRJVP. Triangulation of interview transcriptions, …

Socioeconomic Status And Social Class As Predictors Of Career Adaptability And Educational Aspirations In High School Students, Alec Eshelman

Theses

This study examined socioeconomic status (SES) and perceived social class as predictors of career adaptability and educational aspirations in a sample of American high school students. SES was measured using caregivers' occupation and education, and the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status--Youth Version (Goodman et al., 2001) assessed subjective social class. Career adaptability was be measured using the Career Futures Inventory-Revised (CFI-R; Rottinghaus, Buelow, Matyja, & Schneider, 2012) and the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI) Form C (Savickas & Porfeli, 2011). Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regressions. SES and perceived social class independently predicted educational aspirations and expectations, while SES …

Relationship Of Childhood Activity To Leisure Time Activities And Recreation Specialization Among College Students, Alexandra Sandoval

Theses

Leisure time and outdoor recreation are participated in during childhood, which allows for children to being able to learn about different recreation activities, whether they may be indoor or outdoor oriented. Children begin to learn about the world around them, having significant life experiences and beginning to understand the concept of recreation specialization. As a child moves into adulthood, specifically as college students, their leisure time activities being to change; this may be due to the fact that their time is limited for both indoor and outdoor recreation, but could also be due to the fact that technological advances have …

"Oh, You Are An Exception!" Academic Success And Black Male Students Resistance To Systemic Racism, Lacharles Travell Ward

Theses

This study theorizes how Black male students narrate their experiences at a traditionally White institution (TWI). To date, research focusing on Black men in higher education highlights the continual struggles of Black men against racism (Feagin, Vera, & Imani, 1996; Harper, 2006, 2009, 2012; Smith, Yosso, & Solórzano, 2007); however, what remains to be extensively theorized is Black male academic excellence. Thus, I argue that it is vital to progressively broaden what we know about Black male students as intellectuals. In this study I forefront how Black male students articulate their intellectual identities and educational experiences on a traditionally White …

The Oaxaca Barrio In Teotihuacan: Mortuary Customs And Ethnicity In Mesoamerica's Greatest Metropolis, Maria Teresa Palomares Rodriguez

Theses

This research examines the mortuary customs of the Oaxaca Barrio, one of the foreign settlements in the ancient city of Teotihuacan. The Oaxaca Barrio is associated with the Zapotec homeland in the state of Oaxaca, southern Mexico (roughly 290 miles); but many questions remain unanswered about its origins and development. The mortuary customs of the Oaxaca Barrio show how Zapotec migrants adapted to living in Teotihuacan over a considerable period of time, maintaining aspects of their homeland identity, but also generating a new cultural repertoire by which members of the enclave redefined themselves. The presence of Zapotec people in Teotihuacan …

Effect Of Celebrity Endorsements On Treatment Choices Made By Professionals And Parents With Children Diagnosed With Asd, Jenika Karnik

Theses

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that one in 50 children are diagnosed with Autism in the U.S. Now, parents out there not only have to face a doctor's diagnosis, but also a flood of confusing promises for recoveries and miracle cures. Parents have to sift through recommendations made by media, celebrities, professionals, and many, many more. The purpose of this study is to examine what influences the choices parents make involving treatment for their children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The Abundance And Biodiversity Of Arthropods In Biofuel Crops: Insects And Arachnids In Corn, Switchgrass And Native Mixed Grass Prairie Fields, Caitlin Kempski

Theses

Concerns about fossil fuel prices and harmful effects have prompted research and investment in biofuel development. Biofuels have the potential to provide a stable fuel source that reduces carbon emissions. However, the ecological impacts of different crop choices should be examined. Arthropod communities in corn and switchgrass monocultures and mixed grass prairie polycultures were examined to determine the impact of the crop choice on the arthropod communities. Results show that, when compared to corn and switchgrass fields, mixed grass prairie fields had higher values for arthropod biomass, number, size, the number of orders present, the number of individuals in each …

Judicial Perspectives Of Domestic Violence Courts, Monica Elizabeth Wingler

Theses

The domestic violence court evolved with the feminist movement. As women gained rights, domestic violence became perceived as a male domination issue, rather than a private family matter. The development of the courts was based on therapeutic jurisprudence, and feminist and deterrence theory. Research regarding domestic violence courts is largely based on the effectiveness of victim advocates and batterer intervention programs. There is little to no research regarding judicial perspectives of the domestic violence court. Through inductive analysis of interviews and court observations, I examined how judges perceive the effectiveness of the courts and their general knowledge of domestic violence. …

Effects Of Nest And Nest Site Characteristics On Humboldt Penguins’ Breeding Success At Punta San Juan, Peru: Implications For Conservation, Alonso Joaquin Bussalleu

Theses

Populations of Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti) in Peru began declining significantly in the 19th century because of industrial guano mining and a later increase in fishing. Guano mining changed the features of the penguins’ breeding habitat by eliminating the substrate where this species excavated their burrows. We analyzed the effects of nest and nest site characteristics and monitoring methodologies on Humboldt penguins’ breeding performance at Punta San Juan, Peru. We used a binomial generalized linear mixed model with random intercept to tests for differences in the probability of successfully raising at least one fledgling and also tested for differences in …

Quantity And Composition Of Stream Dissolved Organic Matter In The Watershed Of Conesus Lake, New York, Morgan R. Bida

Theses

The watershed of Conesus Lake, New York is drained by more than 18 unique streams and several smaller tributaries and has multiple land uses, varying from highly agricultural to primarily wooded, making the lake an ideal study site for analysis of the effects of land use on various water quality parameters. Previous water quality and watershed-health studies at Conesus Lake have focused on the delivery of inorganic nutrients to the lake. We know much less, however, about the effects of watershed land use on the quantity and composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) exported to the lake. We sought to …

At Cross Purposes: Protrestant Missionaries Among The Osage Indians 1820-1837, Joshua Nathan Luparell

Theses

Luparell, Joshua N. “At Cross Purposes: Protestant Missionaries Among the Osage Indians, 1820-1837. M.A. Thesis, University of Missouri-St. Louis, 2013. At Cross Purposes sets out to establish a nuanced interpretation of the complicated relationships forged between Osage Indians and Protestant missionaries. These interactions occurred between 1820 (when New England Protestant missionary societies first attempted to “civilize” and Christianize Osage Indians) and 1837, when the missionaries left the Osages without significantly impacting Osage beliefs or culture. This thesis challenges the relatively recent assertion that the Osages resisted the Christians and their messages. Instead, this thesis argues that the traditional diversity of …

Understanding Effects Of Presentation On Concept Learning In Technology Supported Learning, Nivedita Singh

Theses

The world of technology has had a significant impact on learning and instructional domain. Today, a large number of devices and software are specifically designed to afford faster and effective learning and instruction. They have not only erased the physical boundaries to resources in education but have also helped create new interactions and engagements for learners and instructors. With this changed scenario, the content or instructional material also needs our attention to become usable and compatible with the changed learning styles and preferences of the learners today. Not only does the content need to seamlessly integrate with the delivery methodology …

Calibration For Real-Time Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Monitoring, Matthew Sidley

Theses

Blood glucose monitoring is a primary tool for the care of diabetic patients. At present there is no non-invasive monitoring technique of blood glucose concentration that is widely accepted in the medical industry. Some promising success has been shown by the RIT ETA Lab research group that an antenna's resonant frequency can track, in real time, changes in glucose concentration. However, these changes in antenna response would be unique to an individual depending on various parameters such as the person's metabolism, body mass index, chemical profile etc. Therefore, amongst the several issues that still need to be addressed in the …

Sustainability Impact Of Nanomaterial Enhanced Lithium Ion Batteries, Matthew Ganter

Theses

Energy storage devices are becoming an integral part of sustainable energy technology adoption, particularly, in alternative transportation (electric vehicles) and renewable energy technologies (solar and wind which are intermittent). The most prevalent technology exhibiting near-term impact are lithium ion batteries, especially in portable consumer electronics and initial electric vehicle models like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. However, new technologies need to consider the full life-cycle impacts from material production and use phase performance to the end-of-life management (EOL). This dissertation investigates the impacts of nanomaterials in lithium ion batteries throughout the life cycle and develops strategies to improve each …

Role Of Smarcad1 In Human Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation, Colony Growth, Migration And Invasion, Elham M. Al-Kubaisy

Theses

Breast cancer is the most common cancer seen in women worldwide accounting for more than 1.3 million cases and 458 000 deaths a year worldwide. Breast cancer patients are at high risk of recurrence in the form of metastatic disease. Genes associated with invasion and metastasis provides an aggressive edge in proliferation and growth during colonization of the metastatic site. The SMARCAD1 (SWI/SNF-related, Matrix-associated, Actin-dependent Regulator of Chromatin, containing DEAD/H box 1) protein is the human homolog of yeast Fun30 (Function Unknown Now 30) proteins. These proteins are members of the Snf2 helicase motif-containing protein families, and are known to …

A Context-Based Framework For Mobile Applications, Omkar Kolangade

Theses

Mobile applications have become commonplace in the past few years. In domains such as healthcare, app user experience becomes even more critical. If healthcare apps are not user friendly, patients simply stop using them, or worse still, they may use these apps with disastrous consequences. One approach to improving app user experience is to keep track of mobile context, which is any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity, where an entity can be a person, place, or object. In this thesis, a system was designed using the following features. Relevant, context-based alerts are provided …

Hollow Fiber Membrane-Based Air Gap Membrane Distillation, Xuan Wang

Theses

Membrane Distillation (MD) is a thermally-driven separation process. In this research, desalination of 1 % NaCl solution is achieved by one type of MD namely, Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD). The characteristics of AGMD are evaluated by using a hollow-fiber-set-based compact device. Hot brine solution and cold water are passed through two different fiber sets separately: porous hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride hollow fibers of the E type (PVDF E) and solid polypropylene (PP) hollow fibers. Vapor from the hot brine crosses the membrane pores of the PVDF fibers and the air gap, and finally condenses over the surface of solid hollow …

Effect Of Tablet Compression On The Dissolution Of Aspirin Tablets Using A Novel Off-Center Paddle Impeller (Opi) Dissolution Testing System, Chuan Sun

Theses

In the pharmaceutical industry, dissolution testing is routinely carried out to determine the dissolution rate of oral solid dosage forms. Among several testing devices, the USP Dissolution Apparatus 2 is the device most commonly used. However, despite its widespread use, this apparatus has been shown to produce test failures and to be very sensitive to a number of small geometry changes.

The objective of this study was to determine whether a novel dissolution system termed “OPI” for “off-center paddle impeller” was sensitive enough to determine differences in tablet dissolution profiles caused by different compression pressure during the tablet manufacturing process. …

Dissolution Of Different Commercial Aspirin Tablets Using A Novel Off-Center Paddle Impeller (Opi) Dissolution Testing System, Yang Qu

Theses

Dissolution testing is routinely conducted in the pharmaceutical industry to provide in vitro drug release information for quality control purposes. The most common dissolution testing system for solid dosage forms is the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Dissolution Testing Apparatus 2. In this work, a modified Apparatus 2, termed "OPI" System for "off-center paddle impeller," in which the impeller is placed 8 mm off center in the vessel is tested to determine its sensitivity to differentiate between the dissolution profiles of differently formulated and manufactured tablets. Dissolution tests are conducted with both the OPI System and the Standard System using three …

Qsar Modeling Of Chemical Penetration Enhancers Using Novel Replacement Algorithms, Hui Qiu

Theses

The applications of transdermal delivery are limited because of the resistance of the skin to drug diffusion. Only potent drugs, with molecular weight less than 500 Da, are suitable to cross the skin barrier. Chemical Penetration Enhancers (CPEs) are used to promote the absorption of solutes across the dermal layers. In this investigation, a Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) model is applied to relate chemical penetration enhancer structures with the flux enhancement ratio through a statistical approach.

A database, consisting of 61 non-polar CPEs, is selected for the study. Each compound is represented by 777 QSAR descriptors, which encode the physical …

Nir Light Transmission Through Skin And Muscle, Deniz Ozgulbas

Theses

Light has been used extensively in the medical field for both therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Tissue optical window or therapeutic window defines the range of wavelengths where the light has the maximum transmittance through tissue. In this range, absorption and scattering effects are relatively lower when compared to the visible or middle infrared wavelengths. Knowledge of the transmittance through tissue can help determine the effective light intensities in medical applications.

The objective of this thesis is to determine the NIR light transmission through different thicknesses of animal tissue and its spatial spread due to the scattering effect. Primarily pork skin …

Brain Computer Interface Based Neurorehabilitation Technique Using A Commercially Available Eeg Headset, Abhineet Mishra

Theses

Neurorehabilitation has recently been augmented with the use of virtual reality and rehabilitation robotics. In many systems, some known volitional control must exist in order to synchronize the user intended movement with the therapeutic virtual or robotic movement. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) aims to open up a new rehabilitation option for clinical population having no residual movement due to disease or injury to the central or peripheral nervous system. Brain activity contains a wide variety of electrical signals which can be acquired using many invasive and non-invasive acquisition techniques and holds the potential to be used as an input to …

Validation Of Solar Flare Forecasting & Evolution Of Magnetic Helicity Of Two Active Regions, Qin Li

Theses

This thesis includes two components: (1) Validation of the NJIT flare-forecasting model that was established in recent years is carried out based on the statistical correlation between solar magnetic parameters and flare productivity of active regions (ARs). 378 ARs are examined, comparing observation with prediction. It is found that the accuracy rate to some extent decreases with the level of flares. (2) The temporal evolution of the relative magnetic helicity of two ARs, AR 11072 and 11158 is investigated. The former is flare-quiet while the latter is flare-productive over the 5-day observation period. It is found that for both regions, …

Engineering Spores To Display G Protein-Coupled Receptors For Directed Evolution, Alyssa Misoo Kim

Theses

All human cells are surrounded by a plasma membrane made from a phospholipid bilayer, which is responsible for maintaining a biologically active species, while stopping entry of deleterious substances from the outside. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the membrane proteins, which transmit signals across the cell membrane. GPCRs are involved in almost every physiological process, and irregular control leads to pathological conditions. Therefore, they are major drug targets. Crystal structure determination is required to understand the molecular details of activation/deactivation. However, GPCRs are difficult to crystallize because of stability issues. An efficient protein engineering system needs to be developed. The …

Role Of Materials & Design On Performance Of Baseball Bats, Kim Benson-Worth

Theses

Baseball bat safety has become an increasing area of interest with more than 19 million people in the United States alone participating in this sport. An increase in injuries resulting from bat injuries has brought the performance of the bats into question. A review of several studies focusing on the effects of the material properties of various baseball bats designs were examined. From this review it is evident that player and spectator safety greatly rely on proper baseball bat design. There was a 30% reduction in the Multi-Piece Failures (MPF) of wooden bats once the requirement of a Slope of …

Hydrodynamic Effects Of A Cannula In A Usp Dissolution Testing Apparatus 2, Qianqian Liu

Theses

Dissolution testing is routinely used in the pharmaceutical industry to provide in vitro drug release information for drug development and quality control purposes. The USP Testing Apparatus 2 is the most common dissolution testing system for solid dosage forms. Usually, sampling cannulas are used to take samples manually from the dissolution medium. However, the inserted cannula can alter the normal fluid flow within the vessel and produce different dissolution testing results.

The hydrodynamic effects introduced by a permanently inserted cannula in a USP Dissolution Testing Apparatus 2 were evaluated by two approaches. Firstly, the dissolution tests were conducted with two …