Digital Commons Network^™

Multi-Tissue Examination Of Exercise Or Metformin On The Consequences Of Doxorubicin Treatment, Amy Dee Mackay

Theses and Dissertations

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an effective chemotherapeutic treatment with lasting deleterious side effects in heart and skeletal muscle. As an increased percentage of patients live many years past their cancer treatments, addressing the long-term side effects of chemotherapy treatment becomes critical. In an attempt to prevent heart and skeletal muscle damage caused by DOX, two co-treatments, exercise (EX) or metformin (MET) were studied for their effectiveness in maintaining muscle function, mitochondrial respiration and iron regulation. DOX is known to bind with iron, contributing to oxidative damage resulting in cardiac and skeletal muscle toxicity. However, the degree to which the toxic side …

;Blackwood's ;Responses To Hawthorne In Light Of Its Mid-Nineteenth Century Transatlantic Reputation, Holly Young Boud

Theses and Dissertations

Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine was arguably the most important and widely published literary magazine of the nineteenth century. Its readership extended from Britain to America, shaping literary tastes across the Anglophone literary marketplace. BEM wrote two reviews of Nathaniel Hawthornes fiction during the authors most prolific years. The first was published in 1847 and contained a lengthy reflection of the state of American literature that prefaced its review of Mosses from an Old Manse. In 1855, BEM reviewed Hawthornes novels. The language of these reviews encouraged BEMs transatlantic readership to interpret Hawthorne in a very particular light: a dark, intense, and …

Border Culture, Mexican Identity, Class, And Media Consumption: A Look Into “Fresa” High School Students, Melissa Analy Santillana

Theses and Dissertations

The border strip between the south of the United States and the north of Mexico provide an excellent opportunity to study the effects of the flow of media productions from the United States to Mexico. Many communication theories have attempted to explain the reception of transnational media flows to Latin American countries. Scholars from the cultural imperialism camp argue that the flow of culture is unidirectional from capitalist or First World countries (mainly the United States) to developing countries (also know as the Global South); other theories claim there is an asymmetrical dependence between developed and underdeveloped countries (Fejes, 1981). …

Meteorological Time In Dorothy Wordsworth's Rydal Journal, Amanda Ann Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis deals with Dorothy Wordsworth's Rydal Journal, a journal written between 1824 and 1835, when Dorothy Wordsworth was between ages 53 and 64. The most interesting entries in the Rydal Journal include descriptions of William's political views, famous callers at Rydal Mount, church sermons Dorothy heard, books she was reading, and her relationships and correspondence with many friends and family members. In terms of structure, Dorothy's journal entries are generally quite similar over the eleven years of these volumes. Perhaps most strikingly, the vast majority begin with a record of the day's weather. Sometimes, she broadly outlines the …

Fear Appeal Message Repetition In Public Service Announcements: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Nihal Elkharadly

Theses and Dissertations

This research aims at examining the usage of fear appeal in public service announcements (PSAs) of different topics across different countries. The study uses a purposive sample of audio/visual advertisements that tackles a variety of social, health and safety topics across different cultures either in English or Arabic languages or with subtitles. The study is intended to compare the usage of fear appeal in PSAs that are targeted for social change across different cultures in terms of content and methods used to scare audiences. A non-probability purposive sample has been obtained through extensive search online that resulted in a non-even …

Assessing K12 Online Teachers Knowledge Of Online Student Identities And Characteristics, Brianne L. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

As K12 online learning continues to grow across the nation, the population of online students, much like the population of face-to face students, continues to change. As the online student population becomes increasingly diverse, not only in terms of race, but in terms of religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status, research must be undertaken to assess the level of preparation that K12 online teachers have in terms of teaching this population. This dissertation intends to serve as a baseline analysis, providing information on K12 online teachers' knowledge of the types of student characteristics and identities that may be present in …

A Spectrum Of Treatments For Autism Spectrum Disorder, Megan Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders with varying severity, presents in early childhood as repetitive or stereotyped behaviors affecting social and emotional functioning, is a complex disorder often misunderstood as a single illness, resulting in suboptimal evaluations and overly-general treatment. However, new research suggests more comprehensive evaluations and targeted treatments. This manual aims to combine the best available research on ASD and attachment to guide practitioners in evaluating and treating children with ASD (a) by clarifying what a comprehensive ASD evaluation looks like, (b) linking assessment results to DSM-5 severity levels, and (c) providing targeted optimal treatment …

U.S. Stem Workforce Views Of Outstanding Leadership: A Correlation Study, Deborah Doel-Hammond

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: This study explored views of outstanding leadership among the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals working in the United States within the business and industry sector. U.S. STEM occupations are projected to experience 11.1% growth between 2016 and 2026, higher than the projected 7.4% growth for all occupations (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017a). The U.S. has undertaken aggressive STEM educational reform and recruiting, to ensure the nation's continued prosperity and national security (National Science Board, 2018b; U.S. Department of Education, 2018). A shift in U.S. STEM demographics will present challenges for business leaders, human …

Reclaiming Empowerment, Agency, And Collective Healing (R.E.A.C.H.) For Youth: An Adaptation Of Emotional Emancipation Circles For Adolescent Males Of African Ancestry, Marlene Angela Garza

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation identifies the relevant literature and methods that were used to develop a facilitator's handbook for a culturally-specific intervention for adolescent males of African ancestry. The handbook, 'Reclaiming Empowerment, Agency, and Collective Healing for Youth' (R.E.A.C.H.-Youth) provides curriculum for a culturally-centered and social justice-oriented group intervention for adolescent males of African ancestry. The resource developed will serve to provide empowerment for healing for young adolescents who have experienced historical discrimination and the negative effects of racism and discrimination in the United States. Adolescent young men of African ancestry are one of the many groups within the US that have …

Coping And Physical Well-Being Among First, 1.5, And Second-Generation Immigrants From Of Non-European Descent, Jacob R. Stein

Theses and Dissertations

This study brings attention to the growing body of literature examining the role of culture and context in the study of generation-status differences in cross-cultural coping and physical well-being among immigrants to the United States. Prior literature on the unique challenges, stressors, coping strategies, and health outcomes for immigrants provides a basis for hypothesized generation status differences on cross-cultural coping (collectivistic, avoidance, and engagement) and physical well-being (health, safety, and environmental). A sample of 118 male and female first, 1.5, and second-generation immigrants of non-European backgrounds, between the ages of 18 and 35, were recruited from the local community to …

Managerial Perceptions Of Employee Motivation, Caroline Kimrey Mcree

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined managerial perceptions of employee motivation. A widely studied yet complex topic, motivation continues to allude managers, leading to managerial assumptions about what is motivating to employees. The purpose of this study was to explore employee motivation through the co-participation of managers and subordinates in a job crafting intervention. A 1-hour version of the Job Crafting Exercise was conducted for eight managers and eight subordinates for a total of 16 research participants. Three weeks following the job crafting intervention, an open-ended survey was distributed separately to managers and subordinates. Findings indicated change sin the task, relational, and …

Coping, Meaning-Making And Well-Being Amongst Immigrants Of Non-European Descent, Jem Powell

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined experiences with immigration and being immigrants in the United States for 1 mother-daughter family unit. Given the challenges of navigating acculturation, this study aimed to broaden the scope of current research to understand linked individual and family experiences of immigration with an emphasis on resiliency and meaning-making. A qualitative research design was used to complete 1 family interview and 2 individual interviews of an immigrant family who had scored high on psychological wellbeing. The focus of this study was to illuminate ways that immigrants make meaning from and make sense of their immigration-related experience, as well as …

In Media Res, Christopher Andrew Sisk

Theses and Dissertations

We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.

Accessibility Of Visuals In The Music Classroom Focusing On Students With Disabilities, Students In Poverty, And Culturally Diverse Students, Katherine A. Holbrook

Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on visual aid accessibility for students with disabilities, students from poverty, and culturally diverse students. Each of these facets are explored, defined, and reflected on in regard to how visual aids could be more accessible for each community of students. Posters have been developed based on this research to practically apply the findings to visuals that could be used in a music classroom.

When considering the accessibility for students with disabilities, it is crucial to review legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1990, 2004, 2013) which mandates services to children with disabilities throughout the …

A Confucian Theory Of Crime, Nicholas Lassi

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an analysis of pre-Qin Confucian philosophy as it pertains to crime and the crime related issues of personal control and social control. From this analysis of pre-Qin Confucian philosophy, a wholly new and distinct theory of crime is developed. Material relating to crime, and the crime related issues involving personal control and social control, is filtered out of an assortment of prominent pre-Qin Confucian texts (namely those of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi), dissected and juxtaposed with historical and modern Western criminological thought, and ultimately systematized into a unified Confucian theory of crime. This endeavor works to enrich …

Academic Self-Concept And Master Adaptive Learning In First Year Medical Students: A Validation And Scale Construction Study, Jk Stringer Iv

Theses and Dissertations

Students’ academic self-concepts (ASC) and their orientation towards self-regulated learning are important elements of success. Despite this fact, little work has been conducted exploring these areas medical students. Given the shifting priorities of medical education toward competency-based education and self-directed learning, the goals of this study were to validate an existing measure of ASC and to improve our measurement capabilities for understanding the Master Adaptive Learner (MAL). Evidence for validity and scale reliability was collected for the ASCS with this novel population and a range of motivational and self-regulative variables (Goal orientation, academic emotion regulation, and lifelong learning) were analyzed …

Print On Demand: Stereotyping And Electrotyping In The United States Printing Trades And Publishing Industry, 1812-1860, Jeffrey Michael Makala

Theses and Dissertations

Print on Demand explores the role and significance of stereotyping and electrotyping in the United States printing trades and publishing industry during the early nineteenth century. Stereotyping—the creation of solid printing plates cast from moveable type—fundamentally changed the ways in which books (and later, periodicals) were printed. The commissioning of plates altered shop practices, distribution methods, and the author/publisher relationship. Because of this new embodiment of capital and texts in the form of printing plates, a secondhand market for stereotyped works prolonged and complicated the production and distribution of material texts. The primary focus of this study is the ways …

Teaching Musically: Incorporating Dalcroze Pedagogy Into Flute Instruction For The Elementary-Age Student, Emily M. Stumpf

Theses and Dissertations

The current practice of flute pedagogy for the elementary-age student is often focused on skill-building: finger technique, tone development, and note-reading and rhythm skills. Often the teacher will delve into concepts of musicianship only after the student develops a high level of technical skill. I have found it is possible to include musical concepts such as expressive playing, developing an internal sense of rhythm, and improvisation at all stages of the learning process. When the flute teacher functions as the initiator of an aesthetic experience, the development of musicianship becomes just as important as skill-building.

The Dalcroze philosophy of music …

Association Between Mechanics And Biology In Vascular Graft Remodeling, David Andrew Prim

Theses and Dissertations

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) restores myocardial perfusion in patients with severe coronary artery disease by utilizing autografts – usually at least one of the internal thoracic artery (ITA), radial artery (RA), and great saphenous vein (GSV) – to bypass stenosed regions of coronary arteries. While decades of research and clinical improvements have made CABG an indispensable procedure, tens of thousands of grafts fail each year, which is due, at least in part, to an inability of the source vessels to adapt to the altered stimuli of the coronary circulation. In this dissertation, we first quantify and compare the mechanical …

Backcountry Robbers, River Pirates, And Brawling Boatmen: Transnational Banditry In Antebellum U.S. Frontier Literature, Samuel M. Lackey

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that in the midst of an uncertain but formative period of continental expansion, a revolutionary brand of popular crime fiction appeared and flourished in the pages of cheap periodicals and paperback novels. It consisted of conventional adventure romances and pulpy proto-dime novels that focused on frontier violence and backwoods criminals. Often popular in their day but quickly forgotten, these texts have been given short shrift by scholars and critics due to their shoddiness or ostensibly minor role in literary history. I contend that this obscure brand of crime fiction in fact has much to offer in the …

South Carolina Preschool Teachers’ Perceptions And Experiences Implementing Critical Literacy In The Preschool Classroom, Rebecca Weissman

Theses and Dissertations

Critical literacy situated within a critical theoretical and pedagogical paradigm focuses specifically on exploring the sociopolitical implications of texts and challenging information rather than taking it at face value. The present study constitutes a case study that describes the perceptions and experiences of seven preschool teachers who employ critical literacy in their early childhood classroom and how their pedagogy fits within the existing themes seen in the early childhood literature. Specifically, this case study is an instrumental collective study, consisting of in-depth interviews. Through qualitative analysis of these interviews a variety of specific pedagogical methods for implementing critical literacy are …

“Poetry Doesn’T Restore Ecosystems”: Garbage And Poetry In The Anthropocene, Joseph Russell Hendryx

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the representation of material garbage in American poetry, from the development of industrial waste management in the late nineteenth century to the present day ecological crises. In the early to mid-twentieth century, garbage serves as a new Romantic nature, allowing poems’ speakers to reflect on themselves and their society through this trashed landscape. The presence of the material garbage itself, however, was never a central concern and continued to be hidden behind its various metaphorical utilizations. A.R. Ammons’s poem Garbage opened up the poetic conversation by searching for a more nuanced and worldly treatment of garbage. The …

Garagecraft: Tinkering In The American Garage, Katherine Erica Mcfadden

Theses and Dissertations

The American garage, whether in the home or larger, communal ventures, has been a site of technological crafting for a variety of people across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The garage has been a space in which to both reaffirm the status quo of masculinity, and to discover feminist modes of self sufficiency. It has provided a place to play, experiment, commercialize technology, while also providing a space to create new identities and communal standards. What we make and how we make it is, in the end, more about crafting ourselves than crafting objects.

Decellularized Matrices Effect On The Adaptive Immune Response, Kegan Sowers

Theses and Dissertations

Decellularized extracellular matrices have been a growing area of interest in the biomedical engineering fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.As these materials move toward clinical applications, the immune response to these materials will be a driving force toward their success in clinical approaches. Fully digested decellularized matrix constructs derived from porcine liver, muscle and lung were created to test the adaptive immune response. Hydrogel characterization ensured that the materials had relatively similar stiffness levels to reduce variability, and in vitro studies were conducted. Each individual construct as well as a gelatin control were plated with a co-culture of macrophages …

Black Lives Examined: Black Nonfiction And The Praxis Of Survival In The Post-Civil Rights Era, Ariel D. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

The subject of my thesis project is black nonfiction, namely the essay, memoir, and autobiography, written by black authors about and during the Post-Civil Rights Era. The central goals of this work are to briefly investigate the role of genre analysis within the various subsets of nonfiction and also to exemplify the ways that black writers have taken key genre models and evolved them. Secondly, I aim to understand the historical, political, and cultural contributions of the Post-Civil Rights Era, which I mark as hitting its stride in 1968. It is not my desire to create a definitive historical framework …

Orthodontists’ And Patients’ Preferences In Website Design In The Selection Of An Orthodontic Practice: A Comparative Study, Taylor R. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To determine which website characteristics are preferred by orthodontists, adult patients, and parents of patients.

Materials and Methods: 1,000 active members of the American Association of Orthodontists and 750 active orthodontic patients/parents were sampled. Participants rated the importance of website characteristics, indicated presence of those characteristics on the current website, and ranked sample website images. Preferences were compared between orthodontist and the patient/parent group using t-tests and sample websites were compared using ANOVA models and Tukey’s adjusted post-hoc tests. Significance level was set at 0.05.

Results: 11 of the 16 website features showed significant differences between patients/parents and orthodontists. …

Fandom In Politics: Scale Development And Validation, Won-Ki Moon

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the importance of fandom in politics to understanding individuals’ political behaviors, reliable scales measuring political fandom are lacking. To fill this gap, the present study constructs and validates a new scale for political fandom. First, by reforming existed questions and making new questions, the author derived 42 questions belonging to seven dimensions as an initial item pool based on conceptualization. Second, to refine and develop the scale, the researcher conducted exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. According to the result of the studies, the final factor model of political fandom retained 25 questions and seven dimensions. In addition, …

Why Katniss Everdeen Is Our Favorite Feminist – An Analysis Of The Heroine Of The Hunger Games Film Saga And Her Reception By Young Female Spectators, Paula Talero Álvarez

Theses and Dissertations

THROUGH THE FIGURE OF FICTIONAL CHARACTER KATNISS EVERDEEN, THIS DISSERTATION STUDIES HOW THE FILM INDUSTRY SIMULTANEOUSLY ENTRENCHES AND DISRUPTS GENDER, SEXUAL, AND RACIAL NORMATIVITIES. THE PROJECT USES TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND PARTICIPANT RESEARCH TO ANALYZE HOW THE FILMS AND NOVELS OF THE HUNGER GAMES SAGA ENCAPSULATE BOTH DOMINANT AND ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS RELATED TO FEMININITY, MASCULINITY, WOMANHOOD, AND MOTHERHOOD. IT ALSO EXPLORES IF AND HOW THE FEMALE HEROINE CAN BE READ AS FEMINIST AND PRODUCES A SENSE OF EMPOWERMENT. I CONCLUDE THAT ALTHOUGH THE INDUSTRY IS PRODUCING NEW MODELS OF WOMANHOOD THAT CHALLENGE TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES, IT STILL PERPETUATES ROMANTIC IDEALS AND …

"A Grave Subject:" Hollywood Cemetery And The Ideology Of Death In Mid-Nineteenth Century America, Kelli Brooke Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century, Americans began to develop a new relationship with death. Urbanites were less confronted with the constant presence of the dead and dying than they had in the past. A new trend in cemeteries also developed as a result. The Rural Cemetery Movement promoted the idea that the dead should be buried amongst a natural setting that was pleasing and calming to visitors. The first few initial cemeteries were an immediate success, but this was not the case in Richmond, Virginia. Although the developers had grand ideas about their cemetery project, Richmonders opposed the cemetery in the …

Explaining Mental Health Stigma Through Controllability, Just World Beliefs, And Social Dominance Orientation, Katherine F. Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

Mental illness carries a pervasive stigma. Research uncovered several theories to explain stigma, including the Attribution Theory, the Biological Model, Belief in a Just World (BJW), and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Previous research identified a mediational pathway in which BJW influenced SDO, and where SDO predicted stigmatizing beliefs and intent to discriminate. There is a lack of research examining BJW and SDO from within the framework of mental illness controllability. This study attempted to fill in the gap within stigma literature by examining if perceived mental illness controllability influences the BJW-SDO- Stigma model. Analyses failed to replicate the previously found …