Digital Commons Network^™

An Exploratory Investigation Of The Relationship Between Ptsd Symptoms And Substance Abuse In Undergraduate College Students, Melissa Buscemi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine a significant correlation between post-traumatic stress (PTSD) symptoms and substance use in undergraduate college students. A review of the existing literature was examined and showed a significant correlation between PTSD and substance use, including alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. Literature also showed correlations between PTSD and cigarette use in undergraduate college students. A PTSD questionnaire was conducted based on DSM-5 criteria scale. A personal Experience Screening questionnaire for adults (PESQ-A) was also used to examine the frequency and degree of substances used by participants. Correlational analyses for this study revealed no …

Promoting Emotional Intelligence In Adolescence Through Service-Learning, Maggy Hanna, Rosetta Treece

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study addresses emotional intelligence (EI) development, through the implementation of service-learning curricula, in adolescents ages 13-18. An interrupted time series with non-equivalent multi-group design was used for this study. This design included multiple pre-tests, an application of a treatment, and post-tests at varying time interval to eliminate internal invalidity threats due to history and the instrumentation (Gay & Airasian, 2000; Shadish, Cook, & Campell, 2011). In this study, global trait EI scores were used to test the theory that engagement in service-learning can positively impact EI growth in teens in the middle and high school settings. The rationale …

An Exploratory Investigation Of Looping High School Math And English And Student Achievement, Lee Langmuir

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory investigation was to compare the standardized test scores of students in looped (n=47) and non-looped (n=38) settings in high school Math and English classes. In doing so, the scores were compared to see if instruction from the same teacher for more than one year had an effect on student achievement as measured by the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). The HSPA is broken down in to a Math and English section with a possible score of 300 on each; student scores fall in to Partially Proficient (PP), Proficient (P), and Advanced Proficient (AP). Other factors …

A Feminist Investigation Of Gender Performance Through A Reflection On The Process Of Certification In A Nontraditional Educational Leadership Program, Kimberly Clark

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to better understand the role of gender performance for aspiring school leaders through a reflection of their journey through the administrative pipeline. The transformation of professional aspirations throughout and following the certification process and during employment was also analyzed. Finally, the appealing factors of a nontraditional administrative preparation program were evaluated to better understand the role of alternative licensure programs in advancing women school leaders. Using heuristic qualitative methods, 18 women graduates of New Jersey's Expedited Certification for Educational Leadership program participated in focus groups and 5 returned for individual interviews. Coding was employed …

Using The Multisensory Approach Of Touch Math To Teach Basic Mathematical Operations To Students With Significant Disabilities, Rebecca Hood

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines how the multisensory approach of the Touch Math program is used in a school that educates students with significant disabilities to improve their basic operation addition skills. The students who participated in this study struggled with traditional teaching of basic operation skills, and they were having difficulty maintaining fact knowledge, with modifications to their current instruction. The study was conducted in a school in Atco, New Jersey over an eight-week period. The current study used baseline assessments, which the two single digit addends without touch points, to determine the student participant's individual single digit addend knowledge. …

Identifying Tier-Two At Risk Students In New Jersey Public Schools, Danisha Moodie

Theses and Dissertations

Actions to improve student's socio-emotional success in public education by attempting to identify, and eliminate bullying behaviors within educational institution are a key focus for many educators. Harassment, intimidation and bullying behaviors (HIB) are recognized as a solemn issue across the nation. According to the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, public schools are required to report (HIB) incidents to the New Jersey Department of Education. Moreover, coupled with the mandated guidelines of this new legislation many public schools within New Jersey have also adopted positive behavior interventions. This may help in identifying at-risk students who may require a greater level …

Exploring The Relationship Between Faculty Perceptions Of Chairperson-Faculty Member Communication Exchanges And Department Climate, Jodi Lynn Hallsten Lyczak

Theses and Dissertations

Leadership communication has many consequences: those that affect an organization and its outcomes, and those that affect the followers. In academia, one of the most important leadership roles is that of the departmental chairperson. Through her or his communication, the academic chairperson influences nearly every aspect of departmental life for faculty, including organizational climate. In fact, it can be argued that the chairperson helps both create and sustain the department climate for faculty.

One perspective of leadership and communication posits that leadership is enacted in the dyadic communication that occurs between the leader and the follower. According to Leader Member …

Development Of An Integrated Network Visualization And Graph Analysis Tool For Biological Networks, David Carbonetta

Theses and Dissertations

There has been steady increase in the amount of molecular data generated by experiments and computational methods performed on biological networks. There is a growing need to obtain an insight into the organization and structure of the massive and complex biological networks formed by the interacting molecules. To that end, this work presents the development of an integrated network visualization and graph analysis plugin within the Cytoscape framework. The plugin is capable of computing and visualizing a comprehensive set of dyad, node, and graph level statistics. The evaluation of the plugin on a range of biological networks and its memory …

Use Of Blood Oxygenator Membrane Units In Teaching Mass Balances, Friction Factor And Mass Transfer Analysis, Keith Mciver

Theses and Dissertations

Many applications of chemical engineering principles are biomedical but traditional chemical engineering education does not focus on these applications. New laboratory experiments with hollow fiber blood oxygenators allow integration of concepts into already full programs. This work describes three new educational experiments that have been developed to introduce students to concepts of mass balances, mass transfer and momentum transfer as applied to a hollow fiber blood oxygenator. In addition, a new mass transfer correlation is presented for the Medtronic Affinity NT blood oxygenator, which has not been reported previously in the literature. Mass transfer of oxygen through the hollow fiber …

Development Of Experiments Involving Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Principles, Alexander Struck Jannini

Theses and Dissertations

Laboratory experiments were developed to incorporate pharmaceutical engineering concepts into Freshman-level engineering courses. The goal is to increase the interest of pharmaceutical engineering in students and provide the necessary background for more advanced courses in the field. The experiments can be used on an individual basis, or to be grouped into themes for more focused learning objectives. The laboratory experiments are available at the pharmaceutical knowledge and training website www.PharmaHUB.org under the Teaching Resources tab.

Capturing Uncertainty In Fatigue Life Data, Brent D. Russell

Theses and Dissertations

Time-to-failure (TTF) data, also referred to as life data, are investigated across a wide range of scientific disciplines and collected mainly through scientific experiments with the main objective of predicting performance in service conditions. Fatigue life data are times, measured in cycles, until complete fracture of a material in response to a cyclical loading. Fatigue life data have large variation, which is often overlooked or not rigorously investigated when developing predictive life models. This research develops a statistical model to capture dispersion in fatigue life data which can be used to extend deterministic life models into probabilistic life models. Additionally, …

Effects Of Dynamically Weighting Autonomous Rules In A Uas Flocking Model, Jennifer N. Kaiser

Theses and Dissertations

Within the U.S. military, senior decision-makers and researchers alike have postulated that vast improvements could be made to current Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Concepts of Operation through inclusion of autonomous flocking. Myriad methods of implementation and desirable mission sets for this technology have been identified in the literature; however, this thesis posits that specific missions and behaviors are best suited for autonomous military flocking implementations. Adding to Craig Reynolds' basic theory that three naturally observed rules can be used as building blocks for simulating flocking behavior, new rules are proposed and defined in the development of an autonomous flocking UAS …

Measurements Of Dna Damage And Repair In Bacillus Anthracis Sterne Spores By Uv Radiation, Chelsea C. Marcum

Theses and Dissertations

Spores of Bacillus anthracis (Ba) sterne were irradiated with 267nm UV light using small light emitting diodes. The pRB373 plasmid with a red fluorescent protein was transformed into Ba sterne cells prior to irradiation. Following irradiation, germination media was added and the spores were incubated for various times, to allow for DNA repair. The pRB373 plasmid was isolated and analyzed using real-time PCR. Primers were designed across the RFP in the plasmid yielding two amplicons, 245bp and 547bp long. PCR amplification was not achieved for germinated samples. Spore samples isolated using bead beating methods were amplified. Results indicate a quicker …

The Impact Of Dance/Movement Classes On Adolescent Behavior In An Urban High School Setting, Dinesha Demesa-Simpson

Theses and Dissertations

The inclusion of the arts in education has been undervalued and overlooked by many public school districts throughout the country. As a result of cutbacks, dance programs in educational settings have become an afterthought. In this study the relationship between dance/movement classes and disruptive behavior was analyzed in a sample of 45 at risk students in an urban high school setting. The findings supported the hypothesis that a) dance classes can be utilized as an intervention to reduce stress and b) students who participate in dance programs in public school settings will develop self-control, self-regulation and exhibit less disruptive behavior. …

The Differentiated Effects Of Lyrical And Non-Lyrical Music On Reading Comprehension, Cameron Miller

Theses and Dissertations

The present study seeks to observe the effect of background music on reading comprehension, specifically searching for possible differences between effects brought on by different genres (i.e. classical and rock) and the presence of lyrics. Research on task performance in the presence of background sound is mixed, in part due to the large number of possible applications. An overview of existing research on this topic is presented, including articles on the relationship between music and cognitive ability, distractors and processing resources, and pre-existing studies on music and reading comprehension. University students participated in a randomized experiment, taking the Reading Comprehension …

Influence Of Seductive Details, Belief-Congruence, And Repeated Testing On Memory For Controversial Information, Daniel Adam Nuccio

Theses and Dissertations

People often encounter conflicting information on a wide array of topics. How they evaluate this information in relation to their current beliefs, and the effects of other influences, such as the weight given to superficial aspects of the information (e.g. pictures, anecdotes, or jargon that are at most minimally related to an author's argument), has been of interest to researchers for many years. One component of their processing

and evaluation of this information is their memory for the information. This study set out to examine the following questions: (1) Is belief-congruent in

formation remembered better or worse than belief incongruent …

Optimization Algorithms For Inference And Classification Of Genetic Profiles From Undersampled Measurements, Belhassen Bayar

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we tackle three different problems, all related to optimization techniques for inference and classification of genetic profiles. First, we extend the deterministic Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) framework to the probabilistic case (PNMF). We apply the PNMF algorithm to cluster and classify DNA microarrays data. The proposed PNMF is shown to outperform the deterministic NMF and the sparse NMF algorithms in clustering stability and classification accuracy. Second, we propose SMURC: Small-sample MUltivariate Regression with Covariance estimation. Specifically, we consider a high dimension low sample-size multivariate regression problem that accounts for correlation of the response variables. We show that, …

Coping Strategies, Psychopathological Symptoms, And Posttraumatic Growth Following Trauma And Stressful Life Events, Jessica Henninger

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the predictive value of stressful life experiences and coping strategies on posttraumatic growth and psychopathological symptoms. Using the Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire (TLEQ), the Brief COPE, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), hierarchical linear regression models were used to explore the contribution of specific coping strategies to predict posttraumatic growth and psychopathological symptoms following exposure to a trauma/stressful life event. We hypothesized that coping styles such as planning, humor, and acceptance would predict more adaptive outcomes, whereas coping styles such as venting, substance use, and denial would predict more maladaptive outcomes. …

Ion Structure And Energetics In The Gas Phase Characterized Using Fourier Transfom Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry, Chad A. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I use Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) to study the structure and energetics of gas phase ions. Infrared multiphoton dissociation spectroscopy (IRMPD) is a technique for measuring the IR spectrum of gas phase ions in a Penning trap. I use this technique to investigate the conformation of cucurbituril complexes, terminal diamines, and protonated amino acids. Cross sectional areas by Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (CRAFTI) is a technique developed by the Dearden lab to measure the cross section of gas phase ions. In this work, I further develop a fundamental understanding of …

Real Time Path Follow By Robot (Ndjekja E Rrugës Ne Kohe Reale Nga Roboti) Case: Industrial Cleaner Robot (Cleo), Fatmir Prekupi

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Snf1 Mediated Phosphorylation And Activation Of Pas Kinase, Bryan D. Badal

Theses and Dissertations

Nutrient sensing kinases sense available nutrients and regulate cell activity accordingly. Three of these enzymes are AMP regulated kinase (AMPK, or Snf1 in yeast), PAS kinase, and target of rapamycin (TOR), are conserved from yeast to man and have overlapping function. AMPK and Snf1 are important in sensing when nutrient status in the cell is low and down regulating energy consuming pathways. PAS kinase is required for glucose homeostasis in the cell, and responds to glucose levels. TOR senses nutrients such as amino acids and upregulates cell growth pathways primarily through protein synthesis. Due to the varying nature of these …

A Method To Develop Neck Injury Criteria To Aid Design And Test Of Escape Systems Incorporating Helmet Mounted Displays, Jeffrey C. Parr

Theses and Dissertations

HMDs are becoming common human-machine interface equipment in manned military flight, but introducing this equipment into the overall aircraft escape system poses new and significant system design, development, and test concerns. Although HMDs add capabilities, which improve operator performance, the increased capability is often accompanied by increased head supported mass. The increased mass can amplify the risk of pilot neck injury during ejection when compared to lighter legacy helmets. Currently no adequate USAF neck injury criteria exist to effectively guide the requirements, design, and test of escape systems for pilots with HMDs. This research effort presents a novel method to …

The Effect Of The Victim-Offender Relationship And Pre-Assault Intoxication On Ptsd Symptom Severity, Diandra Meloni

Theses and Dissertations

College-aged women are at an increased risk for experiencing non-consensual sexual contact (i.e. sexual assault) relative to the general population. Women who endure a sexual assault are at an increased risk for developing Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Intoxication by drugs and/or alcohol during an assault is linked to victims experiencing less severe PTSD symptoms; however, little is known about how the victim-offender relationship relates to PTSD symptom severity. The current study sampled 125 university women on measures that assessed degree of sexual victimization and resulting PTSD symptoms. It was hypothesized that both intoxication and the victim-offender relationship would affect PTSD …

Impulsivity Traits As Determinants For Smoking Behavior, Stacey Munyon

Theses and Dissertations

The notion that smoking is in direct relation to the character trait of impulsivity is widely agreed upon. This study examines the individual character traits of the UPPS-P impulsivity scale that comprise the construct of impulsivity as they relate to cigarette smoking. This study seeks to illustrate whether or not there is determination of smoking behavior as a result of high levels of one or more of these impulsive traits. Analysis will be evaluated through means of several different analyses of variance to determine if any relationships are present.

The Influence A Digital Screen Has On The Learning Process, For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder, George Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect a digital screen (iPad) had on the learning process, of a vocabulary matching activity, of words to definitions activity, in a student with autism spectrum disorder, in comparison to learning on paper (flashcards). According to past research, digital based interventions are utilized more often in research settings, indicating a growth in its use in educational settings (Goldsmith & LeBlanc, 2004). Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are often given interventions using digital screen based technologies, in academic and other life and skill teaching settings (Ferguson, Myles, & Hagiwara, 2005; Gentry, Wallece, …

Data Driven Decision Making: Data Interplay Within A High School District, Chris Heilig

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this single embedded case study was to examine how a district data team coordinated by the central office influenced the data driven culture in the district's schools that receive Title I funding. The conceptual framework is centered on conducting the process of data driven decision-making through collaborative leadership and data analysis for the purpose of educational change. The research questions guided the investigation to discover how teachers and administrators are using data to make decisions, their perception of data driven decision-making, and the impact made by central office and building leadership to initiate the change to a …

The Effectiveness Of Student Response Systems In Testing For Students With Learning Disabilities, Carmen Porter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a response system by using assistive technology for students with learning disabilities (LD) in 9th grade. By introducing a response method other than traditional pencil and paper, the students had another option to increase motivation and be able to achieve higher test scores. The participants (n=10) were randomly assigned into two conditions and ABAB research design was administrated. The results of the study indicated that hands on engaged response system was effective to increase assessment outcomes for students with learning disabilities.

Using Technology For Communication With Selective Mutism, Kristin Skacel

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine everyday assistive technology, such as an iPad(R) and the effect that it would have on the communication of a fifth grade student with Selective Mutism. The subject was introduced to the iPad(R) with the purpose of a verbal communication application creating success for the future. The application was used to increase nonverbal communication with peers, teachers, and school staff by way of sharing speech through the voice of the application. In the study it was also examined to see if the communication application could create a verbal opportunity for the subject to …

Gender Differences And Depression In Self-Disclosure On The Therapeutic Relationship, Nicole Rubio

Theses and Dissertations

The counseling relationship is a major factor in promoting change from the client in the therapeutic relationship. Additional factors contributing to or hindering this relationship including gender, depressive symptomology, and disclosure tendency, collectively require further attention to facilitate improved treatment outcomes in counseling. Male and female college students (N = 212) completed measures that assessed depression symptomology and disclosure tendency. It was hypothesized that female college students would engage in greater levels of self-disclosure than male students and that greater depressive symptomology would equate to a lesser degree of disclosure tendency. The employed ANOVA model found no interaction between gender, …

Simple, Label-Free And Non-Instrumented Analyte Quantitation By Flow Distance Measurement In Microfluidic Devices, Debolina Chatterjee

Theses and Dissertations

Rapid determination of the concentrations of molecules related to diseases can provide timely information for treatment options. However, most biomarker quantitation methods require costly and complex equipment. On the other hand, point-of-care systems have less complex instrumentation needs than laboratory-based equipment, but often provide less information; for example, biomarker presence or absence instead of concentration. A complete analysis setup addressing key limitations of both laboratory-based and portable systems is highly desirable. I developed microfluidic devices with visual inspection readout of a target’s concentration from microliter volumes of solution flowed into a microchannel. Microchannels are formed within polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and the …