Digital Commons Network^™

Risk Propensity In Journalists: An Analysis Of Journalists’ Personality Traits And How They Direct Behavior In The Field, Ellen Katherine Dunn

Theses and Dissertations

Much like first responders, journalists run toward dangerous scenes instead of away from them, often putting themselves at risk. Unlike first responders, there is no research on a how a person’s risk propensity ties to their career. For this project, reporters of various ages and tenures were surveyed on their sensation-seeking levels and propensity to engage in risky behaviors while working as journalists. Journalism risk propensity correlated positively with sensation seeking. Risk motivations increase with age and tenure, meaning that older and more experienced journalists are more likely to engage in risky behavior. Males are more risk-prone than females. The …

Exploration Into The Relationship Between Colitis And Depression: A Potential Role For The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor, Kasie Lynn Roark

Theses and Dissertations

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a group of chronic gastrointestinal disorders with unclear etiology comprised of two defined disorders – Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). IBD leads to chronic pain, socially isolating symptoms, and an overall reduction in patient quality of life. There is currently no cure for IBD. Due to decreased mucous production and weakening of the colonic epithelial lining, gut-microbiota and their metabolites can invade the intestinal lamina propria and circulate systemically, a term known as “leaky gut”. Recent studies show a relationship exists between peripheral inflammation, such as IBD, and depression. The gut-brain axis (GBA) …

An Artificial Intelligence Approach To Fatigue Crack Length Estimation From Acoustic Emission Signals, Shane T. Ennis

Theses and Dissertations

As in service aircraft begin to age and fatigue, a method for evaluating the operational life they are currently operating under and have remaining comes into question. Structural health monitoring is (SHM) is a popular method of structural analysis with growing interest in the aerospace industry. SHM is capable of damage assessment and structural life estimations.

The ultimate goal of the research presented in this thesis is to develop a methodology of classifying the length of a fatigue crack though the use of machine learning. The thesis has three major chapters as described below.

The first chapter deals with the …

Appalachian Dreams: Traditional Folk Songs In Concert Literature For Classical Guitar, Jackson Douglas Roberson

Theses and Dissertations

Transcriptions and arrangements of works for other instruments make up a substantial portion of the concert literature for the classical guitar. Additionally, the classical guitar’s connections with folk music traditions from around the world are undeniable. While much of the folk-inspired repertoire for guitar engages with the musical traditions of Spain and Latin America, this document will examine a work for solo guitar that uses traditional Appalachian folk music as source material: John Duarte’s Appalachian Dreams.

Appalachian folk music is a primarily oral tradition, and documentation of the music did not appear until the late nineteenth century. This project …

An Autonomous Aerial Drone System For Water Fluorescence Mapping And Targeted Sampling, Kazi Ragib Ishraq Sanim

Theses and Dissertations

At present, aerial drones, also known as Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), are increasingly used in time and effort-heavy scientific exploration applications. One such application is inspecting the physical, chemical, and biological state of water bodies. This thesis presents a novel autonomous system capable of sensing water properties and collecting up to three 250 mL water samples from multiple sampling locations. The system features a customized aerial drone with an in-house built fluorescence sensor and pumping mechanism. It can also map the gradient of fluorescent content across the body of water to determine the best sampling …

Nurse Perceptions Of Caring And Professional Governance, Lan Angela Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Caring, a characteristic of an effective work environment, and clinical nurse control over the professional governance of nursing practice results in higher nursing retention and better patient outcomes. Although the concepts of caring and professional governance of nursing practice, and their discrete associations with patient outcomes, are widely studied, little to no research is published on the nature of the relationship between caring and professional governance of nursing practice. Without understanding this relationship, it is challenging to explore the impact of this relationship on nursing practice and patient outcomes.

Aims: The purpose of this study was to describe nurse …

Student Engagement Action Research A Focus On Culturally Relevant Instructional Methods, Amia Dixon

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action study was to determine the impact the use of culturally relevant instructional methods (researcher created term) would have on student achievement and student motivation. The use of culturally relevant teaching methods is rooted in culturally relevant pedagogy first introduced by Gloria Ladson-Billings and culturally responsive teaching practices first introduced by Geneva Gay. The study implemented an intervention cycle that modified the fourth-grade curriculum by differentiating lessons based on learning style, incorporating an “activator” that connects to the students’ culture and builds background knowledge, allowing student choice for instructional text, increasing the use of culturally relevant …

Stories From North Carolina Teachers Of Color: An Inquiry Of Racialized Experiences In The Workplace., Deborah Stephanie Harrisson

Theses and Dissertations

Growing educational research shows that teachers of color are finding themselves working in racially hostile schools through experiencing racism from their White colleagues in explicit and inexplicit ways. There is a need to further categorize how North Carolina teachers of color are experiencing racism in the workplace and identify how they are affected by it through experiential knowledge and analysis underpinned by critical race theory. Through action research, this study’s goals incorporated the implementation and evaluation of a collaborative book as a method of intervention on the effects of racial trauma. The collaborative book presents full counternarratives of teachers of …

Academic Success And Student Development In The Health Professions: An Action Research Study, Molly Ellen Higbie

Theses and Dissertations

The first year of college is a time of challenging transition for many. Students are adapting to a new way of learning as well as developing as adults. Using a mixed methods design, this action research study aimed to provide insight into the student experience for academically at-risk first-year students in a health professions program at a mid-size university in New England. Quantitative data showed that most students’ academic performance met or exceeded the minimum requirement for their major with support from their advisor through this intervention. Further, quantitative data showed that student development did occur for participants. Qualitative data …

A Comparative Analysis Of Samuel Barber’S Third Essay For Orchestra, Op. 47, David Abrams Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Samuel Barber (1910–1981) was an American composer who lived and worked during the twentieth-century. His list of works includes forty-eight published pieces that span virtually every major genre of western art music. One of Barber’s most unique contributions is the invention of a new orchestral genre: the essay for orchestra. Borrowing the term from literature, Barber is credited with composing the first musical essays. Today, musical essays are understood to be single-movement instrumental works that are non-programmatic in nature.

Barber composed three essays for orchestra during his lifetime. His First Essay, Op. 12, was composed in 1937; his Second …

Impacts Of Technology-Enhanced Dual Enrollment Mathematics Course On Rural High School Students’ Intentions Of Going To College, Nicolae Bordieanu

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this concurrent mixed methods action research study was to investigate the impact of new technology-enhanced Dual Enrollment (DE) math courses on students’ perception of college courses, the influence the technology-enhanced DE had on students’ intention of going to college, and the students' perception of the technology-enhanced DE math course. Examining student experiences in a technology-enhanced DE course informed all stakeholders as to what degree DE influenced students’ perception of college. The DE experience influenced students' postsecondary plans. The innovation of this action research study was the technology-enhanced DE math course. Software used to practice computational skills, conduct …

Implementation Of Digital Flashcards To Increase Content-Specific Vocabulary Knowledge And Perceptions Of Motivation And Self-Efficacy In An Eleventh-Grade U.S. History Course: An Action Research Study, Jill Lee Steinmeyer

Theses and Dissertations

Text- and document-dependent courses like high school U.S. History require students to have strong content literacy and vocabulary skills. Traditionally, content-area courses neglect vocabulary skills and those that do address vocabulary often teach words in isolation without context. Students needing more content comprehension skills frequently need more motivation and higher self-efficacy.

Three research questions were used to evaluate the impact of digital flashcards on learning content-specific vocabulary and student perceptions in an eleventh-grade U.S. History course: (a) How and to what extent do digital flashcards affect eleventh-grade U.S. History students’ learning content-specific vocabulary knowledge?; (b) How and to what extent …

Essays On Consumer Returns And Environmental Sustainability In Operations Management, Aditya Balaram

Theses and Dissertations

Consumer returns and environmental sustainability greatly impact the operational decisions that firms make. Focusing on consumer returns, lenient return policies aid consumers with resolving uncertainty but impose additional reverse logistics costs on retailers. The current retail landscape has largely eliminated the possibility of offering more stringent return policies since consumers have come to expect such policies as a given. This has driven retailers to look for innovative solutions while still offering costly free return policies. With respect to environmental sustainability, a number of operational decisions have been examined in the academic literature. These have ranged all the way from examining …

Hardly Working: The Labor Concerns Of Graduate Student Assistants In Writing Programs, Lily Victoria Howard-Hill

Theses and Dissertations

The instructors of undergraduate writing courses are very often graduate students who exist in a space between student and teacher, subsequently shouldering a dual burden of responsibility. This is particularly the case in freshman writing and composition classes. Graduate students that hold assistantships and work in writing programs have a number of concerns related to their academic labor, specifically the benefits and compensation they receive in exchange for their work. To further illustrate these issues, this project offers the results of an IRB-approved study that highlights the tight connection between graduate student assistants’ working conditions, the financial and material benefits …

Exercise And Mental Health Over The Course Of A Semester, Jamie Alexis Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction and purpose: Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health struggles in the United States each year. There has been promising research noting the positive effects of exercise on lowering symptoms of both anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are highly prevalent on college campuses, especially during high stress portions of the semester. The purpose of this study was to observe the changes in mental health over the course of the semester and if exercise level mediated any of these changes in the university population. Methods: Participants scanned a QR code or followed a link to …

“Everything Old Is New Again”: The Rise Of Interpolation In Popular Music, Grayson M. Saylor

Theses and Dissertations

With hip-hop becoming the number one genre in the United States, many artists working outside of the hip-hop genre are trying to emulate the success of hip-hop artists by incorporating compositional techniques of hip-hop into their own music. One of the most common hip-hop techniques adopted by artists working in other genres is sampling. However, with copyright rules and regulations becoming more strictly enforced, artists are finding creative ways to emulate sampling styles, while trying to avoid copyright concerns, including interpolation. Through the technique of interpolation, by reperforming aspects of the original song, artists are able to quote and reference …

Actuation And Sensing Applications Of Piezoelectric Transducers, Connor Griffin

Theses and Dissertations

Piezoelectric materials, defined by their ability to display a charge across their surface in response to mechanical strain, are great for use in actuation and sensing applications. Actuation applications include acoustic devices, motors and vibration damping while sensing applications include pressure sensors, medical devices, energy harvesting and structural health monitoring (SHM). The use of piezoelectric actuation and sensing across the lifecycle of aerospace metals is currently an expanding field with use cases beginning with the manufacturing process and ending with SHM.

The research presented in this thesis had three goals: (i) to develop methods for implementation of piezoelectric actuation in …

Dust Production And Transport In A Long-Lived Fluvial-Eolian System In The Pampas Of South America, Blake Marcus Stubbins

Theses and Dissertations

Wind-blown dust from southern South America links the terrestrial, marine, atmospheric, and biologic components of Earth’s climate system. The Pampas of central Argentina (~33-40° S) contain an extensive upper Miocene to Holocene eolian record that spans the relatively warm conditions of the Late Miocene to cooler climates of the Plio-Pleistocene and Holocene. We collected 13 loess, paleosol, and fluvial samples from the upper Miocene Cerro Azul and Rio Negro Formations which resulted in n = 5129 new detrital zircon U-Pb ages. Late Miocene rivers conveyed sediment from northern Patagonia, the Andes adjacent to the Pampas, and the Sierras Pampeanas to …

Symphony No. V: Elements (Julie Giroux, 2018); An Overview Of Programmatic Elements And Performance Devices, Zackery Augustus Deininger

Theses and Dissertations

Julie Giroux is a multi-faceted composer who has been writing for the wind band since the 1980s. Having composed and arranged over 125 works for wind band, Giroux has dedicated her compositional career to furthering the development of the wind band repertoire while simultaneously working to establish the wind band genre as an area of serious artistic merit. Giroux is in constant demand as a commissioned composer. Her projects are often commissioned by distinguished ensembles, both in the United States and around the world, and many of her pieces receive performances at significant events such as The Midwest Clinic Band …

A Holistic Approach For Neurodivergent Learners In The High School Choral Classroom, Peter Allen Haley

Theses and Dissertations

There is a wealth of literature in the fields of music education, music therapy, and psychology regarding neurodivergent people, but next to no pedagogical material relating to large-group practices, particularly within the choral rehearsal. Many, if not most high school choir directors will encounter neurodivergent students in their programs at some point and will likely not know which strategies effectively include their neurodivergent learners in their classrooms. This paper includes a survey of existing research and literature related to music education (particularly secondary choral music education) and Universal Design for Learning, and offers rehearsal techniques, classroom management strategies, and repertoire …

Comprehensive Process Planning Optimization Framework For Automated Fiber Placement, Alex Ryan Brasington

Theses and Dissertations

Advanced composite materials came about in 1966 and have since been widely used due to the possibility of superior structural performance while also achieving weight reductions. Such opportunities have led to composite materials being used to fabricate complex components, often in the aerospace sector. Most components, especially in aviation, are on a large scale and are outside the capabilities of traditional composite manufacturing techniques. Traditional manufacturing methods are also labor intensive, time consuming, have a high level of material scrap, and are prone to human error. This has led to the need for innovative manufacturing solutions to withstand the ever-increasing …

Genetic Mechanisms Underlying Maladaptation In Specialized Species Interactions, Nitin Ravikanthachari

Theses and Dissertations

Adaptation has been used as the framework to understand the power of natural selection in structuring biodiversity and driving biological interactions. However, recent examples have indicated that many organisms are maladapted to their local conditions. Maladaptation can result from various causes including rapid environmental change, novel environments, interplay of evolutionary forces (viz: gene flow-selection balance) and anthropogenic disturbance.

To dissect the genetic mechanisms underlying maladaptation, I used the interaction between Pieris macdunnoughii (Remington) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) which lays eggs on an invasive mustard Thlaspi arvense (L.) (Brassicaceae), which is lethal to the larvae.

First, local adaptation to avoid laying eggs on …

Complex Stereotypes: Stereotypes Across The Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity, And Social Class, Nicholas Heiserman

Theses and Dissertations

Research on stereotypes and their consequences often focuses on discrete categorical stereotypes in isolation from each other (e.g. gender or race categories), and rarely centers the fact that people belong to many social categories at once (e.g. gender and race categories). I address this issue using two large factorial experiment (N=1,762 and N=1,481) designed to measure two core aspects of stereotypes, warmth and competence, across the intersections of multiple social categories: Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity (Chapter 3), and Social Class (Chapter 2). In Chapter 2, I develop a framework for analyzing intersectional complexity in these data, beginning with overall measures …

A Holistic View Of Integrated Care Within Counselor Education: A Multi-Manuscript Dissertation, Alexander Mcclain Fields

Theses and Dissertations

The integration of behavioral health into primary care settings, otherwise known as integrated care (IC), is a movement growing in momentum and continues to challenge traditional healthcare occurring in silos. Through an IC modality, healthcare consumers receive all their care through a “one stop shop” approach and previous outcomes have suggested an overall benefit for an individual’s holistic health, as well as savings for healthcare settings. Counselors are in a prime position to join IC teams and contribute to consumer healthcare outcomes through a unique professional identity. The aim of this dissertation study, which consisted of three completed manuscripts, was …

Sustainable Approaches To Photo-, Thermo-, And Electro-Chemical Reactions Of Amines, James David Sitter

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, sustainable routes for chemical synthesis have garnered renewed interest. As the world continues to fight pollution and rising costs, it is imperative that new routes of synthesis that continuously fight the issues of pollution and waste are discovered, defined and explored. While traditional synthesis routes that require energy input typically require the burning of fossil fuels to produce heat, the amount of resources that go into the production of these fossil fuels and the sequestration of its waste to minimize its impact on the carbon footprint is enormous. Furthermore, sustainable chemistry research aims to decrease and minimize …

New Perspectives And Insights Into Direct Epoxidation Of C3H6 Using O2 And Ag Based Catalysts And Measurement Of Active Ag Site Concentration Of Promoted Ag Catalyst For C2H4 Epoxidation By H2 Pulse Titration Over Oxygen Pre-Covered Surface, Md Masudur Rahman

Theses and Dissertations

Direct epoxidation of C₃H₆ using molecular O₂ and Ag catalysts to produce propylene oxide (PO) selectively is a long-sought goal in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. In the early 1990’s Scientists at ARCO reported promising results of 58 – 59% selectivity to PO at 3.2% conversion of C₃H₆ over an unusual composition of 54.0 wt% Ag, 2.0 wt% K⁺, 0.5 wt% Mo and balance CaCO₃. Feed additives of ethyl chloride (EtCl), nitric oxide (NO) and CO₂ were stated necessary to achieve the claimed high PO selectivities. The roles …

Development Of System Pressure Drop Calculation Methods For Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying, Ross Daniel Gorman

Theses and Dissertations

This work is focused on dilute and dense phase pneumatic conveying of bulk solids. The motivation of this work is to use industrial data to scale up existing models for pressure drop in pneumatic conveying systems, determine which models best predict pressure drop in full conveying systems, and find the empirical coefficients that go with these models.

Several major research objectives were accomplished by this work. First, system pressure drop methods were evaluated in this research. Other researchers have focused on single pipe section type pressure drops. Second, the data used in this research both for the machine learning evaluations …

Experiencing The Formalness: The Role Of Contextual Cues In Consumers’ Luxury Perception And Lifestyle Preference, Zhenyu Jin

Theses and Dissertations

Formalness, which refers to the sense of seriousness, importance, and significance, is a commonly-encountered experience in consumers’ daily lives and can influence consumer behavior in wide domains. Despite its ubiquitous nature, research on consumer experiences of formalness in marketing settings is limited. This dissertation investigates the sense of formalness in consumer behavior, exploring its antecedents and consequences in sensory marketing, luxury consumption, and consumer lifestyles.

Essay 1 identifies one of the antecedents and consequences of formalness sense by exploring how music used in marketing communications and retail environments can induce a sense of formalness in consumers, which in turn shapes …

Lunatics, Liberals And Bloodthirsty Haters: The South In The 1972 Presidential Election, Thomas Clayton Strebeck

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the political campaigns of President Richard Nixon and Senator George McGovern in the Southeastern United States during the 1972 presidential election. Both candidates’ political careers up to the 1972 presidential election, which informed their actions and the actions of their campaigns, will also be analyzed to determine how these impacted their political decisions. Nixon’s career as Vice President, his comeback after his losses in 1960 and 1962, and his first term as President all taught lessons that culminated in a campaign that earned him one of the most dramatic landslides in American political history. Senator McGovern’s …

“So, The World Isn’T Just Old White Guys?”: Student And Teacher Experiences In A Culturally Relevant Advanced Placement Chemistry Class, Jason Thomas Sox

Theses and Dissertations

This action research case study explores the impact of a culturally and socially diverse Advanced Placement Chemistry curriculum on student and teacher experiences. This study emerged due to my lack of multicultural teaching practices, which limited meaningful connections for students of diverse backgrounds. Once aware of this deficiency, I created four thematic units that blended chemistry content with aspects of culturally relevant pedagogy and social reconstructionism. Surveys, reflection logs, observations, and a focus group interview captured data related to student and teacher experiences throughout the intervention period, which suggest the culturally relevant pedagogy supported students’ understanding of content, increased student …