Digital Commons Network^™

Entry Age And Reading Level By The End Of Third Grade., Tony Lynn Dalton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to see if a difference exists in the mean Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills: Oral Reading Fluency scores of students who entered kindergarten as 4 year olds, 5 year olds, and 6 year olds inclusively. Specifically, this dissertation considered the possibility that holding children out of kindergarten an extra year increased their reading level, while sending children to school too young delayed their ability to read and comprehend.

A quantitative study was used to find differences between the mean reading levels at the end of 3rd grade for students who entered kindergarten on or …

Expectations And Experiences Of Black Students At Two Predominantlywhite High Schools In Southern Appalachia., Lori J. Price

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed the academic, cultural, and social expectations and experiences of 20 Black students at 2 predominantly White high schools in the Southern Appalachian region of the United States. The participants' experiences revealed how institutional practices promoted or obstructed their successful experiences at high school.

Qualitative ethnographic methodology guided the study. The data collected included the stories of the Black students based on individual interviews, focus groups, and document reviews. The data showed the positive and negative experiences of the Black students in predominantly White high schools and the negative impacts of racism and racist behaviors on Black students' …

Intervention Program Graduate On Time As Related To The Number Of High School Dropouts In A Rural Northeast Tennessee High School., Mischelle Nichole Gambill Simcox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the intervention program Graduate on Time as related to the number of high school dropouts in a rural northeast Tennessee high school. Graduation rates and dropout rates were gathered from Report Card information from the Tennessee Department of Education website. Archival data for the students in this study were obtained from the STAR student management data system. Former students in the Graduate on Time program were surveyed for their perceptions about the program.

The population for this study consisted of 96 students who were enrolled in the Graduate on Time program from …

Survey Of Flavonoids And Their Distribution In Different Kinds Of Onions Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography And Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry., Archana Racharla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is done to determine the distribution of flavonoids in diverse varieties of onions (commercial and wild onions). Reflux extraction method was done on dried onions and the abstracts were analyzed subsequently by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS). Statistical calculations were done to see if there are significant differences in the varieties of onions studied from the chromatographic profiles obtained. The chromatograms obtained were patterned using visual observations, scatter plot study, correlation co-efficient, and ANOVA to evaluate the significant difference of the distribution of flavonoids in varieties of onions. The organic white onions seem …

Illinois State University, One Hundred And Fifty-Second Annual Commencement, December 17, 2011, Illinois State University

Commencement Programs

Normal, Illinois
Illinois State University
One Hundred and Fifty-Second Annual Commencement
December 17, 2011

Positive Solutions For Rural Solid Waste Management, Jessica L. Meyer

Rural Development

Rural solid waste management is and will continue to be one of the leading environmental problems facing the twenty-first century. As the global south, under developed, and developing countries progress, proper solid waste management must be a priority to keep humans and ecosystems healthy and safe. This study provides an overview of the Republic of Macedonia's solid waste management and the discoveries of public and environmental health risks as a result of unsanitary landfills and illegal dumping. These problems are caused by low enforcement of environmental laws, minimal governmental and public support, as well as lack of funding and infrastructure. …

How Does Improved Access To Clean Water Impact Rural Communities? Evaluating Impact Of Water Projects In The Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District In Ghana, Josephine-Mary O. Sam

Natural Resources

Research has shown that rural water programs benefit communities by promoting women's empowerment, and improving children's education and the health of residents. However, the tendency for such programs to be short-lived (as water pumps break down and villages are unable to repair them) erodes any benefits and sets villages back on the path toward using unsafe and inconvenient water sources. The incidence of failed rural water projects has prompted calls for a more holistic approach to addressing rural water supply issues. Two development organizations, the Nyarkoa Foundation (NF) and the Rural Education and Development Program (REDEP), implemented a water program …

Remote Sensing Of Browning Trends In The Alaskan Boreal Forest, Mary Elizabeth Parent

Forest Sciences

Vegetation health can be monitored using a time series of remotely sensed images by calculating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We assessed temporal trends throughout an NDVI time series with three sensors: Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat Thematic Mapper/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (TM/ETM+). There has been debate over the reliability of AVHRR sensor NDVI data in the circumboreal region. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to first use MODIS and Landsat TM/ETM+ data and assess declining trends within twelve Landsat scene footprints across boreal Alaska and second use Landsat …

Communication In The Face Of Diversity: Towards A Training Model For U.S. Army Cadets, Nolan O. Lasiter

Communication

The purpose of this study was to explore the need for a communication and cultural diversity training program in a Northwestern university Reserve officer Training Corps (ROTC) department. A needs assessment was conducted identifying the need for a training program in both culture and communication. Research questions explored the need for a training program in communication and cultural diversity. Quantitative methods assessed the overall outcomes from the communication and cultural diversity workshops. Hypotheses predicted that Cadet's scores would increase from pretest to posttest as a result of the communication and cultural diversity workshop. Senior level cadets at a Northwestern university …

Assessment Of Fungal And Bacterial Bioaerosols In Ambient Air In Fairbanks, Alaska, Mitali S. Patil

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Bioaerosols are solid or liquid particles of biological origin that are suspended in the surrounding air or other gaseous environments. Bioaerosols can cause diseases, allergenic or toxicological reactions, respiratory distress, and can be potential bioterrorism threats. Studies concerning ambient bioaerosols have never focused upon central Alaska, and only one experiment has utilized the DRUM (Davis Rotating Unit for Monitoring) impactor as the collection apparatus. This study focuses on the assessment and identification of fungi and bacteria present in the ambient air collected by the DRUM impactor from March 2008 to January 2009. The samples were collected on MylarTM and aluminum …

Commencement Convocation Exercises - December 2011, Prairie View A&M University

Commencement and Convocation Exercises

No abstract provided.

Clinical Coverage Of An Archetype Repository Over Snomed-Ct., Sheng Yu, Damon Berry, Jesus Bisbal

Articles

Clinical archetypes provide a means for health professionals to design what should be communicated as part of an Electronic Health Record (EHR). An ever-growing number of archetype definitions follow this health information modelling approach, and this international archetype resource will eventually cover a large number of clinical concepts. On the other hand, clinical terminology systems that can be referenced by archetypes also have a wide coverage over many types of health-care information.

No existing work measures the clinical content coverage of archetypes using terminology systems as a metric. Archetype authors require guidance to identify under-covered clinical areas that may need …

2011 Fall Commencement, Harding University

Commencement Programs

Program for the Commencement on December 17.

Commencement Speaker: Brant Bryan

A Darker Shade Of Blue: From Public Servant To Professional Deviant; Law Enforcement's Special Operations Culture, Louis Scott Silverii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The culture of law enforcement is an all or nothing proposition with no gray area where membership into this society is concerned. You are either “on the job” or you are not. Even references among officers to “the job” indicate there is only one job. Likened to a secret handshake, that initial phrase if answered correctly opens the door to instant fraternal acceptance, get out of violation passes, and the many other assumed privileges of brotherhood. Manning (1980) describes the powerful mystification of policing as the “sacred canopy”. He further asserts that “the police role conveys a sense of …

Multivariate Models And Algorithms For Systems Biology, Lipi Rani Acharya

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Rapid advances in high-throughput data acquisition technologies, such as microarraysand next-generation sequencing, have enabled the scientists to interrogate the expression levels of tens of thousands of genes simultaneously. However, challenges remain in developingeffective computational methods for analyzing data generated from such platforms. In thisdissertation, we address some of these challenges. We divide our work into two parts. Inthe first part, we present a suite of multivariate approaches for a reliable discovery of geneclusters, often interpreted as pathway components, from molecular profiling data with replicated measurements. We translate our goal into learning an optimal correlation structure from replicated complete and incomplete …

Black Policemen In Jim Crow New Orleans, Vanessa Flores-Robert

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Although historians have done in-­‐depth researched on Black police in the South, before the Civil War and during Reconstruction, they seldom assess black policemen’s role in New Orleans between the Battle of Liberty Place and 1913. The men discussed here argue that despite the hardening racial attitudes in Post-­‐ Reconstruction South, in New Orleans opportunity still existed for Blacks to serve in positions of authority, perhaps a heritage of the city’s earlier tri-­‐partite racial order. The information obtained from primary sources such as police manuals, beat books, and newspapers, counters the widely held belief that African American presence in the …

The French Chair, Roberta Grossi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This play is a comedy which revolves around the importance of a French Chair (Louis Xiii) in the life of a family. A young newlywed woman discovers that her husband has a "secret" half sister born out of wedlock. Her mother-in-law has had an affair with a French man, but her husband always believed she had been abused. The young lady senses something is not clear and decides to look for her "half" sister-in-law. She does and manages to organize a get-together to bring everyone in the same place and finally understand what really happened. Eventually, her mother-in-law, now a …

Synthesis And Applications Of Luminescent Quantum Dots In Bioassays, Venkata Ramana Kethineedi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Luminescent quantum dot (QD) based probes have gained significance in the last decade for optical imaging of cells, tissues and in bioassays as alternatives to conventional organic fluorophores. The main objective of my PhD dissertation was to develop luminescent quantum dot based bioassays for real time monitoring of enzyme activity and simultaneous detection of several biomarkers. The quantum dot based bioassays developed will be potential tools in identification and diagnosis of several ailments that interfere with normal living conditions of human beings.

In Chapter 2 new liposome encapsulated quantum dot based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) probes have been fabricated …

Effects Of The Age-Composition Of Spawning Sockeye Salmon On Future Returns Of Sockeye Salmon To Bristol, Bay, Alaska, Janelle C. Mueller

Fisheries

The age structure of sockeye salmon on spawning grounds is highly variable, yet little is known about the influence of spawner age composition on subsequent abundance and age composition of recruits. Management of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon relies on estimated spawner abundance to determine escapement goals, without regard to age or size composition. This may not accurately reflect reproductive potential as a basis for setting escapement goals. Parental age structure and environmental conditions were included as independent variables in statistical models to evaluate their effects on the age structure of their progeny. In addition, relationships between spawner age composition and …

Refined Liquid Smoke: A Potential Antilisterial Supplement To Cold-Smoked Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus Nerka), Naim Montazeri Djouybari

Fisheries

Listeria monocytogenes, the causative agent of listeriosis can contaminate cold smoked salmon (CSS) and make it a high-risk ready-to-eat food product. Due to the lack of a critical control point in the cold-smoking process, a post-process elimination is essential to ensure product safety. The goal of this project was to improve safety of vacuum-packaged CSS supplemented with commercially refined liquid smoke (LS). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis showed the LS were high in carbonyl containing compounds and low in phenol derivatives. The LS (AM-10 and AM-3) producing the greatest inhibition against L. innocua in a paper disk diffusion assay were applied …

Animal Companionship And Identity Construction In The Middle English "Ywain And Gawain", Robert E. Byers

English

As a relatively recent field within literary cultural studies, "animal studies" has the potential to ask sophisticated new questions about the central and privileged place of the humanist "cogito." Through an examination of the human-animal companionship found in the Middle English romance "Ywain and Gawain", this thesis aims to contribute to the project of animal studies by tracing how questions about humanity and animality both construct and deconstruct a subject's identity. In the poem, Ywain, a knight in Arthur's court, is exiled from society and befriends a lion, who travels and fights alongside him. The dynamics of their bond highlight …

Chancellor's Report 2011-12, John Pugh

Chancellor's Report

No abstract provided.

University Of Nebraska At Omaha, December Commencement 2011, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Play Therapists’ Practice Patterns And Perceptions Of The Factors That Influence Caregiver Engagement In Play Therapy, Adrianne R. Lolan

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Much effort has been expended to increase the awareness and understanding of play therapy among consumers and practitioners (Landreth, 1991) since its introduction by Virginia Axline during the 1940s. As with any form of counseling, Leblanc and Ritchie (1999) have noted there are factors considered key to successful play therapy treatment outcomes. Play therapy research shows a positive relationship between parent's involvement in play therapy and successful outcomes (LeBlanc & Ritchie, 1999; Bratton, Ray, Rhine, & Jones, 2005) but little research exists to document specific practice patterns and perceptions of play therapists in relation to achieving caregiver engagement. The purpose …

Ecosystem Management And Its Application At The Local Level: Apnep, Cama And Local Land Use Planning In North Carolina, Traci L. Birch

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A fundamental purpose of state-mandated growth management has been to infuse regional environmental concerns into local land use planning. Similarly, collaborative ecosystem planning efforts have attempted to encourage local communities to participate in regional planning efforts, and to adopt regional environmental goals and objectives into local land use plans. This paper presents results from a study of state-mandated local planning and collaborative regional planning, addressing in particular local ability to adopt and implement ecosystem planning initiatives for development management.

I found that a state mandate not only achieves plans from communities that would not otherwise plan, but also the plans …

The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Evan Casper-Futterman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

On July 4^th, 2007, a small group of housing activists set up a tent city encampment in a plaza adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. The action resulted in the creation of Homeless Pride, a small group of politicized Plaza residents. Six months later, hundreds of homeless people were moved from the park, and it was fenced off. Using archival videos, interviews, and news media, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints that activists, service providers, and local officials faced in light of two intersecting and overlapping contexts. The first context is the immediate crisis of the levee …

Therapist's Perceptions Of Walk And Talk Therapy: A Grounded Study, Bridget L. Mckinney

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Our society has become less physically active (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010) and less connected to nature than ever before (Berger & Mcleod, 2006). Spending leisure time indoors, technological advancements, urban living, and car dependent communities have led to these changes (Dustin, Bricker, & Schwab, 2010; Hansen-Ketchum, Marck, & Reutter, 2009; Norman & Mills, 2004). As a result, physical health and mental health is deteriorating (Dustin et al., 2010; Maller, Townsend, Pryor, Brown & Leger, 2005). Physical activity and nature can each produce mental and physical health benefits; some approaches such as adventure-based counseling and wilderness therapy …

Playing House With Coward’S “Hay Fever”, Sarah M. Klocke

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A retired actress and her quirky family trap four guests in elaborately woven games in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever. Within the concept of “playing house,” the glamour of Coward’s work lives on through scenery, costumes, and lighting, while his quirkier side is highlighted in hopes of making his Comedy of Manners accessible to a new audience.

Milneburg, New Orleans: An Anthropological History Of A Troubled Neighborhood, Betty A. Smallwood

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

For nearly 200 years, there has been a neighborhood in New Orleans, Louisiana named Milneburg, which has been constantly reimagined by its inhabitants and others. From its inception as a port of entry in 1832 until the 2011, it has been called a world-class resort, the poor-man's Riviera, a seedy red-light district, a cradle of jazz, a village, a swath of suburbia and a neighborhood. It has been destroyed eight times due to storms, fires, and civic or governmental neglect. Each time its residents have rebuilt it. In its last iteration as a post-Katrina neighborhood, the residents reestablished the Milneburg …

Merely Misunderstood: Expressive, Receptive, And Pragmatic Language In Children With Disruptive Behavior Disorders, Monica L. Gremillion

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Children with Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBD), including Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) have poorer language skills compared to typically developing children; however, language as a potential risk factor for DBD has received little empirical attention or evaluation. Receptive, expressive, and pragmatic language skills in preschoolers with DBD were examined. Participants were 82 preschool-age children and their primary caregivers. Primary caregivers completed a semi-structured interview and symptom and language questionnaires. Preschoolers completed measures of receptive and expressive language. Results indicated that preschoolers with DBD were more impaired on receptive, expressive, and pragmatic language compared to non-DBD children. Pragmatic …