Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Time-Varying And Time-Invariant Measures Of Adherence To Secondary Prevention Therapies Post-Acute Myocardial Infarction: An Application Of Marginal Structural Models (Msms), Tasneem Taher Lokhandwala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between patient adherence to secondary prevention therapies post an initial episode of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and subsequent risk of cardiovascular events by using time-invariant and time-varying measures of adherence. The effectiveness of both measures in predicting a (i) recurrent AMI, and (ii) mortality using various mathematical models and statistical techniques was compared. Time dependent confounding was accounted for by using marginal structural models (MSMs). A longitudinal cohort observational study design was employed using the retrospective Medicare 5% random national sample claims data from January 1st, 2006 to December 31st, …

Stress, Social Support, And Psychological Well-Being In College Students Attending Majority And Minority Institutions, Bianca Marie Crudup

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High stress levels can have profound physical and emotional effects. College students frequently experience high levels of stress. While it has been noted that college students frequently report elevated stress levels, it may be that African-American college students are at exceptionally high risk for experiencing high stress levels. This observation is said to be the result of the added burden of minority status stressors. The current study examined stress levels in African-American college students attending majority (Predominantly White Institutions or PWIs) and minority (Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs) institutions. Participants completed an online survey that consisted of measures …

The Darker Angels Of Our Nature: The South In American Horror Film, Steven Clayton Saunders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does one make a region horrific? For well over half of a century, the American South has functioned as a site for national anxieties over race and modernization. This study uses an inter-disciplinary approach in order to understand the various forces involved in the construction of the South in American horror cinema. Particular attention is paid to the influence that images of the civil rights movement have had on the development and evolution of the South as a horrific and terrifying space for the rest of the nation. It focuses on four main subcategories of the genre: the white …

A Neurophysiological Examination Of Stress Control In Martial Artists, Jack Pemment

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The philosophies behind many martial arts often claim that by practicing martial arts individuals can gain better control over stress. We tested this idea by using controlled physical stressors to elicit an acute stress response from martial artists (n=15) and non-martial artists (n=18). To measure the extent of the stress response, we looked at changes in heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and galvanic skin level. These three measures explore both parasympathetic and sympathetic responses, and changes in these variables continue to be explored in studies of stress and reactive aggression. In addition to our physical stressors we also exposed individuals …

Astronomy Week: An Investigation Of The Implementation And Identity Formation Of Participants, Carl Matthew Dewitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: our society has a great need for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals and educational institutions are currently having difficulty keeping up with society's demand (Carnevale, 2011). Outreach efforts are a key strategy to encouraging young people to pursue STEM careers and evaluation methods need to be used to ensure that this outreach is efficient and effective in helping young students see themselves as prospective STEM professionals (Moskal, 2011). The purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate the implementation of an astronomy week supported by the center for mathematics and science education (CMSE) and its impact on …

Male Reproductive Strategies And Mating Displays In The Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris Ocellata), Edward Merrill Hanlon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Animal mating systems are often characterized by intense competition for mates and resources. Despite how comthis conflict is, mating systems exist in which some adult males of breeding age seem to not participate. These apathetic males may be exhibiting alternative reproductive strategies, or simply delaying maturation to conserve resources for future breeding attempts. In populations of the poorly studied, near-threatened Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata), males have been reported to be either "breeding" or "non-breeding," apparently irrespective of age, although empirical data are scarce. This thesis has three main objectives for establishing a better understanding of the Ocellated Turkey's mating system. …

Molecular Considerations In The Design Of Novel Alpha/Beta Hydrolase Inhibitors, Shana Victoria Stoddard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alpha/beta hydrolases (ABHs) are a superfamily of hydrolytic enzymes that process a wide variety of substrates. A subfamily of ABHs called carboxylesterases (CEs) are important enzymes that catalyze biological detoxification, hydrolysis of certain pesticides, and metabolism of many esterified drugs. The chemotherapy drug irinotecan used for treatment of colorectal cancer is metabolized to SN-38, the active drug metabolite, by two CE isozymes CES1 (localized in the liver) and CES2 (localized in the small intestines). CES2's ability to activate irinotecan at a faster rate than CES1 creates a localization of activated SN-38 in the gut epithelium, resulting in the dose limiting …

Modeling Software Product Lines Using Feature Diagrams, Hazim Husain Shatnawi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The leading strategies for systematic software reuse focus on reuse of domain knowledge. One such strategy is software product line engineering. This strategy selects a set of reusable software components that form the core around which software products in a domain are built. Feature modeling is a process that enables engineers to identify these core assets, in particular the com(e.g., shared) and variable features of products. The focus of this thesis is to give an overview of the feature modeling process by introducing feature diagrams. Feature diagrams capture and represent comand variable properties (features) of the software products in a …

Mechanical Properties Of Portland Cement And Its Constituents At The Nano-Level, Brent French

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following is a summary of research for a portion of the project titled Nano to Continuum Multi-Scale Modeling Techniques and Analysis For Cementitious Materials Under Dynamic Loading in association with North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and the US Army. This research investigates several attempts at creating a better Portland cement model at the atomistic level through molecular dynamics simulations. These models are modified to simulate damage to the basic cement structure, and are simulated using several combinations of forcefields and molecular dynamics tools. Experimental techniques such as nanoindentation, atomic force microscopy, and x-ray diffraction are applied to …

Pedagogy And Identity In "The Night Lessons" Of Finnegans Wake, Zachary Paul Smola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores chapter II.ii of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939)—commonly called "The Night Lessons"—and its peculiar use of the conventions of the textbook as a form. In the midst of the Wake's abstraction, Joyce uses the textbook to undertake a rigorous exploration of epistemology and education. By looking at the specific expectations of and ambitions for textbooks in 19th century Irish national schools, this thesis aims to provide a more specific historical context for what textbooks might mean as they appear in Finnegans Wake. As instruments of cultural conditioning, Irish textbooks were fraught with tension arising from their investment …

Matrices Of Disorder: Class, Race, And The Policing Of Normative Southern Femininity In William Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, And Requiem For A Nun, Claire B. Mischker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this project, I apply Judith Butler's late twentieth century theory of gender performance, outlined in her book Gender Trouble , to three major novels from William Faulkner's early career, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Sanctuary, and to one novel from his later period, Requiem for a Nun. This project examines the main female characters of these novels: Caddy Compson, Addie and Dewey Dell Bundren, Temple Drake, and Nancy Mannigoe, respectively, to reveal how race and class are indelible to the performance of gender in the literature of the early twentieth century South. The focus …

The Impact Of Dietary And Exercise Habits On College Students' Life Satisfaction, Megan L. Marsh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A majority of college students do not maintain healthy lifestyle practices. Few college students achieve recommendations for adequate nutrition and instead typically consume diets high in fat, sodium, and sugar and low in fruits and vegetables. In addition, few college students meet current physical activity recommendations, and 40-50% do not exercise at all. Life satisfaction is associated with low levels of stress, academic achievement, goal progression, and personal growth initiative, all of which contribute to success in college as well as the transition from college into the working world. Exercise, fruit and vegetable intake, and avoidance of fat intake are …

Improving Qualitative Assessment In Higher Education, Chad Woodson Russell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers in turn the role education plays in civil, democratic society; the role assessment plays in education; and the role theoretical constructs and cultural contexts play in assessment. Then, through literature review, document analysis, and interviews, the analysis investigates, identifies, and recommends grounded-theory-derived practices for improving qualitative assessment in higher education settings. The process of qualitative assessment is understood as being heuristic and continual, requiring re-examination and revision to maintain both its validity and reliability. To this end, rubrics are essential to efficiently and reliably assessing everything qualitative, whereas the realities of institutional culture and politics require adroit …

Synthesis Of Natural Product-Based Sphingosine Derivatives, Zarana Daksh Chauhan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Marine sponges represent an excellent source of sphingolipids and their metabolites, especially sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). S1P plays an important role in cell differentiation, survival, proliferation and the immune response. The enzyme sphingosine kinase (SK) is critical for the phosphorylation of sphingosine to S1P and has been examined as a druggable target for the treatment of hyper-proliferative diseases, inflammation, cancer and other pathological conditions. Natural products that consist of an azetidine ring represents an interesting class of conformationally constrained scaffolds that may serve as effective lead compounds for SK inhibitor development. Hence, the goal of this thesis research was to synthesize natural-product …

Metabolic Stability And Pharmacokinetics In Lead Optimization Of Potential Anti-Psychostimulant Pharmacotherapies, Seshulatha Jamalapuram

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drug addiction is a chronic disorder characterized by obsessive and uncontrollable drug-seeking behaviors. It is a major public health problem globally as well as in the United States. Apart from causing severe medical complications it also leads to several socioeconomic problems like healthcare expenditures, lost earnings and increase in drug-related crime. The discovery and development of potential pharmacotherapies to treat cocaine dependence has been a high priority for more than two decades but still there is US-FDA approved medication. This illustrates the need for the development of effective medication to treat cocaine and methamphetamine abuse. Sigma receptors have recently been …

Dual Targeting Ligands Of Sigma Receptors And Dopamine Transporters As Potential Pharmacotherapy For Cocaine Abuse, Shivangi Awasthi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Backscatter And Attenuation Properties Of Mammalian Brain Tissues, Pushpani Vihara Wijekularatne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a comcategory of brain injuries, which contributes to a substantial number of deaths and permanent disability all over the world. Ultrasound technology plays a major role in tissue characterization due to its low cost and portability that could be used to bridge a wide gap in the TBI diagnostic process. This research addresses the ultrasonic properties of mammalian brain tissues focusing on backscatter and attenuation. Orientation dependence and spatial averaging of data were analyzed using the same method resulting from insertion of tissue sample between a transducer and a reference reflector. Apparent Backscatter Transfer Function …

Butch, Femme, Dyke, Or Lipstick, Aren't All Lesbians The Same?: An Exploration Of Labels And "Looks" Among Lesbians In The U.S. South, Danielle Kerr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploratory qualitative sociological analysis of gender, sexuality, and race among "out" lesbians in the U.S. south. In this thesis, I explore the following questions: (1) what labels are self-identified lesbians in the south using and/or applying to themselves, and how do they use them? (2) how do they talk about and experience their dress as a part of their identity? (3) how are lesbians doing gender and sexuality in both private and professional environments? (4) how does southern location influence lesbians' conceptualization of their gender and sexuality? This research expands current understandings in the literature regarding …

Chinese Female Graduate Students' Academic Socialization Across Disciplines - Perspectives On Language, Culture, And Gender, Sheng Bi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the mid-1950s, international education in the United States has witnessed stupendous growth. China boasts the largest number of English language learners in the world, and contributes to an increasingly large share of the global international student market. Being informed by a community of practice perspective and poststructuralist conceptualization of identity, the present study aims to explore the academic socialization experience of three female Chinese graduate students in the United States. The ethnographic case study collected data from various sources such as classroom observations, open-ended questionnaires, interviews with participants and with their course instructors, and written documents. The findings revealed …

Levels Of Generality, Constitutional Comedy, And Legal Design, Adam M. Samaha

Faculty Articles

Many commentators write happy endings to their constitutional stories. This Article examines a few techniques for reaching preferred conclusions without falling outside the boundary of conventional constitutional argument. The investigation is oriented around the levels of generality by which sources of constitutional law are characterized. Level of generality characterizations apply to all sources of constitutional argument including constitutional clauses, originalist history, tradition, and judicial precedent. But there is more than one kind of “generality”—or at least more than one idea associated with that concept in the law literature. We can isolate three different dimensions of source characterization that recur in …

License, Registration, Cheek Swab: Dna Testing And The Divided Court, Erin E. Murphy

Faculty Articles

Midway through the oral argument in Maryland v. King, Justice Alito spontaneously interjected: “[B]y the way, I think this is perhaps the most important criminal procedure case that this Court has heard in decades.” The juxtaposition between the breeziness of his comment and the solemnity of its content befit the case, which is best characterized as a sleeper in a Term overshadowed by monumental rulings on gay marriage, voting rights, and affirmative action. What looked on its face like just another Fourth Amendment dispute – with civil libertarians on one side and law enforcement on the other – garnered no …

Panopti-Moms, Melissa Murray

Faculty Articles

The Panopticon’s shadow looms large in Camille Gear Rich’s Innocence Interrupted: Reconstructing Fatherhood in the Shadow of Child Molestation Law. There, Rich identifies the role that criminal child molestation statutes play in shaping the way that men provide intimate care to children. Specifically, Rich argues that child molestation laws are enforced and interpreted in ways that reinstantiate the traditional gender norms that surround caregiving. Focusing on criminal cases involving male caregivers who provide intimate care to a child (bathing, diapering, toileting, etc.), Rich demonstrates the way in which legal decision makers (judges, social workers, law enforcement officials) often rely on …

Hierarchical Networks, Power Laws, And Neuronal Avalanches, Adam Landsberg, Eric J. Friedman

Physics Faculty Scholarship

We show that in networks with a hierarchical architecture, critical dynamical behaviors can emerge even when the underlying dynamical processes are not critical. This finding provides explicit insight into current studies of the brain's neuronal network showing power-lawavalanches in neural recordings, and provides a theoretical justification of recent numerical findings. Our analysis shows how the hierarchical organization of a network can itself lead to power-law distributions of avalanche sizes and durations, scaling laws between anomalous exponents, and universal functions—even in the absence of self-organized criticality or critical points. This hierarchy-induced phenomenon is independent of, though can potentially operate in conjunction …

2013-2014 Lindenwood University Lcie Course Catalog, Lindenwood University

Course Catalogs

Lindenwood University LCIE Course Catalog

Record Body Size For The Red Lionfish, Pterois Volitans (Scorpaeniformes), In The Southern Gulf Of Mexico, Alfonso Aguilar-Perera, Leidy Perera-Chan, Luis Quijano-Puerto

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Non-native species are those that have been transported, via human actions, from one continent and introduced into another (Lockwood et al. 2007). In the 1980s, red lionfish, Pterois volitans (Linnaeus, 1758), traded in the US aquarium industry from the Pacific Ocean, was introduced into the coral reefs off Florida's coast by aquarium hobbyists (Morris and Whitfield 2009). It is unknown how this introduction occurred, but after more than 20 years the red lionfish population is widespread, occupying a large portion of the Western Atlantic (Schofield 2010) where it represents a threat to the marine ecosystem (Green et al. 2012). The …

Time-Activity Budgets Of Stoplight Parrotfish (Scaridae: Sparisoma Viride) In Belize: Cleaning Invitation And Diurnal Patterns, Wesley A. Dent, Gary R. Gaston

Gulf and Caribbean Research

The primary objective of this study was to analyze diurnal behavior of Sparisoma viride in South Water Caye Marine Reserve (SWCMR), Belize. Time-activity budgets were used to characterize behavior (using swimming, feeding, hovering, sheltering, defecating, and cleaning categories) during the diel cycle, and to illustrate differences among the life phases of this species.

‘A Barren Sceptre’ (3.1.63): Generation, Generations, And Destiny In Maqbool And Global Adaptations Of Macbeth, Andrew Fleck

Literatures and Cultural Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Activities And Achievements: Progress Report 2011-2013, Center For Governance And Sustainability, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Maria Ivanova, Craig Murphy, James Gustave Speth, Christiana Figueres, Alice Odingo

Center for Governance and Sustainability Publications

We joined the University of Massachusetts Boston in the fall of 2010 to develop a new doctoral program in global governance and human security, the first of its kind in the United States. In the spring of 2011, we launched the Center for Governance and Sustainability in an effort to bring academic rigor to real-world policy challenges in environment, development, and sustainability governance.

The Center is housed at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, which takes pride in offering a world-class interdisciplinary education and engaging in values-driven research, demonstrating a deep commitment to making a …

Clinical Trial Participation Among Ethnic/Racial Minority And Majority Patients With Advanced Cancer: What Factors Most Influence Enrollment?, Rachel Jimenez, Baohui Zhang, Steven Joffe, Matthew Nilsson, Lorna Rivera, Jan Mutchler, Christopher Lathan, M. Elizabeth Paulk, Holly G. Prigerson

Women’s and Gender Studies Faculty Publication Series

BACKGROUND: Studies using administrative data report that racial/ethnic minority patients enroll in clinical trials less frequently than white patients. We studied a cohort of terminally ill cancer patients to determine a) if racial/ethnic minority patients have lower rates of drug trial enrollment than white patients once socioeconomic characteristics are accounted for and b) what factors most influence drug trial enrollment among patients with advanced canceroverall.

METHODS: Coping with Cancer (CwC) is a National Cancer Institute/National Institute of Mental Health (NCI/NIMH)-funded multisite, prospective, longitudinal study of patients with advanced cancer. Baseline interviews assessed drug trial enrollment as well as socioeconomic characteristics. …

Biologically Inspired Energy Manager Design For The Greatt Residential Microgrid, Wen Fang

Dissertations

A biologically inspired method, involving the design of an energy manager, for coordinating the operation of a hybrid renewable residential micro-grid is presented. Flexible optimization procedures that minimize the cost of renewable distribution generators based upon the climate and location of the load profile have been developed and modeled in simulation. A novel design of a dual channel converter system and its control system forms the distributed energy storage (DES) system that features the capability of balancing the power flow in the micro-grid (even in the grid-off mode). The proposed energy management system utilizes a back propagation neural network in …