Digital Commons Network^™

Defining And Supporting Organizational Readiness In The Interactive Systems Framework For Dissemination And Implementaion, Jonathan Peter Scaccia

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction. In the implementation literature, organizational readiness is associated with an increased likelihood of achieving innovation outcomes. Organizational readiness consists of organizational capacity (general and innovation-specific) and organization motivation. Organizations who wish to get results from their innovations have an interest in making sure that certain factors and subcomponents are in place. However, having awareness that certain capacities and factors that influence motivation are linked to improved innovation outcomes does not necessarily help organizations to get “more ready.” There is a need for organizations to know if and how they can effectively put these factors and subcomponents into place. This …

High-Performance Meta-Genomic Gene Identification, Ibrahim Savran

Theses and Dissertations

Computational Genomics, or Computational Genetics, refers to the use of computational and statistical analysis for understanding the structure and the function of genetic material in organisms. The primary focus of research in computational genomics in the past three decades has been the understanding of genomes and their functional elements by analyzing biological sequence data. The high demand for low-cost sequencing has driven the development of highthroughput sequencing technologies, next-generation sequencing (NGS), that parallelize the sequencing process, producing thousands or millions of sequences concurrently. Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two …

The Role Of Lis1 In Adult Mammalian System, Xu Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Lis1 haploinsufficiency in humans results in a “smooth brain” phenotype called lissencephaly, and also causes severe cognitive and motor impairments and epilepsy. Seizure severity and frequency typically worsens with time; patients often die within the first decade due to seizure-induced aspiration and pneumonia. Various mouse models have been used to examine the role of Lis1 during brain development, and it is clear that Lis1 regulates a microtubule motor, cytoplasmic dynein. Intriguingly, Lis1 expression remains high in adult brains indicating that it plays a role in mature systems. Indeed, our group found that Lis1 and several related proteins regulate dynein-dependent axon …

Leadership Perspectives On International Education For Public School Students In South Carolina: Two Case Studies, Frederick Eugene Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how two rural public school districts in South Carolina conceptualize and implement an international education, according to the perspectives of administrators and teachers. This comparative case study of two public school districts spans the districts’ elementary, middle, high and career center schools and seeks to understand how the presence of a major multinational corporation influences school internationalization. The data on their perspectives on internationalization were drawn from interviews. I interviewed the school principal and teachers involved in internationalizing the curriculum, policy and practice in each of the ten schools. In addition to school level personnel, I interviewed …

Novel Biofabrication Technologies To Recapitulate In Vivo Geometries In Collagen Hydrogels, Veronica Rodriguez-Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine aims to restore form and function to tissues that have been lost or damaged due to disease, congenital defect, or trauma. Biomaterials suitable to restore these complex tissues need to provide a balance between chemical and mechanical properties, providing accurate cell-matrix interaction and induce in vivo behaviors such as proliferation, differentiation and migration. It also requires that physical and chemical cues be presented to the body in the proper temporal and spatial pattern. The extracellular matrix exerts forces that are transmitted through focal adhesion causing changes in the cell behavior. The hypothesis for this dissertation …

Applications Of Advanced Imaging Methods: Macro-Scale Studies Of Woven Composites And Micro-Scale Measurements On Heated Ic Packages, Siming Guo

Theses and Dissertations

As a representative advanced imaging technique, the digital image correlation (DIC) method has been well established and widely used for deformation measurements in experimental mechanics. This methodology, both 2D and 3D, provides qualitative and quantitative information regarding the specimen’s non-uniform deformation response. Its full-field capabilities and non-contacting approach are especially advantageous when applied to heterogeneous material systems such as fiber-reinforced composites and integrated chip (IC) packages. To increase understanding of damage evolution in advanced composite material systems, a series of large deflection bending-compression experiments and model predictions have been performed for a woven glass-epoxy composite material system. Stereo digital image …

Practical Concurrency Support For Web Service Transactions, Emad Alsuwat

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional database concurrency control methods use locking, timestampordering, and optimistic-ordering to achieve DB consistency. However, these approaches are not suitable for long-running Web Service Compositions (WSCs) due to associated performance degradation. Our hypothesis asserts that, using transactional semantic and ordering information, the execution time of a WSC can be reduced, thus allowing the use of traditional database concurrency control methods while avoiding unacceptable performance degradation. Our solution is based on the following approaches: § We model a WSC as WS-BPEL specification, i.e., a partial order of WS transactions. § We allow some of the WS transactions in the WSC to …

Revising For Genre: Mary Robinson's Poetry From Newspaper Verse To Lyrical Tales, Shelley Aj Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on Mary Robinson’s Lyrical Tales, not as the culminating point to which her writing inevitably led, as is frequently imagined in accounts of her life and work, but, instead, as the product of an intricate process of revision that highlights her investment in genre. Versions of many of the poems that Robinson included in Lyrical Tales originally were published in newspapers and periodicals. Rather than seeing the changes as a move toward a best or most mature or inspired version, I argue that Robinson revised to meet the requirements of her new genre, the lyrical tale. I …

The Influence Of Organizational Climate On The Use And Quality Of Evidence-Based Practices In School Mental Health, Katherine Knies

Theses and Dissertations

Organizational climate is defined as the reflection of workers’ perceptions of, and emotional responses to, the characteristics of their work environment (Glisson & James, 2002). While previous research explored the importance of organization climate for the adoption of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in mental health settings, there is a dearth of organizational climate focused research in school mental health settings (SMH). The current study examines the influence of organizational climate on two separate dependent variables: the extent to which EBPs were used and the quality of clinician delivery for the evidence-based practices used in a quality improvement intervention for SMH practitioners. …

Virtual High Schools Versus Brick And Mortar High Schools: An Analysis Of Graduation Rates For Low Socio-Economic Students In South Carolina, Alice Denise Montgomery

Theses and Dissertations

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 was designed to ensure that all students are receiving an appropriate education. All states were mandated to implement state-wide assessments to monitor student achievement. With the identification of student needs that came from the results of state-wide assessments, leaders at both the state and district levels began to develop programs to address these needs. The virtual high school is one of the alternative settings for education that came out of this movement. Full-time virtual high schools have a growing enrollment every year. However, the progress these schools are making in the …

Principal Longevity, Leadership Behaviors, And Student Academic Achievement, Jennifer Mcleod Swearingen

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing Pearson’s correlation and other forms of data analysis, the researcher explored relationships between principal longevity, leadership behaviors, and student academic achievement in this study. Additionally, the study considered the degree to which leadership behavior ratings seem to be associated with student academic achievement. The researcher found positive correlations among all three variables, with the strongest correlation being between principal longevity and student academic achievement. The only correlation that was found to be statistically significant was between principal longevity and student academic achievement. The researcher was also able to identify the highest and lowest rated leadership behaviors for principals with …

Automated Scratchpad Mapping And Allocation For Embedded Processors, Yang Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Embedded system-on-chip processors such as the Texas Instruments C66 DSP and the IBM Cell provide the programmer with a software controlled on-chip memory to supplement a traditional but simple two-level cache. By decomposing data sets and their corresponding workload into small subsets that fit within this on-chip memory, the processor can potentially achieve equivalent or better performance, power efficiency, and area efficiency than with its sophisticated cache. However, program controlled on chip memory requires a shift in the responsibility for management and allocation from the hardware to the programmer. Specifically, this requires the explicit mapping of program arrays to specific …

Intensive Dual Enrollment: Early Credits Or Empty Promises, Brian J. Modarelli

Theses and Dissertations

American high school students are afforded a wide array of opportunities to earn college credits. Industrious secondary students are enrolling in early credit options in steadily growing numbers, and are expecting the benefit of entering the university of their choice with several college credits already completed. However, an unmistakable lack of standardization and predictability exists regarding the transferability of college credits earned by secondary students. The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between the selectivity level of a university and that university’s willingness to accept either an associate degree or the transfer credits from an early credit …

Benefits Of Video Games In Multidisciplinary Scientific Research, Jeremiah Jeffrey Shepherd

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, computer-based games have been shown to be effective both as a tool for conducting research in a variety of domains and for research on games itself. In this work, we show that implementing games that have a basis in theory and that are combined with the most recent gaming practices result in effective research tools. We demonstrate this via game implementations for three domains. The first implementation is based on new theories in speech pedagogy, and demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach. The second implementation shows that using a game that simulates therapeutic speech practices can aid …

Understanding Geo-Social Network Patterns: Computation, Visualization, And Usability, Caglar Koylu

Theses and Dissertations

Geo-social networks are formed by flows of physical entities (e.g., humans, vehicles, sensors, animals), and communication (e.g., information, ideas, innovation) that connect places to places and individuals to individuals. Several major problems remain to be addressed for understanding the complex patterns in geo-social networks. This dissertation makes the following contributions to the theory and methodologies that aim at understanding complex geo-social data by integrating methods of computation, visualization and usability evaluation. Chapter 2 introduces a novel network-based smoothing approach that addresses the size-difference and small area problem in calculating and mapping locational (graph) measures in spatial interaction networks. The new …

Saint Dominguan Refugees In Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation And Accommodation In A Slave Society, Margaret Wilson Gillikin

Theses and Dissertations

During the 1790s and the first decade of the nineteenth century, nearly 20,000 refugees fled the French colony of Saint Domingue for asylum in the United States. They found new homes in such American port cities as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. This dissertation explores the experiences of the white planters, gens de couleur, and slaves who sought asylum in Charleston, South Carolina, and the effect their presence had on the city’s long time residents. It might seem from first glance that finding acceptance in Charleston would be easy for them, but this was not the case. …

Who Let The Elephant In The Room? Analyzing Race And Racism Through A Critical Family Literacy Book Club, Lamar L. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to interpret, investigate, and analyze how race, racism, and power are embedded and intertwined not only in society but also in the education system and in homes and communities. Specifically, through parent and student engagement during a series of book club meetings, I investigated how parents’ racial identities impacted how they created critical dialogue pertaining to issues of race, racism, and power with their children. Guided by critical race pedagogy, critical race theory (CRT) and CRT methodology, this study used race as a critical analytic lens to examine the lives and work of people …

Dancing On Checkers' Grave By Eric Lane, Allison Kump

Honors Projects

My proposed honors project consists of directing my own, fully-actualized production of Eric Lane’s play Dancing on Checkers’ Grave within the BGSU’s Department of Theatre & Film Elsewhere season. As the director, I must hone in on the play’s relevance to today’s society and shape my storytelling tools to clearly communicate the narrative, establishing a relationship between the performers and the audience.

Dancing on Checkers’ Grave is a play about two very different teenage girls who come to bond over homework, “munchkining,” relationships, and nail polish. Rooted within the text are topics of sexual identity, what it means to be …

A Guide To Recruitment And Retention For A Band Program, Kara Kordella

Honors Projects

A Guide to Recruitment and Retention for a Band Program is a resource for teachers to establish a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan in their band program. This booklet outlines a recruitment program that can be implemented into a school band program in part or in whole. Also included in this booklet are lesson plans, student assessment worksheets, example recruitment documents, and ideas to be implemented as part of a retention program. All of the activities are backed by research into current recruitment practices, educational psychology, and instrument history and pedagogy. Interviews were also conducted with current and retired band …

Comparison Of Conventional And Bayesian Analysis For The Ultrasonic Characterization Of Cancellous Bone, Amber Groopman

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the physics underlying the propagation of ultrasonic waves in cancellous bone. Although quantitative ultrasound has the potential to evaluate bone quality even better than the current gold standard X-ray based modality, its clinical utility has been hampered by the incomplete understanding of the mechanisms governing the interaction between ultrasound and bone. Therefore, studies that extend the understanding of the fundamental physics of the relationship between ultrasound and trabecular bone tissue may result in improved clinical capabilities.Ultrasonic measurements were carried out on excised human calcaneal specimens in order to study the effects of overlapping fast and slow compressional …

Making Fun Of Franco: Representations And Caricatures Of Spanish Fascism In The Films El Espiritú De La Colmena, Cría Cueros And El Laberinto Del Fauno, Elizabeth Pruchnicki

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The end of the Spanish Civil War marked the beginning of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, which lasted more than 35 years. Throughout this time, he systemized terror, executing more than 100,000 republican sympathizers in the first few years of his regime and marginalizing the remainder of the population. Therefore, the Fascist Era lasting from 1940-1975 is one plagued with strained relationships, ambiguous loyalties and distant relatives. The films El espiritú de la colmena by Victor Erice, Cría cuervos by Carlos Saura and El laberinto del fauno by Guillermo del Toro’s illustrate these kinds of challenges, from the point …

Yesterday’S Town: A Multimedia Investigation Into The Tourism Decline Gripping Britain’S East Coast, Anna Giles

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

One of the hardest things for some people to accept is change, especially when it involves part of their national identity. For years, people in Great Britain have thrived off of tourism in seaside towns and have considered it a source of pride. But the high-end Bed and Breakfasts’ and lively boardwalks that once attracted vacation-goers are not so common nowadays as the world becomes more globalized and more Britons can afford to vacation overseas. This has resulted in a drastic loss of revenue for many of these seaside businesses. The number of visitors who stayed overnight in Yarmouth peaked …

Penn State Football: An Analysis Of Crisis Communication Best Practices And How Psu Overcame The Ultimate Pr Crisis, Meaghan Grace Lane

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis paper is an analysis of the crisis communication response to the 2011 Pennsylvania State University child sex abuse scandal. The reputation of this iconic university and its football program was changed forever by this horrific event, which involved years of administrative cover-ups of the sexual assault of children by an assistant football coach. However, despite widespread public backlash, administrative upheaval and heavy NCAA sanctions in the months after the scandal broke, Penn State has since made major strides in image improvement.

This project delves into what defines best crisis communication practices, using Penn State as a case study. …

Invest For Impact: An Exploration Of The Incongruities In Social Finance, Kelly Marie Thompson

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Within the impact investing industry, a definition for societal return and how to measure this concept is lacking. Although its potential has been proven, there is still very limited exposure to impact investing within the United States. The present study aims to survey the current status of the impact investment industry in the United States, assess the presence of gaps between investments and their outcomes, and formulate a framework for addressing such shortcomings. The current status of the impact investing industry was examined and evaluated in order to understand how the industry is defined, what is the outcomes social finance, …

Linguistic Diversity On The Internet: Arabic, Chinese And Cyrillic Script Top-Level Domain Names, Undrah Baasanjav

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The deployment of Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic top-level domain names is explored in this research by analyzing technical and policy documents of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as well as newspaper articles in the respective language regions. The tension between English uniformity at the root level of the Internet׳s domain names system, and language diversity in the global Internet community, has resulted in various technological solutions surrounding Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic language domain names. These standards and technological solutions ensure the security and stability of the Internet; however, they do not comprehensively address the linguistic diversity …

The Impact Of Documentation Status On The Educational Attainment Experiences Of Undocumented Hispanic/Latino Students, Brittanie Alexandria Roberts

Dissertations and Theses

The issue of undocumented immigration has recently taken center-stage in the media and national politics in the United States. A large population of undocumented youth grows up with legal access to public education through high school, following the Supreme Court decision of Plyler vs. Doe, but faces legal and economic barriers to post-secondary education. Following high school, undocumented Hispanic/Latino youth legal protections end, greatly limiting chances for upward mobility through traditional post-secondary education pipelines. In some cases, knowledge of future barriers to post-secondary education leads to a decline in educational motivation.

The current political atmosphere makes this study a bit …

Elaborating Patient Agency In Breast-Cancer Care: A Grounded Theoretical Analysis Of Patients Asserting Treatment Preferences, Rachel Sofia Erdman

Dissertations and Theses

Successful physician-patient communication is increasingly being acknowledged as a vital aspect of healthcare today. Research in the field has not examined all aspects of patient-centered care and the aspects that have been studied have not been grounded in actual patient action. The research done in the field has largely been studied quantitatively. The present thesis research attempts to contribute to the gap in the field of physician-patient communication by qualitatively examining patient assertiveness. This thesis examines conversations between women in Portland, Oregon recently diagnosed with breast cancer talking to their surgeons about their diagnoses and treatment options. Using grounded qualitative …

Integrating The Arts And Sciences In The Museum Setting, Emily Clare Riggins

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The division between the arts and sciences appears to be deepening in America. As political leaders emphasize STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in schools, arts education is diminished to make room for STEM courses. Concerned about this phenomenon, many art educators are working to integrate the arts into STEM education through a variety of arts integration efforts. Arts integration not only helps to preserve a place for the arts in the curriculum, it also has been shown to enhance STEM learning.

Arts integration is of special interest to art museum educators who feel that they can provide resources …

"The Garden Of Forking Paths": Islamic Legal Transformations In The Ottoman Empire During The Nineteenth Century, John Bugnacki

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In the popular imagination, misconceptions abound regarding islamic law. Many outside of the Islamic world believe that Islamic law consists of a discrete series of inviolable, unchanging commands. However, both in historical and contemporary contexts, this characterization is false. The different legal schools within Islamic law have evolved and changed over time in response to surrounding conditions and other legal traditions that have existed alongside it. In the Ottoman Empire this process was particularly evident and, during the nineteenth century, its main tradition of Islamic law underwent an unprecedented transformation that would seek to combine Islamic legal principles within statist …

5 Days Of Giveaways: Ole Miss Printables, Elizabeth Burgreen

University of Mississippi News

An easy, creative and inexpensive treat for the ultimate Ole Miss fan