Digital Commons Network^™

Factors That Latino High School Students Identify As Influencing Their Graduation From An Urban High School And Their Decision To Enter A Post-Secondary Institution, Nellie Martinez

Education Doctoral

In the early 1990s, there were five million Latino students enrolled in America’s public schools. A decade later, this number had doubled in size. Presently, over 50% of Latino students attend urban schools located in high-poverty neighborhoods with high crime rates, welfare dependency, and educational failure. With this increase in the enrollment of Latino students and the associated impact on the American workforce, it is necessary to ensure that Latino students achieve the educational standards required to succeed in the workforce. This phenomenological qualitative study examined the factors and influences that contribute to Latino high school seniors graduating from an …

Landing: On The Other Side, Marianita Escamilla

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Landing: On the Other Side a collection of essays that discuss one woman's struggle with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia (FM). The narratives are organized non-chronologically because the more pervasive effects of this chronic illness manifest in waves that do not follow a simple means of progression. Rather, FM's most powerful symptom is the highly variable pain strength coupled with its unpredictability.

The mass marketability of this text, as with other illness/disability narratives, lies in the universal message of prevailing against adversity. A person need not suffer from this illness or any ailment to comprehend the narrator's plight. While this …

Use Of Semi-Structured Interviews To Explore Competing Demands In A Prostate Cancer Prevention Intervention Clinical Trial (Pcpict), Theresa Crocker, Karen Besterman-Dahan, David Himmelgreen, Heide Castañeda, Clement K. Gwede, Nagi Kumar

The Qualitative Report

In this paper we report on findings from the first known study using qualitative methods to explore factors influencing physicians’ participation in an ongoing federally-funded prostate cancer chemoprevention clinical trial. We sought to identify ways to improve collaboration between researchers and physicians and enhance the success of future projects and employed purposive sampling to recruit physician/investigators who were involved or invited to participate in the trial. Using the data from open-ended semi-structured interviews, we examined patterns in their languaging and created themes. We found that individual and structural factors served as barriers and facilitators to participation. Willingness and desire to …

The Italian Press And The Church: Italian Newspaper Coverage Of Lds-Related News And The Media Strategies Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In Italy 2010-2012, Giulia Vibilio Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between media and religion has been influenced by many factors in history. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has received a great deal of media attention throughout the world in the past five years. In Italy, the Church National Council of Public Relations worked to provide the media with the necessary information to report accurate news about the Church. This thesis collected the information provided to the Italian media by the Church National Council and analyzed the main topic and the level of accuracy reported by the Italian media on Church-related news. The results show that …

The Interaction Of Aeolian And Fluvial Processes In Dry Washes On The Colorado Plateau, Usa, Beau Jensen Walker

Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade there has been a call for integrated studies that examine the interaction of fluvial and aeolian processes (Belnap et al., 2011; Bullard and Livingstone, 2002). In this study, we examined the role of land-use, weather, and soil type on the flux of aeolian material into dry washes on the Colorado Plateau in central Utah, USA, and western Colorado, USA. Our goal was to quantify the impact of individual deposition and erosion events by correlating weather and land-use data with a combination of measurement methods including dust collection via dust traps, GPS surveying, and close-range photogrammetry. Our …

Influence Of Pile Shape On Resistance To Lateral Loading, Guillermo Bustamante

Theses and Dissertations

The lateral resistance of pile foundations has typically been based on the resistance of circular pipe piles. In addition, most instrumented lateral load tests and cases history have involved circular piles. However, piles used in engineering practice may also be non-circular cross-section piles such as square and H piles. Some researchers have theorized that the lateral resistance of square piles will be higher than that of circular piles (Reese and Van Impe, 2001; Briaud et al, 1983; Smith, 1987) for various reasons, but there is not test data to support this claims. To provide basic comparative performance data, lateral load …

Fabrication, Characterization, Optimization And Application Development Of Novel Thin-Layer Chromatography Plates, Supriya Singh Kanyal

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes advances in the microfabrication of thin layer chromatography (TLC) plates. These plates are prepared by the patterning of carbon nanotube (CNT) forests on substrates, followed by their infiltration with an inorganic material. This document is divided into ten sections or chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the basics of conventional TLC technology. This technology has not changed substantially in decades. This chapter also mentions some of the downsides of the conventional approach, which include unwanted interactions of the binder in the plates with the analytes, relatively slow development times, and only moderately high efficiencies. Chapter 2 focuses primarily on …

Role Of Epistasis In Alzheimer's Disease Genetics, Mark T. Ebbert

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease is a complex neurodegenerative disease whose basic etiology and genetic structure remains elusive, despite decades of intensive investigation. To date, the significant genetic markers identified have no obvious functional effects, and are unlikely to play a role in Alzheimer's disease etiology, themselves. These markers are likely linked to other genetic variations, rare or common. Regardless of what causal mutations are found, research has demonstrated that no single gene determines Alzheimer's disease development and progression. It is clear that Alzheimer's disease development and progression are based on a set of interactions between genes and environmental variables. This dissertation focuses …

A Model For Meeting And Event Venues To Implement Green Practices, Justine Clewer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2007 green meetings were ranked as the third most anticipated trend by Event Solutions magazine’s survey of 1,350 event professionals, however by 2011 it was an emerging trend (Goldblatt, 2012). Today, meeting and event planners are increasingly including clauses in their contracts with venues pertaining to green practices, and are willing to look elsewhere if a venue does not agree to partake in the green initiatives. For venues the failure to “go green” can mean a substantial loss of revenue. Nonetheless, many businesses are hesitant to engage in green (sustainable) practices, because they are not properly educated on the …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Race And Sports Book Complimentary Awards Program, Pak Szeto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to develop a proper way to measure the effectiveness of complimentary award programs in race and sports books. Like most businesses, casinos seek to increase business volume by offering promotions. According to existing research on casino marketing, promotion activities are often measured by the change in business volume (Lucas & Kilby, 2008). Casino operators should be careful because an increase in business volume does not always equal an increase in profit. To create a positive effect on profit, a promotion must at least create enough gross revenue to offset its cost. Some casino executives …

A Study Of Airbnb As A Potential Competitor Of The Hotel Industry, Quynh Nguyen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of the study is to examine Airbnb as a possible competitor of the hotel industry using Peteraf and Bergen’s broad-based competitor identification tool. Unlike existing empirical research on the subject, the study takes a qualitative approach to answer the research question. The results of the study assist hotel operators in determining the competitiveness of Airbnb and the need for a business response to the service.

A Study On Employee Turnover In Shanghai’S Fine Dining Restaurants, Yang Liu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Training Marriage And Family Therapists In Formal Assessment: Contributions To Students' Familiarity, Attitude, And Confidence, Scott C. Huff, Shayne R. Anderson, Lindsay L. Edwards

Faculty Publications

Studies suggest that few practicing marriage and family therapists use formal assessments and even fewer use systemic assessments. Given the potential value of formal assessment to both clinicians and clients, we surveyed current marriage and family therapy students (N = 91) about their familiarity, attitude, and confidence in training with assessment. Experience using assessments predicted familiarity. Having a supervisor that valued assessments predicted familiarity and confidence in training. The number of courses taken in assessment was not predictive of familiarity, attitude, or confidence. Implications for training and future research are discussed

Nutrition Students’ Perception Of Osce & Its Effect On Perceived Readiness To Clinical Placement, Elaf Farahat

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Objective: Explore nutrition and dietetic students’ perception of the educational value of Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) and to examine the change in their perceived readiness to practice after completing three OSCEs.

Participants: Students from the Schools of Public Health (SPH) and Allied Health Professions (SAHP) enrolled in Medical Nutrition Therapy course, mean age 26.6±5.4 years, 95% females (n=37).

Methods: Mixed-method sequential exploratory design. Three focus group discussions (11 participants) were conducted as part of the qualitative phase to elicit themes related to perception of OSCE as an education tool. In the quantitative phase, a pre-post test design …

The Role Of Claudins In Bone Metabolism, Fatima Zakariya Alshbool

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Osteoporosis, a major public health problem in the U.S., is characterized by low bone mass and structural deterioration of bone tissue. Since the imbalance between bone formation and bone resorption during bone remodeling has been documented to be a major factor in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis, it is crucial to identify novel genes and/or novel functions of known genes that regulate the formation and activity of bone forming osteoblasts and bone resorbing osteoclasts. To this end, recent evidence suggests a significant role for caudins (Cldns), which comprise a major group of tight junction proteins, in bone biology and development. This …

Modulation Of T Lymphocytes By Tumor-Released Survivin, Jessica Marie Jutzy

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The tumor microenvironment is an area of intense interaction between normal and malignant cells. Factors and cell types within this environment can play a crucial role in the progression or regression of the tumor. Of primary interest are tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes, which have been shown to have a key role in modifying the dynamics of the tumor microenvironment to promote or prevent tumor growth. While there is much in vitro and in vivo evidence for a modification of the tumor infiltrating T cell population toward a pro-tumor environment, what induces these changes within the tumor microenvironment has remained elusive. Our …

Stereotypes About Healthcare Professionals, Emotions, And Mammography Compliance, Kayla M. Kinworthy

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Rates of mammography screening are particularly low for minority women, with only 42% of Latin American (Latino) women in the U.S. reporting having a mammogram in the last year as compared to 53% of non-Latino White (Anglo) women [1]. Minority patients are more likely to report negative healthcare encounters with their health professionals [2; 3], which may result in less favorable cultural stereotypes about healthcare professionals and more negative emotional reactions. Guided by Betancourt’s Integrative Model of Culture, Psychological Processes, and Health Behavior [4] and the Stereotype Content Model [5], the aim of the present research was to examine the …

The Use Of Surface Cytokines As Biomarkers In B Cell Mediated Autoimmune Diseases, Abby Jones Weldon

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

RA and SLE are B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases dominated by autoantibodies that affect over 1.5 million Americans. Together RA and SLE contribute to over 29 billion in healthcare costs, therefore due to the high financial burden and physical toll of these diseases on the population, there is a critical need to effectively and efficiently diagnose and treat RA and SLE patients. The aim of our studies was to identify biomarkers and drug targets to improve the identification and treatment of RA and SLE patients. As discussed above, APRIL, BAFF and TSLP have been implicated in the pathogenesis of RA and …

Differential Item Functioning: Item Level Analysis Of Timss Mathematics Test Items Using Australian And Indonesian Database, Fitriati Fitriati

Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) aims to provide a broad perspective for evaluating and improving education. This assessment also ranks the participant countries based on their performance and makes inferences about factors affecting achievement and learning. However, the study may not function as it was expected because of differences in curricular, cultural, or language settings among countries. Consequently, this challenges assumptions about measurement equivalency. The present study aims to assess the equivalency of mathematics items on the TIMSS (2007) study across Australian and Indonesia. Students’ responses were subjected to Rasch analysis to determine DIF items. The …

How To Perform A Democracy: A Genealogy Of The Bare Voice, Travis Wade Holloway

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

My dissertation argues that participatory democracy is born out of a unique mode of aesthetic performance. This thesis is based on recent French and Italian philosophy concerning democracy, inequality, and political representation. My point of departure, however, is Plato's genealogy of democracy in Book 3 of the Laws, where Plato explains that participatory democracy in Athens was a result of a prior revolution in the city's theater. This work is an extension of Plato's genealogy into the kind of poetry and theater and philosophy that Plato says was responsible for a revolution that brought political and economic equality to Athens. …

Rhetoric And The Way To Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger, Nanda Golden

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

By developing Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Plato, Aristotle, and the Greek rhetorical tradition, this dissertation argues that rhetoric, understood as the discipline that best knows how to lead others with everyday speech, is crucial for rousing the desire to choose the philosophical life. This work focuses primarily on three texts: Plato's Phaedrus, Aristotle's Rhetoric, and Heidegger's 1924 lecture Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy. It fleshes out Heidegger's concept of rhetoric by mapping it on to the development of Greek rhetorical theory, showing how rhetoric's philosophical potential comes to be realized and why Plato and Aristotle's philosophical investigation of rhetoric must …

Propaedeutic To Philosophy: Dialogue And Truth In Philosophical Practice, Lauren Nelson Hesse

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation advocates a model of dialogue as an approach to education and to philosophical discourse itself that is capable of acknowledging and accommodating the manifold possibilities for human thought. Contemporary philosophy is permeated by a loss of certainty and the increasingly problematic nature of the concept of truth, and the complication of these concepts exposes significant limitations in the ways we conceptualize thought itself. Working in this vein, Gilles Deleuze identifies what he calls an " image of thought," which characterizes the forms we have traditionally allowed thinking to take. His critique of this image, along with its subsequent …

The Policing Of Self And Others: Foucault, Political Reason And A Critical Ontology Of Police, Kevin Scott Jobe

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Situating Foucault as a philosopher of actuality, I interpret and extend Foucault's critique of police as part of a broader philosophical reflection on subjectivity, and the practices of freedom (parrhesia) and revolt that constitute our actuality as free beings. In the first chapter, I situate Foucault as a philosopher of actuality, understood as the thinking of the continuity of ourselves (" we" ) as free beings involved in struggles against authority. In the second chapter, I draw out the fundamental antagonism in Foucault's later work between pastoral modes of subjectivity and Cynic modes of subjectivity, setting up an oppositon in …

Integrability And Non-Integrability In The Ising Model, Michael Assis

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The Ising model at magnetic field H=0 is one of the most important exactly solved models in statistical mechanics, solved on the square lattice in 1944 by Onsager, and later by others on the triangular lattice; its magnetic susceptibility at H=0 continues to be an unsolved aspect of the model, however. The susceptibility can either be viewed as a sum over all correlation functions of the integrable model at H=0, or else as a second derivative of the free energy of the non-integrable Ising model in a field. Therefore, its analytic properties, though derived from the non-integrable model, can be …

The Influence Of Proton Order On The Thermal Conductivity Of Ice, Jonathan Tammo Siebert

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Water is one of the most important reasons for the possibility of life on earth. Even though water and ice have been in the focus of countless studies they are far from being understood. Despite their simple molecular structure, especially the ability of the molecule to form hydrogen bonds leads to a variety of interesting properties. One of them is the density maximum of water in its liquid state. This is caused by the hydrogen bound hexagonal structure of low pressure ice. In this work the influence of proton ordering on the thermal conductivity of hexagonal ice is examined. It …

“Technoference”: The Interference Of Technology In Couple Relationships And Implications For Women’S Personal And Relational Well-Being, Brandon T. Mcdaniel, Sarah M. Coyne

Faculty Publications

Technology use has proliferated in family life; everyday intrusions and interruptions due to technology devices, which we term “technoference,” will likely occur. We examine the frequency of technoference in romantic relationships and whether these everyday interruptions relate to women’s personal and relational well-being. Participants were 143 married/cohabiting women who completed an online questionnaire. The majority perceived that technology devices (such as computers, cell or smartphones, or TV) frequently interrupted their interactions, such as couple leisure time, conversations, and mealtimes, with their partners. Overall, participants who rated more technoference in their relationships also reported more conflict over technology use, lower relationship …

Acculturation Experiences Of Latina Immigrants In Suffolk County, New York: A Grounded Theory Study, Jennifer Wood

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This study examines the process of acculturation for female Latina immigrants in Suffolk County, New York. Thirty in-depth audiotaped interviews were conducted with adult women who were born in Mexico, El Salvador, or Ecuador and a theoretical model for acculturation was constructed using grounded theory methodology. The model reflects the lived experiences and perceptions of the participants. It also provides a number of factors involved in the acculturative process and attainment of acculturative goals for the participants. Social, psychological, cultural, and environmental supports and barriers are presented that impact the acculturative process. Findings suggest that the level of acculturation attained …

Microplastics In Long Island Marine Estuaries, Jessica Steve

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This study investigated the prevalence of microplastics in Shinnecock Bay and Jamaica Bay on Long Island in New York. Surface water samples were collected with a 200 μ m plankton tow net, filtered onto metal mesh screens, and examined under a dissecting microscope. A total of 517 microplastic particles were found in samples from Shinnecock Bay (0-0.58 particles m-3), and 1,005 particles were found in Jamaica Bay samples (0-3.93 particles m-3). Particles were visually sorted by size, color, and shape. Statistical analyses were performed to analyze microplastic particle diversity, evenness, and any spatial or temporal variation. Attempts to determine source …

Microplastics In Long Island Marine Estuaries, Jessica Steve

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This study investigated the prevalence of microplastics in Shinnecock Bay and Jamaica Bay on Long Island in New York. Surface water samples were collected with a 200 μ m plankton tow net, filtered onto metal mesh screens, and examined under a dissecting microscope. A total of 517 microplastic particles were found in samples from Shinnecock Bay (0-0.58 particles m-3), and 1,005 particles were found in Jamaica Bay samples (0-3.93 particles m-3). Particles were visually sorted by size, color, and shape. Statistical analyses were performed to analyze microplastic particle diversity, evenness, and any spatial or temporal variation. Attempts to determine source …

Gender, Power, And Inequality: An Examination Of The Causes And Consequences Of Queer Intimate Partner Violence, Bethany Marie Coston

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Violence is a not a new social phenomenon--at least, in the sense that violence has occurred throughout history between individuals, within communities, and practiced by institutions. But mainstream sociological studies of violence are all too often studies of men's violence. This project is an attempt to challenge critically the specter of heteronormativity that haunts the theories and praxis of intimate partner violence (IPV). Under this preexisting framework, studies have focused on men's violence against woman and used patriarchy as an explanation (i.e. the unequal distribution of gendered power, with men benefiting). However, I want to know if gender is still …