Digital Commons Network^™

Constructing A Participatory Citizenship: Rhetoric And Agency Of The Revolutionary Association Of The Women Of Afghanistan, Lauren M. Connolly

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project addresses the various constructions of citizenship and considers the concept of a participatory citizenship. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is an example of how citizenship activities are performed by a transnational feminist organization and how the members' actions contrast with the frames about Afghan women provided by the United States government and news outlets. Feminist critical discourse analysis is used to analyze texts from these groups in order to consider how citizenship is constructed and/or denied to othered women. The texts analyzed demonstrate how colonial concepts impact Afghan women and feminist rhetorical studies demonstrates …

Experimental Studies Of Lox/Ch4 Uni-Element Shear Coaxial Injector Geometry, Vanessa Dorado-Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Center for Space Exploration Technology Research (cSETR) has developed a set of shear coaxial injectors as part of a system-level approach to study LOX/CH4 combustion. This Thesis describes the experimental studies involved in the characterization of the effects produced by two design injection face plate variables: post thickness and recession length. A testing program was developed to study the injectors' atomization process using LN2 as a substitute for LOX in cold flow and the flame anchoring mechanisms in hot firings. The cold flow testing stage was conducted to obtain liquid core measurements and compare its behavior between the different …

A Meso-Level Examination Of Cross-Border Governance In The Paso Del Norte Region: Political And Economic Perspectives, Pamela Lizette Cruz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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Developing And Testing An Implicit Measure Of Moral Foundation Accessibility, Scott D. Frankowski

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Moral Foundations Theory provides a framework for understanding moral judgments and behavior. With the present research, I developed a word fragment task as an implicit measure of moral foundation accessibility. In an experiment, I used this measure as a predictor of moral attitudes and behaviors toward two moral violations. Responses on this implicit measure predicted moral attitudes; however, the priming conditions did not affect responses. The failure of the primes are discussed, as well as future directions.

Coaching Relationships With Walk-On Athletes, Cortland Blake Dubose

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover what communication practices coaches used on walk-on athletes and to determine whether the coach was successful or unsuccessful from the athletes' perspective. 15 present and former walk-on athletes who played for The University of Texas at El Paso football team served as the participants for the present study. In order to obtain data, the researcher interviewed the walk-on athletes using the phenomenological approach (Sparks, 1993) which utilizes open-ended questions to find out what kind of experience(s) the walk-on athletes shared in relationship to their coach. Results suggested that six major themes surfaced …

A Comparison Of Perceived Stress And Body Mass Index In Hispanic And Non-Hispanic College Students, Luisa Ileana Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Hispanic population in the United States is rapidly increasing and for this reason it is critical to better understand positive and negative factors that may impact the health of Hispanics. Past studies have focused mostly on physiological stress but fewer studies have examined possible differences in cognitively perceived stress. Past studies have suggested that stress reactivity may be lower among Hispanics; and that overall, females experience greater stress than males regardless of ethnicity. Other studies have shown that stress increases the likelihood of increased body mass index (BMI) and body fat accumulation. The purpose of this study was to …

Presidential Rhetoric: From The War On Drugs To The Battle Over Legalization, Manuel Antonio Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis analyzes the rhetoric executed by different presidents in order to sustain the battle against drugs. The war on drugs is one of the longest battles the United States has fought. From its inception under President Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, the war on drugs has become an institutionalized presidential program responsive to public demands for action against the spread of illegal drugs. Over the airwaves, presidential rhetorical overtures on the matter go hand in hand with the drug war on the streets. However, although presidential rhetoric remained largely consistent on combating and criminalizing drugs over much of the …

Que No Te Eduque La Rosa De Guadalupe - Stereotypes In Telenovelas, Ana Gomez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence prevail in cultures where sexism and violence are usual. According to feminist organizations our best solution is education from an early age. However, in places where means of formal education are scarce, we may turn to alternative solutions such as television. Television has been examined in multiple studies for its role in the formation of gender, and other type of stereotypes. But also it has been considered a useful tool in challenging traditional notions about gender and in helping to promote social change. For this reason, a textual analysis was conducted on La Rosa de …

Family Related Attitudes And Beliefs Influencing Risk And Support Seeking Among Female Victims Of Domestic And Sexual Violence In El Paso, Texas, Diane Ilene Huerta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

To provide effective prevention and intervention strategies for victims of domestic and sexual violence, health care professionals, law enforcement responders, and service providers must adequately understand the factors that influence risk and support seeking processes among victims. More than 12 million men and women become victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking yearly, over 24 people per minute (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013). About one in four women and one in seven men have experienced severe physical intimate partner violence at some point in their life (CDC, 2013). Minority populations are at disproportionately higher risk for domestic …

An Optimization Of Neighbor Discovery In Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Felipe Jovel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis aims to improve the performance of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) that use soft-state signaling for neighbor discovery, specifically OLSR. In particular, it uses simulations and previous work based on experiments conducted on a physical test bed to study the behavior of the neighbor-discovery algorithm used by OLSR to identify and explore ways to optimize the neighbor-discovery process. Candidate optimizations include the actual and relative settings of the refresh and expiry timers used by the algorithm.

Previous studies focused on understanding how the settings of the algorithms Hello Interval (δ) and TC Interval refresh timers affect network performance …

The Talk Of Unwed Adolescent Fathers Of Mexican Origin: A Discourse Analysis, Jose Arturo Jaime

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Since the 1970s, changing family and marriage trends in the United States have led to a dramatic 41% increase in the rate of unwed parents also known as fragile families, i.e., those at high risk of living in poverty and/or disintegrating (McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2013, p.3). By 2011, more than 20 million children (28%) lived in biological father-absent homes and one-fourth, or five million, of these children were Hispanic of any race (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Recent studies suggest a clear disparity in cognitive, behavioral and health outcomes for children who live with single or cohabiting parents when …

True Blue: A Narrative Inquiry Exploring Instructional Practices Used During Reading Instruction In A Title I, 2010 National Blue Ribbon School In New Mexico, Debra Yvonne Kerney

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Over the past 32 years, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, a trademark of excellence and success in academics, has recognized nearly 7,000 American schools in which students have demonstrated high academic performance and achievement (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Previous studies of National Blue Ribbon Schools have largely centered upon leadership characteristics (Carney-Dalton, 2001; Copeland, 2003; Kushner, 2000; Lyles, 2009; Maslyk, 2012;Sapone, 2001), but studies have not focused on the particular instructional practices that are used within these schools. Since 1982, 36 out of 862 New Mexico schools (NCES, 2013) have achieved National Blue Ribbon status (United States Department …

Glycine Transporter 2: Expression And Interactions In The Central Nervous System., Shweta Lavania

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Glycine is an important inhibitory neurotransmitter that is localized in the caudal areas of the nervous system and plays an important role in mediating many important functions related to breathing, spinal reflexes, nociception etc. Termination of neurotransmission is achieved by the re-uptake of glycine back into the pre- synaptic neuron and neighboring glial cells by the two glycine transporters namely Glycine transporter 1 (GlyT1) and Glycine transporter 2 (GlyT2). These transporters play an essential role in regulating glycinergic inhibition in the central nervous system by controlling the duration and intensity of neurotransmission and therefore the efficacy of synaptic inhibition as …

Barriers To Disaster Preparedness, Evacuation, And Emergency Response In The Colonias Of El Paso County, Anthony Mark Lechuga

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The colonias serve as a unique challenge to healthcare professionals and government agencies in developing programs and policies to reach these underserved communities. Minorities, persons of low socioeconomic status, and disabled or medically dependent persons are disproportionally affected by disasters. Researchers have studied several health outcomes prevalent in residents of colonias; however, barriers to disaster preparedness, evacuation, and emergency response have rarely, if ever, been studied in this population. This cross-sectional study applied the constructs of the Health Belief Model to identify common factors, barriers, and attitudes related to disaster preparedness, evacuation, disaster perceptions, and risk communication. Participants of this …

In Search Of Refuge: Mexican Refugees And Asylum Seekers To The U.S. From 1980 To The Present, Taylor Kristine Levy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An estimated 130,000 Mexicans have been murdered since 2006, with another 27,000 having been officially "disappeared;" approximately 2-3% of the adult Mexican population has been forced to leave their homes due to this violence, many of whom have entered the United States seeking refuge (Molloy, 2013; Olivares, 2012). These refugees have emigrated using a variety of both authorized and unauthorized channels, with a significant (and increasing) number applying for political asylum in the United States (Lyst, 2013). This Thesis seeks to provide a historic background and comprehensive analysis of the identity and struggles of the four types of modern Mexican …

Impact Of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles On Green Pea Plant & Seed Quality And Effects On Physiological Traits Of Green Peas, Corn, And Zucchini By Silver Nanoparticles, Arnab Mukherjee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The production and use of numerous engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) have increased exponentially over the past decade. Nanoparticles (NPs), ENMs possessing diameter between 1-100 nm, (NPs), are widely used in many applications. Worldwide consumption of NPs has increased their possible release into the environment. This, in turn, has elevated the extent of the potential impacts of NP exposure to living and non-living organisms. This is why the assessment of the impact of NPs on different environmental components, especially on plants, the producer in the food web, has become a very important aspect of nano-ecotoxicology. However, studies focusing on phytotoxicity and effects …

High-Recovery Inland Desalination: Concentrate Treatment By Electrodialysis And Batch Reverse Osmosis, Noe Ortega-Corral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Since fresh water resources are finite and stressed, it is of the utmost importance to develop alternative water resources. Efforts to recover and treat impaired water are happening in arid areas around the world, where water resources are already scarce. Such efforts are particularly focused on high-recovery treatment systems, accomplished by reducing the amount of liquid discharge with the intent to eventually reach zero liquid discharge. The goal of this research is to improve the feasibility of highrecovery inland desalination systems. Two types of high-recovery treatment systems were selected for study: (1) combined reverse osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis (ED) systems, …

Optimization Of Uv-Led Curable Printing Material For Applications In Direct Writing Systems: Inkjet, Reverse Offset, And Micro Dispensing Gpd, Ada Judith Ortega Varela

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The quality of a product fabricated by direct writing methods will depend greatly on the properties of the printing material and its compatibility with the printing process. Although multiple advances in developing printing inks and pastes with novel properties are being made, the potential those can bring to electronics is hindered by their stability and performance during the printing process. In this study a UV-LED curable acrylic material was used to test the optimization of inks and pastes for three of the most common direct writing systems: Piezo-type Inkjet, Reverse Offset Roll to Plate, and Micro Deposition. The viscosity of …

Development Of A Transferable Student Engagement And Knowledge Retention Framework For The Earth Sciences, Sunay Palsole

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The earth sciences play an important role in engaging students in science and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, because of the integrative nature of the disciplines. It then becomes important for us to provide an engaging experience for students taking earth science courses, because it serves a dual purpose of possibly increasing new majors in the discipline and helping to create a science literate population.

Given that a majority of students in the larger introductory courses are non-majors, it behooves us to explore alternative engagement techniques and measure their efficacy in student engagement, which in turn can …

Inviting Citizen Designers To Design Learning Management System (Lms) Interfaces For Student Agency In A Cross-Cultural Digital Contact Zone, Rajendra Kumar Panthee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Inviting Citizen Designers to Design Learning Management System (LMS) Interfaces for Student Agency in a Digital Cross-Cultural Contact Zone assesses how FYC students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds perceive Blackboard Learn and other learning management system (LMS) interfaces. The report of an empirical study shows that the current LMS design does not provide writing students in general and writing students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds in particular an opportunity of a higher-level interactivity with the LMS. The current design neither includes periphery students' cultural and linguistic norms and values, nor does it allow them to affect the existing …

Digitally Manufactured Spatially Variant Photonic Crystals, Javier Jair Pazos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Metamaterials and photonic crystals are engineered composites that exhibit electromagnetic properties superior to those found in nature. They have been shown to produce novel and useful phenomena that allow extraordinary control over the electromagnetic field. One of these phenomena is self-collimation, an effect observed in photonic crystals in which a beam of light propagates without diffraction and is forced to flow in the direction of the crystal. Self-collimation however, like many of the mechanisms enabled through dispersion engineering, is effective in directions only along the principal axes of the lattice. To this effect, a general purpose synThesis procedure was developed …

Public Social Network Sites And Social Recruiting, Abby Peters

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Social network sites (SNSs) are an increasingly popular form of social media used by individuals and organizations. As these platforms continue to transform the way people communicate with one another, they are simultaneously revolutionizing the way individuals interact with organizations. Part of this dramatic change is apparent in the processes by which organizations are recruiting employees and job seekers are pursuing employment. To investigate these phenomena, I employed the diffusion of innovations theory in a SNS context to examine the relationship between organizations' use of their corporate career website and their use of SNSs as recruiting sources. Subsequently, I used …

Factors Affecting Student-Athletes' Perceptions Of Online Privacy Issues On Twitter: A Communication Privacy Management Perspective, Amanda Jo Pulido

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Based on the communication privacy management perspective, this study examined student-athletes' perceptions of privacy issues on Twitter. This study used an online questionnaire survey to survey 5,576 student-athletes within C-USA. A total of 113 valid responses were used in the statistical analyses. Several linear regression analyses found that student-athletes' perceived control of private information flow on Twitter and their perceptions of choice significantly predicted the total months of using Twitter. Perceived control of private information flow on Twitter also predicts how many times they will check Twitter. Finally, student-athletes' perception of boundary ownership/linkage also predicts the total amount minutes spent …

Synthesis, Microstructure And Performance Evaluation Of Gadolinium Incorporated Cobalt Ferrite Ceramics, Md Taibur Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Spinel structured ferrites exhibit remarkable properties and phenomena, which are attractive for application in sensors and actuators, magneto-electronics, and electrochemical energy storage devices. Among spinel ferrites, cobalt ferrite CoFe₂O₄ (CFO) has attracted remarkable attention and widely studied because of their electro-magnetic properties, chemical stability and mechanical hardness. The properties and phenomena of CFO ceramics are dependent on microstructure and chemistry, which in turn depend on the synThesis processes and conditions employed for fabrication. Generally exact chemical composition, processing temperature, reactive or processing atmosphere (if any) and the ions that substitute Fe³⁺/Fe²⁺ ions dictate the …

Inkjet Bioprinting Of Solid Peroxides For Constructing Oxygen Generating Scaffolds To Improve Cells Viability And Growth Under Hypoxic Environment, Daniel Reyna Soriano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tissue engineering has emerged as an interdisciplinary field to overcome current challenges for tissue repair or replacement in the human body. In essence, it proposes new medical therapies customized to match the biology of specific patients. The potential benefits offered by tissue engineering have driven scientific inquiry to make it a clinical reality.

One of the current challenges in tissue engineering is to provide oxygen supply to thick tissues as oxygen diffusion is limited to 100 - 200 µm layer of viable tissue. Engineered vascular conduits are applied in vitro, providing pre-vascularization to tissues; however, host anastomosis is still a …

Effects Of Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles In Cereals: Insights Into The Toxicity Mechanisms And Macromolecular Modifications, Cyren Mendoza Rico

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Despite the inundation of studies on the interaction of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) with plants, investigations involving complete life cycle (i.e from seedling establishment to full maturity) are still lacking. Assessments on the nutritional value of plants cultivated to full maturity in ENMs-treated soil are also missing. Cerium oxide nanoparticles (nCeO2) have significant interactions with plants; however, there are no life cycle studies yet on their implications in cereals like rice (Oryza sativa L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). These cereals are globally important crops that support the economic activity, and nutritional and health needs of billions …

Hydrogen Generation From Ammonia Borane And Water Through The Combustion Reactions With Mechanically Alloyed Al/Mg Powder, Daniel Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Finding and developing a safe and effective method for hydrogen storage is integral to its use as an alternative source of energy. The goal of the studies described in this Thesis was to investigate the feasibility of developing combustible hydrogen-generating compositions based on ammonia borane and novel energetic materials such as nanocomposite and mechanically alloyed reactive materials, recently obtained by Prof. Edward Dreizin's team at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Such compositions could be stored for long time and release hydrogen on demand, upon ignition. The first phase of the research included thermodynamic calculations for combustion of ammonia …

Il-2rβ T450 Phosphorylation Is A Positive Regulator For Receptor Complex Stability And Activation Of Signaling Molecules, Blanca Estela Ruiz-Medina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Homeostasis of the immune system is required for proper defense against pathogenic insult. Cells of the innate and adaptive compartments provide a strictly regulated response to clear infections while allowing for self-tolerance. Dysregulation of the components of the immune system can lead to immunodeficiency, autoimmunity, and cancer. Key players of the immune response are T, B, and NK cells, which become strongly activated by IL2 through its receptor. The β subunit of the receptor becomes tyrosine, serine, and threonine phosphorylated upon induction with IL2. Phosphorylation of tyrosine residues has been extensively studied, however, the putative regulatory role of serine and …

Three Essays On Social/Political Structures And Icts Use, Seungeui Ryu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My research identifies how social structures affect the use of the Internet and/or a mobile chat application and how the Internet impacts the political structure of a nation. In my first essay of the 3-essay Dissertation, I am designing three models based on social structure theory that are used to study the Internet and a popular mobile chat application's use by managers in South Korea, with the help of a survey instrument. In my first essay, the contribution is on i) testing a model of manager's personal behavior on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use at the individual level involving …

Identification And Characterization Of Novel Anti-Leukemia And Anti-Lymphoma Compounds, Yahaira Santiago

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The anti-cancer properties of curcumin, the natural yellow pigment in the roots of turmeric (Curcuma longa), have been extensively described over the last century. It has been shown to interfere with multiple cell signaling pathways, including execution of apoptosis, anti-proliferation, anti-angiogenic, and anti-inflammatory properties. However, curcumin's cytotoxic potential is limited when administered in vivo. With the idea of preserving curcumin's characteristics, but improving its bioavailability, analogues have been developed and evaluated in the last decade. Most of the analogues have shown very good anti-cancer activity in various cell lines and one analogue is now in a clinical trial. Nonetheless, this …