Digital Commons Network^™

Community College Instructors' Perceptions And Use Of Feedback, Janeth Martin Walker Franklin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many community college students, especially those who are required to take developmental education courses, do not complete course and degree goals. Research shows that constructive feedback practices used by instructors improve academic achievement while destructive feedback practices diminish student learning. Using a constructivist framework, the purpose of this qualitative, instrumental case study was to understand how faculty who teach developmental education and entry level college courses perceive and use feedback in a large urban community college in the Southwestern United States. Data were collected through 17 in-depth, face-to-face interviews and written feedback examples submitted by the faculty members. Interview transcripts …

Crisis Preparedness Of Leadership Behaviors Among Elected Leaders During Hurricanes, Fredric Marc Francis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Crisis preparedness is the responsibility of every person, business, and leader, and leadership behavioral skills are an essential characteristic of crisis preparedness. The purpose of this case study was to explore the decisions of elected leaders along the Gulf Coast during Hurricanes Katrina and Ike in order to understand their leadership behaviors in crisis preparedness. The conceptual framework was based on the emergency management theory presented by McEntire in 2004, which helped to define the necessary components for leaders' successful crisis preparedness. Data were collected through interviews with 5 members from the National Emergency Management Agency along with a document …

A Quantitative Study Of The Relationship Of Work Ethic, Worker Retention, And Job Satisfaction In The Native Hawaiian Population, Donala Kahealani Kawaauhau

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A number of publications on the well-being of Native Hawaiians report high unemployment levels, high poverty levels, and minimal educational achievement in the population with theoretical origins attributed to the advent of a Western market economy. However, there are no studies that analyze the relationship between work ethic and retention, or satisfaction and retention in the Native Hawaiians working in this economy. Understanding the aforementioned relationships could help state and federal agencies focus spending on interventions that lead to productive employment solutions for Native Hawaiians. This quantitative study tested Weber's protestant work ethic theory to compare the work ethic of …

De Novo Identification Of Differentially Methylated Regions In The Human Genome, Timothy J. Peters, Michael J. Buckley, Aaron L. Statham, Ruth Pidsley, Katherine Samaras, Reginald V. Lord, Susan J. Clark, Peter L. Molloy

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: The identification and characterisation of differentially methylated regions (DMRs) between phenotypes in the human genome is of prime interest in epigenetics. We present a novel method, DMRcate, that fits replicated methylation measurements from the Illumina HM450K BeadChip (or 450K array) spatially across the genome using a Gaussian kernel. DMRcate identifies and ranks the most differentially methylated regions across the genome based on tunable kernel smoothing of the differential methylation (DM) signal. The method is agnostic to both genomic annotation and local change in the direction of the DM signal, removes the bias incurred from irregularly spaced methylation sites, and …

Twenty-Year Outcome Of A Longitudinal Prospective Evaluation Of Isolated Endoscopic Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction With Patellar Tendon Or Hamstring Autograft, S Thompson, L Salmon, A Waller, J Linklater, J Roe, L Pinczewski

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Long-term prospective follow-up studies of single-incision endoscopic anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction are limited and may include confounding factors.

Purpose: This longitudinal prospective study reports the outcomes of isolated ACL reconstruction using middle-third patellar tendon autografts in 90 patients over 20 years.

Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4.

Methods: Between January 1993 and April 1994, a total of 90 patients met study inclusion criteria: evaluation at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20 years after surgery. Exclusion criteria were associated ligamentous injuries requiring surgery, previous meniscectomy or meniscal injuries requiring more than one-third meniscectomy, …

Ethnic Disparities In The Reproductive And Sexual Health Screening Practices Of Ecuadorian Women, Ruth Castillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Evidence suggests that reproductive and other health disparities disproportionately affect Indigenous and Afro-Hispanic ethnic minority groups throughout the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. Factors associated with reproductive health disparities in LAC countries include low social economic status (SES), poor health care access, racial and gender discrimination, machismo, health beliefs and low perceived risk for breast cancer, cervical cancer, sexual transmitted infections (STIs) and other conditions. Preventive measures such as health education and early screening is vital for disease prevention and detection. However, screening rates for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and STIs are lower in most LAC countries compared …

Associations Between Measures Of Obesity And Arterial Stiffness Of Young Hispanic Men, Maria Perez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Arterial stiffness and obesity are independent predictors of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease mortality; however, there is conflicting evidence for the association between arterial stiffness and obesity. Arterial stiffness research of young Hispanic males is limited. PURPOSE: To examine the association between measures of obesity and peripheral and aortic stiffness of young Hispanic men. METHODS: All data are expressed as mean ± SD. Participants were 23 non-obese (nOB; BMI 25.87±3.09 kg/m2) and 21 obese (OB: BMI 35.42±4.87 kg/m2) young Hispanic men (age range 18–25 years). Measures of obesity included body fat percentage, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, and waist-to-hip …

Monolingual And Bilingual Intervention Outcomes In A Bilingual Child With Autism, Victoria Alexander

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: When treating bilingual children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the language of intervention has been a controversial topic among professionals. There is limited research on the treatment of bilingual children with ASD.

Purpose: To extend the limited research on the use of language of intervention in bilingual children with ASD. This study compared a monolingual English treatment and a bilingual English-Spanish treatment, to examine which one was more efficient.

Methods: A single-subject alternating treatment design with a baseline was used to compare the efficacy of two treatment conditions in increasing language skills in a bilingual child with ASD. The …

Lithospheric Structure And Stress Field Orientations In The Northern Libya And East-Central Mediterranean Region, Abdusalam Ali Agail

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis is a combination of three studies including tomography using surface wave group velocities, stress orientations from focal mechanisms, and receiver functions. The study area covers northern Libya and the east central Mediterranean region. I utilized new data from the Libyan National Seismic Network to better understand the crustal thickness and stress orientation of northern Libya as well as the east central Mediterranean region. In the first study, I conducted surface wave group velocity tomography implementing the Gaussian beam method for obtaining 2-D velocity variations assuming an isotropic model. I constructed surface wave group velocity maps over a range …

Behavioral And Electrophysiologic Performance In Participants With No Brain Damage Responding To Spoken Sentence Length Messages With Pauses Of Different Durations Inserted Withi The Spoken Message: A Pilot Study, Alexandrea Burciaga

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Aim: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the behavioral and electrophysiologic performance in two age groups of individuals with no history of brain damage responding to spoken sentence length messages with pauses of different durations inserted within the message with the use of Event-Related Potentials.

Pilot Study: A modified version of the Revised Token Test was used for the experimental task. All participants have not experienced any brain damage. The first group of adult participants consisted of three college age adults; ages 20-30 and the second consisted of three older adults, ages 50-60. Participants were randomly assigned …

"What, To A Prisoner, Is The Fourth Of July?": Mumia Abu-Jamal And Contemporary Narratives Of Slavery, Luis Omar Ceniceros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Writing from a specifically Black postmodern perspective, former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal composes his multimedia slave narrative as a postmodern Neo-slave narrative. From the Atlantic slave-trade to the United States prison-industrial complex, from Quobna Ottobah Cugoano to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the slave narrative exists as a critique against oppressive State powers and a collective affirmation of interiority and embodied significance. For Abu-Jamal, his incarceration is indicative of an ever-pervasive capitalist power-structure that in the past has, in the present is, and in the future will control designated groups of made marginalized masses in order that preeminent capitalist beneficiaries preserve elite …

Molecular Dynamics Study On Defect Reduction Strategies Towards The Fabrication Of High Performance Cd1-Xznxte/Cds Solar Cells, Jose Juan Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Cadmium Telluride is a material widely used in terrestrial thin film photovoltaic applications due to its nearly ideal band gap (~1.5 eV) and high absorption coefficient. Due to its low manufacturing cost, this technology has the potential to become a significant energy resource if higher energy conversion efficiencies are achieved. However, the module efficiencies (~14%) are still far from the theoretical maximum (~30%) for this material in a single junction configuration. The reason behind this low performance is attributed to the high number of defects that are present within the device materials. The physics behind the formation mechanisms of these …

The Effects Of Stock Distributions On Returns, Volatility, And Price, Jason Heavilin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation investigates three issues regarding the effects of stock distributions on returns, volatility, and prices in an attempt to answer the questions why firms execute stock distributions and why the market appears to favor them. These questions have occupied academicians for at least 40 years (i.e., Fama et al (1969), Ohlson and Penman (1985), Rankine and Stice (1997), Angel (1997), and Crawford et al (2005) among many others).

Chapter 1 studies the notion that the stock market reacts more positive to stock dividends than to stock splits (Rankine and Stice, 1997). However, I find that the stock market does …

Comparison Of Bicycle Transportation Systems In El Paso And Prague, Jose C Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Bicycle transportation infrastructure has an important role in bicycle transportation mode. Every year there are hundreds of accidents where bicyclist are involve, because there is not a good infrastructure for bicycles in the roads bicyclists have a potential risk. One of the main purposes is maintain the bicyclistsâ?? safety in the roads to attract more people to use this eco-friendly transportation mode. The goal of this Thesis is compare the bicycle infrastructure in two different countries, United States and Czech Republic. The history and the main terminology are described in firsts chapters. Based on law and regulations, design criteria and …

The Effects Of A Sport-Related Concussion On The Motor Speech And The Motor Limb Movements: Examining Oral Diadochokinesis, Speech Rate, And Limb Tasks, Jessica Marie Hewitt

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Motor speech disorders, such as dysarthria, are a common sequelae reported after traumatic brain injuries. However, there is limited research on the effects of sport-related concussions (SRC) on motor speech disorders.

Aims: The current study aimed at replicating and extending a previous research study, Dolan (2013), conducted at the University of Texas at El Paso. In her study, Dolan (2013) incorporated and evaluated motor speech tasks: sequential motion rates, and motor limb tasks: movement execution initiation and finger repetition, in athletes following a sport-related concussion. The current study duplicates Dolanâ??s (2013) study. In addition, it investigates the effects of …

Perspectives On Feminine Cultural Gender Role Values From Latina Leaders And Community Residents, Nazanin Mina Heydarian

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Marianismo and machismo are gender values prescribed to women and men respectively within Latino cultures. Characteristics associated with these gender values can be pro- or anti-social. Individuals, regardless of their own sex, self-identify with characteristics prescribed to both genders. There is little research examining how Latinos conceptualize and self-identify with both marianismo and machismo. The present study contributes to the literature by classifying how Latina leaders and non-leader community residents describe characteristics associated with marianismo and machismo. I identified characteristics of marianismo and machismo and their associated pro- and anti-social dimensions by means of a thematic analysis. The following characteristics …

Sociocultural Influences On Perceived Risk In Latinos At Risk Of Developing Type 2 Diabetes, Allyson S. Hughes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies have shown that perceived risk is a predictor of positive health behaviors to avert preventative chronic conditions. As a major factor in the Health Belief Model, high levels of perceived risk may operate as a "perceived susceptibility" to disease and may function as a "perceived threat" that triggers action towards preventing the onset of disease (Champion & Skinner, 2008). Following an Ecodevelopmental Model approach in an effort to prevent prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (Castro, Shaibi & Boehm-Smith, 2009) includes understanding the potential protective effects of certain cultural factors (including sources of social support that can promote healthy …

Communication Of Self And Cyberlife Through Avatars In Second Life Online Communities, Kyron Joseph

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Virtual worlds are becoming more and more recognized for its social capabilities. It's making a splash on the global scale as the use for virtual worlds is surpassing the expected means of the creators. The purpose of this study is to investigate how users in the virtual world of Second Life identify themselves with fellow users through their Avatars through the theory of narrative identity. In the virtual world of Second Life, there are many different avenues that users can express themselves, through the narrative plot analysis these avenues will show the relation to the users and self.

.

Keywords: …

A Tectonic Analysis On The Central Region Of The Himalaya Collision Zone Using Double Difference Tomography, Chanel Perez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Himalaya mountain range remains the only place on Earth undergoing continuous effects from the continental-continental collision between India and Asia. Because of this, the Himalayas have been subjected to extensive deformation and transpression, and contain five major shear zones. Extensive seismic analysis of the region, however, is lacking due to sparse seismograph coverage and complexity of the crustal structure. I examined seismic event data from two temporary seismic networks deployed in the central Himalaya, the HIMNT deployment from 2001-2003, and the Bhutan deployment from 2002-2003. Using this data I develop a 3-D earth model for the region using double-difference …

Novel Classification Of Slow Movement Objects In Urban Traffic Environments Using Wideband Pulse Doppler Radar, Berta Rodriguez Hervas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Every year thousands of people are involved in traffic accidents, some of which are fatal. An important percentage of these fatalities are caused by human error, which could be prevented by increasing the awareness of drivers and the autonomy of vehicles. Since driver assistance systems have the potential to positively impact tens of millions of people, the purpose of this research is to study the micro-Doppler characteristics of vulnerable urban traffic components, i.e. pedestrians and bicyclists, based on information obtained from radar backscatter, and to develop a classification technique that allows automatic target recognition with a vehicle integrated system. For …

Development Of A Yeast-Based Assay For The Functional Characterization Of Fkbp52/ Î?-Catenin Interactions With The Androgen Receptor, Theresa Anne Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Prostate cancer development is uniquely dependent on the androgen receptorâ??s (ARâ??s) transcriptional regulation in response to hormone binding. Current therapies directly target AR acting as an antagonist at androgen binding sites. However, once androgen-dependence is lost, meaning the patient has progressed into a late-stage hormone resistant phenotype, all current treatments are essentially ineffective. Utilizing the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae we are capable of creating a model system that allows for the exogenous expression of AR while still retaining the chaperone components needed for this steroid receptor complex. The 52kDa FK506 binding protein (FKBP52) has been shown to be an important …

Contributions To The Solution Of Large Nonlinear Systems Via Model-Order Reduction And Interval Constraint Solving Techniques, Leobardo Valera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Many engineering problems boil down to solving partial differential equations (PDEs) that describe real-life phenomena. Nevertheless, efficiently and reliably solving such problems constitutes a major challenge in computational sciences and in engineering in general.

PDE-based systems can reach sizes so large after they are discretized. The large size in these problems generate several issues, among them we can mention: large space of storing, computing time, and the most important, lost of accuracy. A popular approach to solving such problems is assume that the PDE's solution is in a subspace, and the solution is sought there. This assumption and later searching …

Effective Number Of Parties And Mass Political Behavior In Europe, Jakub Pawel Zajakala

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Participation is perhaps the most essential component of democracy, as its humane facet, people, is indispensable for it to occur. However, some aspects of this phenomenon have been disregarded in the existing literature. A discernible decrease in the quality and quantity of democratic participation is deemed to endanger the representative capacity of democracy, and consequently, stability of parliamentary and presidential regimes. Using Prais-Winsten regression, the condition of democratic institutions, with an emphasis on the number of parties, is examined by looking at all the European democracies between 1946 and 2014. This Thesis posits that the number of effective actors on …

A Heterogeneous Multiscale Method For Poroelasticity, Paul M. Delgado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this Thesis, we develop and analyze a heterogeneous multiscale model for coupled fluid flow and solid deformation in porous media based on operator splitting and finite volume method. The splitting method results in two elliptic multiscale PDE's in the form of a reaction diffusion equation and a linear elasticity equation. We extend our previous multiscale method from 1D to higher dimensions and develop new approaches for the inclusion of mixed boundary conditions and source terms. We derive an error estimate for our multiscale method and analyze the stability of our splitting method. We also test the effectiveness of our …

Reducing Barriers In The Adult Ambulatory Surgery Setting By Implementing Lean Methods, Leonid Gorelik

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses

Process impediments and patient flow interruptions in the preoperative setting affect patient care quality and increase organizational costs through inefficient use of operating room time. Lean methodology was successfully applied to improve efficiencies, patient privacy, and quality of care in a hospital-based high-volume adult ambulatory surgery unit. Process improvement strategies were identified and carried out during a rapid process improvement workshop (RPIW), and significant process changes were made to the preoperative work areas.

Task Shifting To Nursing For A Sustainable Staffing Model Of School-Based Health Center In Under-Resourced Areas, Laura Lee Setliff Whittaker

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses

Background: There is a well-established link between health and education (Bundy and Guyatt 1996). An efficient and cost effective way to increase access to care is through school-based services.

Methods: The purpose of this study is to develop a sustainable staffing model of a school-based health center in a country with limited health care resources. Two specific steps towards developing such a model are: (1) to critically review and analyze the evidence in the literature supporting an expanded nursing care practice model for the school-based health center, and (2) to merge the literature review findings with participatory field notes taken …

Sustainability Reporting Process Model Using Business Intelligence, Thorsten Julius Alxneit

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Sustainability including the reporting requirements is one of the most relevant topics for companies. In recent years, many software providers have launched new software tools targeting companies committed to implementing sustainability reporting. But it’s not only companies willing to use their Business Intelligence (BI) solution, there are also basic principles such as the single source of truth and tendencies to combine sustainability reporting with the financial reporting (Integrated Reporting) The IT integration of sustainability reporting has received limited attention by scientific research and can be facilitated using BI systems. This has to be done both to anticipate the economic demand …

A Survey Of Security And Privacy Challenges In Cloud Computing: Solutions And Future Directions, Yuhong Liu, Yan Sun, Jungwoo Ryoo, Syed Rizvi, Athanasios V. Vasilakos

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

While cloud computing is gaining popularity, diverse security and privacy issues are emerging that hinder the rapid adoption of this new computing paradigm. And the development of defensive solutions is lagging behind. To ensure a secure and trustworthy cloud environment it is essential to identify the limitations of existing solutions and envision directions for future research. In this paper, we have surveyed critical security and privacy challenges in cloud computing, categorized diverse existing solutions, compared their strengths and limitations, and envisioned future research directions.

Andrew B. Arnold's Fueling The Gilded Age: Railroads, Miners, And Disorder In Pennsylvania Coal Country, Laura Phillips Sawyer

Scholarly Works

Andrew Arnold’s Fueling the Gilded Age explores the struggles for managerial control and economic power that erupted among coal miners, coal operators, and railroad executives in central Pennsylvania between 1872 and 1902. Rather than presenting an unassailable triumph of the railroads’ interests over labor, Arnold argues that the “coal industry defied order” (p. 3) and laborers exhibited “unexpected agency ” (p. 4, emphasis in original) by thwarting the plans of railroad executives to impose managerial capitalism from the top down. Instead, wage earners “refused to accept their designated fate as commodities” (p. 222) and thereby exerted influence on the institutional …

A Structural Equation Model Of The Influence Of Personal, Behavioral, And Environmental Factors On The Writing Performance Of First-Year Students At A Selected Michigan Community College, Thula I. Norton Lambert

Dissertations

Problem.

While previous writing performance studies have examined a range of motivational variables such as self-efficacy or writing apprehension, certain contextual variables and variables related to current writing pedagogy and practice have not been included, which has resulted in gaps in the research literature.

Method.

A non-experimental, correlational, cross-sectional, ex post facto, survey research design was used to examine the personal, behavioral, and environmental factors that had been identified as being of potential influence to students’ writing performance. A census was conducted among the 233 students enrolled in English Composition on the two campuses of a small two-year college in …