Digital Commons Network^™

Behavioral Adjustment In Children With Life Threatening Illness A Qualitative Study, E. Joseph Becher Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigated factors that affect adjustment in children with life-threatening illness from the viewpoint of the parents/caregivers. The data were collected from parents/caregivers whose children have a life threatening diagnosis. Parents/caregivers were interviewed and asked to complete the Parent Request Questionnaire (PRQ) which was given to them after the in-person interview. This newly developed PRQ was utilized into prior research to predict the levels of adjustment in children. It includes age, whether the child has been informed of the diagnosis, whether the child engages in age-appropriate activities, the child's prior experience with death, the child's family's involvement in treatment, …

Grandmothers' Leadership Roles As Reflected In The Lives Of High-Achieving Women: A Qualitative Study Of The Impact Of Grandmothers On Granddaughters During Their Formative Years, Sylvia E.M. Asante

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to document and recognize the role of grandmothers as leaders, role models, and mentors who can positively influence the lives of their granddaughters. Grandmothers’ roles are not typically associated with leadership, and this phenomenon of presenting grandmothers as effective leaders will fill a void and add to the canon of leadership literature. The use of phenomenological study, which describes the lived experience (Husserl, 1970), as well as transformative leadership and feminist theory perspectives will be pivotal to this study. Due to the dearth of data on grandmothers’ leadership roles, this phenomenological study will "give …

A Mixed Methods Perspective: How Integral Leaders Can Contribute To The Growth Of Emerging Leaders, Susan M. Hayes

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Given that organizational complexity continues to increase, leaders are looking for credible information, and a process that helps them become a better leader. Emerging leaders are faced with trying to be the best leader they can be while leading teams of people who think and act differently from them. To assist emerging leaders with their leadership, this study explores the literature and looks to highly respected and admired leaders for how they became the leader they are today. The purpose of this study was fourfold: first, to identify and describe first and second tier integral theory leaders from a sample …

Common Psychosocial And Spiritual Factors Among Individuals Who Have Healed From Chronic Lyme Disease, Frederick Green

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examined the subjective experience of individuals who have healed from Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD). Despite significant attention paid to the controversy over CLD diagnosis and treatment, scholarly research has neglected the psychosocial and/or spiritual factors that facilitate healing from the perspective of CLD sufferers. This study addressed this research gap by using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the barriers and facilitators of healing among those who have healed from CLD. Six participants who had suffered from CLD and considered themselves healed from the disease were recruited and interviewed. The qualitative data was reduced to meaning units, which …

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Subject-Matter Eligibility Inquiry In The Age Of Cloud Computing, Scott T. Luan

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

This article critiques and refines the subject-matter eligibility inquiry in patent law by examining the process of creativity in the context of software-implemented inventions. As a substantive critique of § 101 jurisprudence, this article, informed by copyright law, proposes a working hypothesis for a general structure of the subject-matter eligibility inquiry in which a critical determination is the appropriate level of abstraction for claim construction. As a discursive critique of the limits and limitations of judicial language, this article argues that courts have incorrectly presumed that contemporary legal thought is equipped, conceptually and linguistically, to understand the full significance of …

Developing A Chronic Pain Vocabulary: Communication Preferences Among Individuals With Chronic Pain, Karin L. Becker

Theses and Dissertations

In order to be acknowledged, chronic pain must be voiced yet disclosing of chronic pain is fraught with social and professional repercussions. Moreover, there is a perceived disinterest in hearing about, and a stigma associated with the experience of chronic pain. This research explores the therapeutic value of communicating about pain. Nineteen individuals with chronic pain participated in a six-week online writing workshop to describe the way chronic pain impacts daily activities. These qualitative responses were analyzed using discourse analysis and four interpretive repertoires emerged which convey the multi-faceted impacts of living with chronic pain. These findings informed the creation …

Phylogenetic Analysis Of Mitochondrial Genomes Of Filarial Nematodes In The Subfamily Waltonellinae, Sarina Marie Bauer

Theses and Dissertations

The family Onchocercidae is a group of parasitic vector born nematodes that are split up into eight subfamilies. Although the subfamilies containing species that parasitize humans and livestock (e.g., Onchocercinae) have been well-studied, there is a considerable lack of information for the lesser studied subfamilies in Onchocercidae (e.g. Waltonellinae). This uncertainty leaves some doubt as to the phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships among the different taxonomic groupings of filarioid nematodes.

I worked with two species of the subfamily Waltonellinae, Foleyellides n. sp. and F. flexicauda. The primers used in this study for polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and DNA sequencing reactions were …

Coordinating Gesture, Word, And Diagram: Explanations For Experts And Novices, Seokmin Kang, Barbara Tversky, John B. Black

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

Successful explanations are a symphony of gesture, language, and props. Here, we show how they are orchestrated in an experiment in which students explained complex systems to imagined novices and experts. Visual-spatial communication—diagram and gesture—was key; it represents thought more directly than language. The real or virtual diagrams created from gestures served as the stage for explanations, enriched by language and enlivened by deictic gestures to convey structure and iconic gestures to enact the behavior and functionality of the systems. Explanations to novices packed in more information than explanations to experts, emphasizing the information about action that is difficult for …

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Wing Color Pattern Development In Vanessa Cardui And Evolution Of The Polycomb Repressive Complex 2, Heidi Connahs

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present four papers. Three explore different aspects of wing color pattern development in the painted lady butterfly, Vanessa cardui; while the fourth examines the evolution of an epigenetic silencer complex across invertebrate animals. In the first paper, I used transcriptomics to identify patterning genes from the Drosophila wing gene regulatory network (GRN) in larval and pupal wings of V. cardui and to examine how temporal expression dynamics of this gene network correspond to expression of ommochrome and melanin pigment genes. This study identified key developmental periods of gene upregulation and highlights the temporal separation between peak …

Removal Of Blocking Artifacts From Jpeg-Compressed Images Using An Adaptive Filtering Algorithm, Riddhiman Goswami

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this research was to develop an algorithm that will produce a considerable improvement in the quality of JPEG images, by removing blocking and ringing artifacts, irrespective of the level of compression present in the image. We review multiple published related works, and finally present a computationally efficient algorithm for reducing the blocky and Gibbs oscillation artifacts commonly present in JPEG compressed images. The algorithm alpha-blends a smoothed version of the image with the original image; however, the blending is controlled by a limit factor that considers the amount of compression present and any local edge information derived …

Parasites Within Parasites: Transmission And Evolution Of Neorickettsia In Digeneans, Stephen Edward Greiman

Theses and Dissertations

Digeneans are endoparasitic flatworms with complex life cycles that involve two or more different animals as definitive and intermediate hosts. Some digenean species harbor bacterial endosymbionts belonging to the genus Neorickettsia (Order: Rickettsiales, Family: Anaplasmataceae). Neorickettsia occur in all life cycle stages of digeneans and are maintained by vertical transmission. Far from benign however, Neorickettsia may also be transmitted horizontally by digenean parasites to their vertebrate definitive hosts. Once inside, Neorickettsia can infect macrophages and other cell types. For some vertebrate species (e.g. dogs, horses and humans), neorickettsial infections cause severe disease. With a few exceptions, studies of Neorickettsia have …

Student Perceptions Of Digital Resources And Digital Technology In A Flipped Classroom, Larry S. Guggisberg

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze student perceptions of flipped classroom instruction strategies, and student perceptions of their learning experience using digital resources and digital technology in a flipped classroom. Although perceptions are important, student achievement is a common tool used by policy-makers and judged by the general public as a means to evaluate and achieve continuous improvement in K-12 public education.

This case study may be a beneficial illustration for school administrator practitioners to consider prior to implementation or utilization of flipped classroom instructional strategies. The study provides a review of a high school that first implemented …

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Graduate Students' Experiences Of Plagiarism By Their Professors, Kimberly Dawn (Hanson) Becker

Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study expands the inquiry on perceived academic misconduct by investigating the experiences of graduate students who have reported a professor’s misattribution of their work. The participants include five graduate students who formally reported a violation of academic integrity because they believed a faculty member had misattributed their work. During the incident, the faculty and students both participated in an academic setting in one or more of the following types of relationships: committee chair–advisee, committee member–student, classroom professor–graduate student, and research supervisor–graduate assistant. Two central research questions frame this study: How do graduate students who have reported that their …

Using Computer Vision And Volunteer Computing To Analyze Avian Nesting Patterns And Reduce Scientist Workload, Kyle Andrew Goehner

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the use of feature detection and background subtraction algorithms to classify and detect events of interest within uncontrolled outdoor avian nesting video from the Wildlife@Home project. We tested feature detection using Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) along with four background subtraction algorithms — Mixture of Guassians (MOG), Running Gaussian Average (AccAvg), ViBe, and Pixel-Based Adaptive Segmentation (PBAS) — as methods to automatically detect and classify events from surveillance cameras. AccAvg and modified PBAS are shown to provide robust results and compensate for issues caused by cryptic coloration of the monitored species. …

Comparisons Of Muskrat (Ondatra Zibethicus) Trapping Efficiency And Incidental Take Of Non-Target Water Birds Using Covered And Uncovered Float Sets, Rodney Allen Gross Jr

Theses and Dissertations

Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) have been a highly sought after furbearer species in North Dakota because of recent pelt prices. In 2011, regulation changes allowed trappers to use float sets to trap muskrats during the spring season. The current regulations require float sets used during the spring trapping season to have a covering made of either wire mesh, wood, or plastic and must not have an opening exceeding 20.32 cm (8 in) to attempt to minimize the incidental take of non-target species. The primary goals of this project were to determine if muskrat float set covers are effective in eliminating incidental …

Ceres – Vis-Ir Surface Composition Analysis: A Review In Advance Of The Dawn Mission, Daniela Henckel

Theses and Dissertations

Ceres has been heavily investigated during the last years prior to the DAWN mission. Although it is the largest object in the Main Asteroid Belt, its properties, especially the surface composition, are not well understood. Studies of Ceres surface composition and texture are of particular importance to generally analyze the interior and evolution of Solar System objects as well as the surface processes that are/were active on those bodies. VIS-IR spectroscopy is an effective method to detect characteristic absorption bands in the spectra of surface materials which can be related to the surface composition of planets and asteroids.

The primary …

Climate Driven Hillslope Degradation Of Mono Basin Moraine, Eastern Sierra Nevada, California, Usa, Risa Madoff

Theses and Dissertations

Regolith transport within the uppermost 30-50 cm of Earth's surface is responsive to shifts in climate. Rates of surface change affect accumulation rates of sediment and nutrients, thereby affecting ecology, surface stability, and the ability to date landform surfaces. However, little is known about the quantitative effects past climates have had on the long term evolution of the landscape. A space-for-time substitution method was used to study this knowledge gap. Known degradation rates from widely varying climates were used to generate a transfer function where published paleo-temperature records from the Death Valley sediment core (DV93-1) were applied to derive paleo-degradation …

Does Sleep Affect Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (Doms) In Olympic Hockey Players?, Monique Edith Lamoureux

Theses and Dissertations

A quantitative study was conducted on the 2014 USA Women’s Olympic Hockey Team. Data was collected from the participants asking for the hours of sleep they got the previous night and how sore they were from the training on the previous day. These numbers were then analyzed to see if athletes who got less sleep reported higher soreness ratings. Results showed that two days in Training Cycle 1 had two significant p-values that coincided with the two strongest negative correlations. Training Cycle 3 had one significant p-value trending in the opposite direction of the proposed hypothesis. The hours of sleep …

College Students Who Abstain From Alcohol: Those Who Choose Not To Use, Sandra Jean Luck

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the motivations and behaviors of North

Dakota college students who have chosen to abstain from alcohol. This research contributes to the alcohol abuse prevention field by suggesting a framework to develop programming and recommendations were provided to develop prevention messages to increase the number of student abstainers on college campuses.

The Motivations of Abstaining from Alcohol Questionnaire (MAAQ) (Stritzke 2001) informed scripted questions asked of four focus groups conducted at the

University of North Dakota. The students who participated in the focus groups shared their experiences of choosing not to use alcohol …

Radiation Shielding Approaches For Planetary Surface Exploration: A Mars Case Study For Und Concepts, Arturo Ortiz

Theses and Dissertations

Surface stays on Mars may expose astronauts to high radiation doses from solar flares and galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). We estimated shielding required for a surface habitat, and assessed environments inside a planetary rover and space suit, under historically severe solar flare and GCR conditions, using the HZETRN radiation computer code. A 1m layer of Mars regolith can protect the habitat up to 30 km surface elevation. Polyethylene at 5, 10, and 15 g/cm2 can protect up to 0, 10, and 20 km, respectively. The rover protects from acute exposure up to -0.7 km while a space suit protects up …

30 Day Lunar/Martian Planetary Habitation Analog: Subjective Crew Analysis Of Behavioral Health, Travis Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Long duration spaceflight poses risks to astronauts from stressors including challenging living environments, rigorous workloads, physical and mental fatigue, interpersonal conflict, mission uncertainty, emergencies, isolation and confinement. Analog space exploration simulations on Earth provide researchers with controlled environments to train and study human spaceflight operations. The findings of this study provided data on self-assessed metrics from an analog crew (N=3) who independently completed subjective reports of sleep quality, stress, anxiety, fatigue, mental exertion, and also provided objectively assessed sleep quality data by biometric watches. The daily mean reports from subjects were compared across time in order to ascertain possible quarterly …

Mapping Flash Flood Potential Using Gis And The Flash Flood Potential Index (Ffpi) In The Turtle River And Forest River Watersheds In North Dakota, Dasuni Jeewandika Perera Ranapathi Arachchige

Theses and Dissertations

Flash flooding is a rapid onset natural hazard and can cause extensive property and crop damages as well as deaths. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration storm database reports 464 flash flood events from 1996 to 2013 in North Dakota causing two deaths, more than $145 million in property damage and $14 million in crop damage. The main purpose of this study is to identify the critical areas of flash flooding within two selected watersheds in eastern North Dakota. The research method relies on the use of a GIS-based model, the Flash Flood Potential Index, that incorporates physiographic characteristics from …

Innate Immune Response To Yersinia Pestis, Sanghita Sarkar

Theses and Dissertations

This study demonstrates the various aspects of host immune response to Yersinia pestis. Y. pestis, the causative agent plague is mainly a rodent pathogen but is usually transmitted to humans via infected flea bite. After transmission to mammalian hosts, Y. pestis evades the host innate immune response and develops a systemic infection. Mast cells are recognized as the powerful sentinel cells responsible for controlling the early responses to a disease. We sought to determine whether mast cells are involved in the early innate immune response to Y. pestis and thus blocking mast cell degranulation would alter the outcome of infection. …

Prevalence Of Haemoparasites And West Nile Virus Seropositivity In Song Birds (Passeriformes) From Northwest Mn And Behavioral Aspects Of Microfilariae, Chad Allan Stromlund

Theses and Dissertations

Mosquitoes transmit arboviruses, haemosporidian protozoa (e.g., malaria), and filarioid nematodes. Many of these mosquito-borne pathogens occur together and transmission cycles are occurring concurrently. Despite this, mosquito pathogen transmission cycles are largely studied independently of one another. Considering the large temporal and spatial overlap among these various transmission cycles, the question becomes, what kinds of interactions are occurring between parasite transmission cycles and arboviral transmission cycles? Also, some species of mosquito are incapable of transmitting some species of arbovirus. Therefore, there must be natural barriers to prevent arbovirus infection and transmission. These barriers include the midgut barrier and the salivary gland …

Preventing Or Mitigating The Irreversible Ro Membrane Fouling Caused By Dissolved Organic Matter And Colloidal Materials During Surface Water Treatment, Raphael Ade Afonja

Theses and Dissertations

Reverse osmosis (RO) is increasingly being used for water treatment because of its small ecological footprint and improved membrane technology. However, a major challenge to the application of this technology in water treatment is the irreversible fouling observed in RO membranes. Fouling, mainly caused by dissolved organic matter (DOM) and colloidal materials (CM) in water, can increase the energy and maintenance costs and decrease the permeation flux and membrane life. Different pretreatments, such as coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, and membrane-filtration, need to be applied upstream of the RO system to remove potential RO foulants. Membrane remediation by chemical cleaning also needs …

The Growth And Metabolic Effects Of Pseudouridine Synthase Gene Deletion On Escherichia Coli Strain Bl21, Lisa Marie Burnette

Theses and Dissertations

During the process of ribosome assembly and maturation, the rRNA is heavily modified. The process of modification is ubiquitous throughout all kingdoms of life and includes cleavage by RNases, methylation and pseudouridylation of RNA species. Interestingly, while rRNA modification is ubiquitous and modification locations are frequently conserved, in many species the modification enzymes are dispensable for normal growth. This non-essentiality has made understanding the functions of RNA modification difficult.

Pseudouridines are one of the most common rRNA modifications and, in Escherichia coli, comprise nearly one third of the modifications found within the ribosome. Pseudouridylation is the post-transcriptional base isomerization of …

Dopamine Transporter Phosphorylation, Palmitoylation And Membrane Localization And Mobility In Health And Disease, Madhur Shetty

Theses and Dissertations

The dopaminergic system is a regulatory system of the brain controlling various motor, cognitive and behavioral activities. Neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) plays an important role in modulating brain circuits controlling functions of this system with dopamine transporter (DAT) maintaining its homeostasis. Abnormalities in this homeostasis and/or nucleotide polymorphisms in the DAT structure leads to its association with a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) being one of them.

Disrupting the normal function of DAT, many psychostimulants such as amphetamine (AMPH) upon being transported via DAT into the pre-synaptic neuron alters DAT properties triggering N-terminal DAT …

Investigating Flipped Learning: Post-Secondary Student Self-Regulated Learning, Perceptions, And Achievement, Sarah Rae Sletten

Theses and Dissertations

The flipped classroom is a current educational model that is gaining popularity at the post-secondary level. In a flipped classroom, content (i.e., lectures), which is normally delivered in-class, is assigned as homework in the form of video lectures, and assignments that were traditionally assigned as homework, are done as learning activities in class. It was hypothesized that the effectiveness of the flipped model hinges on a student’s desire and ability to adopt a self-directed learning style. The purpose of this study was two-fold; it aimed examining the relationship between two variables—students’ perceptions of the flipped model and their SRL behaviors—and …

Stem Education For Girls Of Color, Kam Hung Yee

Theses and Dissertations

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields struggle to increase recruitment and retention of girls of color. The dominant framework in STEM education is the pipeline which assumes girls in general lack motivation and interest to persist in STEM fields. Recent public discourse shifts to address institutionalized discrimination and systemic barriers in STEM culture that filter out underrepresented populations.

Informal education or complementary learning STEM programs offer alternative opportunities for students to explore outside of rigid school academic and social systems. Few articles look specifically at STEM complementary learning programs, and even fewer focus on the effects on girls of …

Role Of Lectins Receptors In Development Of Sepsis During Pulmonary Bacterial Infection, Anthony Lee Steichen

Theses and Dissertations

A major focus of my work has been to understand the mechanism/s of sepsis development during respiratory bacterial infections with the goal of identifying novel alarmins/alarmin receptors. Specifically, I have analyzed the role of C-type lectins as novel alarmin/alarmin receptors likely involved in the development of sepsis resulting from acute pulmonary infection with Gram negative bacteria Francisella novicida and Klebsiella pneumonia (Kpn). In that regard, the first project was built upon a previous observation, made by Dr. Sharma, that two soluble lectins galectin-3 and -9 were upregulated and released in extracellular milieu in lungs of mice upon pulmonary infection with …