Digital Commons Network^™

Telemonitoring To Change Standard Diabetes Education And Management In A Rural Healthcare Practice, Kendra L. Barker

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background: Type II Diabetes is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Intense education and positive behavior reinforcement by healthcare professionals has been shown to enhance personal glycemic control for patients with Type II diabetes. However, limitations often prevent patient attendance at diabetes education classes. The purpose of this change project was to assess the efficacy of a telemonitoring intervention on glycemic control. Kotter's change process served as the conceptual underpinning for the project.;Objective: The overall objective was to implement a telemonitoring intervention based on Kotter's change process in a sample of adults with Type II diabetes who obtained care at …

Assessing And Meeting Residents' Needs: An Evaluation Of Residence Hall Programming, Michael J. Beck

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this qualitative study, I examine how programming in college residence halls does and does not meet the needs of residents and resident assistants. Using focus group and individual interview data, I structure my analysis using Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs. I suggest that residence hall programming---academic, social, or a hybrid of the two---is most valuable for its ability to meet residents' needs related to belongingness but that residence hall staff must place more explicit emphasis on residents' growth needs in order for self-actualization to be supported.

Types Of Co-Existing Chronic Physical Conditions And Newly-Diagnosed Depression, Its Treatment And Economic Outcomes Among Medicaid Beneficiaries With Type 2 Diabetes, Rituparna Bhattacharya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Diabetes is a widely prevalent metabolic condition. Adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) also have many coexisting chronic physical conditions. Coexisting chronic physical conditions among individuals with T2DM may be concordant (conditions that overlap with T2DM in their pathogenesis and management plans such as cardiovascular diseases) or discordant (conditions with unrelated pathogenesis or management plans such as musculoskeletal disorders) or dominant (conditions whose severity eclipses all other illness management plans such as metastatic cancer). There is documented evidence on the negative consequences of depression in adults with T2DM. However, there is only limited knowledge on how the types of …

How Well Are Your Police Doing?: The Relationship Between Fear Of Crime And Perceptions Of The Police, Erin Bixler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Research on the fear of crime, or the fear of victimization, started becoming a popular topic in the late 1960s and has stayed in the spotlight since then. However, there has been a very small amount of literature that has focused on how an individual's fear of crime impacts their perceptions of the police. There has also been cloudiness in previous literature about how to measure fear of crime. This study examines the relationship between an individual's fear of crime and their perceptions of the police using two different measures of police, perceptions of police effectiveness and perceptions of community …

Parishioner Labor In The Late Medieval Parish Of Ashburton, Lacey Bonar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Parishioners in the late medieval parish of Ashburton used physical labor to create, maintain, and repair their parish church itself and its contents. Of the fourteen men featured in this study some worked on the church's seating, book collection, and organs while others labored on two extensive projects concerning the repair of the church's spire and the construction of the roodloft. The parish's extensive set of churchwardens' accounts provides record of the labor that these men completed and their compensation, allowing for a detailed analysis of their contributions. With most parish studies focusing on parishioner participation through fundraising efforts, monetary …

A Three -Essay Empirical Analysis Of Health Care Expenditures In The Economic Development Of The United States, 2000 - 2009, Srimoyee Bose

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Therefore the purpose of this study was to empirically demonstrate state-level variations in financing of healthcare, hospital expenditures and health outcomes.;Precisely, aims of the three studies were to: (1) evaluate the state-level variations in healthcare financing and the factors that affect financing of healthcare, (2) examine the state-level variations in hospital expenditures with an application of spatial regression, and (3) assess the determinants of state-level mortality rates using a spatial Durbin fixed effect model. This research used panel data from 2000 through 2009, extracted from publicly available data files.;Findings from the first study were that state-level variations in public financing …

Emotion Socialization And Autism Spectrum Disorder: The Role Of Disability Severity And Parental Attributions In Predicting Parents' Emotional Responses, Hilary R. Bougher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The importance of parents in emotion socialization is highly established among children who are typically developing (Sheffield Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007). Child characteristics, such as child temperament and emotional reactivity, have been found to influence parenting (Bell & Chapman, 1986; Belsky, 1984). However, little is known about the emotion socialization practices of parents of children with special needs and how disability severity may influence these practices. Participants included 68 parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (ages 3-11). Parents reported on three dimensions, using three questionnaires: disability severity via the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, 2nd edition …

Hydrogel Tracer Beads As Potential Proxies For Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids In Karst: Development Of An Optical Quantification Method For Fluorescent Beads, Habib Bravo-Ruiz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Sinkholes and sinking streams are examples of karst features that can serve as direct pathways for contaminants, including non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs), to quickly enter karst aquifers. Once NAPLs are in karst aquifers, their fate and transport is difficult to predict and is not well understood. In this study, floating hydrogel tracer beads (HTBs) are developed and tested to help gain a better understanding of the fate and transport of NAPLs. The HTBs are formed by cross-linked sodium alginate polymers that can be made with different fluorescent pigments and density-modifying additives. The focus of this research was on the development …

Where Failure Is Not The Option - The Military Friendly College: Exploring Student Service Members' And Student Veterans' Perceptions Of Climate, Transition And Camaraderie, Leilani Teresa Roberts Browning

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research explored the extent to which the campus climate at a military friendly college or university promoted student service members' and student veterans' success of their time to degree in transition following separation from the Armed Forces and the impact of this specific climate on the cultivation of camaraderie in higher education. A mixed methods design incorporated focus group narratives from seven participants (n =7) and information from a web-based survey completed by one hundred and seventy respondents (n =170). Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data resulted in complementary information and insight of the military friendly school phenomenon at …

Variable-Interval And Variable-Ratio Schedules Of Punishment By Timeout From Positive Reinforcement, Ezra G. Hall

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Timeout punishment is among the most commonly reported disciplinary procedures (Barkin, Scheindlin, Ip, Richardson, & Finch, 2007). Despite the frequent use of timeout, little basic research has systematically examined different schedule effects of timeout from positive reinforcement. Using pigeons as subjects, the current series of experiments arranged variable schedules of timeout from positive reinforcement within a multiple-schedule arrangement where 20-s timeouts were response-dependent, response-independent, and delayed. Experiment 1 used a within-subject yoking procedure to compare schedules of variable-ratio (VR) and yoked-interval (YI) timeouts. Experiment 2 arranged separate parametric analyses of variable-interval (VI) and VR schedules of timeout. Within-session, yoked-control components …

A Feasibility Analysis For The Development Of A Facility Utilizing Olive Oil Mill Production Waste As A Carbon Substrate In Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production In Morocco, Catherine Hansen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis presents a market study and economic feasibility analysis on developing a facility utilizing olive oil production waste as a carbon substrate in polyhydroxyalkanoate production. Three underlying questions will be explored within this thesis: (1) Can olive oil mill effluents be utilized to produce an environmentally friendly polyhydroxyalkanoate bio-plastic?;, (2) Is there potential for the bio-plastic polyhydroxyalkanoate to enter Morocco's plastic market?;, (3) Is it likely that a bio-plastic facility utilizing olive oil mill production waste to create polyhydroxyalkanoate would have long term profitability? This research provides a pathway toward a new solution to a pervasive environmental concern facing …

Essays On Low-Income Communities And Crime, Kaitlyn R. Harger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is a collection of essays examining issues related to low-income communities and criminal behavior. The first chapter of this dissertation provides an introduction to policies used to aid disadvantaged communities and marginalized populations. It also provides an outline of the research agenda of the dissertation as a whole. Chapter 2 examines the role of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) in attracting new businesses and employment to low-income communities. This federal tax credit program was designed to increase investment in eligible communities by offering private investors a federal-income tax credit in exchange for investment. The results suggest that …

The Assessment Of Instruments For Detecting Surface Water Spills And A Three-Dimensional Model Of The Elk River Spill, Aubrey E. Harris

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Source water protection has been an increasing area of concern due to the risks associated with chemical storage and oil and gas operations. To better identify and mitigate risk, models and tools are needed to evaluate the dispersion of pollutants in possible spill scenarios. This information may be used to determine the placement of in-stream water quality monitoring instruments and to develop early-warning systems and emergency plans.;In this work, two approaches of applying chemical dispersion models are described: one to determine the necessary concentration to generate a signal from in-stream measurements; and second to demonstrate, in a numerical three-dimensional model, …

The Influence Of Financial Institutions And Residential Lending On Neighborhood Crime, Anne M. Lee

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

This research aimed to bridge a gap in the literature between banks, mortgage investment, and neighborhood crime. Specifically, the current research uses the political economy approach to social disorganization theory (Bursik 1989) as a theoretical frame to understand the role of external investment on neighborhood levels of crime. This research was guided by several research questions that are derived from the prior literature on banks, mortgage lending and crime. The primary research question was: How do banks affect neighborhood levels of crime? And secondly, how does residential lending affect crime?

These questions are investigated by combining several sources of available …

Clarence Cameron White: Classical Violin Performance And Pedagogy In The African American Community, Alexandra Kori Hill

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis focuses on the performing and teaching career of the African American classical violinist, Clarence Cameron White. Discussions of recital programming, reviews, pedagogical articles and musical essays written by White will provide a look into African Americans' presence and involvement within classical violin performance and instruction. The racial and cultural signifiers that are tightly woven with many styles and genres in American music have also been applied to Western art music and classical violin, requiring a discussion of racial and cultural stereotypes in American society.

Development Of An Erosion Control Seed Mixture That Includes Native Species, George A. Hilvers

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The West Virginia Divisions of Highways (WVDOH) utilizes the establishment of grass cover as a temporary and permanent management practice to mediate the effects of erosion on highway construction sites. Current West Virginia regulations include five seed mixtures for permanent applications that include combinations of nine species. Six of these species are identified as invasive, and all nine species are considered introduced or both native and introduced. This research developed alternative seed mixtures that included low threat or native species. The alternative seed mixtures were then evaluated in a field test. The research also examined seedbed preparation techniques, the performance …

Myosin Ii Isoforms In Breast Cancer: Role Of Contractility In Matrix Organization, Cell Migration, And Endothelial Barrier Function, Bridget Ruth Hindman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Breast cancer is a devastating and complicated disease. A large proportion of breast cancer related deaths are due to metastasis. Metastasis is when cancer cells leave the primary tumor, travel through the bloodstream, and proliferate in distant sites. Cell contractility is involved in a number of cellular processes associated with metastasis including matrix organization, tumor cell migration, and endothelial cell barrier function. The main regulator of contractility in nonmuscle cells is nonmuscle myosin II. There are three isoforms of this protein: myosin IIA, IIB, and IIC. The specific roles of the individual isoforms in cancer progression and metastasis have yet …

Identification And Biosensing Application Of Molecular Recognition Elements, Ka Lok Hong

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Molecular recognition elements (MREs) are biomolecules such as single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), RNA, small peptides and antibody fragments that can bind to user defined targets with high affinities and specificities. This binding property allows MREs to have a wide range of applications, including therapeutic, diagnostic, and biosensor applications. The identification of MREs can be achieved by using the process called Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX). This process begins with a large library of 109 to 1015 different random molecules, molecules that bind to the user defined target or positive target are enriched in the process. Subsequently, this process …

Making Sense Of Video Analytics: Lessons Learned From Clickstream Interactions, Attitudes, And Learning Outcome In A Video-Assisted Course, Michail N. Giannakos, Konstantinos Chorianopoulos, Nikos Chrisochoides

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Online video lectures have been considered an instructional media for various pedagogic approaches, such as the flipped classroom and open online courses. In comparison to other instructional media, online video affords the opportunity for recording student clickstream patterns within a video lecture. Video analytics within lecture videos may provide insights into student learning performance and inform the improvement of video-assisted teaching tactics. Nevertheless, video analytics are not accessible to learning stakeholders, such as researchers and educators, mainly because online video platforms do not broadly share the interactions of the users with their systems. For this purpose, we have designed an …

Utah’S Role In Protecting The Mormon Trail During The Civil War, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This chapter (from the 2015 book “Far Away in the West: Reflections on the Mormon Pioneer Trail” published by the Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center) sets the stage for Utah Territory’s role protecting the Mormon Trail during the Civil War by outlining the Utah War (1857-1858). This essay begins by comparing and contracting Washington, DC’s wartime interest in the trail with that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Utah Territory. The essay then outlines the changing parties who were responsible for the trail between 1861 and 1865 – the U.S. Army (spring-summer 1861), no one …

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks For Annotating Gene Expression Patterns In The Mouse Brain, Tao Zeng, Rongjian Li, Ravi Mukkamala, Jieping Ye, Shuiwang Ji

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background: Profiling gene expression in brain structures at various spatial and temporal scales is essential to understanding how genes regulate the development of brain structures. The Allen Developing Mouse Brain Atlas provides high-resolution 3-D in situ hybridization (ISH) gene expression patterns in multiple developing stages of the mouse brain. Currently, the ISH images are annotated with anatomical terms manually. In this paper, we propose a computational approach to annotate gene expression pattern images in the mouse brain at various structural levels over the course of development.

Results: We applied deep convolutional neural network that was trained on a large set …

Tetrahedral Image-To-Mesh Conversion Software For Anatomic Modeling Of Arteriovenous Malformations, Fotis Drakopoulos, Ricardo Ortiz, Andinet Enquobahrie, Deanna Sasaki-Adams, Nikos Chrisochoides

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We describe a new implementation of an adaptive multi-tissue tetrahedral mesh generator targeting anatomic modeling of Arteriovenous Malformation (AVM) for surgical simulations. Our method, initially constructs an adaptive Body-Centered Cubic (BCC) mesh of high quality elements. Then, it deforms the mesh surfaces to their corresponding physical image boundaries, hence, improving the mesh fidelity and smoothness. Our deformation scheme, which builds upon the ITK toolkit, is based on the concept of energy minimization, and relies on a multi-material point-based registration. It uses non-connectivity patterns to implicitly control the number of the extracted feature points needed for the registration, and thus, adjusts …

Saccharomyces Boulardii And Bismuth Subsalicylate As Low-Cost Interventions To Reduce The Duration And Severity Of Cholera, Johnathan Sheele, Jessica Cartowski, Angela Dart, Arjun Poddar, Shikha Gupta, Ajay Gupta

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We conducted a randomised single-blinded clinical trial of 100 cholera patients in Port-au-Prince, Haiti to determine if the probiotic Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii and the anti-diarrhoeal drug bismuth subsalicylate (BS) were able to reduce the duration and severity of cholera. Subjects received either: S. boulardii 250 mg, S. boulardii 250 mg capsule plus BS 524 mg tablet, BS 524 mg, or two placebo capsules every 6 hours alongside standard treatment for cholera. The length of hospitalisation plus the number and volume of emesis, stool and urine were recorded every 6 hours until the study subject was discharged (n=83), left against …

Characteristics Of Social Media Stories, Yasmin Ainoamany, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

An emerging trend in social media is for users to create and publish "stories", or curated lists of web resources with the purpose of creating a particular narrative of interest to the user. While some stories on the web are automatically generated, such as Facebook’s "Year in Review", one of the most popular storytelling services is "Storify", which provides users with curation tools to select, arrange, and annotate stories with content from social media and the web at large. We would like to use tools like Storify to present automatically created summaries of archival collections. To support automatic story creation, …

Scaffolding To Improve Writing Skills In A Computer Science Literacy Course, Wu He, Harris Wu, Li Xu, Kurt Maly

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Writing has been recognized as an important skill in the technology field. This paper reports a study that uses a scaffolding approach to improve student writing skills in a computer science literacy course. While the quantitative results do not show a significant impact of scaffolding in individual paper assignment on the subsequent group wiki assignment, the student feedback in end-of-semester evaluations strongly indicated that scaffolding indeed helped improve their writing.

Extreme-Scale Parallel Mesh Generation: Telescopic Approach, Nikos Chrisochoides, Andrey Chernikov, Daming Feng, Christos Tsolakis

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this poster we focus and present our preliminary results pertinent to the integration of multiple parallel Delaunay mesh generation methods into a coherent hierarchical framework. The goal of this project is to study our telescopic approach and to develop Delaunay-based methods to explore concurrency at all hardware layers using abstractions at (a) medium-grain level for many cores within a single chip and (b) coarse-grain level, i.e., sub-domain level using proper error metric- and application-specific continuous decomposition methods.

Evaluating And Prioritizing Stream Restoration In Mined Appalachian Watersheds., Eric Mitchell Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The state of West Virginia requires stream mitigation to offset anthropogenic impacts to streams; consequently there is a high concentration of mitigation projects in the mountaintop mining/valley fill region. Projects are typically outside mine boundaries and sites are selected at the discretion of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. This dissertation evaluated current in-stream, natural channel design (NCD) structures and prioritized future project locations. First, we assessed the Little Coal River, which is one of the largest physical restoration projects in the state. The Little Coal drains 994 km2 with extensive historic and contemporary coal mining. The objectives of …

Joan: A Play With Broken Songs, Colton James Neidhardt

LSU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT This thesis details the writing process, rehearsals and performance of the author‘s devised play, Joan: A Play With Broken Songs. The play aims to reimagine events occurring the evening before the death of French folk hero and Catholic Saint, Joan of Arc. The play exists in the moments between sleep and waking, in which Joan is visited by her own patron Saints (Margaret and Catherine,) as well as the Archangel Michael. The Saints then guide Joan through the dreamscape revealing to her images of the past, present, and future that allow her to come to peace with the sacrifice …

Discharge Alternative Non-Urgent Care Education (D.A.N.C.E.) Protocol: Addressing Emergency Department Misuse, Samantha Leon

All Publications

Background: The misuse of the Emergency Department (ED) creates a substantial problem for the health care system, generating gaps in continuity of care, leaving little room for preventative care, and forcing a financial strain on the system. An increasing number of patients are using hospital EDs for non-urgent care despite the availability of alternative care sites such as retail clinics (RCs) and urgent care centers (UCCs).

Purpose: The project’s aim was to educate patients who utilize ED services as a source of care for non-urgent complaints with the use of the D.A.N.C.E. protocol. Enhancing the public’s knowledge of …

The Politics Of Public Relations: Concepts Of Image, Reputation And Authority In Henry Viii’S England, Lyndsi Lewis

LSU Master's Theses

Henry VIII ruled England from 1509-1547, producing some of the most identifiable and enduring figures and events in English history. This was largely due to the king’s skill at image manipulation and communication. This thesis focuses specifically on the period from 1509-1536, during which the whims of the king led to the rise and fall of two queens, the destruction of three ministers, and arguably the most significant religious and political controversies of the sixteenth century. It was the age of humanism, reformation, and the birth of modern political theory and practice. In the midst of this upheaval, the crown …