Digital Commons Network^™

Year-Round Management Of High Tunnel Production Systems: Spinach And Tomato, Connor Eaton

Master's Theses and Capstones

As high tunnel production is relatively new to the Northeast, this research has helped understand knowledge-gaps in common warm and cold-season crop systems in the region. High tunnels increase crop yield and quality and extend the growing season, and are most commonly used for tomato in the warm-season and spinach in the cold-season.

Spinach was grown in unheated high tunnels throughout the cold-season to evaluate the effects of cultivar and planting date on yield and sweetness (Brix° levels). Cultivar and planting date had a significant effect on yield, where earlier planting dates resulted in higher yields. Cultivar had a significant …

Iron Uptake In Symbiosis: The Role Of Siderophore In The Association Between Vibrio Fischeri And Euprymna Scolopes, Evan Dasilva

Master's Theses and Capstones

Iron acquisition is well studied in pathogens, and successful virulence is often attributed to iron acquisition by siderophore and heme uptake; however, the role of iron uptake in mutual symbiotic interactions is not as well understood. The mutual symbiosis between Vibrio fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, is a well-characterized system in which iron uptake has been implicated as a symbiotic factor. Four studies have implicated iron uptake in the symbiosis: 1) A TnLux reporter assay revealed that siderophore is more highly expressed by V. fischeri in the light organs of juvenile squid compared to V. fischeri in …

Carotid Intima Media Thickness Evaluation By Ultrasound Comparison Amongst Healthy, Diabetic And Hypertensive Pakistani Patients, Waseem Mirza, Vaqar Bari, Mirza Kazim, Kainat Fatima, Zafar Sajjad, Aziz Jiwani, Nadeem Ahmad, Mubashir Arain, Arif Ali

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Objective: To compare carotid Intima media thickness and atherosclerosis burden amongst healthy, diabetic and hypertensive Pakistani patients.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at the Department of radiology and family medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi from April 2014 to July 2015. Bilateral carotid ultrasound was done in 133 healthy adults, 65 hypertensive, 31 type-2 diabetic and 37 hypertensive with type-2 diabetes patients. Normal adults were matched for age and gender. Mean intimal media thickness was measured for common and internal carotid arteries. Presence or absence of atherosclerotic plaque was also identified. Height, weight, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and other …

Flaviviruses As A Cause Of Undifferentiated Fever In Sindh Province, Pakistan: A Preliminary Report, Erum Khan, Joveria Q. Farooqi, Kelli L. Barr, Dhani Prakoso, Amna Nasir, Akbar Kanji, Sadia Shakoor, Faisal Riaz Malik, Rumina Hasan, John A. Lednicky

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Arboviral diseases are expanding worldwide, yet global surveillance is often limited due to diplomatic and cultural barriers between nations. With human encroachment into new habitats, mosquito-borne viruses are also invading new areas. The actual prevalence of expanding arboviruses is unknown in Pakistan due to inappropriate diagnosis and poor testing for arboviral diseases. The primary objective of this study was to document evidence of flavivirus infections as the cause of undifferentiated fever in Pakistan. Through a cooperative effort between the USA and Pakistan, patient exposure to dengue virus (DENV), West Nile virus (WNV), and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) was examined in …

The Choral Music Of Daron Aric Hagen And A Conductor’S Analysis Of Flight Music, Jay B. Aiken

Theses and Dissertations

Daron Aric Hagen is an American composer, educator, pianist, conductor, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera. He has written nine operas and is currently commissioned to produce a tenth. While he is most noted for his operas, he has composed numerous choral works. Flight Music, a six movement piece for treble chorus is the topic of this study. It is about the ultimate flight of Amelia Earhart. This document will provide a conductor’s analysis of Flight Music and show how Hagen used this choral piece as a precursor to his opera Amelia. A biography of …

Wide Field Measurements Using A Spatial Heterodyne Raman Spectrometer For Transmission Raman Spectroscopy And Standoff Detection, Kimberly A. Fessler

Theses and Dissertations

Our group recently developed a new type of Fourier transform Raman spectrometer, the spatial heterodyne Raman spectrometer (SHRS), for planetary exploration. The SHRS is a high spectral resolution, high throughput, compact dispersive interferometer, similar in design to a Michelson interferometer, where the mirrors are replaced by stationary diffraction gratings. The SHRS has no moving parts and does not require an entrance slit, making the throughput of the system orders of magnitude larger than a typical dispersive spectrometer. The wide field-of-view (FOV) of the SHRS enables wide area measurements without loss of sensitivity or spectral resolution and offers advantages such as …

Virus Particles Provide Nanotopographical Cues For Osteogenic Differentiation Of Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Kamolrat Metavarayuth

Theses and Dissertations

One key aspect of tissue engineering is to develop biomimetic scaffolding materials that can modulate the proliferation, self-renewal and differentiation of multipotent stem cells into different lineages. Bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) can differentiate into several target cells such as osteoblasts, chondrocytes, adipocytes, and smooth muscle cells. BMSCs are commonly used for in vitro osteogenesis studies in bone tissue engineering field. However the mechanisms and signaling pathways that these cells use to recognize and response to biomaterial surface are still unclear. This dissertation focuses on investigating the effect of chemical and physical cues introduced by virus nanoparticles on …

Investigating Structure-Activity Relationships Of Sl11 To Develop A Better Prostate Cancer Diagnostic, Rong Huang

Theses and Dissertations

Prostate cancer is now the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. Since many of the diagnostics either have high false results or risky, it’s important to have better diagnostics and earlier diagnosis of prostate cancer. Aberrant glycosylation is a hallmark of cancer. When cancer occurs, aberrant glycosylation occurs, therefore, glycosylation patterns may provide information about different cancer types and metastatic potential. In order to study and use these glycosylation patterns, the boronic acid functionalized synthetic lectins that can interact with glycans have been developed. The work described here focuses on 1) the structure activities of synthetic lectins …

Numerical Studies Of Arterial Tissue Failure, Xiaochang Leng

Theses and Dissertations

Arterial tissue failure leads to a number of potentially life-threatening clinical conditions, such as atherosclerotic plaque rupture and aortic dissection which develop unpredictably and rapidly in vivo. Thus, a full understanding of the two conditions will provide a solid basis for medical advances in the intervention and prevention of the occurrence of this life-threatening event. The present work aims to develop a cohesive zone model (CZM) approach for analysis and simulation of arterial tissue failure, such as plaque and fibrous cap delamination and tearing, and to validate simulation predictions with experimental results.

To characterize the hysteresis phenomenon of diseased aortic …

Aging, Discourse, And Ideology, Julia Mckinney

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the language practices of members of the Andrus Center, a recreational senior center located in the southeastern United States. It specifically examines how “young-old” members, or those who had relatively recently made the transition to older identity, invoked and contested widely circulating ideologies of aging in the course of constructing their local age identities. Rather than treating age as an objective, individual characteristic, as commonly presumed in sociolinguistics, this study highlights the ways in which age identities were relationally and emergently coconstructed. Through analyses of interactional and ethnographic data collected over 18 months, I argue that mainstream …

Cdk8 And Cdk19 As Novel Regulators Of Bmp4 Induced Emt In Cancer, Anne Elizabeth Serrao

Theses and Dissertations

Bone morphogenetic protein 2/4 (BMP2/4), members of the transforming growth factor β (Tgf-β) superfamily, play a dichotomous role in the progression of cancers through cell growth suppression and the enhancement of tumorigenesis in a variety of cancers. Cyclin dependent kinase 8 (CDK8), a protein kinase that regulates gene transcription, is involved in a variety of cancers including breast and pancreatic cancers as well as in mediating BMP2 signaling via its canonical Smad1 pathway. Our studies show that BMP4 induced EMT signals primarily though Smad1 and that Yap1, a transcriptional co-activator, is necessary for BMP4 induced EMT. Using a highly specific …

Synthesis And Utility Of Bis-Urea Macrocycles As Nanoreactors And As Ligands For Metal Organic Materials, Sahan R. Salpage

Theses and Dissertations

“Supramolecular chemistry” powered by non-covalent interactive forces forms the crux in the area of host-guest chemistry. Supramolecular assemblies often have different chemical and physical properties than that of its individual molecular entities and are used to develop novel functional materials. Our expertise involves making functional materials from macrocycles, which contain two urea groups and two rigid C shaped spacer groups. These individual macrocyclic components can self-assemble through hydrogen bonding and other non-covalent interactions to form porous supramolecular assemblies that can be used as confined reaction environments and as ligands to synthesize novel metal organic materials.

This dissertation focuses on studying …

Automated Image Analysis And Spatial Computational Modeling Of Nf-Kb In Cerebrovascular Endothelial Cells, Kasey Catalfomo

Theses and Dissertations

Cerebrovascular endothelial cells play a key part in the inflammatory response of the blood-brain barrier in pathological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, the NF-κB signaling pathway plays a central role. Better understanding of the factors in inflammatory disease progression can lead to more effective treatments for such devastating illnesses like Alzheimer’s, asthma, arthritis, cancer, diabetes and many more inflammatory diseases. The proposed approach analyzes spatial NF-κB distribution contained in multispectral stacked micrograph images of cerebrovascular endothelial cells indexed based on dose of the activating protein and the length of activation. Image analysis code identifies the location of nuclear boundaries …

Neutering Neoliberalism: Masculinities And Gore Capitalism In Rubem Fonseca’S Crime Novels, David William Hancock

Theses and Dissertations

This study presents close readings of Rubem Fonseca’s Agosto (1990), A grande arte (1983), Bufo & Spallanzani (1985), and O seminarista (2009), to suggest they condemn Neoliberalism’s role in creating a global culture of violence, as they problematize its rhetoric of domination and uncover its heteropatriarchal, consumerist ideology, disguised as fact or ‘common-sense.’ The four chapters are divided according to the different theoretical concepts that accompany the four principal texts’ common critique of Neoliberal masculinity, as it functions to uphold the interdependent hierarchies of race, class and gender. Fonseca’s texts also imply the reader's’ complicity in a global culture of …

Characterization Of Human-Induced Vibrations, Benjamin Thomas Davis

Theses and Dissertations

In the US alone, 20% of citizens will be over the age of 65 by the year 2030, and the largest challenge facing this growing demographic is not a new disease but a simple motion - the fall. These events are the premier cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries. In fact, a fall is so common that every 17 seconds an older adult is treated for fall-related injuries, and every 30 minutes, an older adult dies from fall complications. Research has shown a positive outcome of a fall event is largely dependent on the immediate response (<30 minutes) and rescue of the person.

This work explores …

Electrochemical Reduction Of Carbon Dioxide On Carbon Nanostructures: Defect Structures & Electrocatalytic Activity, Pranav Parag Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

The advantages of the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to fuels using renewable energy sources are two-fold: (1) it has the potential to accomplish a carbon-neutral energy cycle and (2) it can provide an approach to tackle the environmental challenges caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Although thermodynamically possible, the kinetics of carbon dioxide reduction to fuels remains challenging and therefore, an efficient and robust electrocatalyst is needed to promote the reaction. The ideal catalyst for the electrochemical CO2 reduction must be capable of mediating multiple proton-coupled electron transfer reactions at low overpotentials, suppressing the concurrent hydrogen evolution reaction, converting …

“Antagonistic Describes The Scene:” Local News Portrayals Of The New Left And The Escalation Of Protest At The University Of South Carolina, 1970, Alyssa Jordan Constad

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the social upheaval of the 1960s, television news and dissident social movements developed a salient relationship. News coverage of campus movements and protests not only informed audiences of what protest looked like, but shaped the actions and reactions of both the protestors and those who opposed them. How national media outlets, particularly televised newscasts, affected the social movements of the 1960s on a national level has been well documented. However, media, specifically local television newscasts, also helped to shape movements on a grass roots level. Looking at local television news footage from Columbia, South Carolina, this paper will seek …

The Development Of ‘Meaning’ In Literary Theory: A Comparative Critical Study, Mahmoud Mohamed Ali Ahmad Elkordy

Theses and Dissertations

This research project studies different approaches to the question of meaning in literary texts in medieval Islamic critical traditions and modern Western literary criticism. Based on a comparative analysis, the dissertation attempts to explain each theory in its own terms, to find the commonalities and differences of the handling of such a question by literary theories, to establish a dialogue between the theories to understand them better and in wider terms. Thus, the dissertation also analyzes some texts by looking at them through the lenses of different theories.

Toward A Situational Technology Acceptance Model: Combining The Situational Theory Of Problem Solving And Technology Acceptance Model To Promote Mobile Donations For Nonprofit Organizations, Yue Zheng

Theses and Dissertations

Using a nationwide survey of 994 respondents in February 2016, this study combines the situational theory of problem solving and technology acceptance model to refine the conceptual understandings of people’s motivations to make a mobile donation benefiting health-related nonprofit organizations. Findings provide empirical support for the combined model and an emerging situational technology acceptance model. Mobile phone users’ intentions to make a mobile donation are mostly influenced by their attitudes toward using technology and subjective norms. Practical implications are also discussed for nonprofit practitioners to better segment publics, design strategic messages, and disseminate communication campaigns to improve future fundraising.

Ligand Engineering For Advanced Functional Composite Materials, Michael H. Bell

Theses and Dissertations

The surface modification of solid inorganic substrates for thermodynamic compatibility with organic polymer media has become an important area of study for the development of advanced functional composite materials. Polymer ligands covalently bound to the substrate surface have been an effective means to achieve said compatibility. Current investigations focus on multifunctional ligand engineering where multiple chemically distinct species, each with specific functionality, can be implemented on the filler surface simultaneously. A combination of matrix compatible polymer brushes and conjugated charge trapping moieties attached to filler surfaces are investigated for enhancements in dielectric properties. Presented herein are the synthesis and characterization …

The Structural Choice Of A Senior Marketing Executive In The Top Management Teams In Mncs In Usa, Uk And Germany: Antecedents And Impact On Firm Performance, Kurt John Gleichauf

Theses and Dissertations

The role of the Chief Marketing Officer (senior marketing executive) has received minimal attention in the literature. Only recently has academic research investigated the position of the senior marketing executive. This dissertation uses neo-institutional and contingency lenses to extend prior theory and add cross-national perspectives on marketing management structural choices. An analysis of secondary data sources is used to clarify the key antecedents involved in the organizational choice of a senior marketing executive as a structural response in both one-tier and two-tier board governance systems. Possible mechanisms for the hypothesized effects are presented. Further, gaps in the prior literature on …

Unlock The Music: Replacing Compulsory Music Licenses With Free Market Negotiation, Karen (Kai-Wen) Hsieh

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

To understand the impact that compulsory licenses have on the music industry, Section II of this Note focuses on the three major licenses for music compositions-the mechanical license, the performing rights license, and the sync license. Section III discusses why compulsory licenses no longer benefit the music industry and why free market negotiation is the superior approach. This section will also address the potential problems arising from free market negotiation, such as the power imbalance in negotiations between major record labels and new artists. Finally, Section IV proposes online mediation to remedy the difficulties that may occur due to unrestricted …

It Takes A Village: Using Seniors To Help Divorcing Families, Forrest S. Mosten, Lara Traum

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The wisdom of an underappreciated elderly population can offer invaluable assistance to underserved pro-se litigants facing family conflict. This Article will uncover the confluent needs of the family court system and the growing elderly population in the United States. Section II of this Article will explain the struggles of the family court system, outline the historic role of the elderly in addressing family conflict, propose the creation of an Elder Volunteer Corps to address these communal needs, and discuss the benefits of creating such a corps. Section III will suggest logistical approaches to forming an Elder Volunteer Corps, focusing on …

Time To Pay College Athletes? Why The O'Bannon Decision Makes Pay-For-Play Ripe For Mediation, Andrew Steckler

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Between the mounting pressure of public opinion, and continuing litigation in which various plaintiffs are seeking to take advantage of the player-friendly language in O'Bannon, the power dynamic in college athletics is shifting back towards the players. The previously uneven playing field is leveling. This Note examines how to inject mediation into the "pay-for-play" debate to better serve the interests of the NCAA, the major conferences (Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12), and the student-athletes in the wake of O'Bannon. While litigation was necessary to start the process, ultimately, it will be up to the NCAA …

"Boys Will Be Boys, And Girls Will Get Raped": How Public School Dress Codes Foster Modern Day Rape Culture, Stephan Wah

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that public school dress codes perpetuate rape culture by disproportionately targeting female students, reinforcing patriarchal norms, and contributing to gender-based discrimination. These dress codes, often justified as preventing distractions, instead shame girls and place the responsibility of boys' behavior on them, thereby normalizing the objectification of women and supporting systemic sexism.

Back Down To Bullying? The Detrimental Effects Of Zero Tolerance Policies On Bullied Adolescents, Devon L. Disiena

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note critiques zero tolerance policies in schools, arguing that they disproportionately harm bullied adolescents by failing to consider their circumstances, leading to unjust disciplinary actions and discouraging victims from seeking help. It advocates for legislative reforms, particularly in New York, to include self-defense as a mitigating factor in disciplinary decisions.

Social Anxiety Disorder And The Americans With Disabilities Act's Impact On A Professional Athlete's Media Obligations, Matthew Gollub

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

Offensive Linemen: How Pro Football, Inc.'S Responses To The Cancellation Of The Redskins Registrations Should Be Incorporated Into The Uspto's Future Analyses Of Disparaging Trademarks, Stella Silverstein

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Scratching The Seven-Year Itch: A Call To Reform California Labor Code Section 2855(B), Alyssa Kaplun

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Robbing The Cradle: The Use Of Mediation In Parental Rights Termination With Evidence Of Drug Abuse By The Mother, M. Katherine Kerbs

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This Comment will explore the use of mediation in termination of parental rights proceedings where there is evidence of drug abuse by the parents. First, this Comment will give an overview of termination proceedings and examine a specific statute’s guidelines for termination. Then, this Comment will provide an overview of mediation and its uses in family law. Finally, this Comment will argue for increased use of mediation in termination of parental rights cases where there is evidence of drug abuse by the mother.