Investigating Individual Pathways To Recovery, Mackenzie R. Mcbride

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Drug use is most prevalent among young adults between ages 18 and 24; this is just one factor that contributes to the high rates of substance use on college campuses. Collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) have been growing in number, awakening the “youth in recovery” movement. This paper presents literature on various tools and elements of recovery, with a focus on CRPs and their significance. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap by examining individual pathways to recovery and learning about the characteristics of students participating in CRPs, including their life events and decisions to seek treatment. Semi-structured interviews were …

Examining What Factors Affect High School Students’ Educational Aspirations, Kalle T. Pray

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study sought to examine the factors that influenced a high school student’s educational aspirations. This study used data collected by the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS) 2009-2013 to examine how a student’s engagement, interest, attitudes toward math teacher, counselors helping with college materials, and meeting with a counselor influence a student’s educational aspirations. The findings suggest that student engagement, student interest and meeting with a counselor were significant predictors of higher educational aspirations even after controlling for being white, female, academic track, and family income. Counselors helping with college material was also a predictor of higher educational aspirations, however …

Producing A College Graduate Using Retention, Progression, And Graduation (Rpg) Initiatives: A University Systems’ Approach, Deborah N. Kittrell-Mikell

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Complete College Georgia (CCG) is an initiative that has the University System of Georgia institutions strategizing ways to develop plans that will increase the number of college graduates by the year 2020. Governor Nathan Deal has indicated that graduation rates need to increase from 42% to 60% within the next 7 years. With the anticipation of approximately 20% more students graduating to meet the 250,000 target, a closer look is needed at how an additional 50,000 graduates can be produced to make this goal a reality. To fulfill this goal, there needs to be an increase of approximately 7,143 …

Romantic Interest Selection From An Imago Relationship Therapy Perspective, Lauren O. Patterson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Imago Relationship Therapy (IRT) is a model of couples therapy that is not empirically validated (Jakubowski et al., 2004). IRT proposes that individuals select Romantic Interests (Interests) that are similar to their Childhood Caregivers (Caregivers) in an effort to heal childhood wounding (Hendrix, 1988). The current study sought to evaluate the IRT proposition of romantic interest selection by evaluating patterns in romantic interest selection, particularly the relationship between Caregiver and Interest personality characteristics, adult attachment dimensions, gender, and geographical location of origin. In addition, the study considers similarities in participant narratives of positive and negative experiences with Caregivers and Interests. …

Examining The Effects Of Enclosure Size At Training And At Test In Spatial Reorientation, Zebulon K. Bell

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Previous research has begun to shed light on the differentiated influence of enclosure size on cue use during reorientation (Sturz, Forloines, & Bodily, 2012). Namely, the question remains of why both feature (i.e., objects or landmarks in the enclosure) and geometric (i.e., shape of the enclosure) cues are differentially affected by enclosure size, and the extent to which local (i.e., wall lengths and corner angles) and global (i.e., principal axis of space) geometric cues are affected by enclosure size. Further, it remains unclear whether training size, testing size, or the relationship between training and testing size influences the use of …

The Role Of Habitat Management In Shaping Predation, Animal Color, And Gene Flow In A Metapopulation Of Florida Scrub Lizards (Sceloporus Woodi), Richard William Orton

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Anthropogenic disturbance is known to affect biological diversity at the community, species, and genetic levels. Habitat fragmentation, in particular, has been shown to impact predator abundance and distribution, impede dispersal, and augment genetic drift. In small populations, which often result from habitat fragmentation, the effects of human disturbance may be disproportionately expressed. Small populations are more susceptible to selection pressures and random drift because genetic and phenotypic frequencies can become rapidly fixed, in comparison to larger populations. In turn, fixation of maladaptive alleles or morphs can accelerate extinction. For example, cryptic color polymorphism can be maintained by apostatic selection, where …

A Population Genetic Investigation Of The Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander (Ambystoma Bishopi) On Eglin Air Force Base, Alexander S. Wendt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The reticulated flatwoods salamander (RFS) is an endangered salamander with a unique life history. One of the largest known, best studied refuges for RFS is found on Eglin Air Force Base, and these RFS have been sampled and managed extensively since 2010. My thesis seeks to better understand RFS by using genetic techniques to address several unknowns, including: 1) determining the population structuring of RFS and the manageable units for species conservation, 2) estimating the size and status of populations, 3) understanding dispersal of RFS and factors that influence this, 4) exploring the breeding biology and recruitment patterns of RFS …

Corticospinal Excitability During Locomotion In Humans, Lisa Kogan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The coordination between signals from cortical structures and spinal segmental pathways responsible for the control of locomotion remains a contentious issue in human motor control. The signals are known to be integrated, but the nature of these neural calculations is unknown. To understand these interactions in humans, noninvasive cortical stimulation techniques can be combined with detailed analyses of muscle activity patterns in locomotor tasks.;In this study, I tested the relationship between corticospinal inputs and the forward velocity of each limb. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to elicit motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in 12 healthy human volunteers during locomotion on …

Implications Of Primary Cilia And Associated Lysophosphatidic Acid Signaling In Glioblastoma Biology And Therapy, Yuriy V. Loskutov

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The primary cilium is a ubiquitous organelle presented on most human cells. It serves as a crucial signaling hub for multiple pathways including growth factor and G-protein coupled receptors. Loss of primary cilia was observed in various cancers, however, the implications of this event are unclear. Several studies show that loss of cilia promotes cell proliferation, suggesting that alteration of ciliary-dependent signaling can drive the hyperproliferative phenotype of cancer cells, therefore re-establishing primary cilia or targeting altered signaling pathways could be a beneficial strategy as an anti-cancer therapy.;Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the deadliest cancers with a median survival of …

Common Data Set, 2016-2017, Planning, Research, And Policy Analysis

Common Data Set (2001-present)

Common Data Set 2016-2017 for Illinois State University

Electron Impact Excitation-Ionization Of Molecules, Esam Abobakr A. Ali

Doctoral Dissertations

"In the last few decades, the study of atomic collisions by electron-impact has made significant advances. The most difficult case to study is electron impact ionization of molecules for which many approximations have to be made and the validity of these approximations can only be checked by comparing with experiment.

In this thesis, I have examined the Molecular three-body distorted wave (M3DW) or Molecular four-body distorted wave (M4DW) approximations for electron-impact ionization. These models use a fully quantum mechanical approach where all particles are treated quantum mechanically and the post collision interaction (PCI) is treated to all orders of perturbation. …

Biomarker Discovery Using Urinary Metabolomics For Noninvasive Early Cancer Detection, Casey Franklin Burton

Doctoral Dissertations

"The development of new screening methods for the early detection of cancer remains one of the foremost challenges facing modern cancer research. The emergence of new analytical technologies and their application to 'omics'-based approaches has provided researchers with powerful new tools for molecular biomarker discovery that may benefit early screening of cancer. This dissertation outlines several key advances made toward the application of urinary metabolomics to cancer biomarker discovery. The term urinary metabolomics here refers to the investigation of small metabolites in urine as potential disease biomarkers. The advantage of using this approach lies in its noninvasive sampling characteristics and …

Rapid Quantification Of Trypsin Inhibitors In Food And Feed Formulations With Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry, Radheshyam Panta

Doctoral Dissertations

"Presence of anti- nutrients deteriorate the nutritional value of animal foods and feed formulations. The important one being trypsin inhibitors. Trypsin inhibitors in food and feed formulations lower the protein supplement and hence the ultimate consequence is the decrease in growth and development of animals. It is therefore, crucial to monitor trypsin inhibitors in animal food and feed formulations. Research work mentioned in this dissertation is based on the development of rapid, more accurate and robust method for determination of trypsin inhibitor in food and feed formulations. The developed method includes extraction of trypsin inhibitor from food and feed formulation …

Event-Triggered Near Optimal Adaptive Control Of Interconnected Systems, Vignesh Narayanan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Increased interest in complex interconnected systems like smart-grid, cyber manufacturing have attracted researchers to develop optimal adaptive control schemes to elicit a desired performance when the complex system dynamics are uncertain. In this dissertation, motivated by the fact that aperiodic event sampling saves network resources while ensuring system stability, a suite of novel event-sampled distributed near-optimal adaptive control schemes are introduced for uncertain linear and affine nonlinear interconnected systems in a forward-in-time and online manner.

First, a novel stochastic hybrid Q-learning scheme is proposed to generate optimal adaptive control law and to accelerate the learning process in the presence of …

Long-Range Interatomic Interactions: Oscillatory Tails And Hyperfine Perturbations, Chandra Mani Adhikari

Doctoral Dissertations

"We study the long-range interaction between two hydrogen atoms, in both the van der Waals and Casimir-Polder regimes. The retardation regime is reached when the finiteness of the speed of light becomes relevant. Provided that both atoms are in the ground states, the retardation regime is achieved when the interatomic distance, R, is larger than 137 a₀, where a₀ is the Bohr radius.

To study the interaction between two hydrogen atoms in 1S and 2S states, we differentiate three different ranges for the interatomic distance: van der Waals range (a₀ « R « a₀/α, where α is the fine structure …

Event-Triggering Architectures For Adaptive Control Of Uncertain Dynamical Systems, Ali Talib Oudah Albattat

Doctoral Dissertations

"In this dissertation, new approaches are presented for the design and implementation of networked adaptive control systems to reduce the wireless network utilization while guaranteeing system stability in the presence of system uncertainties. Specifically, the design and analysis of state feedback adaptive control systems over wireless networks using event-triggering control theory is first presented. The state feedback adaptive control results are then generalized to the output feedback case for dynamical systems with unmeasurable state vectors. This event-triggering approach is then adopted for large-scale uncertain dynamical systems. In particular, decentralized and distributed adaptive control methodologies are proposed with reduced wireless network …

The Maculoprotective Effect Of A Thiol Antioxidant In Retinal Degeneration Models, Hsiu-Jen Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of irreversible blindness among adults, age 60 and older, in developed countries. While oxidative stress is implicated in the pathogenesis of AMD, clinical studies have shown that dietary antioxidants can delay progression of AMD. Currently, there is no FDA-approved treatment for AMD. Therefore, we hypothesized that N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA), a thiol antioxidant, would protect retinal pigment epithelium and impede the progression of retinal degeneration. The goal of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of NACA in preventing retinal pigment epithelial cell and photoreceptor death in AMD models. To achieve this, we …

Continuous Focusing And Separation Of Microparticles With Acoustic And Magnetic Fields, Ran Zhou

Doctoral Dissertations

"Microfluidics enables a diverse range of manipulations (e.g., focusing, separating, trapping, and enriching) of micrometer-sized objects, and has played an increasingly important role for applications that involve single cell biology and the detection and diagnosis of diseases. In microfluidic devices, methods that are commonly used to manipulate cells or particles include the utilization of hydrodynamic effects and externally applied field gradients that induce forces on cells/particles, such as electrical fields, optical fields, magnetic fields, and acoustic fields.

However, these conventional methods often involve complex designs or strongly depend on the properties of the flow medium or the interaction between the …

Drinking Water Disinfection By-Products Detection, Formation And The Precursors Removal Study, Runmiao Xue

Doctoral Dissertations

"Haloacetic acids (HAAs) and trihalomethanes (THMs) are two groups of commonly found disinfection by-products (DBPs). Iodinated THMs and HAAs were observed after disinfection of water containing high level of iodide and are proved to be more toxic than their corresponding chlorinated and brominated species. In the presented dissertation, a novel rapid and sensitive high performance ion chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPIC-MS/MS) method has been developed for simultaneous analysis of all these HAAs, bromate, bromide, iodide, and iodate, seventeen compounds in total, without any tedious sample preparation. Besides an efficient analytical method for the detection of DBPs, seeking for a green disinfectant …

Discrete Ordinates Ct Organ Dose Simulator (Doctors), Edward T. Norris

Doctoral Dissertations

"Computed tomography (CT) has become pervasive in medical diagnostics as improved imaging techniques and processing algorithms provide higher quality information to doctors. However, the exponentially increasing usage of CT has raised concerns regarding long term low-dose radiological risks.

Currently, the dose to patients is computed using Monte Carlo methods and experimental tests. In other areas of radiation transport, deterministic codes have been shown to be much faster than Monte Carlo codes.

Currently, no deterministic methodology exists to automatically generate a spatially distributed dose profile from a CT voxel phantom. This work proposes a new code, Discrete Ordinate CT Organ Dose …

Advanced Analytical Strategies To Determine Biomedical Parameters For Medical Diagnostics, Drug Delivery, And Therapy, Sisi Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

"Biomedical parameters are critical for diseases prognosis, diagnosis and therapy. Many research groups have dedicated their studies to develop analytical instrumentation and apply analytical methods to determine biomedical parameters that have the potential to help with disease control and increase public health. This dissertation focuses on three major aspects of analytical strategies development and applications: 1) detection of pH changes caused by nanotoxicity (induced by TiO₂ nanoparticles) using newly developed micro-pH sensor, 2) quantification of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) biomarkers by high-performance liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), and 3) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies of porous wall …

Control Of Single- And Dual-Probe Atomic Force Microscopy, Muthukumaran Loganathan

Doctoral Dissertations

“Atomic force microscope (AFM) is one of the important and versatile tools available in the field of nanotechnology. It is a type of probe-based microscopy wherein an atomically sharp tip, mounted on the free end of a microcantilever, probes the surface of interest to generate 3D topographical images with nanoscale resolution. An integral part of the AFM is the feedback controller that regulates the probe deflection in the presence of surface height changes, enabling the control action to be used for generating topographical image of the sample. Besides sensing, the probe can also be used as a mechanical actuator to …

Depositional Systems, Sequence Architecture, And Controlling Factors Of An Eocene Stratigraphic Sequence At Minfeng Steep Margin Of Dongying Depression, Eastern China, Zhixin Li

Doctoral Dissertations

“This study is carried out in Minfeng area, the steep margin of Dongying half graben, eastern China, by integrating 3-D seismic, wireline log, and core data, and aims to interpret the depositional systems, reconstruct sequence stratigraphic architecture, and understand the controlling processes and factors at the steep margin of a rift basin. In the first part of this work, an Eocene stratigraphic sequence is divided into three systems tracts, corresponding to different stages of lake evolution, as early expansion (EEST), late expansion-early contraction (LEECST), and late contraction (LCST). EEST is the thickest and diagnostic by the best-developed marginal and basinal …

Diversity And Function Of Fungi Associated With The Fungivorous Millipede, Brachycybe Lecontii, Angie M. Macias

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Brachycybe (Wood) is a genus of fungivorous millipedes. To date, the fungal associates of these millipedes have never been characterized. In an attempt to resolve these relationships, culture-based approaches combined with DNA barcode sequencing were used. Sampling of 313 individuals collected from three of four B. lecontii clades and 20 sites across seven states uncovered at least 183 genera in 40 orders from four fungal phyla. At least seven putative new species were recovered in this study, despite the use of more classical culture-based approaches. Three of these fungi were phylogenetically resolved using ITS + LSU and include two new …

The Effect Of Early Skin-To-Skin Contact On Breastfeeding Duration And Exclusivity: A Mixed Methods Study, Cristina Menking-Hoggatt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background: Breastfeeding is beneficial to the health of both mother and infant and fosters optimal growth for the baby in the first two years of life. Evidence based guidelines followed by the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) includes Ten Steps. Step Four recommends placing the newborn skin-to-skin on the mother's chest to foster the initiation of breastfeeding in the first hour after birth.;Objectives: The first and second objective determined if skin-to-skin contact (SSC) between mother and infant in the healthy postpartum breastfeeding mother affected duration and exclusivity rates at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months. The third objective described …

Design And Development Of A Novel Nanoparticle Aerosol Generation System For Research Applications, Justin R. Chambers

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Nanoparticles have become of great interest within the scientific community for their use in diverse applications. With this rapidly evolving field, new nano-sized compounds are being developed and used for a variety of reasons. Nanoparticle aerosol technology, aerosolization and dispersion of nano-compounds, has many novel applications and can be used to support current research efforts. This may include anything from drug delivery techniques to industrial processes. To aid these processes, new methods of aerosol generation and dispersion are needed to meet these future needs. This research and development is being conducted to expand upon a novel nanoparticle aerosol generator as …

"Mingled In One Common Destruction": Gender And The Household Economy In Harpers Ferry, 1859-1865, Elizabeth Conant-Lambert

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis examines gender relations and the household economy of Harpers Ferry, Virginia (later West Virginia) from 1859 to 1865. Chapter One looks at how the town was organized economically and symbolically around the federal armory and arsenal, which served as the foundation for the town. Chapter Two examines the destruction of the armory and the ways that economic upheaval led to a feminization of male townspeople, who were then subordinated to occupying militaries. In the border town of Harpers Ferry, occupation became an important aspect of gender relations. Chapter Three focuses on how local women used family networks to …

Osteogenic Potential Of Poly (L-Lactic Acid) Scaffolds Prepared By Thermally Controlled Methods On Human Adipose Derived Stem Cells, Harish Chinnasami Shanmugam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thermally Induced Phase Separation (TIPS) method was used to make porous three-dimensional PLLA scaffolds. The effect of imposed thermal profile during freezing of the PLLA in dioxane solution on the scaffold was characterized by their micro-structure, porosity (%), pore-sizes distribution and mechanical strength. The porosity (%) decreased considerably with increasing concentrations of PLLA in the solution, while a decreasing trend was observed with increasing cooling rates. The mechanical strength increases with increase in PLLA concentration and also with increase in the cooling rate for both types of solvents. Therefore, mechanical strength was increased by higher cooling rates while the porosity …

The Formation Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons From The Pyrolysis Of Model 1-Alkene Fuels, Eva Christine Caspary

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

To understand the role of 1-alkenes and allylic radicals in the reaction pathways leading to the formation and growth of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), pyrolysis experiments have been performed with three 1-alkene fuels—propylene (CH₂=CH–CH₃), 1-butene (CH₂=CH–CH₂–CH₃), and 1-pentene (CH₂=CH–CH₂–CH₂–CH₃)—at temperatures of 600 – 1000 °C and a fixed residence time of 0.31 s. The experiments are carried out in an isothermal laminar-flow quartz-tube reactor. Analyses of the pyrolysis products by gas-chromatographic and high-pressure liquid-chromatographic techniques reveal that the three fuels differ in: 1) their conversion behavior, 2) the relative amounts of the major C₂ – C₄ species produced, and 3) …

Characterization Of The Immune Response To Lipopolysaccharide In Early Pregnant Ewes As A Model To Study Bacterial Infection Induced Embryonic Loss, Jessalyn Marie Hadfield

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

An immunological balance has to be established during pregnancy that protects the mother yet tolerates the semi-allogenic fetus. To understand the innate immune response during bacterial infections that may cause early embryonic loss, a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treated sheep model was used. Two objectives of this study were to examine if omega-3 PUFAs in the form of supplementary whole flaxseed could reduce the inflammatory response to an LPS challenge and to examine if there is a differential immune response to LPS in Suffolk and Dorset ewes. A total of 3 experiments were conducted; two investigating the effect of supplement and one …