Digital Commons Network^™

Bias Awareness In Secondary Students: Reactions To Hidden Prejudices, Dawn L. Weathersbee

Theses and Dissertations

mplicit aptitudes are an inherent part of every person, but rarely are these subconscious biases acknowledged or discovered. Not only is their existence rarely acknowledged, on the off chance that awareness exists, rarely is the effort made to determine how they affect overt behavior. Perhaps acknowledging these implicit aptitudes and their effects on behavior can enable people to reflect on what they actually believe. Over the course of one semester 23 students enrolled in an English 2 Honors class were asked to take a race-based IAT in addition to being taught a curriculum embedded with self-leadership skills and multicultural texts. …

Particle Fluxes In The North Pacific: An Assessment Of Pseudonitzschia And Domoic Acid In The Santa Barbara Basin, And Of Mercury, Carbon And Nitrogen In The Central Pacific, Blaire P. Umhau

Theses and Dissertations

Particle fluxes are an integral part of marine biogeochemical cycling and mediate the transfer of material from the surface ocean to depth. Throughout this process, particles are subjected to a suite of biological and physical processes that influence element and compound composition. Understanding these myriad factors is therefore critical for examining an array of marine biogeochemical questions that range from the role of particles in sequestering anthropogenic carbon dioxide, to serving as a food source and as vector for the removal and/or bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals. This thesis examines spatial and temporal changes in particle formation and export of nutrients, …

Showing One’S Manhood: The Social Performance Of Masculinity, Fayaz Kabani

Theses and Dissertations

Contrary to much criticism of the past thirty years that regards Shakespeare’s Prince Hal as the epitome of unfettered Machiavellian subjectivity, Hal should be regarded as a teenaged male navigating the contradictory discourses of early modern masculinity in order to perform an integrated, consistent masculinity for his audience. His acceptance of hegemonic masculinity is complicated by his father Henry IV’s usurpation of the throne. The resulting ambivalence in Hal results in his participation in the countermasculine world of Eastcheap. However, once Hal “chooses” his role as Prince of Wales, he finds it difficult to sacrifice his personal self, or body …

Changes In Nadph Oxidase (Nox) Protein Isoforms And Downstream Reactions As Function Of Time And Overpressure In Blast Tbi, Smit Prakash Shah

Theses

Blast-induced Traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is a leading cause of morbidity in soldiers on the battlefield and training sites with long-term neurological and psychological pathologies. Among many pathological sequela of blast TBI, oxidative stress has been identified as a major factor contributing to the pathophysiology of bTBI. Recent studies have demonstrated activation of oxidative stress pathways following blast injury but their distribution among different brain regions as function of post injury time and Blast over pressure (BOP) have not been explored. The present study examines the protein expression of NADP oxidase (NOX) isoforms 1 & 2, corresponding superoxide production, a …

Small Incision Lenticule Extraction Smile - The Future Of Refractive Surgery Is Here, John F. Doane, Jae E. Cauble, Jace J. Rickstrew, James Quinten Tuckfield

Student Publications

Small Incision Lenticule Extraction (SMILE) is a relatively new one-step refractive procedure that has recently been approved by the FDA for the treatment of myopia. It is anticipated myopic astigmatism will be FDA-approved in 2019. The SMILE procedure is shown to have similar efficacy, safety, predictability, and stability as current surgical options, such as LASIK, but has been gaining popularity due to fewer potential complications, such as dry eye incidence and greater biomechanical stability, and faster recovery time. This article discusses the SMILE procedure, its benefits, risks, uncertainties, and potential future in the world of refractive surgery.

Hepatitis B Reactivation In The Treatment Of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Matthew Kelling, Lubomir Sokol, Samir Dalia

Student Publications

Chronic active hepatitis B infection (HBV) has been implicated in lymphomagenesis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Treatment of cancer including NHL with chemotherapy or immunotherapy can lead to HBV reactivation in previously infected patients. Serological testing of HBV prior to initiation of this therapy is recommended by several national and international medical agencies and expert panels. Patients with positive hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc ab) need to start antiviral therapy with entecavir or tenofovir prior to initiation of chemotherapy or immunotherapy and continue this treatment for 6 to 12 months after completion of cancer therapy …

Academic Motivation Profiles Of 10th Grade Students: Exploring A Relationship With Socioeconomic Level Using A Person Oriented Approach, Sandra Lynn Rogelberg

Theses and Dissertations

Motivation is an important predictor of educational success, as is socioeconomic status. This study used Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) and a person oriented approach as the framework to explore how motivation profiles may be related to context, namely socioeconomic status (SES), and the roles these profiles have in predicting education outcomes. Five motivation variables: math self-efficacy, reading self-efficacy, control expectation, action control, and utility value (instrumentation motivation) were used in latent profile analysis to determine four latent motivation profiles from a national sample of 10,981 10th grade students using ELS:2002 data. Family income and education level (SES) were considered a …

Development Of A High-Resolution Spatial Heterodyne Libs Spectrometer, Kevin A. Dudley

Theses and Dissertations

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is an atomic emission technique that uses a pulse laser to ablate a sample and form a plasma. Atomic emissions from the plasma provide unique elemental characteristics regarding the composition of the sample. The technique produces valuable qualitative results, but the accuracy of quantitative analyses is hindered by spectral line broadening mechanisms and laser pulse reproducibility, among other factors. The Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer (SHS) is a high-resolution spectrometer with very high light throughput, and its use to LIBS is currently limited to two peer-reviewed publications. In the following work a high resolution SHS is developed and …

Impact Of A Practicum In Education Course Designed To Recruit Stem Majors Into A Teacher Education Program, Rebecca A. Spencer

Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that the most efficient way of improving students’ performance, in mathematics and science, is by recruiting and retaining highly qualified mathematics and science teachers. This study augments the body of research aimed at the recruitment of STEM majors to the field of education. The purpose of this study was to determine how a practicum course, developed to recruit freshman and sophomore STEM majors into a teacher preparation program, impacted participants' perceptions of teaching as a profession. The impact of this course, which utilized a reflective cycle framework for evaluating participants’ reflections as the foundation of the program, was …

Chronic Conditions Profiles And Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Control Among A Diverse Sample Of Older Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Tsion Kidanie

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Multiple chronic condition is common in older adults with diabetes. Several prior studies have shown that having multiple chronic condition impact cardiometabolic risk factor controls (i.e., blood pressure, High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol level, and high glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). However, it is not clear whether these results extend to a multiethnic sample of older adults.

Objectives: 1). Examine the association between Comorbidity profile and ABCs goals achievement. 2). Examine whether the association between comorbidity profile and ABCs goals achievement is moderated by race/ethnicity.

Methods: A sample of 3532 participants from Health and Retirement Study (HRS) years 2010 and 2012 and …

Epistemological Issues In Quality Of Life Measurement And Their Implications, Laura M. Cupples

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the epistemology of quality of life measurement. Quality of life measures face a dual epistemic burden both to serve as data for the evidence-based medicine movement and to give patients a greater voice (McClimans 2017). Much time, effort, and money has been invested in these measures over the last 50 years, and yet their theoretical foundations remain weak. It is not clear whether these instruments succeed in measuring what they purport to measure, or what precisely is meant by “quality of life” (Hunt 1997). The epistemic challenges faced in quality of life measurement are not wholly unique. …

Initiating A Peer Support Program For Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In Richland And Lexington Counties, Danielle P. Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To initiate a parenting support program for parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Richland and Lexington Counties. Background: Parents of children with ASD have increased stress and a poorer sense of well-being relative to parents of children with typical development. This parent population in Richland and Lexington Counties identified lack of support as a major stressor. The parenting support model initiated (e.g. Parent to Parent program) is an evidence-based intervention used to provide peer support to parents of children with ASD. The training of veteran parents is essential in the development and initiation of a Parent …

Influence Of Energy Availability On The Carbon Isotopes Of Methane And Biomarkers During Hydrogenotrophic Methanogenesis, Tran Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Signatures of organic molecules in the environment are widely used to identify microbial metabolic processes and to track the cycling of carbon. The lipid biomarkers of methane cycling archaea are of particular interest as they are unique, preserved over geologic time scales, and reflect processes that impact an important greenhouse gas. Their isotopic compositions have been used to distinguish regions where archaea produce and anaerobically consume CH4. Previous work has demonstrated that energy availability impacts the stable carbon isotopes of CH4 during microbial synthesis from H2 and CO2. Here, we investigated whether this relationship could be extended to lipids and …

The Short-Term Self-Control Stability Of College Students, Nicholas James Blasco

Theses and Dissertations

Since the stability problem was first outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) in their influential work A General Theory of Crime it has received a steady stream of attention from the academic community. Researchers have studied juveniles and adults and have implemented a variety of methodological and statistical approaches. Many of these studies do not show support for the theoretical concept outlined by Gottfredson and Hirschi; yet, there were exceptions. The current study used a slightly different theoretical approach accompanied with research methodology that is still in its infancy. While most studies testing the relative stability of self-control use longitudinal …

Food Acquisition And Shopping Patterns And Associations With Body Mass Index, Xiaonan Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Obesity is a big public health concern in the US. Previous studies examined its association with food shopping practices measured by distance to the food store, shopping frequency, and type of store selected. However, not much is known about the actual food acquisition and shopping habits integrating multi-dimensional aspects. The purpose of this study was to identify distinct food acquisition and shopping patterns in populations primarily residing in food deserts in South Carolina (SC) and a general population in the US and characterize these patterns with respect to socioeconomic status (SES), nutritional knowledge, and perceptions and store selection …

Estimation Procedures For Complex Survival Models And Their Applications In Epidemiology Studies, Jie Zhou

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we aim to address three important questions in practice, which can be solved through complex survival models. The first project focuses on studying the longitudinal fitness effect on cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. In the second project, we study the disease-death relation between CVD and all-cause mortality and evaluate important covariate effects on the disease or death transitions. In the third project, we compare antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV patients and consider both treatment effect and side effect of the drugs. The first two projects are motivated by the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study (ACLS) datasets and the third …

The Impact Of False Positive Mammography Results On Breast Cancer Screening Intention Among Black Women, Deeonna E. Farr

Theses and Dissertations

Extensive research indicates that false-positive mammograms (FPM) have been associated with negative psychosocial and cancer-related beliefs, but only a handful of studies examine Black women’s reactions to this experience. Additionally, these studies do not investigate how organizational and provider-level factors in concert with individual patient characteristics shape Black women’s experiences and reactions to FPM results. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of organizational, provider, and individual-level factors on the processes and outcomes associated with FPM results in Black women. This study had two specific aims:

1) To describe, using a mixed methods approach, the organizational and …

The Effects Of An Integrative Universally Designed Motor Skill Intervention Across General, Inclusion, And Self-Contained Early Childhood Center Classrooms, Sally A. Taunton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two studies that examine the effects of a school-based universally designed integrative intervention on the gross motor, fine motor, and health-related fitness skills of preschool and kindergarten with and without disabilities. Both studies focused on the effects of a school-based universally designed integrative intervention across general, inclusion and self-contained early childhood classroom settings. Study 1 examined the effects of the universally designed integrative intervention in general and inclusion classrooms in children without disabilities, and children with mild to moderate disabilities. Study 2 examined the effects of the universally designed integrative intervention in self-contained classrooms for children …

Ecology And Virulence Capabilities Of Vibrios Isolated From The Pristine North Inlet Estuary, Savannah Leigh Klein

Theses and Dissertations

Vibrio bacteria are Gram negative, motile organisms that occur naturally in most coastal and estuarine ecosystems. Some vibrios are important human pathogens, including Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio vulnificus. The CDC estimates that vibrios cause 80,000 cases of disease each year in the United States alone. Most cases are caused by V. parahaemolyticus, which infects humans after the consumption of contaminated raw or undercooked seafood, primarily oysters. V. parahaemolyticus causes mild gastroenteritis that is self-limiting unless the patient is immunocompromised. V. vulnificus has a much lower incidence of disease (100 cases in the USA yr-1); however, this organism causes much more …

Constructing Scientific Knowledge: The Understanding Of The Slow Virus, 1898-1976, Burke Hood Dial

Theses and Dissertations

Scrapie is the ovine form of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. The understanding of scrapie as a slow viral disease was developed through an international scientific dialogue during the first half of the twentieth century. British investigators used epidemiological and experimental observations to define its very long incubation period before the appearance of symptoms. This enabled French researchers to prove scrapie could be transmitted from sick to healthy animals and allowed them to define the etiological agent as an ultramicroscopic, filterable virus. Following this, an Icelandic scientist, Björn Sigurdsson, investigated two other ovine diseases characterized by unusually long periods between contracting …

Classification Of High-Dimensional Data Based On Multiple Testing Methods, Chong Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Supervised and unsupervised classification are common topics in machine learning in both scientific and industrial fields, which usually involve three tasks: prediction, exploration, and explanation. False discovery rate (FDR) theory has a close connection to classical classification theory, which must be employed in a sophisticated way to achieve good performance in various contexts. The study aims to explore novel supervised classifiers and unsupervised classification approaches for functional data and high-dimensional data in genome study by using FDR, respectively. One work develops a novel classifier for functional data by casting the classification problem into a multiple testing task, which involves using …

Association Between Mechanics And Biology In Vascular Graft Remodeling, David Andrew Prim

Theses and Dissertations

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) restores myocardial perfusion in patients with severe coronary artery disease by utilizing autografts – usually at least one of the internal thoracic artery (ITA), radial artery (RA), and great saphenous vein (GSV) – to bypass stenosed regions of coronary arteries. While decades of research and clinical improvements have made CABG an indispensable procedure, tens of thousands of grafts fail each year, which is due, at least in part, to an inability of the source vessels to adapt to the altered stimuli of the coronary circulation. In this dissertation, we first quantify and compare the mechanical …

The Role Of Enso On The Agulhas Current Leakage Region, Morgan Lauren Paris

Theses and Dissertations

The southern end of the African continent marks the division between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean where warm, saline waters propagate into the Atlantic Ocean in the form of rings, eddies, and filaments. These warm, saline waters released during the retroflection of the Agulhas Current are referred to as Agulhas leakage. The Agulhas Current is a poleward flowing western boundary current that forms the limb of the winddriven anti-cyclonic circulation of the south Indian Ocean. The current originates south of Madagascar fed by the Mozambique Channel and the East Madagascar Current. Smallscale variations have been identified in Agulhas …

Role Of Mammary Microenvironment In Promoting Left-Right Differences In Tumor Progression, Metastasis, And Therapeutic Response, Huda Issa Atiya

Theses and Dissertations

Metastasis is the main cause of death in breast cancer patients; however, there are currently no treatments available to treat or prevent metastasis. This is in part because regulators of metastasis are not yet fully understood. Over the past century researchers began to study metastasis regulators by different hypotheses, such as the seed and soil hypothesis which focuses on studying the role of cancer cells, the seeds, and the tissue microenvironment, the soil, in regulating metastasis. Although lots of studies have focused on the microenvironment of metastatic sites and their roles in regulating metastasis, limited studies have focused on the …

A Sociofunctional Approach To Understanding Transphobia, Linas Mitchell

Master's Theses

Despite widespread evidence of anti-transgender prejudice and discrimination, research has yet to determine the nature of prejudice against transgender people. This study used the sociofunctional threat approach (Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005) to examine threat perceptions (contamination threats, obstacle threats, physical safety threats, and threats to reciprocity relations) and emotional reactions (disgust, anger, fear, pity) to transgender (transgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary people) and cisgender (cisgender women, cisgender men, and bisexual people) targets. Results from an online survey suggest that transgender targets evoke higher threat perceptions and negative emotions than cisgender targets; additionally, this tended to be the case for …

Queer People Navigating Experiences With Health Care Providers And Contraception, Dana Lavergne

Master's Theses

Contemporary views of contraception have intrinsically linked birth control to heterosexual sex and pregnancy prevention. As such, contraception is culturally understood to be exclusively for heterosexual women. Despite this, the little work that has been done on queer people1 and contraception use demonstrates they are also accessing birth control (Chrisler, Gorman, Manion, Murgo, Adams-Clark, Newton and McGrath 2015). This schism between the cultural understanding of contraception as a manifestation of heterosexual womanhood and the everyday use of contraception by both queer and heterosexual people takes root in the medical system. Based in heteronormative ideologies, the medical system fails to take …

Immunobiology Of Adenovirus-Vector Vaccines For Mrsa, Emily Orvis

Master's Theses

Staphylococcus aureus is a gram-positive, extracellular bacterium that has emerged as an

important human pathogen. This bacterium is a leading cause of skin and soft tissue infections

(SSTIs) in humans, often leading to invasive and life-threatening infections. Treatment of S.

aureus infections is becoming more complicated due to the rise of methicillin-resistant S. aureus

(MRSA) strains, which are becoming increasingly resistant to a number of antibiotics. In the

United States, invasive MRSA infections result in more deaths annually than any other infectious

agent.

Despite a dire need, there is currently no vaccine against S. aureus infections. The failure

of past …

Participation In Medical Research: Reasons Provided In Cognitive Interviews Of A Diverse Sample, Silvia Valadez

Master's Theses

Racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in medical and health-related survey research, with implications for the generalizability across diverse populations of evidence gleaned from these studies. However, there is little known about the respondents’ reasons for participating—or not—in medical research studies, and how these reasons might vary across race/ethnicity, age, gender and education. In this thesis, I extend previous research by looking at data collected from cognitive interviewing techniques to examine 1) participants’ reported likelihood of participating in five increasingly invasive types of data collection, including research studies that ask participants to answer questions about themselves or provide samples …

Chironomidae (Diptera) Community Structure In Lakes Of Contrasting Morphometry, Landscape Position, And Water Chemistry, Conrad Stanley Zack

Master's Theses

Chironomidae (Diptera) surface-floating pupal exuviae were collected monthly during the ice-free season in 2010-2011 from six lakes in the North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research site in northern Wisconsin. The goal of this study was to determine whether chironomid community structure reflected differences in lake morphometry (i.e., depth, area, shoreline development, etc.), water chemistry, and/or landscape position (i.e., elevation). Forty-six genera were identified from four subfamilies: Chironominae (57%), Orthocladiinae (28%), Tanypodinae (11%), and Diamesinae (4%). Tanytarsus, Ablabesmyia, and Psectrocladius were found in all six study lakes; whereas certain genera, such as Omisus, Protanypus, and Epoicocladius were each observed in only …

Investigating Autophagy, Extracellular Vesicles, And Glycobiology, Benjamin Cook

Master's Theses

Autophagy is a cellular process of degradation which degrades cellular materials in acidic organelles called lysosomes. Impairment of lysosomal degradation can lead to lysosomal storage disorders such as Parkinson's Disease. In Parkinson's Disease neurotoxic α-synuclein can spread from cell-to-cell via extracellular vesicles. We investigated the changes in extra vesicular glycans upon perturbation of autophagy using a class of glycan binding molecules termed lectins.

We found that upon induction of autophagy causes EV glycans to increase while others remained consistent. Additionally, we found that specific glycans are increased more than others. Conversely, when lysosomal degradation was impaired, we observed a decrease …