Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Family Context In Family Health History Communication Surrounding Chronic Disease, Kendall M. Williams

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Communication about family health history related to chronic disease are important to health promotion and prevention and associated with better health outcomes, yet for African Americans, they do not happen until after a family member has been diagnosed with a specific disease or condition (Hovick, 2016; Rodriguez, 2016). The purpose of the study was to examine the occurrence of family communication surrounding chronic disease in a sample of African American women in the rural Southeastern United States. Secondly, the study sought to examine whether frequency of communication was a factor in the communication (gathering or sharing) of family health history. …

Waste Management Of Highway Right Of Way Areas In Southeast Georgia, David M. Penn Ii

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Maintenance of highway right of way (ROW) areas has become problematic during the last several years due to the high cost, and little to no economic return associated with disposing vegetation waste that is continuously generated on all highways and interstates across the state of Georgia. The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) was interested in evaluating the feasibility of replacing ROW vegetation of highways throughout the state with high-value alternatives such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L. ‘Alamo’), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and woodland sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus). Preliminary objective involved measuring and mapping SOC and soil N concentrations in the highway …

Catalpa, University Of Tennessee At Chattanooga

Catalpa

No abstract provided.

Post 9/11 American Novel: Political Orientations In Representing Arabs, Mubarak Altwaiji

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

September 11, 2001 has been the most aggressive day in the History/ Archaeology of modern America. The physical and psychological damages caused by the attacks left a unique experience of the day in the mind of American writers. Therefore, if literary and political orientations changed after the 9/11, novel's subject matter and themes changed too,because novel is a reflection of its social and political context. This study examines the assumption implicit in the dominant conceptions that novel serves the state's politics in its pursue of interests through representations and misrepresentations of other nations. This study examines how American novel expresses …

The Impact Of Collaborative Writing And The Stream Of Consciousness Technique On Writing, Çelen Dimililer, Mustafa Kurt

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This experimental research study attempted to examine the effectiveness of an advanced writing course integrating the stream of consciousness technique and collaborative writing. The writing course was designed for eleven undergraduate English as foreign language students studying at the English language teaching department. Adopting a mixed methods research design, qualitative and quantitative data were used to answer the research questions. Qualitative data were gathered from pre and post-intervention interviews and the quantitative data from the pre and post-tests. The results revealed that a great majority of the participants made considerable progress in terms of creativity and overall writing performance. The …

Wheelchair Automation And Instrumentation Platform, Brady Houston, Taylor Jones

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problems

• Powered wheelchairs often fail to communicate their status to their users.
• Every chair is customized to a user’s needs, but this does not always work as it is hard to translate the commands to a different layout.
• Status of the chair is unknown to caretakers/clinicians (has to go to the factory to be analyzed).

Goals

• Provide an interface where one could read off easily basic data about the chair’s environment (altitude, pressure, humidity, etc.).
• Build an API to allow for the interfacing of basic movement of the chair itself; this way alternative methods of control would be easier to …

Validation Of A Priori Candidate Alzheimer’S Disease Snps With Brain Amyloid-Beta Deposition, Michael Vacher, Tenielle Porter, Victor L. Villemagne, Lidija Milicic, Madeline Peretti, Christopher C. Fowler, Ralph Martins, Stephanie Rainey-Smith, David Ames, Colin L. Masters, Christopher C. Rowe, James D. Doecke, Simon M. Laws

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The accumulation of brain amyloid β (Aβ) is one of the main pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the role of brain amyloid deposition in the development of AD and the genetic variants associated with this process remain unclear. In this study, we sought to identify associations between Aβ deposition and an a priori evidence based set of 1610 genetic markers, genotyped from 505 unrelated individuals (258 Aβ+ and 247 Aβ−) enrolled in the Australian Imaging, Biomarker & Lifestyle (AIBL) study. We found statistically significant associations for 6 markers located within intronic regions of 6 genes, including AC103796.1-BDNF, PPP3R1, …

Circulating Tumour Dna (Ctdna) As A Biomarker In Metachronous Melanoma And Colorectal Cancer- A Case Report, Leslie Calapre, Lydia Warburton, Michael Millward, Elin S. Gray

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background: Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising blood-based biomarker for monitoring disease status of patients with advanced cancers. The presence of ctDNA in the blood is a result of biological processes, namely tumour cell apoptosis and/or necrosis, and can be used to monitor different cancers by targeting cancer-specific mutation. Case presentation: We present the case of a 67 year old Caucasian male that was initially treated with BRAF inhibitors followed by anti-CTLA4 and then anti-PD1 immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma but later developed colorectal cancer. The kinetics of ctDNA derived from each cancer type were monitored targeting BRAF …

Climate Change And Occupational Heat Stress Risks And Adaptation Strategies Of Mining Workers: Perspectives Of Supervisors And Other Stakeholders In Ghana, Victor Fannam Nunfam, Eddie Van Etten, Jacques Oosthuizen, Kwadwo Adusei-Asante, Kwasi Frimpong

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Increasing air temperatures as a result of climate change are worsening the impact of heat exposure on working populations, including mining workers, who are at risk of suffering heat-related illnesses, injury and death. However, inadequate awareness of climate change-related occupational heat stress risks and adaptation strategies have been shown to render occupational heat stress management ineffective. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was used to assess the perceptions of climate change and occupational heat stress risks and adaptation strategies of mining workers among supervisory personnel and other stakeholders in Ghana. Questionnaires and interviews were used to elicit data from 19 respondents. Data …

Board 141: Engineering Identity As A Predictor Of Undergraduate Students' Persistence In Engineering, Debra A. Major, Seterra D. Burleson, Xiaoxiao Hu, Kristi J. Shryock

Psychology Faculty Publications

Improving graduation rates of students who have selected and been admitted to engineering majors is a pivotal strategy in supporting national initiatives to increase the number of engineering graduates. Research suggests that the degree to which a student is attached to or belongs to engineering as a discipline better explains persistence-related outcomes than lack of interest and ability. As a result, identity frameworks have proven useful for furthering the understanding of engineering persistence. In this paper, we examine the relationship between undergraduate students’ engineering identity and persistence as an engineering major.

As part of an ongoing NSF IUSE project, a …

Fighting For Time: Spillover And Crossover Effects Of Long Work Hours Among Dual-Earner Couples, Xiaohong Xu, Yisheng Peng, Peng Zhao, Richard Hayes, William P. Jimenez

Psychology Faculty Publications

Drawing upon the spillover-crossover model, this study examined the extent to which one's work time demands spilled over to the family domain, and crossed over to his or her spouse, utilizing data of 365 dual-earner couples from the 500 Family Study. The results of the distinguishable actor-partner interdependence model indicated that there was gender symmetry in the spillover processes such that the effects of work hours were identical between men and women. Further, although there was more bi-directional crossover between partners within couples, we observed some unidirectional crossover from husbands to wives. Specifically, husbands only increased their contribution to domestic …

Rationale And Design Of A Remote Web-Based Daily Dairy Study Examining Sexual Minority Stress, Relationship Factors, And Alcohol Use In Same-Sex Female Couples Across The United States: Study Protocol Of Project Relate, Kristin E. Heron, Robin J. Lewis, Alexander T. Shappie, Charlotte A. Dawson, Rachel Amerson, Abby L. Braitman, Barbara A. Winstead, Michelle L. Kelley

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: The Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to reduce health disparities, including alcohol use, among sexual minority women (SMW; eg, lesbian, bisexual, queer, and pansexual). Compared with heterosexual women, SMW engage in more hazardous drinking and report more alcohol-related problems. Sexual minority stress (ie, the unique experiences associated with stigmatization and marginalization) has been associated with alcohol use among SMW. Among heterosexuals, relationship factors (eg, partner violence and drinking apart vs together) have also been associated with alcohol use. Negative affect has also been identified as a contributor to alcohol use. To date, most studies examining alcohol use among SMW …

Mobile Technology Use And Mhealth Text Message Preferences: An Examination Of Gender, Racial, And Ethnic Differences Among Emerging Adult College Students, Kristin E. Heron, Kelly A. Romano, Abby L. Braitman

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) interventions are a potentially feasible way of targeting emerging adult college students' physical and mental health concerns, decreasing health-risk, and augmenting health promoting behaviors. However, there is limited evidence attesting to advantageous ways of designing mHealth treatments in a manner that is apt to be well-received by emerging adult college students at large, and gender, racial, and ethnic subgroups in particular. To address these research gaps, this exploratory study examined general trends, and gender (male, female), racial (White, Black), and ethnic (Latino, non-Latino) differences, in emerging adult college students' mobile technology ownership and phone plan characteristics, …

What's In A Tag? A Quick Primer On #Siop19, Paul H. Thoresen, J. Drake Terry

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Of Bee Stings, Mud Pies, And Outhouses: Exploring The Value Of Satire Through The Theory Of Useful Untruths, Leonard M. Niehoff

Other Publications

In this article, I attempt to fill this conceptual gap within Hustler by offering a theory of how satire functions and why it has a distinctively important place in our public discourse. That theory draws on the work of philosophers like Kwame Anthony Appiah, Hans Vaihinger, Kendall Walton, and Lon Fuller, who have discussed the concept of “useful untruths”—lines of thought where we proceed as if something we know to be false is in fact true, because doing so serves a useful and valuable purpose. In my view, the philosophy of useful untruths can help us understand the complexity of …

Risks And Remedies For Artificial Intelligence In Healthcare, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Other Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering health care and serving major roles, from automating drudgery and routine tasks in medical practice to managing patients and medical resources. As developers create AI systems to take on these tasks, several risks and challenges emerge, including the risk of injuries to patients from AI system errors, the risk to patient privacy of data acquisition and AI inference, and more. Potential solutions are complex but involve investment in infrastructure for high-quality, representative data; collaborative oversight by both the Food and Drug Administration and other health-care actors; and changes to medical education that will prepare …

Anatomical And Neuromuscular Determinants Of Strength Change In Previously Untrained Men Following Heavy Strength Training, Joanne Trezise, Anthony J. Blazevich

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study examined whether changes in strength following a moderate-duration strength training program were associated with changes in specific combinations of anatomical and neuromuscular variables. 36 men (18–40 y) completed 10 weeks of lower-limb heavy resistance (6-RM) strength training. Measurements included cross-sectional area (CSA), fascicle length (l_f) and fascicle angle (θ_f) from proximal, middle and distal regions of the four quadriceps components; agonist (EMG:M), antagonist (EMG) muscle activities and percent voluntary quadriceps activation (%VA; interpolated twitch technique); patellar tendon moment arm distance; and maximal isometric, concentric and eccentric (60° s^–1) torque. Multiple regression models …

Wellness In Allied Health Students: The Case For Change, Abigail Lewis, Alison Kirkman, Lisa Holmes

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Introduction: The case for change. There are increasing mental health issues among young people, including higher education students. millennial students face unique challenges relating to attention, critical thinking and managing stress. Specifically, allied health students engage in multiple placements in which they need to interact with real people in real time while being evaluated in assessment and treatment strategies. Some universities have been using wellness programs and mindfulness strategies to support student mental health across campuses for some time. However, as allied health students face unique challenges, there is a need for a particular focus on wellness at an individual …

Characterization Of Polyphenols In Australian Sweet Lupin (Lupinus Angustifolius) Seed Coat By Hplc-Dad-Esi-Ms/Ms, Liezhou Zhong, Gangcheng Wu, Zhongxiang Fang, Mark L. Wahlqvist, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Michael W. Clarke, Edwin Junaldi, Stuart K. Johnson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Seeds of the legume lupin (Lupinus spp.) are becoming increasingly important as human food. The seed coat, at ~25% of the whole seed of Lupinus angustifolius (Australian sweet lupin, ASL), is the main by-product of lupin kernel flour production. The primary market for lupin seed coat is low value feed with very limited use in foods. In this study, seed coats of six ASL commercial varieties from two growing sites were sampled for identification and quantification of polyphenols using a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode array detector (DAD) and coupled with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer which equipped with …

How Ceo Wealth Affects The Riskiness Of A Firm, Sonik Mandal, Charlie Swartz, Sanjib Guha, Carl B. Mcgowan Jr.

Finance Faculty Publications

The objective of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the ownership level of managers and the risk averse behavior of the firm. We measure the ownership level of the managers by the ratio of their ownership of the company relative to their total wealth for a sample of 69 individuals from the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest individuals in the world for the period from 2001-11 using an unbalanced panel data analysis. The dependent variable is the Altman Z-score of each firm and we further test these relationships using financial leverage. The independent variables are delta and …

When Fund Management Skill Is More Valuable?, Feng Dong, John A. Doukas

Finance Faculty Publications

Does fund management skill allow managers to identify mispriced securities more accurately and thereby make better portfolio choices resulting in superior fund performance when noise trading- a natural setting to detect skill - is more prevalent? We find skilled-fund managers with superior past performance to generate persistent excess risk-adjusted returns and experience significant capital inflows, especially in high sentiment times, high stock dispersion and economic expansion states when price signals are noisier. This pattern persists after we control for lucky bias, using the "false discovery rate" approach, which permits to disentangle manager "skill" from "luck".

Sandwich-Structured, Damage-Resistant Tin/Graded Tisin/Tisin Film, Shuang Peng, Jiang Xu, Paul Munroe, Zonghan Xie

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The development of hard, multi-layer coatings is an effective strategy to enhance the wear resistance of cutting tools and so extend their service life. In the present study, a sandwich structured TiN/g-TiSiN/TiSiN film (where a graded (g-) TiSiN layer with an increasing Si content from 0 to 10 at% was inserted as a transitional layer between the TiN layer and the TiSiN layer with a fixed silicon content of 10 at%) was prepared on to a M42 tool steel substrate. Its mechanical properties were compared to both a dual-layered TiN/g-TiSiN film and a monolithic TiN film. Nanoindentation testing, assisted by …

Biodiversity Offsets In Eia: Getting The Timing Right, Marlene De Witt, Jenny Pope, Francois Retief, Alan Bond, Angus Morrison-Saunders, Carli Steenkamp

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Major developments can result in significant impacts on biodiversity, which the mandated process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) aims to mitigate. There has been a recent move towards the application of biodiversity offsets as a last-resort, compensatory measure when options at the earlier stages in the mitigation hierarchy of avoidance, minimisation and restoration have been exhausted. Guidance on biodiversity offset planning available in different jurisdictions, however, demonstrates a lack of consensus about when biodiversity offsets should be formally introduced into the EIA process, and previous research has highlighted the perceived risks associated with commencing detailed offset planning too early as …

Preface To The Third Edition By The General Editor. Preface To The New Wigmore: A Treatise On Evidence: Selected Rules Of Limited Admissibility, Richard D. Friedman

Other Publications

As General Editor of this treatise, my principal job is to recruit an excellent team of authors; no one in the modern day could hope to replicate John Henry Wigmore's one-man show. David Leonard, not only a superb scholar but also an exemplary person through and through, was one of the first people I asked, and to my delight he joined the project. He tackled his assignment with great ability and broad vision--and also graciousness in dealing with a slew of editorial comments from me. With a degree of efficiency and industry that can perhaps best be described in this …

General Editor's Introduction To The Treatise, Richard D. Friedman

Other Publications

There is a story -- recalled rather wistfully by an American in 1995, shortly after the thrashing of Young America by New Zealand's Black Magic -- that in 1851 Queen Victoria came to watch the first race for what became known as the America's Cup. “Who is leading?” she asked the signal master of the royal yacht. “The America,” came the reply. “Which boat is in second place?” the Queen wanted to know. The signal master replied: “There is no second, ma'am.'DD'

This story -- which, though perhaps apocryphal, has gained a life of its own -- captures perfectly the …

Contextualising Social Capital In Online Brand Communities, Stephanie Meek, Madeleine Ogilvie, Claire Lambert, Maria M. Ryan

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Online brand communities (OBC) are growing in number and becoming an increasingly important interface where marketers can effectively facilitate the relationship between their brand and consumers. A qualitative study using a four-month netnography over three OBCs followed by focus groups with OBC members explored the dynamics of social capital in these communities. Findings indicate that social capital is an important driver in the success of OBCs, and all the elements of social capital including a shared language, shared vision, social trust and reciprocity are evident. Moreover, results from this study indicate that these elements are crucial in developing the network …

Design And Synthesis Of A New Mannitol Stearate Ester-Based Aluminum Alkoxide As A Novel Tri-Functional Additive For Poly(Vinyl Chloride) And Its Synergistic Effect With Zinc Stearate, Wenyuan Han, Manqi Zhang, Degang Li, Tianbao Dong, Bing Ai, Jianping Dou, Hongqi Sun

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Thermal stabilizers, lubricant, and plasticizers are three crucial additives for processing poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC). In this study, a new mannitol stearate ester-based aluminum alkoxide (MSE-Al) was designed and synthesized as a novel additive for PVC. The thermal stability and processing performance of PVC stabilized by MSE-Al were evaluated by the Congo red test, conductivity measurement, thermal aging test, ultravioletevisible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy test, and torque rheometer test. Results showed that the addition of MSE-Al could not only markedly improve the long-term thermal stability of PVC, but also greatly accelerate the plasticizing and decrease the balance torque, which demonstrated that MSE-Al possessed …

Forensic Analysis Of The Nintendo 3ds Nand, Gus Pessolano, Huw O. L. Read, Iain Sutherland, Konstantinos Xynos

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Games consoles present a particular challenge to the forensics investigator due to the nature of the hardware and the inaccessibility of the file system. Many protection measures are put in place to make it deliberately difficult to access raw data in order to protect intellectual property, enhance digital rights management of software and, ultimately, to protect against piracy. History has shown that many such protections on game consoles are circumvented with exploits leading to jailbreaking/rooting and allowing unauthorized software to be launched on the games system. This paper details methods that enable the investigator to extract system activity, deleted images, …

A Comparative Study On Genetic Profiles And Repellent Effects Of Murraya Koenigii From Four Regions In Kenya On Anopheles Gambiae S.S., Sean Waswa Levi

All Master’s Theses

Ethnobotanical analyses highlight therapeutic and chemotypic variations of geographically and ecologically diverse Murraya koenigii (Spreng) samples. However, the genetic correlation of this observation remains obscure. The present study aimed at studying the intraspecific genetic variation of Murraya koenigii and the possible effect on the bioactivity of volatiles of plant samples collected from four different geographical locations of Kenya. Genomic DNA isolated from various plant samples were screened for plastid maturase K (matK) gene polymorphisms within and among populations to estimate genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships. Further, oils from the plant samples were tested for repellent activity against Anopheles gambiae s.s …

Sécurité Des Machines D’Extraction Commandées Par Des Systèmes Programmables Électroniques : Fiche Technique, Laurent Giraud, Bertrand Galy, Louis Germain, Réal Bourbonnière

Fiches

No abstract provided.