Digital Commons Network^™

"Read It Again!": Storytelling To Imitate The Great Teacher, Kate Whatley

Senior Honors Theses

The student’s mind is bent on stories, asking mothers around the world to ‘read it again’. These stories preserve information and emotions for centuries. In the classroom, stories enliven motivation and empathy in ways that result in higher academic achievement and social awareness. Learning to use stories as a key instructional strategy will allow for more equitable opportunities in classrooms, encourage mental health and truth telling for the teacher and the student collectively, and allow the academic community to imitate Christ by contributing to the bigger story taking place across time. In application of using stories as teachers, this thesis …

We Are Each Other’S Breath: Tracing Interdependency Through Critical Poetic Inquiry, Karen Zaino, Jordan Bell

Publications and Research

In this paper, we utilize poetic methods that seek to surface, but not overdetermine, the unanticipated relational excess produced through literacy practices. Karen, a queer white woman, and Jordan, a cis-gendered heterosexual Black man, wrote a series of letters to one another throughout the Spring 2020 semester. We turned to critical poetic inquiry to analyze the letters, interested in poetry’s capacity to highlight literacy’s critical power and its emergent potential. We found ourselves implicated in each other’s lives in new ways; we found our relationship both strengthened and tested. Such relational indeterminacy creates methodological challenges in literacy research. We found …

He Or She Is In For The Score, Larry Burgess

Materials from the University of Dayton Magazine Website

Animals seem more alert than people to changes in their environment, and more willing to adapt to those changes.  This must be what’s considered natural selection.

Presumed Nonhuman: Black Women Intellectuals And The Struggle For Humanity In The Academy, Andrea N. Baldwin

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this article I engage with the work of Sylvia Wynter, Christina Sharpe, and Kevin Quashie, weaving in my own personal narrative of being presumed nonhuman to detail the everyday struggles Black women academics face. Herein I also illustrate how these struggles become sites of resistance, building, and hope.

Dreaming With A Future: Queer Memory Beyond National Trauma, Cynthia Melendez

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This article examines queer memory in Peru through the works of artists Christian Benday.n, Barboza-Gubo and Mroczek, and the collective No Tengo Miedo. I suggest that they construct alternative memories to the hegemonic one, as they denounce the violence against the LGBTIQ population during the years of political violence (1980-2000).

Black Queer Times At Riis: Making Place In A Queer Afrofuturist Tense, Jah Elyse Sayers

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper posits a queer Afrofuturist mode of spatiotemporal production in queer and trans Black, indigenous and people of color’s navigation to and making of a queer beach to honor Black queer and trans histories and build Black queer and trans futures in opposition to multiple forms of displacement.

The Jury Trial Reinvented, Christopher Robertson, Michael Elias Shammas

Texas A&M Law Review

The Framers of the Sixth and Seventh Amendments to the United States Constitution recognized that jury trials were essential for maintaining democratic legitimacy and avoiding epistemic crises. As an institution, the jury trial is purpose-built to engage citizens in the process of deliberative, participatory democracy with ground rules. The jury trial provides a carefully constructed setting aimed at sorting truth from falsehood.

Despite its value, the jury trial has been under assault for decades. Concededly, jury trials can sometimes be inefficient, unreliable, unpredictable, and impractical. The COVID–19 pandemic rendered most physical jury trials unworkable but spurred some courts to begin …

Elementary Educator Perceptions Of The Impact Breaks Have On Student Engagement, Sarah-Bo Kirchhoff

Dissertations

According to the US. Department of Labor, 1991, the United States education has shifted the focused to student performance and academic success (NCEE, 2006). School districts across the nation have increased students’ academic demands, including increased academic instruction time, while the allotted time for recess and academic breaks continuously decrease, significantly impacting the school day’s structure (Brusseau & Hannon, 2015; Ginsburg et al., 2007; Stonehill et al., 2011). However, research asserted that instructional time increase does not significantly impact student achievement. In contrast, the increase of academic instruction time could stimulate behavioral problems and sedentary behaviors, while the continuous decrease …

Annual Wild Turkey Status Report 2021, Tennessee. Wildlife Resources Agency.

Turkey Management

No abstract provided.

Race In The Time Of Covid-19, The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute For Social Change

The Hooks Institute Policy Papers

Race in the time of COVID-19 assesses the impact of the pandemic on exacerbating educational, health, and employment inequalities and the loss of intergenerational wealth among African Americans who have disproportionately died because of COVID-19.

Compliance To Gmp Guidelines For Herbal Manufacturers In East Africa: A Position Paper, Victoria Kwesiga, Z Ekeocha, S Byrn, K Clase

BIRS Africa Technical Report Papers

With the global increase in the use of traditional and complementary remedies for the prevention and treatment of illness, the quality and safety of these medicines have become a significant concern for all regulatory authorities. Herbal medicines are the most commonly used form of traditional and complementary medicines in the world and the efficacy and safety of herbal medicines, like conventional medicines, largely depends on their quality from planting to harvesting, preprocessing and final processing. Due to the inherent complexity of herbal medicines, often containing an array of active compounds, the primary processing of herbal medicines has a direct influence …

Evaluating And Understanding The Reason For An Increase In Nonconformances In The Laboratory, Andrew Mukungu, Z Ekeocha, S Byrn, K Clase

BIRS Africa Technical Report Papers

This is a study of nonconformances experienced by a laboratory of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in East Africa. There has been an increase in nonconformances from 216 nonconformances in 2017 to 229 in 2018 and by September 2019, 306 nonconformances were already logged. Increasing nonconformances result in delayed release of tested materials and many resources are wasted (e.g. chemicals, man hours and equipment). Analysts become frustrated, which may result in inexhaustive investigations. Understanding the reason for the increase in nonconformances will enable the facility to derive effective solutions to the identified causes, hence reducing the number of nonconformances and improving …

A Potential Role For Restricted Intertactical Heritability In Preventing Intralocus Conflict, Madilyn M. Gamble, Ryan G. Calsbeek

Dartmouth Scholarship

Intralocus sexual conflict, which arises when the same trait has different fitness optima in males and females, reduces population growth rates. Recently, evolutionary biologists have recognized that intralocus conflict can occur between morphs or reproductive tactics within a sex and that intralocus tactical conflict might constrain tactical dimorphism and population growth rates just as intralocus sexual conflict constrains sexual dimorphism and population growth rates. However, research has only recently focused on sexual and tactical intralocus conflict simultaneously, and there is no formal theory connecting the two. We present a graphical model of how tactical and sexual conflict over the same …

Chameleon Boy: An Autobiographical Literary Critique Of Biracial Subjects In A Racialized Society, David Robinson

All NMU Master's Theses

In American society, race is a determining factor when realizing a salient identity. Social engagements, relationships, and the perception has of one’s self are all effected and choreographed by race. Deeply ingrained within our social structure race aims to categorize humanity into easily identifiable, yet reductive, categories. However, an issue arises when the addition of the mixed-race subject throws the sorting machine into a frenzy. Unable to categorize the racially ambiguous, American society chooses to conflate their physicality to another ethnic group or race or write them off as Other. The late Gloria Anzaldua’s investigation into the limitless possibilities present …

Next-Generation Ensemble Projections Reveal Higher Climate Risks For Marine Ecosystems, Derek P. Tittensor, Camilla Novaglio, Cheryl S. Harrison, Ryan F. Heneghan, Nicolas Barrier, Daniele Bianchi, Laurent Bopp, Andrea Bryndum-Buchholz, Gregory L. Britten, Matthias Büchner

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Projections of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems have revealed long-term declines in global marine animal biomass and unevenly distributed impacts on fisheries. Here we apply an enhanced suite of global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP), forced by new-generation Earth system model outputs from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), to provide insights into how projected climate change will affect future ocean ecosystems. Compared with the previous generation CMIP5-forced Fish-MIP ensemble, the new ensemble ecosystem simulations show a greater decline in mean global ocean animal biomass under both strong-mitigation …

Study Of Atmospheric Pollution And Health Risk Assessment: A Case Study For The Sharjah And Ajman Emirates (Uae), Yousef Nazzal, Nadine Bou Orm, Alina Barbulescu, Fares Howari, Manish Sharma, Alaa E. Badawi, Ahmed A. Al-Taani, Jibran Iqbal, Farid El Ktaibi, Cijo M. Xavier, Cristian Stefan Dumitriu

All Works

Dust is a significant pollution source in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that impacts population health. Therefore, the present study aims to determine the concentration of heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in the air in the Sharjah and Ajman emirates’ urban areas and assesses the health risk. Three indicators were used for this purpose: the average daily dose (ADD), the hazard quotient (HQ), and the health index (HI). Data were collected during the period April–August 2020. Moreover, the observation sites were clustered based on the pollutants’ concentration, given that the greater the heavy metal concentration is, …

Algae Sympoiesis In Performance: Rendering-With Nonhuman Ecologies, Sarah Blissett

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This article explores an ecodramaturgical approach to performance-making and research with algae. The first part considers the notion of ‘algae rendering’ as a methodological tool for theorising algae ecological relations which highlights links between representations of algae and their material effects. The second part considers how my embodied encounters with cyanobacteria algae, in the form of lichen, inspire new modes of working with algae in creative practice that explore how algae agencies ‘render’ bodies and environments. I also draw on an artistic case study by The Harrissons (1971) to illustrate principles of what I consider examples of ‘algae rendering’ in …

Topological Analysis Of The Carbon-Concentrating Cetch Cycle And A Photorespiratory Bypass Reveals Boosted Co2-Sequestration By Plants, Özge Osmanoglu, Mariam Khaled Alseiari, Hasa Abduljaleel Alkhoori, Shabana Shams, Elena Bencurova, Thomas Dandekar, Muhammad Naseem

All Works

Synthetically designed alternative photorespiratory pathways increase the biomass of tobacco and rice plants. Likewise, some in planta–tested synthetic carbon-concentrating cycles (CCCs) hold promise to increase plant biomass while diminishing atmospheric carbon dioxide burden. Taking these individual contributions into account, we hypothesize that the integration of bypasses and CCCs will further increase plant productivity. To test this in silico, we reconstructed a metabolic model by integrating photorespiration and photosynthesis with the synthetically designed alternative pathway 3 (AP3) enzymes and transporters. We calculated fluxes of the native plant system and those of AP3 combined with the inhibition of the glycolate/glycerate transporter by …

Awareness And Use Of Open Educational Resources: A Study, Felcy Dsouza

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Understanding the awareness and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) among the stakeholdersof academic libraries is a vital step to support the growth of OER initiatives at the educational institutions. The faculty and students’perceptions of OER often influence their interest in adopting open educational practices and their willingness to seek support from library professionals. To explore the awareness and the utilization of OERs among the faculty and students atSt Joseph Engineering College (SJEC), Mangaluru, Karnataka, the author employed a survey to discover the responses to fulfill the study objectives. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed among the faculty and …

Higher Habitual Flavonoid Intakes Are Associated With A Lower Incidence Of Diabetes, Nicola P. Bondonno, Frederik Dalgaard, Kevin Murray, Raymond J. Davey, Catherine P. Bondonno, Aedin Cassidy, Joshua R. Lewis, Cecilie Kyrø, Gunnar Gislason, Augustin Scalbert, Anne Tjønneland, Jonathan M. Hodgson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Higher flavonoid intakes are hypothesized to confer protection against type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Objectives:

We aimed to 1) investigate associations between flavonoid intakes and diabetes, 2) examine the mediating impact of body fat, and 3) identify subpopulations that may receive the greatest benefit from higher flavonoid intakes in participants of the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study followed up for 23 y.

Methods:

Cross-sectional associations between baseline flavonoid intake, estimated using FFQs and the Phenol Explorer database, and body fat, estimated by bioelectrical impedance, were assessed using multivariable-Adjusted linear regression models. Nonlinear associations between flavonoid intake and incident diabetes …

The Molecular Mechanisms Of Estrogen Receptor Α On Two Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms To Regulate Wnt Signaling In Osteoblasts, Sarocha Suthon

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Osteoporosis is the most common bone metabolic disorder, affecting over 200 million people globally. It is characterized by bone mass depletion and microarchitectural deterioration, leading to bone fragility and susceptibility to bone fracture. Genetic factors, estrogen deficiency, and dysregulation of the WNT signaling pathway contribute to the development of this disease. Genome-wide association studies have predicted that the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs2887571 and rs9921222 associate with low bone mass, but the mechanism of these SNPs has remained unknown. Analysis of osteoblasts from 112 different joint replacement patients reveals that the genotype of rs2887571 correlates with WNT5B expression, and the …

Advancing Rna Virus Discovery And Biology With Whole Genome Sequencing, Mariah Katherine Taylor

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Two RNA virus families that pose a threat to human and animal health are Hantaviridae and Coronaviridae. These RNA viruses which originate in wildlife continue and will continue to cause disease, and hence, it is critical that scientific research define the mechanisms as to how these viruses spillover and adapt to new hosts to become endemic. One gap in our ability to define these mechanisms is the lack of whole genome sequences for many of these viruses. To address this specific gap, I developed a versatile amplicon-based whole-genome sequencing (WGS) approach to identify viral genomes of hantaviruses and severe acute …

Role Of Smad2 And Smad3 On Adipose Tissue Development And Function, Roshan Kumari

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Introduction: Obesity and its associated metabolic syndrome are major medical problems worldwide including United States. Adipose tissue is the primary site of energy storage, playing important roles in health. Adipose tissue also has other critical functions, producing adipocytokines and contributing to normal nutrient metabolism, which in turn play important roles in satiety, inflammation, and total energy homeostasis. Activin A and activin B play important roles in maintaining body composition and energy homeostasis. This dissertation highlights the role of activin/SMADs signaling in adipose tissue development, function, and maintenance.

SMAD2/3 proteins are downstream mediators of transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) family signaling, including …

The Effect Of Cerium Oxide On Lung Injury Following Lower Extremity Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury In Rats Under Desflurane Anesthesia, Aycan Ozdemirkan, Aysegul Kucuk, Isin Gunes, Mustafa Arslan, Aydin Tuncay, Volkan Sivgin, Saban C. Sezen, Hakan Boyunaga

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To examine the effects of desflurane and cerium oxide (CO) on lung tissue following ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). Methods: Experiments were conducted in Gazi University Animal Laboratory, Ankara, Turkey. Thirty rats were divided into 5 groups: control (C), IRI, IRI-CO, IRI-desflurane (IRID), IRI-CO-desflurane (IRICOD). Cerium oxide was given intraperitoneally. Lower extremity IRI was induced. Desflurane was applied during IRI. Lung histopathological examinations and serum biochemical analyses were performed. Results: Serum nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were higher in group IRI ( p =0.006) than in group C ( p =0.001). Serum MDA and NO levels were significantly lower …

The Role Of Precision Agriculture In Food Security, Bruce Erickson, Scott W. Fausti

College of Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

Precision agriculture (PA) is the application of information technology to better manage crop and livestock production, heralded as another tool to advance food security around the world. Precision agriculture has the potential to increase productivity, improve resource allocation for inputs such as pesticides, fertilizers, water, feed, and labor, provide for more stable production, and reduce agricultural production's environmental effect. But PA is an approach that can be very different depending on farm characteristics, such as crops and livestock raised, farm size, management, the farms’ access to technical support, and the characteristics of the operator such as age and education. As …

Measuring The Effects Of Social Isolation And Dissatisfaction On Depressive Symptoms During The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Moderating Role Of Sleep And Physical Activity, Ivan Vargas, Erin Kaye Howie, Alexandria Muench, Michael L. Perlis

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social distancing was universally implemented to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Long-term social distancing can lead to increased feelings of social isolation or dissatisfaction with one's daily interpersonal interactions, which can subsequently result in reduced psychological health (e.g., greater depression). The present study quantified this association, and the extent to which it was moderated by measures of sleep and physical activity, by surveying 3658 adults (mean age = 46.0 years) from across the United States. Participants answered questions related to their social experiences, sleep, physical activity, and depressive symptoms during the early stages of the pandemic (March-June 2020). …

Regulating Armed Private Militia Gatherings: A Constitutional State-Level Proposal To Promote Public Safety In A Post-Heller World, Sean Tenaglia

William & Mary Law Review

“Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.” President Joseph R. Biden spoke these words following the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol Building that left five people, including a police officer, dead. The mob that stormed the Capitol sought to prevent Congress from certifying then-President-elect Biden’s Electoral College victory. In the weeks following the riot, investigators began arresting rioters associated with extremist right-wing militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. While January 6, 2021, can accurately be labeled a dark day in American history, the events …

Property Law For The Ages, Michael C. Pollack, Lior Jacob Strahilevitz

William & Mary Law Review

Within the next forty years, the number of Americans over age sixty-five is projected to nearly double. This seismic demographic shift will necessitate a reckoning in several areas of law and policy, but property law is especially unprepared. Built primarily for young and middle-aged white men, the common law of property has been critiqued for decades for the ways in which it oppresses or simply leaves behind people based on their race, sex, Native heritage, and more. This Article contributes a new focus on property law’s treatment of people based on their advanced age. Burdened by higher relocation costs, more …

Fingerlings Mass Estimation: A Comparison Between Deep And Shallow Learning Algorithms, Adair Da Silva Oliveira Junior, Diego André Sant’Ana, Marcio Carneiro Brito Pache, Vanir Garcia, Vanessa Aparecida De Moares Weber, Gilberto Astolfi, Fabricio De Lima Weber, Geazy Vilharva Menezes, Gabriel Kirsten Menezes, Pedro Lucas França Albuquerque, Celso Soares Costa, Eduardo Quirino Arguelho De Queiroz, João Victor Araújo Rozales, Milena Wolff Ferreira, Marco Hiroshi Naka, Hemerson Pistori

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

The paper presents some results regarding the automatic mass estimation of Pintado Real fingerlings, using machine learning techniques to support the fish production process. For this purpose, an image dataset called FISHCV1206FSEG, was created which is composed of 1206 images of fingerlings with their respective annotated masses. Through the fish contours, the area and perimeter were extracted, and submitted to the J48, SVM, and KNN classification algorithms and a linear regression algorithm. The images were also submitted to ResNet50, In- ceptionV3, Exception, VGG16, and VGG19 convolutional neural networks. As a result, the classification algorithm J48 reached an accuracy of 58.2% …

Rooting Out Genetic Structure Of Invasive Wild Pigs In Texas, Anna M. Mangan, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Michael J. Bodenchuk, Courtney F. Pierce, Timothy J. Smyser

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa), also called feral swine or wild hogs, are recognized as among the most destructive invasive species in the world. Throughout the United States, invasive wild pigs have expanded rapidly over the past 40 years with populations now established in 38 states. Of the estimated 6.9 million wild pigs distributed throughout the United States, Texas supports approximately 40% of the population and similarly bears disproportionate ecological and economic costs. Genetic analyses are an effective tool for understanding invasion pathways and tracking dispersal of invasive species such as wild pigs and have been used recently …