Digital Commons Network^™

Collective Teacher Efficacy And Its Enabling Conditions: Measurement And Associations, Christine Marie Anderson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Background/Purpose: Over two decades of research has demonstrated that collective teacher efficacy has a significant effect on student learning, and numerous studies have explored environmental variables related to high levels of collective teacher efficacy (Donohoo, 2018, Donohoo et al., 2020; Eells, 2011; Hattie, 2016). Donohoo et al.’s (2020) enabling conditions for collective teacher efficacy (EC-CTES) propose a synthesized framework educational practitioners can implement to foster collective teacher efficacy in their schools. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the validity of Donohoo et al.’s (2020) emerging EC-CTES and evaluate the strength and direction of its relationship to measures …

Trends In Observed And Simulated Radar Reflectivity For The 21st Century, Christopher Michael Battisto

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The effects of climate change may influence the prevalence of regional atmospheric conditions supportive of hazardous convective weather (HCW). As a result, the possibility of an increase in the frequency, strength, and/or variability of thunderstorms and their high-impact hazards—including tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, and flash flood-producing downpours—has garnered much scientific and public interest. Radar reflectivity, which remotely assesses precipitation intensity, may be used to detect, track, catalog, and appraise HCW and their parent storms over broad spatiotemporal scales. Reflectivity may also be simulated with regional climate models, and recent, but limited, efforts using these simulation output have identified the potential …

Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain-Transfer Emulsion Polymerization And Its Application To Waterborne Coatings, Andrew Balgeman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Waterborne acrylic latex makes up a vast majority of the architectural coatings market, including most of the paints sold in retail stores. Most, if not all, of these latex formulations are prepared using radical polymerization of acrylic monomers. Reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization has been researched for over two decades, but to this point has made very little progress finding success in commercial applications. Indeed, a majority of RAFT research has been dedicated to successfully polymerizing different monomers with good degree of polymerization control, and very little research has been directed toward actual coating applications. In this study, we focused …

Investigation Of Spontaneously Patterned Nanoporous Organosilicate Thin Film Channels For Liquid Chromatography Applications., Ashwin Sanjay Bhaskaran

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Microscale devices are attractive options for the advancement of biomedical engineering and life science. They have huge potential in the pharmaceutical and biomedical fields provided the critical factors such as device size, product purity and efficiency are not a hindrance. In most cases, traditional microelectronics fabrication processes are quite costly and complicated. By improving on them, their application in fields such as chemical sensing, detection and analysis is possible. By implementing this on a chip, we can reduce the cost and improve portability. This thesis focuses on the investigation of a novel class of spontaneously patterned nanoporous organosilicate nanoparticle-based films …

Cultivating A Stem Investigation: Reading And Task Expectations For Introductory Biology Courses, Tina M. Ballard

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

College completion is an important discussion in today’s world with only about 30% of community college students completing their degrees within three years of starting their programs. Especially in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields, students are changing their majors or not completing their degrees for a variety of reasons. Previous research has established that there are high attrition and failure rates for introductory biology courses which may be causing some students to change their majors or not complete their degrees. This multicase study investigated the reading and task demands for introductory biology courses designed for STEM majors …

Signal-Background Analysis For New Physics At Particle Colliders And The Criteria For Its Discovery, Prudhvi Nikhil Bhattiprolu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Although the Standard Model (SM) is now complete with the spectacular discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), there are many unsolved puzzles such as the electroweak hierarchy problem, dark matter, neutrino masses, etc., that need to be addressed. Theories proposed to solve these issues often involve new and exotic particles at the TeV scale and beyond. It is therefore of great importance to devise novel strategies to extract new physics signals with small rates lurking in huge backgrounds. My research detailed here is broadly along those lines.

Vectorlike leptons (VLL) are an intriguing possibility for …

A "Warm" Or "Cold" Early Mars: Evidence From Valley Networks, Xuezhi Cang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Although Mars is cold and dry today, many lines of evidence suggest that ancient Mars had large amount of water and surface fluvial processes. However, climate modelers have encountered difficulties in modeling such early warm and wet conditions with an above freezing temperature, mainly due to the Martian orbit being further away from the Sun and the faintness of the young Sun. The main purpose of this dissertation is to test the ancient Martian climate hypotheses by investigating the spatial pattern of valley network (VN) properties that can survive post-formational modification (i.e., the robust characteristics) and by analogizing the Earth …

A Quantitative Study Of Community College Student Re-Enrollment Choices And Outcomes After A D/F/W In An Online Class, Patricia Lee Clark

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative study investigated community college student reenrollment choices, course-taking patterns, and course outcomes after a D/F/W in an online class. The sample included freshmen students with fewer than 30 credit hours, enrolled in a fully online or fully face-to-face (F2F) section of a gateway general education course. Individual-level institutional data were collected for five semesters. Reenrollment was defined as enrolling in the same course with two semesters of the D/F/W grade, and a successful 2nd Attempt was defined as received a final grade of “C or Better.” Preliminary descriptive statistics and course modality pattern analyses were conducted to profile …

Diatoms And Their Response To Tectonic Gateway Changes: Case Studies From Southern Hemisphere Sites, Jason James Coenen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation covers three major transitions in Earth's climate system throughout theCenozoic (the past 65 million years of Earth's history). The progressive breakup of the super continent Pangea and the ultimate change in ocean circulation (and redistribution of heat) as a result of tectonic events dating back to the Mesozoic, primed Earth's climate system for cooling and ultimately bipolar glaciation. Climate transitions in three distinct environments were studied using absolute diatom abundance, diatom assemblages, and geochemical tracers of diatoms (i.e., biogenic silica weight%). Two geographic regions are the focus of this dissertation work. Region one is the Ross Embayment of …

Three Essays In Applied Econometrics, Milivoje Davidovic

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The doctoral dissertation entitled Three Essays in Applied Econometrics is based on the application of modern techniques of applied econometrics in order to infer main interrelations and causalities in various fields of quantitative economics. It includes an eclectic mix of both frequentist and Bayesian approaches, with the main goal to quantify and estimate a set of variables that significantly determine certain economic outcomes, in this case NBA efficiency scores, per capita growth rates, and Covid-19-induced risk exposure, market volatility, and cross-market integration. These topics are, at the sametime, at the core of the research interest in the following three independent …

The Relevance Of Credit Risk In The Determination Of Commercial Banks’ Profitability: Evidence From Ghana, Godwin Kwabla Ekpe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Existing empirical literature on the relationship between credit risk and bank’s profitability is replete with mixed results. This research investigates the probable effect of credit risk on banks’ profitability by examining the nature of the relationship between two measures of credit risk (Loss provisioning rate and Actual provisioning charge rate) and two measures ofprofitability (Return on assets and Return on Equity). The investigation is conducted using data on the Ghanaian banking industry. Various modeling techniques are used to fit the data, including frequentist beta regression and Bayesian beta regression models. The results across all models suggest negative linear relationship between …

Application Of Data And Geospatial Analysis In Energy And Health Systems, Ali Faghani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Having sustainable energy and health systems are the main factors in the vision plan of every country. Both of these systems are correlated with a variety of frameworks, including social, physical, technological, political, and economic factors. Therefore, different types of analytics methods can be implemented to develop the required assessments for those who make plans since understanding the effect of such factors individually, also their interactions, and the overall effect is crucial. With this regard, applications of data analysis and geospatial techniques in both energy, and health systems have recently gained attention. The proposed research here deployed advanced data analytics …

Thermal/Structural Analysis Of The Axion Quantum Metrology Cavity And Its Components, Tyler Funk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research was centered around maximizing the capability to cool dielectric material within a containment unit, or Photonic Band Gap (PBG) cavity, designed for detecting axion dark matter and identifying the unit’s thermal properties. There are multiple types of PBG cavities, but the latest version that axion researchers wish to use has been theorized to contain possible issues related to its thermal properties. Thermal conductivity is an issue with the dielectric material because it is made from alumina which is highly insulative. This is important since the research is being done in a cryogenic environment and the thermal noise affects …

Seismic Imaging Of The Lithospheric Structure Beneath The Upper Midwestern United States, Anthony Guajardo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The upper midwestern United States is located within the North American Craton. This area has not undergone major deformation and metamorphism since the latest rifting events in the late Precambrian to early Cambrian (0.55 to 0.53 Ga). However, this area is not completely absent of seismicity, and major structural geologic features are present, including the Wisconsin Arch, LaSalle Deformation Belt, northern part of the Illinois basin and, deeper, the presumed transition between the Yavapai and Mazatzal tectonic provinces. Since the late 1800s, approximately 30 felt earthquakes of magnitude 2 or greater have occurred within the study area. It is likely …

Characterization Of Potential Anti-Infective Agents By Targeting Burkholderia Pseudomallei And Escherichia Coli Ispf, Dakota Lane Grote

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

With the likelihood of contracting an antibiotic resistant infection increasing, the need for novel anti-infective agents is critical. The development of novel anti-infective agents benefits from the identification of new target pathways necessary for the survival of the pathogen. One such target is the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway, responsible for the synthesis of the isoprenoid precursors isopentyl pyrophosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP) in bacteria and other pathogenic organisms. The MEP pathway is an attractive target because it is specific to a wide range of pathogenic organisms, while humans have a separate pathway, the mevalonate (MVA) pathway, for the biosynthesis …

Fly On The Wall: Comparing Arthropod Communities Between Islands With And Without House Mice (Mus Musculus), Wieteke A. Holthuijzen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Invertebrates are key to island ecosystems but impacts from invasive mammalian predators are not well documented or understood. Given this knowledge gap, we studied terrestrial arthropod communities in the presence of a common invasive rodent (house mice, Mus musculus) on a subtropical atoll—Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (MANWR). Here, invasive mice recently began to attack and depredate nesting seabirds, prompting a mouse eradication. Although eradication planning efforts are underway, uncertainty remains regarding the ecosystem’s response to mouse removal. As part of a pre-eradication investigation, we conducted a baseline survey of MANWR’s arthropod community structure and diversity, comparing islands with and …

Traffic Fatality Rate Prediction Based On Deep Neural Network And Bayesian Neural Network, Yiqun Hu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There have been numerous studies on traffic accidents and their fatality rate. For this challenging machine learning regression problem, Neural Networks (NNs) have produced state-of-the-art data. Despite their success, they are often used in a fre- quentist scheme, which means they cannot account for uncertainty in their forecasts. BNNs are comprised of a Probabilistic Model and a Neural Network. The aim of such a design is to bring together the benefits of Neural Networks and stochastic modeling. Neural networks have the ability to approximate continuous functions uni- versally. Statistical models allow for the direct definition of a model with known …

A Time Series Analysis Approach To Forecasting Covid-19 Cases And Deaths: An Analysis Of Covid-19 Data In Colombia, Andrea Jackson-Sagredo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The novel Coronavirus, known as COVID-19 is a highly contagious and transmissible infectious disease that has taken a toll throughout the entire world for over a year. The inner workings and long term effects of COVID-19 continue to be misunderstood. While COVID-19 has impacted all countries tremendously, Latin American countries and specifically Colombia have been impacted significantly by the virus. This thesis investigates the potential to forecast COVID-19 cases and deaths using Time Series Analysis methods and models for the South American country of Colombia. Time series analysis on Colombian COVID-19 data begins with data processing on a data set …

Hydrocarbons In The Niobrara Formation, Powder River Basin, Northeast Wyoming, From Geophysical Well Logs, Jennifer Shilo James

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Powder River Basin, located in Wyoming, is a moderate producer of hydrocarbons with production hovering around 100 million barrels of oil per year. Recently the Niobrara Formation has garnered attention for hydrocarbon exploration and production using both conventional and unconventional drilling. A quick-look method for evaluating organic content, using either existing or real time data sets gathered from geophysical well logs, provides an opportunity to rapidly, accurately, and economically assess the formation’s organic content and thus hydrocarbon bearing potential. The popular Schmoker method determines organic content by relating gamma ray intensity to formation density. It has been successfully employed …

Geometric Properties Of Representation Varieties For An Elementary Abelian Group Of Rank 2 In Positive Characteristic, Eric Johnson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation’s motivation is the exploration of the irreducible components of Repn(kG), the affine variety whose points are n-dimensional representations of a finite group G over a field k. We let G = Z/pZ×Z/pZ and assume k is algebraically closed with char(k) = p > 0. In this case there is an isomorphism of affine varieties φ : Repn (kG) → C nil 1 (n) where C nil 1 (n) = {(x, y) Mn(k)×Mn(k) | x p = y p = xy−yx = 0}. Hence, for an irreducible component X of Repn (kG), φ(X) is an irreducible component of C nil …

Coaxially Electrospun Fibrous Polymer Scaffolds For Tissue Regeneration And Drug Delivery, Matthew Michael Kleszynski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A biomaterial is a substance that is specifically engineered to take on a role within the body, either alone or in conjunction with other materials, with the purpose of influencing the body. Using Polymers as a biomaterial is an exciting field of study that has the potential to further our abilities to help those in need. Creating composite nanofibrous scaffolds composed of hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymers may outperform structures made of a single polymer in both in vitro and in vivo environments. Hydrophilicity governs the behavior of polymers in the body and has influence over the mechanical properties of the …

The Effect Of Digital Game-Based Learning On Students' Motivation In Math Classes, Rania Abdulkareem Kokandy

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Students often see mathematics as a hard subject because they have to rely on logic, mathematical theories of equations, proofs, and some of math concepts that are difficult to understand, which contributes to students’ poor performance and low motivation to learn math. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the effects of using digital math games on fourth-grade elementary students' motivation to learn math in Saudi Arabia. This study also focused on the effects of gender differences on their motivation to learn math. Data for this a quasi-experimental research were collected from 200 students using a pre- …

Testing A Global Standard For Quantifying Species Recovery And Assessing Conservation Impact, Molly K. Grace, John Carroll, 201 Other Scholars

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species’ viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics ( …

Factors Influencing Faculty Members’ Behavioral Intentions To Use Flipped Classrooms In Saudi Arabia At Taif University, Abier Jaber Akiry

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the differences among faculty members at Taif University in Saudi Arabia regarding their behavioral intentions toward the use of flipped classrooms. This study investigated the relationship between the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) constructs and the behavioral intention of faculty members. Gender was studied as a potential moderator of the relationship between each of the three predictors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence) and the outcome (behavioral intention). Quantitative methods were used to collect data from 197 survey respondents. Findings showed that performance expectancy and effort expectancy were the only statistically significant …

Electrochemical Study Of The Performance Of Manganese Vanadium Oxide Cathodes In Zinc Batteries, Sarat Alabidun

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Zinc metal batteries are considered a promising alternative for grid energy storage due to the low redox potential (-0.76V vs SHE) and high theoretical specific capacity (850mAh/g) of zinc metal anode as well as its compatibility with aqueous electrolytes. They however face issues of poor cathode stability and rapid capacity fading. Several methods have been devised to improve the stability of the cathode materials and develop novel cathode materials with better performance including the metal ion doping of intercalation materials.This study investigated the performance of zinc metal batteries with novel manganese vanadium oxide cathodes. Organic structure directing agents have been …

Comparing Students’ Academic Achievement And Attitudes In Undergraduate Flipped And Non-Flipped Classrooms: A Mixed-Methods Study, Rabab Alareifi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Today’s classrooms are filled with a diversity of students of different cultural backgrounds, languages, and socioeconomic statuses, and these differences can impact the students’ learning styles and outcomes. To meet their individual needs, the focus of educational institutions has been on transforming the role of teachers from lecturers to “guides on the side” by developing student-centered active learning strategies and employing effective instruction.A flipped classroom model of instruction is student centered and grounded in the constructivist theory of learning and serves as a potential instructional model to achieve these goals. Recently, a movement has emerged in higher educational institutions in …

Collisional Methods With Applications To Charged Particle Beams, Afnan Al Marzouk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Accurate and efficient computational methods are essential to study the dynamics of charged particle beams. Most of the available numerical methods in beam physics are based on the collisionless model which is sufficient for applications that does not depend on Coulomb collisions of the simultaneously interacting particles. However, the development of collisional numerical methods has become greatly important in recent years for applications where collisions play an important role such as the electron cooling of high energy hadron beams. While collisional methods can provide very accurate simulations, their algorithms are very complex, and they face efficiency challenges. In this work, …

Using Community Of Inquiry To Examine The Effect Of Station Rotation Strategy In Elementary Mathematics, Ahmad Alshahrani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been implemented to encourage students to learn through problem-solving in the KSA. However, this method does not address students’ capability to apply the knowledge learned and a new learning approach are needed. The current study examined the effects of using a station rotation strategy on students’ achievement, attitude, and educational presence using a sample of 50 male sixth-grade mathematics students in the KSA, using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) as a framework. The findings demonstrated that there were statistically significant, positive effects of the station rotation strategy on student achievement, student attitude, and student education presence …

Investigating The Determinants Of Mobile Computer Acceptance By Special Education Teachers, Rashed Alsulami

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The development of special education teaching has recently been shifting to highlight the importance of integrating technology to this essential field of education. The integration process, however, requires teachers to “buy in” to facilitate implementation and use of such methods for improving instructional practice. Thus, there is a need to investigate factors that affect special education teachers’ acceptance of using mobile computer devices as an instructional tool. The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants that predict Saudi Arabian special education teachers’ behavioral intention of using mobile computer devices as an instructional tool in their classrooms, as well …

Stochastic Infection In Network Models With Applications To Pollution Analysis, Alexander Thor Wold

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The continued adoption and escalation of commercial surface extraction techniques threatens to contaminate adjacent river networks across the coal mining landscape. We look to simulate the movement of this pollution across connected graph structures using stochastic block model methodologies, fueled from work and theory derived from exponential random graph models. We begin our study by applying our virtual experiment to the motivating material, later offering an exhaustive walk through of the simulation itself. Afterwards, we present our findings and their implications to water pollution analysis, emphasizing a need for this research and expanding on some inferential statistics left for later …