Digital Commons Network^™

Latinas In Stem Education: Paying It Forward, Evangelina Guillen

Theses and Dissertations

Hispanic female students are the minority population when it comes to taking higher level classes in the Science Technology Engineering and Math fields. According to Hinojosa, Rapaport, Jaciw, and Zacamy (2016), “STEM fields are defined here as majors in computer and information sciences, engineering and engineering technologies, biological and biomedical sciences, math and statistics, physical sciences, and science technologies” (p. 3). Traditionally, more boys enroll in STEM courses than girls. Hispanic and minority students, specifically Hispanic women, have been underrepresented in STEM education fields and careers. Why does STEM education matter for Hispanic female students? Because it gives Hispanic students …

An Assessment Of Physical And Microbial Dynamic Properties Sensitive To Tillage Practices In Hidalgo Sandy Clay Loam Soils, Rocio N. Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Mechanized tillage is known to impact the dynamic physical, biological and chemical properties of a given soil, and as a result, can cause systematic harm to the soil’s function (Alam et al., 2014). The aim of this study is to assess how a series of land management tillage practices will impact dynamic physical and biological soil health parameters such as aggregation, carbon, respiration, and enzymatic activity (β-glucosidase). According to Acir et al (2020), the aforementioned soil parameters are both co-influenced and dependent, indicating a response to tillage is likely. A total of 198 samples of Hidalgo series soils were collected …

The Impacts Of Using Geogebra On Students' Perceptions And Achievement In Learning Geometric Transformations, Veysel Karatas

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to contribute to the literature by examining the impacts of using GeoGebra on students' perceptions and achievement in learning geometric transformations. This study contributes to mathematics education and learning environments supported by GeoGebra. This study reviewed the literature on social constructivist learning theory and students' achievement in geometric transformations and perceptions of using GeoGebra. Nonequivalent control groups and a correlational research design were used to answer the research questions.

The participants were selected in six geometry classes from 9th-grade and 10th-grade students (n = 131). The method of selecting participants from the population was a convenience sample. …

Atomlbs: An Atom Based Convolutional Neural Network For Druggable Ligand Binding Site Prediction, Md Ashraful Islam

Theses and Dissertations

Despite advances in drug research and development, there are few and ineffective treatments for a variety of diseases. Virtual screening can drastically reduce costs and accelerate the drug discovery process. Binding site identification is one of the initial and most important steps in structure-based virtual screening. Identifying and defining protein cavities that are likely to bind to a small compound is the objective of this task. In this research, we propose four different convolutional neural networks for predicting ligand-binding sites in proteins. A parallel optimized data pipeline is created to enable faster training of these neural network models on minimal …

Dft Investigation Of Lewis Acid Assisted C-Cn Bond Activation Of Benzonitrile With [Ni(Dmpe)] Fragment, Lubna Kader

Theses and Dissertations

There has been recent interest in the field of organometallics with C—C bond activation of organic substrates that are mediated by transition metal complexes. The bond activation of C—C bonds is important, not only in organic synthesis but also in industrial processes. However, the activation of these bonds remains difficult since they are thermodynamically more stable and sterically less available to activate than the activation of the C—H bond. Most of the successful C—C cleavage uses the relief of ring strain, achievement of aromaticity, or proximity, as the driving force for the reaction.3 Another strategy is the use of a …

A Correlative Study Of K-12 Teacher Technology Acceptance In A Post Covid-19 World: Determinants Of Behavioral Intention, Maria Ing

Theses and Dissertations

The shift to emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 forced educators across the globe to heavily rely on technology for the continuity of teaching and learning. As educators return to face-to-face instruction with increased access and expectations to implement technology in their classrooms, it is important to evaluate factors that impact teachers’ acceptance of technology. The Unified Theory of Technology Acceptance (UTAUT) provides an instrument that can be utilized to measure factors that may determine teacher behavioral intention to integrate technology into their classrooms. In this quantitative survey research, K-12 teachers …

The Role Of Facial Emotion Recognition Abilities In Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration, Margot Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Interpreting facial affects is a key aspect in everyday human interaction and intimate partner relationships. Being unable to accurately recognize facial expressions may prompt an inappropriate reaction from the viewer. Limited literature suggests perpetrators of intimate partner violence are less able to accurately recognize facial expressions. The previous body of literature regarding facial affect recognition (FAR) abilities in intimate partner violence failed to take into account the role empathy and emotion regulation play in the relationship between intimate partner violence and FAR abilities. In addition, prior studies investigated these differences in primarily White Non-Hispanic individuals limiting the generalizability of their …

Special Education Teachers’ Self-Efficacy During The Times Of A Global Pandemic, Vanessa G. Leal

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative dissertation aims to describe and compare the perception of special education teachers' self-efficacy amid the COVID-19 pandemic using the practice of distance and their self-efficacy pre-pandemic using face-to-face instruction and describe the perceived valuable supports teachers received from educational leaders during the pandemic and considered valuable. The study population includes special education teachers teaching in inclusive settings before and during the pandemic in grades 6–12 in districts located in South Texas. The current study's data was analyzed using a two-way factorial analysis of variance, with both factors including repeated measures within subjects (2 x 3). A descriptive statistical …

Femtosecond Pulse Filamentation In Dielectric Media Toward Photonics Sensor Fabrication, Anitha Narayanan

Theses and Dissertations

Through pulse filamentation, femtosecond laser pulses have been utilized to modify the refractive indices of dielectric materials such as glass, A-plane sapphire crystal, and Cplane sapphire crystal. The 10x Infinity Corrected Lens was used, and the focusing condition was tuned as being the same and fixed to both glass and sapphire crystals. First, 8uJ of laser energy was optimized to produce controlled pulse filamentation voids in the glass. The laser intensity was then optimized to 2-3.5 uJ, 1.5 uJ, & 2.5 uJ, respectively, for the controlled pulse filamentation in A and C plane sapphire crystals. Due to the different crystal …

Great Recession And Corporate Recovery: Empirical Evidence Of The Impact Of Firms' Internal Control System, Gbolahan Oladayo

Theses and Dissertations

In Previous studies, we are made to understand that recession has a detrimental effect on corporate valves. Hence, I investigate substantial evidence that firms with a good internal control system, even during the financial crisis of 2008, were able to minimize redundancies that could have negatively affected the recovery of their company’s post-recession. Thus, firms with effective internal control systems are able to recover from negative events significantly faster (as measured by the firm’s values) than those without such systems.

Investigating The Relationship Between Dissolved Oxygen And Nitrate Concentration As A Proxy For Marine Ecosystem Health, Natalia M. Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Coastal environments such as seagrass meadows span a wide range of spatial scales and can experience disturbances that cause rapid shifts to ecosystem dynamics. Increased pressure to the coastal zone has highlighted the need for constant, real-time monitoring to monitor current ecosystem status. A custom, low cost, high resolution, in situ sensor network was designed and tested in the Lower Laguna Madre, Texas to characterize primary productivity in seagrass meadows through gradient patterns of dissolved oxygen concentration, with the purpose of determining whether seagrass or phytoplankton were the more dominant primary producer. There was a distinct vertical and horizontal gradient …

Student Success At One Borderlands Hispanic-Serving Institution, Neda Goerlitz Ramirez

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the perceptions of student success of campus leaders at one Borderlands Hispanic-Serving Institution. The study incorporated 4 interviews, 9 observations, analysis of 23 documents as well as additional research to answer the research questions. The three themes emerged from the study were: (1) encouraging and empowering students to succeed, (2) removing barriers to student success, and (3) serving by default. Recommendations for educational leaders included serving by design, setting high expectations, getting to know students, encouraging and empowering students, and removing barriers to student success. Additionally, the findings of this study suggest that studying student success, investigating …

Como Lo Recuerdo: A Remembrance Of Mexican Folk Songs From Our Residents’ Hearts, Arturo Treviño Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Educators today face the challenge of finding either the individual in the community or the community in the individual. This study applies Jeff Titon's idea on communities as musical ecosystems to explore the sustainability of John A. Lomax's April 1939 Southern Collection field recordings, examining how and where these musical works exist in Brownsville, Texas today and investigating the meanings of these Mexican folk songs to Rio Grande Valley community members. In this work, I put the Lomax song collection in greater cultural, historical, and musical context, and argue that the songs can assist Rio Grande Valley individuals in both …

Simncore: Multilevel Cache Memory Design Simulator For Manycore System, Provashish Roy

Theses and Dissertations

The current trend in a processor design has moved from multicore to manycore (tens to hundreds, or more cores) to support more computational power based on parallelism. One of challenges is how to handle such large number of cores’ data in cache memories through an efficient inter-core communication and cache coherence. To meet the demand, this paper presents a manycore cache memory simulator for research and education purposes. The proposed simulator, called as SIMNCORE, is to design and evaluate various multi-level, such as L1 and L2, cache memories for manycore processing. The SIMNCORE will implement various trace files collected from …

Abusing Discretion: The Battle For Childhood In Schools, Hannah Dodson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

For too many children the schoolhouse doors become a point of entry into the criminal justice system. Children of color are the most likely to suffer from this phenomenon. The presence of policing in schools is a key contributor to this “school-to-prison pipeline.” This Note argues that broad, discretionary mandates for school resource officers (SROs) promote biased law enforcement that impacts Black girls in different and specific ways. I contend that SRO mandates can be effectively limited by strategically bolstering community organizing efforts with impact litigation.

Africana Legal Studies: A New Theoretical Approach To Law & Protocol, Angi Porter

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

“African people have produced the same general types of institutions for understanding and ordering their worlds as every other group of human beings. Though this should be obvious, the fact that we must go to great lengths to recognize and then demonstrate it speaks to the potent and invisible effect of the enslavement and colonization of African people over the last 500 years.” – Greg Carr

Pcaob Standards And Related Rules As Of December 2022, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

AICPA Professional Standards

No abstract provided.

Educational Policies Committee Agenda, December 1, 2022, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Approval of Minutes - November 3, 2022
• Subcommittee Reports
• Curriculum Subcommittee (Chad Simon)
• Academic Standards Subcommittee (Renee Galliher)
• General Education Subcommittee (Matt Sanders)
• Other Business
• Adjourn:

Values And Power As Levers To Influence Accountability Policy In Virginia: A Case Study, Angela M. Rhett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The education landscape has been inundated in recent decades with a plethora of accountability measures. New mandates and processes are conceived at the hands of policymakers, and concepts such as power and values are at the core of accountability changes. The purpose of this research study was to uncover the web of unwritten structures and systems in place that influence the educational accountability policy process using complexity theory as the guiding theoretical framework (Shoup & Studer, 2010). Complexity theory dispels the notion of simplistic cause and effect relationships as predictors for accountability trends, and, instead, posits the multiplicity of factors …

Investigating The Process Of Consequential Validity With The Ambassador Questionnaire, Melissa Gayle Kuhn

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Validity in psychometrics refers to the degree to which evidence and theory supports the interpretations drawn from a test, and Messick’s Contemporary Validity Theory (1994) includes several facets with well-established evidence collection methods. However, there is a lack of consensus on appropriate methods of evaluating the facet of consequential validity, which is the degree to which interpretation of scores could have consequences for test-takers. The primary objective of this study was to illustrate a method of identifying potential consequences of survey in the stage of manual development. This method was placed in the context of the Ambassador Questionnaire (AQ) used …

Social Emotional Competency Change During The Pandemic: Impacts Of A Virtual Physical Activity Program, Austin Kulp

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

There is currently limited research on virtual physical activity (PA) programs and their relationship on social emotional competency (SEC). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a virtual after-school PA program has on SEC among elementary school students. The participants of this study are 122 elementary school students (Mean Age=11.69) enrolled in grades 2-6 from six elementary schools. Children registered and participated in the virtual after-school PA program Move 60!, that was offered four times per week during the pandemic (Fall 2021 from October to December). SEC was measured using the Washoe County School …

The Creation Of Successful Student Subjects: Foucault’S Power/Knowledge Framework And The Danger Of Failing Early Alert, Sue Ann Cecilia Curran

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of learning analytics is to improve and optimize learning using student data (Siemens, 2013). An early alert warning is learning analytics designed to promote student success (Baneres et al., 2019; Foung, 2019; Lawson et al., 2016; Villano et al., 2018). An early alert has an intervention component that includes, at minimum, an email that provides information about college resources to address the issue (Arnold & Pistilli, 2012). Some early alert interventions include a personal outreach by a staff member at the college through a phone call or text message (Choi et al., 2018).

At Care Community College, when …

Integrative Physiology-Coupled Pilot-Centered Flight Simulation, Shawn C. Harrison

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Maintaining the pilot’s physiological performance envelope within the limits of human capabilities may be crucial for avoiding hazardous physiological episodes in fighter aircraft that compromise safety. The main physiological episode of interest is impaired pilot respiration, better known as hypoxia caused by a high fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO₂) at high altitudes and variation in accelerative gravitational forces (g-forces). Integrated into fighter aircraft is an Onboard Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) developed to mitigate the necessity of gaseous and liquid oxygen cannisters [1]. OBOGS act as a life support in hypoxic environments by providing oxygen-rich air, thereby oxygenating the …

Cyber Resilience Analytics For Cyber-Physical Systems, Md Ariful Haque

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are complex systems that evolve from the integrations of components dealing with physical processes and real-time computations, along with networking. CPSs often incorporate approaches merging from different scientific fields such as embedded systems, control systems, operational technology, information technology systems (ITS), and cybernetics. Today critical infrastructures (CIs) (e.g., energy systems, electric grids, etc.) and other CPSs (e.g., manufacturing industries, autonomous transportation systems, etc.) are experiencing challenges in dealing with cyberattacks. Major cybersecurity concerns are rising around CPSs because of their ever-growing use of information technology based automation. Often the security concerns are limited to probability-based possible attack …

How Do Academic Advisors Intentionally Design Their Office Space To Be More Inviting? A Qualitative Study On Office Décor And Self-Disclosure, Jessica Garcia

Theses

Academic advising has been part of institutions of higher education in the United States since the early 19th century. With the rise of incoming students each year and the wide range of majors and programs colleges offer, advisors are necessary to help guide students through their academic careers. This paper presents a qualitative study on how advisors intentionally create a space that encourages communication and collaboration within an advisor-advisee relationship. The theoretical framework used in this study is Social Penetration Theory, which suggests that facilitating self-disclosure will also support relationship development. For this research, academic advisors working at two different …

Another Cookie, Amanda Kopacz

Theses

Another Cookie is an animated 3D graduate thesis film. It is based on a personal story about a girl who loses her grandfather and learning to live with the lessons he left behind. She has help overcoming this grief from a spirit that represents the humor and happiness of the relationship between the girl and her grandfather. Cookies are at the heart of this story. In the film, there is a plate of cookies at the end of a table full of baking items. Two characters start taking cookies from the plate. A girl and her grandpa are holding a …

Address Obfuscation To Protect Against Hardware Trojans In Network-On-Chips, Thomas Mountford

Theses

Interconnection networks for multi/many-core processors or server systems are the backbone of the system as they enable data communication among the processing cores, caches, memory, and other peripherals. Given the criticality of the interconnects, the system can be severely subverted if the interconnection is compromised. The threat of Hardware Trojans (HTs) penetrating complex hardware systems such as multi/many-core processors are increasing due to the increasing presence of third-party players in a System-on-chip (SoC) design. Even by deploying native HTs, an adversary can exploit the Network-on-Chip (NoC) backbone of the processor and get access to communication patterns in the system. This …

Rite Of Identity, Youmee Lee

Theses

Rite of Identity, a graduate thesis film, is a 2D animated visual poem of deaf children’s experiences. The film follows the protagonist’s journey in navigating a visual realm and a black-and-white realm, which represent the deaf world and the hearing world. Childhood experiences of struggling to assimilate into mainstream society are conveyed through the protagonist in the black-and-white realm. The purpose of the film is to encourage the viewers to think about what it is like for a child to be underestimated and to struggle with a soundscape that is not perceived naturally in the realm. Deaf children have a …

"Can You Please Turn Your Cameras On?" Communication Apprehension And Teleconferencing, Emily James Mcindoe

Theses

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a multitude of normalities in individuals' lives had to change to continue moving forward. The world began to embrace new technologies that allowed individuals to be connected while physically apart. One of the most embraced technologies was teleconferencing. Teleconferencing is not a new technology with the first primitive form being created in 1968, however, it was not until the world had to embrace teleconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic did the technologies became a common part of everyday life. The term Zoom is now synonymous with video chatting and conferencing becoming a part of …

House Price Classification Using Clustering Algorithms, Hamad Ahli

Theses

The housing segment is one of the most lucrative industries in almost all parts of the world, and with an emerging place like Dubai with global attraction the real-estate market is set to expand more. With this, there is an importance to be able to understand such markets with in-depth expertise which not only helps to be a subject matter expert, but also provide recommendations and insights to customers and stakeholders. According to Asteco, UAE would witness an addition of 38,500 apartments and 3,800 villas and Dubai is estimated to account the most with 30,000 flats and 3,500 villas in …