Digital Commons Network^™

Influence Of Soil Type, Fertilizer, And Mulch Amendment In Containerized Polyculture, Lena Fiskness

Plant Sciences

There are many avenues to address global food supply and global food production increasing food security for individuals and communities. Though corporate agriculture provides the largest percentage of global sustenance through grain monocultures, small-scale, subsistence, intercropping production is another means of direct-to-consumer horticultural supply for additional food security. Due to supply chain disruptions, inferior infrastructure, economic lack, and inaccessible land and/or agricultural equipment, large-scale production is not always feasible in impoverished communities where food security is greatest. This research determines the feasibility of growing “The Three Sisters” polyculture in containerized production as well as fertilizer and mulch amendment recommendations per …

Cold Hardiness And Survival Of Interspecific Vitis Hybrids, Sarah Marie Bogenrief

Plant Sciences

Cold hardiness and survival of wine grapes in two locations in North Dakota was determined using differential thermal analysis for five cultivars in 2020 and six cultivars from 2020-2021. Phenological data was collected during the growing season of 2020. Phenological data showed that cultivars broke bud early in the season and matured before the first fall frost. In 2020, cultivars at Red Trail Vineyard were hardier than those at the North Dakota State University Horticulture Research Station and ‘King of the North’ exhibited greatest hardiness, while ‘Frontenac’ and ‘Frontenac gris’ exhibited lowest hardiness. Across both locations, ‘King of the North’ …

Corn-Alfalfa Intercropping With Different Row Spacings, Samuel Bibby

Plant Sciences

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a staple crop grown mainly by dairy and beef farmers in the Midwest. To determine if seeding alfalfa with corn (Zea mays L.) could increase alfalfa forage yield and nutritive value in the second year, and provide a corn crop during the first year, an experiment was conducted in Prosper and Hickson, ND in 2020 and 2021. Corn grain yield in 2020 was negatively impacted by 152-cm corn row spacing compared with 76-cm row spacing. However, there was no significant difference in corn grain yield with or without an alfalfa intercrop for the same row …

Superluminal Propagation On A Moving Braneworld, Brian Greene, Daniel Kabat, Janna Levin, Arjun S. Menon

Publications and Research

We consider a braneworld scenario in the simplest setting, M₄ × S¹, with a four-dimensional (4D) Minkowski metric induced on the brane, and establish the possibility of superluminal propagation. If the brane is at rest, the 4D Lorentz symmetry of the brane is exact, but if the brane is in motion, it is broken globally by the compactification. By measuring bulk fields, an observer on the brane sees a slice through a higher-dimensional field profile, which carries an imprint of the extra dimensions even when the brane is at rest. If the brane is in motion, we …

Defining Entanglement Without Tensor Factoring: A Euclidean Hourglass Prescription, Takanori Anegawa, Norihiro Iizuka, Daniel Kabat

Publications and Research

We consider entanglement across a planar boundary in flat space. Entanglement entropy is usually thought of as the von Neumann entropy of a reduced density matrix, but it can also be thought of as half the von Neumann entropy of a product of reduced density matrices on the left and right. The latter form allows a natural regulator in which two cones are smoothed into a Euclidean hourglass geometry. Since there is no need to tensor factor the Hilbert space, the regulated entropy is manifestly gauge invariant and has a manifest state-counting interpretation. We explore this prescription for scalar fields, …

Two-Loop Four-Fermion Scattering Amplitude In Qed, R. Bonciani, A. Broggio, S. Di Vita, A. Ferroglia, M. K. Mandal, P. Mastrolia, L. Mattiazzi, A. Primo, J. Ronca, U. Schubert, W. J. Torres Bobadilla, F. Tramontano

Publications and Research

We present the first fully analytic evaluation of the transition amplitude for the scattering of a massless into a massive pair of fermions at the two-loop level in quantum electrodynamics. Our result is an essential ingredient for the determination of the electromagnetic coupling within scattering reactions, beyond the currently known accuracy, which has a crucial impact on the evaluation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. It will allow, in particular, for a precise determination of the leading hadronic contribution to the (g − 2)_μ in the MUonE experiment at CERN, and therefore can be used to …

A Template Method To Measure The $T \Bar T$ Polarisation, J. A. Aguilar-Saavedra, M. C. N. Fiolhais, P. Martín-Ramiro, J. M. Moreno, António Onofre

Publications and Research

We develop a template method for the measurement of the polarisation of $t \bar t$ pairs produced in hadron collisions. The method would allow to extract the individual fractions of $t_L \bar t_L$, $t_R \bar t_R$, $t_L \bar t_R$ and $t_R \bar t_L$ pairs with a fit to data, where L, R refer to the polarisation along any axis. These polarisation fractions have not been independently measured at present. Secondarily, the method also provides the net polarisation of t and $\bar t$, as well as their spin correlation for arbitrary axes.

The Octagon At Large M, Riccardo Argurio, Matteo Bertolini, Sebastían Franco, Eduardo García-Valdecasas, Shani Meynet, Antoine Pasternak, Valdo Tatitscheff

Publications and Research

Recently, the first instance of a model of D-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities where supersymmetry is broken dynamically into stable vacua has been proposed. This construction was based on a system of N regular and M = 1 fractional branes placed at the tip of the so-called (orientifolded) Octagon singularity. In this paper we show that this model admits a large M generalization, having the same low energy effective dynamics. This opens up the possibility that the effect on geometry is smooth, and amenable to describing the gauge theory all along the RG flow, including the deep IR, in terms of …

Exchange Rate Forecast Model: Factor Analysis, Swapnil Landge

Publications and Research

Forecasting the exchange rate using factor analysis, factors based on cross section exchange rates of different economies in terms of trade, would beat random walk model in longer out of sample horizon forecasting. In this research project, we will replicate the NBER working paper Factor Model Forecasts of Exchange Rates” by Charles Engel, Nelson C. Mark & Kenneth D. West (2012) which has used 17 OECD countries exchange rates in getting the potential factors but with extended time period from 1973:1-2021:4. We will report early sample forecasting statistics for a 1987-1998 sample. Results for late samples (1999-2022) were promising, at …

Introduction To Issue Twenty-One: Open Educational Resources, Inés Vañó García, Jojo Karlin, Krystyna Michael

Publications and Research

This article is work is the introduction to the 21st issue of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, which is available in full at https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/journal-of-interactive-technology-and-pedagogy-no-21.

As instructors in different contexts—an English program in a public two-year college, a language and linguistics department in a small liberal arts college, and digital scholarship services in a library at a major research university—we the co-editors of this special issue on Open Educational Resources (OER) have seen the attitudes toward and practices of OER shift over the last several years. Embraced by college and university administrators and funded by national and state …

Implementing Adult Waist Circumference Measurements In Primary Care, Terryl Lynn Johnson

Nursing

Overweight and obesity negatively affect multiple acute and chronic disease conditions (USDHHS & ODPHP, n.d.). Two of the most valid and reliable measurements of overweight and obesity are body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) (NHLBI, n.d.). Despite evidence that waist circumference measurement (WCM) can aid in stratifying risk, the predominant measurement of obesity is BMI alone (Ross et al., 2020). The purpose of the practice improvement project involved creating a workflow to measure adult WC at wellness visits, increase the frequency of adult WCM, and documentation of WCM in the electronic health record (EHR). The project included increasing …

Influenza Vaccination Rates In Primary Care, Kara Kreft

Nursing

Influenza is a common and highly contagious upper respiratory illness that affects an average of 8% of Americans each season. The flu was associated with 18 million medical visits, 400,000 hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths during the 2019-2020 flu season in the United States (US). The best protection from the flu is to receive an annual vaccination. However, only 56.5% of North Dakotans received a flu vaccine for the 2019-2020 season, well below the Healthy People 2030 goal of 70%. Suboptimal vaccination rates, along with increasing vaccine hesitancy and misinformation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, make efforts in improving vaccine uptake …

Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Knowledge, Beliefs, Attitudes, And Barriers: An Educational Intervention For Male College Students To Increase Knowledge, Vaccine Intent, And Vaccine Uptake, Shannon Marie Thompson

Nursing

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. When the virus does not spontaneously resolve, HPV infections can develop into papillomas or cancers (CDC, 2020d). While interventions promoting the HPV vaccine as a means to prevent cervical cancer have been successful, HPV-related cancer in men has been commonly overlooked. Current data shows low rates of HPV immunization for young adult males in North Dakota (NDIIS, 2020). To address this low uptake, an intervention was designed to address the following clinical question: In college males ages 18 to 26, will the provision of education regarding …

Advance Care Planning And Advance Directives: Implementing Online Education For Healthcare Providers, Hannah Murphy

Nursing

Advance directives (ADs) summarize goals or preferences for future care regarding life-sustaining treatment and designates a surrogate decision-maker in the event a patient is unable to make healthcare decisions. These legal documents are especially important for providing patient autonomy and allowing people to communicate their medical care preferences to family, friends, and healthcare professionals. Two thirds of Americans have not completed an advance directive and 70% of Americans (more than 1.7 million) die of chronic diseases. Benefits of ADs include: autonomy during end-of-life, honored preferences, enhanced quality of medical decisions, less emotional distress, and even a decrease in healthcare costs. …

A Self-Help Intervention For Caregivers Of People Diagnosed With An Eating Disorder, Steven Lin Condon

Nursing

The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to support caregivers of patients with eating disorders by delivering an evidence-based intervention designed to decrease caregiving burden and illness maintaining behaviors at a regional eating disorder and weight management center (EDWMC). Based on the Cognitive Interpersonal Maintenance Model, the intervention developed by Treasure and colleagues (2006) was shown to improve caregivers’ sense of self-efficacy, interaction with their loved ones, and their loved ones’ outcomes. After receiving the training materials, caregivers of previous studies reported decreases in caregiving burden and illness maintaining behaviors. Furthermore, patients with caregivers who received the intervention also …

Tesol And Feminist Pedagogy: The Application Of Feminist Pedagogy In Esl Versus Efl Settings, Emil Asanov

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Feminist pedagogy, which emerged in the United States in the 1980s, is an-anti oppressive pedagogy that invites students to build community, fosters an inclusive learning environment for everyone to succeed and lead, and encourages power sharing among and between students and teachers. With feminism spreading and varying across the world, feminist pedagogy advertently or inadvertently manifests itself in the work of some English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. Feminist pedagogy has received popularity in English classrooms all over the world, which is evidenced by increasing research on the topic (e.g., Vandrick, 1994, …

Bitter Sweet, Hanna M. Kesty

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This written document is the accompanying thesis for my Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, Bitter Sweet. The exhibition featured traditional framed prints with sculptural accents that reveal brutally honest negative personal experiences, interactions, and emotions, paired with delicately cute aesthetics. My work embodies the necessity of personal artistic expression to process years of emotional repression. The prints and sculptures in the exhibition focus around a collection of insults and harsh comments coupled with feelings of loneliness and isolation. I allow personal vulnerability to show, to reinforce that these moments have molded and shaped who I am and will continue to …

Stil-Life, Yi Xiong

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This written thesis is the supporting documentation for Still-Life, my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition. I use handmade ceramic still-life objects to depict my specific memories and experiences about my life before and after the pandemic. Death, hope, time, and emotion are the themes explored in this exhibition.

This installation of ceramic sculptures not only recreates a historical moment in the pandemic but also captures the current times that we live in. It records the artist's life and time during the COVID-19 pandemic. The selection of still-life objects for the exhibition often has special significance on a personal, cultural, …

Knowledge And Training In Language Sample Analysis Of Us Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students, Allegra Cornaglia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play an integral role in identification and treatment of developmental language disorders (DLD). Best practices include the use of language sample analysis (LSA) as part of a comprehensive evaluation. However, LSA requires a specific set of foundational morphological and syntactic knowledge. Previous studies have shown a knowledge gap for both SLPs and SLP graduate students for other areas of morphosyntax and phonology. This study examined the language analysis skills of current SLP graduate students on a test of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) analysis and Clausal Density (CD) and whether there were possible factors associated with …

The Effects Of Script Therapy In A Patient With Old Chronic Aphasia, Busra Ensar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

There are some gaps in the literature regarding the efficacy of script therapy in patients with chronic aphasia, particularly chronic aphasia that lasts for several years post-onset, in terms of treatments to improve functional communication during daily activities. This study investigates the relationship between script therapy and communication effectiveness and communicative efficiency. In this context, communication effectiveness was measured by the percent script correct, and communicative efficiency was measured by the total duration to produce the script and the mean duration of pauses at the beginning of sentences.

The efficacy of intensive script training on discourse effectiveness and efficiency was …

Borderlands And Mestiza Consciousness In Appalachia: Latina Undergraduate Experiences In A Predominantly White Institution, Susana Mazuelas Quirce

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences of eight undergraduate Latinas in a Predominantly White Institution in the Appalachian region using Gloria Anzaldúa’s insights on Borderlands and Mestiza consciousness. A vast majority of the studies focused on the Latinx college student population that takes place in states and tertiary institutions with a dense concentration of Latinx population, leaving rural areas—especially the Appalachian region— unexplored. There is, as well, a scarcity of studies in research focused on four-year-degree-granting institutions in which Latinx are highly underrepresented. A substantial number of studies continue presenting Latinx students as a homogenous group despite their heterogeneity …

Survival Rate Of Dental Implants Placed In Alveolar Ridge Preservation Sites - Systematic Review, Sravanthi Papisetti

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction: It is not known so far performing Alveolar Ridge Preservation (ARP) in a freshly extracted socket with intact walls would improve clinical outcomes of implants placed in these sites. It is not known whether different biomaterials and techniques would affect the survival of dental implants.

Aim: The current systematic review is undertaken to assess the survival rate of dental implants placed in these sockets and to assess different socket graft materials as well as techniques of ridge preservation with regard to the survival of implants.

Material methods: Search for relevant articles was done in Medline (PubMed). No …

Combustion Feature Characterization Using Computer Vision Diagnostics Within Rotating Detonation Combustors, Kristyn B. Johnson May

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In recent years, the possibilities of higher thermodynamic efficiency and power output have led to increasing interest in the field of pressure gain combustion (PGC). Currently, a majority of PGC research is concerned with rotating detonation engines (RDEs), devices which may theoretically achieve pressure gain across the combustor. Within the RDE, detonation waves propagate continuously around a cylindrical annulus, consuming fresh fuel mixtures supplied from the base of the RDE annulus. Through constant-volume heat addition, pressure gain combustion devices theoretically achieve lower entropy generation compared to Brayton cycle combustors. RDEs are being studied for future implementation in gas turbines, where …

Screen Media Use Among Children And Adolescents – Applications Of Supervised And Unsupervised Machine Learning And Sentiment Analysis, Yifan Zhang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Screen media has become increasingly pervasive in our everyday lives and has profoundly changed the way people communicate and interact with each other. However, we are still unclear about the long-term influence of screen media use on our physical health, mental health, and social wellbeing. Children and adolescents are in an important stage of brain development and are susceptible to the environmental influence that screen media possess. This dissertation pursued three aims to address research gaps related to screen media use among children and adolescents: 1) identify topics and knowledge gaps in screen media use research among children and adolescents …

In Darkness There Is Light: Designing For The Insect Play, Seret Teresa Cole

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This serves as documentation of my scenic design process for the School of Theatre & Dance at West Virginia University’s production of The Insect Play by Karel Čapek. This thesis includes a plot summary, text analysis, and historical context. It also contains conversations with the director and design team, as well as a description of my design process befitting the needs of the play. The design aspects will be presented through research photos, models, drafting plates, and execution photos. It will conclude with a self-reflection of the overall production process.

Tax Avoidance, Corporate Governance, And Corporate Policies, Yang Yang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation includes three essays examining the interactions between tax avoidance, corporate governance, and corporate policies. The first essay exploits corporate governance shocks induced by cross-listing in the U.S., and find that firms tend to engage in less tax avoidance after cross-listing. This effect is more pronounced for firms that experience significant improvements in corporate governance, and for firms from countries with weaker shareholder protection and disclosure requirements. Taken together, the results indicate that cross-listing in the U.S. helps align the interests of managers and shareholders and reduces managerial diversion.

The second essay examines the importance of tax avoidance to …

A Preoperative Intervention To Improve Glycemic Control In Surgical Patients With Diabetes, Kelsey L. Boyd

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Perioperative hyperglycemia is reported in 20-40% of patients undergoing general surgery and is an independent risk factor for negative surgical outcomes. Patients with diabetes presenting to a local community hospital are at risk for negative surgical outcomes due to the lack of strategies to prevent perioperative hyperglycemia. This project aimed to implement and evaluate the usefulness of succinct diabetes education for preoperative total joint surgical patients with diabetes. The intervention was a nurse-led, face-to-face diabetes education session provided to total joint surgical patients with diabetes during a preoperative evaluation appointment, compared to usual care (no preoperative diabetes education). This project …

Exploring Cyberterrorism, Topic Models And Social Networks Of Jihadists Dark Web Forums: A Computational Social Science Approach, Vivian Fiona Guetler

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This three-article dissertation focuses on cyber-related topics on terrorist groups, specifically Jihadists’ use of technology, the application of natural language processing, and social networks in analyzing text data derived from terrorists' Dark Web forums. The first article explores cybercrime and cyberterrorism. As technology progresses, it facilitates new forms of behavior, including tech-related crimes known as cybercrime and cyberterrorism. In this article, I provide an analysis of the problems of cybercrime and cyberterrorism within the field of criminology by reviewing existing literature focusing on (a) the issues in defining terrorism, cybercrime, and cyberterrorism, (b) ways that cybercriminals commit a crime in …

Effects Of Depression And Stress On Oral Self-Care Among Perinatal Women In Appalachia: A Longitudinal Study, Jeongwi An

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Oral health during the perinatal period has an impact on the health of women and their offspring. Oral self-care behaviors are preventive methods that can be employed to maintain or improve oral health but may be compromised during the perinatal period. Identifying factors affecting oral self-care behaviors might provide direction on how to intervene in oral health during and after pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to investigate independent and interactive effects of depression and stress on oral self-care behaviors of perinatal women in Appalachia, given the burden of oral disease in this region. A total of 1,172 women …

Fasciotomies, Gabriel Bass

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This collection of poems follows the disjointed and never complete trajectory of personal recovery from trauma and alcoholism. The poems and their arrangement trouble the notion of a person ever being fixed, even as they make progress toward a better version of themselves. The collection illustrates how the past can impose itself on the present, creating dissonance and complicating the speaker’s understanding of time and recovery.