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Teacher Perceptions Of Classroom Management Programs To Improve Whole-School Measures Of Attendance, Disruptive Classroom Behaviors, And Academic Outcomes, Charles E. Natt, Jr

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored how the implementation of Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH) and Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) classroom management programs when implemented together affected students and teachers of a Louisiana K-12 school compared with using the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program alone. Teachers at the school who had used the PBIS alone and then also used the newly implanted CKH and MTSS programs participated in in-depth interviews to examine the practical effectiveness of both program implementations upon students and classroom learning effectiveness. Teacher perceptions were also compared with ex post facto data for the school from …

Revision Total Hip Femoral Stem Micromotion And Statistical Shape Modeling Of The Knee, William Fugit

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first purpose of this thesis was to compare the amount of micromotion seen in the femoral stem in a revision total hip arthroplasty between simple loading conditions and loading conditions derived from activities of daily living, through the use of experimental and computational methods. The amount of micromotion at the bone-implant interface was larger for activities of daily living, with ranges of 200μm more than the largest simple loading conditions. The second purpose of this thesis was to compare measurements of accuracy in a statistical shape model between individual bone and joint-level models, specifically for the knee. Using computational …

Examining Soil Microbial Diversity In Transition Zones Between Corn Fields And Restored Prairie In The Upper Midwest, Anna M. Burns

Scripps Senior Theses

Prairies were once the largest ecosystem in North America, but agriculture and settlement has destroyed up to 99% of their pre-colonization extent. Prairie restorations are a strategy to recover the biodiversity and carbon sequestration functions of these grasslands, but typically occur in isolated strips between agricultural fields. My thesis analyzes how effective prairie restorations in the Liberty Prairie (northeastern Illinois) are at recovering the diversity of the prairie soil microbiome, focusing on verrucomicrobia abundance, alpha diversity, and soil physical characteristics.

Footprints On The Prairie: Examining The Interlocking Land Histories Of The Liberty Prairie Reserve, Illinois, Anna M. Burns

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis begins with the local history of the Liberty Prairie, the land where I conducted the ecological field-work that I later discuss in my second thesis on soil microbiome diversity (“Examining Soil Microbial Diversity in Transition Zones Between Corn Fields and Restored Prairie in the Upper Midwest"). I examine the Indigenous histories of the land, and the conflicts between the Bodwéwadmi and Euro-American settlers that resulted in the land being farmed for cattle, corn, and soy for over a hundred and fifty years. I then take a step back and analyze the broader historical contexts of Midwestern Corn Belt …

Characterizing Game-Play Styles In National Basketball Association, Zian Zheng

Open Access Master's Theses

Data analysis provides important insights to inform decision-making by discovering patterns and trends in datasets. With the increasing collection and availability of large datasets, data science has the potential to revolutionize decision-making in many fields. Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world,and the application of data science in basketball has attracted a large amount of attention in recent years. Our research explores the dissimilarity and similarity of game-play characteristics through recent years within the National Basketball Association. We focused on the data analysis of basketball teams and player performance, analysis, and prediction of competition results. We …

The Structure, Constraints, And Suggestions Of The Indian Medical Textile Product Industry With A Focus On Fabric Manufacturers, Poonam Parab

Open Access Master's Theses

Medical textiles are specialty fabrics and products doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers use. These include bandages, surgical gowns, hospital sheets, artificial hearts, and hernia meshes. India has been a global textile manufacturing hub and has recently shifted its focus to medical textile/ textile products. However, there is no clear understanding of the basic structure of the Indian medical textile product industry related types of companies involved and their interactions with each other. The information about the industry needs to include categorization and depth, and there is no value chain-related information. A well-integrated value chain improves efficiency and effectiveness, which …

Here, There, And Everywhere: Probing Ubiquitin-Cavitand Binding Via 15n-1h Hsqc, Julia Didziulis

Scripps Senior Theses

Ubiquitination and other post-translational modifications play a major role in the proliferation of many neurodegenerative diseases, developmental disorders, and cancers, and as such are subjects of recently increased biochemical interest. Expanding upon such research, this study confirmed a robust method of ubiquitin expression and purification, then used 15N-1H HSQC to analyze ubiquitin samples containing varying concentrations of a deep cavitand with affinity for lysine and arginine side chains. In the pure ubiquitin spectrum, arginine side chain chemical shifts were detected in the nitrogen 80-85 ppm range and lysine side chain signals were undetected. However, upon introduction of the cavitand, collection …

Put On Your Dancing Shoes: Boosting Divergent Thinking In Older Adults, Megan Itagaki

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis will explore the influence of two dance modalities (dance improvisation and Zumba dance) on divergent thinking (i.e., an aspect of creativity) in older adults using a quasi-experimental design. Given the existing research on dance as a creativity intervention in the younger half of the population, this study may address a gap in the literature by extending these findings to older adults. Once prescreened to ensure cognitive competence and adequate physical mobility, participants will complete a divergent thinking task before their designated 20-minute dance intervention. After the intervention, participants will complete a divergent thinking task. It is hypothesized that …

A Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of The American Woodcock, Anna R. Fateiger

Open Access Master's Theses

The decline in young forests has caused almost 70% of the birds that flourish in such habitats to experience a severe population decline over the past 60 years. The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) is no exception to this population reduction due to its heavy reliance on such habitats, making them a key indicator species for young forest management. Conservationists rely on information received from tracking woodcock for details about the young forest vegetation in hopes of preserving the habitat and protecting the wildlife that flourishes in such areas. This paper expands on previous research that focused heavily on …

Predicting Pain Presence In Icu Patients Using Physiological Signals, Derek Jacobs

Open Access Master's Theses

Physiological data can be used to detect the presence of pain, a problem that up to this point has entirely subjective solutions. While there are general indicators of pain, physiological signals have been shown to alter as a response to painful stimuli. Prior work has primarily focused on predicting a level of pain reported by a patient based on the assumption that pain is present. In this work, we present a means of using machine learning to identify the presence of pain using data collected from a freely available database MIMIC-III. Our methodology involves constructing an image reconstruction based classifier …

Diving In: Learning Best Practices From Belize’S Managed Access Program Fisheries Policy, Mary Carper

Open Access Master's Theses

Belize has recently transitioned from an open access fisheries management regime to a program called Managed Access, based on a form of spatial management known as Territorial User Rights for Fishers (TURFs). Coastal communities rely on fishing activity for a variety of reasons including food and job security. Community well-being refers to the holistic definition of the human state, indicated by a variety of socioeconomic factors. This multi-strategy research with a concurrent nested design looks at a combination of interview and archival document data, along with demographics from the Statistical Institute of Belize in order to understand the impacts of …

Wireless Temperature Sensing Using Transient Sintering Behavior Of Glass Ceramics, Noah Alexander Burke

Open Access Master's Theses

Temperature measurements are critical in gas turbine engine design but difficult to obtain due to the extreme environment. Temperature indicating paints (thermal paints) have been used for decades to map maximum temperature fields on superalloy components but have numerous weaknesses. Developed here are three novel glass-ceramic thermal paints that undergo viscous flow sintering to indicate temperatures up to 900°C, with high resolution (±5°C), by an optical transition. The paints adhere to Nickel-based superalloys due to their matching coefficients of thermal expansion and function for times above 60 hours. By utilizing automation and a UV:VIS spectrometer, quantitative temperature maps can be …

Enhanced Deep Template-Based Object Instance Detection, Travis Frink

Open Access Master's Theses

Three alterations are investigated: The addition of a feature pyramid network to improve small object recognition, a loss weighting strategy dependent on object poses, and the addition of a transformer for feature comparisons.As a result increased performance was achieved for both the FPN and loss weighting alterations while the transformer alterations slightly underperformed the original model.

Measuring And Modeling Turbulence Using Particle Image Velocimetry And Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics; Applications To External Flows, Sandra Deeb

Open Access Master's Theses

Understanding the flow field around objects (i.e. external flow) is very important for various engineering and scientific application at all scales. The overall objective of this study is to better understand the flow field and turbulence in a wave-current flume for internal and external flow studies using particle image velocimetry and to investigate the capabilities and limitations of the Lagrangian smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method to simulate external flows using the collected experimental data in the wave-current flume. Laboratory studies are useful for observation of physical phenomena in a controlled environment in addition to their being less expensive and more …

Parallelized Implementation Of A Genetic Algorithm On A Field Programmable Gate Array (Fpga) To Provide Heuristic Solutions For The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (Cvrp), Maximilian Jakob Heer

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis reports on the implementation of a Genetic Algorithm for finding heuristic solutions to the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) on High-Performance Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The heuristic approach to the class of NP-hard problems related to the Travelling-Salesman-Problem (TSP) has a long tradition in computer science, with this thesis being directly based on an implementation of a specialized Genetic Algorithm for a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). In my work, I describe how the algorithmic structure can be directly transformed into an adapted computing architecture with special focus on the highest possible degree of parallelism. For that, the …

Addition Of Nanoparticles To Enhance The Ionic Conductivity Of A Peo-Based Polymer Electrolyte, Caroline Willuhn

Open Access Master's Theses

Although advantageous in many regards, solid polymer electrolytes have the major disadvantage of low ionic conductivity, preventing commercial utilization. Amorphous polymers have a higher lithium-ion conductivity than crystalline polymers. This is why many attempts are made to decrease their crystallinity. The integration of nanoparticles has been shown toeffectively reduce a polymer's degree of crystallinity, thus enabling faster Li-ion transport.This work studies the integration of carboxyl-terminated carbon black (CB) and bariumtitanate nanoparticles into a PEO/LiTFSI polymer electrolyte (PE) with the final goal of enhancing its Li-ion conductivity. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) was carried out and showed a decrease in glass transition …

Making The Invisible Visible: Redefining Giftedness To Include Ell Students’ Community Cultural Wealth And Funds Of Knowledge, Molly I. Pargas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study used improvement science methods to investigate a problem of practice surrounding the underrepresentation of ELL students in GT programming. This research addressed how teachers define giftedness using their underlying knowledge frameworks. The researcher conducted empathy interviews with parents of ELL students and a team of teachers to determine what the underlying issues are regarding the underrepresentation of ELL students in GT. The parent empathy interviews were coded using the combined conceptual framework of community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) and funds of knowledge (Moll et al, 1992). Through this process the types of capital and funds of knowledge were …

First Destination Survey 2022: For Degrees Awarded December 2021-August 2022, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University

First Destination Survey

[from the email sent by Warren Kistner]

The Hart Career Center is responsible for producing an annual First Destination (graduate) survey that tracks the post-graduate activity of our students within a six-month window of commencement. Following this collection period, we work to produce a report that provides our university community with vital information about the success of our graduates and allows us to address questions posed by prospective students and families. I am pleased to share our report for the class of 2022. Based on data obtained for 88.1% of our graduates, 97.3% are either employed or in graduate/professional school …

Consumers' Adoption Of Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (Cavs) Based On Their Social Network, Ishant Sharma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The recent advancements in communication, digital, and automobile technologies have the potential to revolutionize the transport sector, especially the way we travel. Such advancements include the advent of mobility-on-demand services, electric and connected, and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). Recent research indicates their imminent market penetration, but their widespread consumer adoption is still uncertain because of several anticipated barriers like giving up conventional vehicles, safety concerns, accident liability problems, cybersecurity issues, and many more. A potential consumer’s decision to purchase a vehicle is greatly influenced from information received from multiple sources, especially peer-to-peer communication. To the best of our knowledge, limited studies …

High School Teachers' Perceptions And Application Of Robert Stahl's Decision-Making Materials In The Social Studies Classroom, Alisha Milam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study investigated high school social studies teachers’ perceptions of Robert Stahl’s decision-making materials within their content area and the relevance of curricular implementation. The primary questions addressed in this study focused on high school social studies teachers’ perception of current instructional practices, inquiry-based learning, state standards, and national frameworks regarding content and classroom instruction. The participants included seven rural high school social studies teachers selected through two-stage random sampling. Participant selection was reduced to rural areas due to the overwhelmingly disproportionate number of rural districts in the state of study. However, to gain a diverse perspective from across the …

A Historical Case Study To Examine The Response Of The Association Of Jesuit Colleges And Universities (Ajcu) To Hurricane Katrina, Victoria Mccardell Harpool

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

In 2005, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) admitted Loyola University New Orleans students to the other 27 sister institutions just days after Loyola announced closure for the duration of the fall semester. The case study utilizes oral histories and archival research to evaluate if the Association acted in accordance with their mission based on Albert and Whetten’s Organizational Identity Theory and how mission can guide the preparations of higher education for natural disasters.

Voices From The Classroom: Perspectives Of Elementary Teachers On Teacher Absenteeism, And The Related Factors Of Leadership Behaviors And Teacher Preparation, Amanda Brabham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Employee absence can arise in any organization or institution; however, in education, teacher absenteeism place burdens on schools and hinders the ability of schools to provide quality and consistent instruction to students. Teacher absenteeism has been a topic of discussion in the West Tennessee study school district for many years. School and district leaders have pondered over what can be done to improve the attendance behaviors of teachers. Research asserts that teachers are the most important in-school determinant of student success, and for this reason, school and district leaders in the West Tennessee study district must gain an understanding of …

Attributes Of Organic Food Products: What Matters To The Us Consumers In Their Purchasing Decision?, Rohini Daraboina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Green research in marketing is a rich field with multiple financial and brand implications to the firms and their stakeholders including consumers. This three-essay dissertation examines two important research streams in green marketing, organic food product attribute importance, and food safety transgressions. The first essay applies bibliometric methods to analyze the literature on green research in marketing. Based on the keyword analysis and literature review the essay identifies several gaps in green marketing research and offers potential research opportunities. Guided by the first essay’s insights, the second essay focuses on the relative importance of the organic food product attributes that …

The Relations Among Academic Grit, Growth Mindset, School Engagement, And Academic Achievement In Middle School Students, Rachel Younger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among three psychosocial factors (i.e., Academic Grit, School Engagement, and Growth Mindset) and Academic Achievement among a cross-sectional sample of middle school students (N = 141). Participants were administered the Academic Grit Scale, Multi-Dimensional School Engagement Scale, and Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scale via an online survey, and i-Ready Reading and Math benchmarks and student’s GPA assessed academic achievement. Factor analysis was used to confirm the measurement of these constructs, which resulted in a post-hoc measurement model combining indicators of Academic Grit with two indicators of School Engagement. Structural equation …

Estimation Of Hydraulic Conductivity From Injection Tests Using Mini-Piezometers With Drilled-Hole Screens, Bisesh Joshi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Cost- and time-effective injection methods using mini-piezometers are widely used in hyporheic research for estimating hydraulic conductivity (K). To check the performance of a range of mini-piezometer screens with drilled holes, we simulated constant-head injection tests in a uniform, isotropic streambed, using a specially designed laboratory apparatus. Applying accepted methods by Hvorslev and Cardenas & Zlotnik, with subsequent modifications, we studied the effects of screen length, hole diameter, and hole spacing on the shape factor (F), and thus on the estimated K. We also investigated the nature of the injected flow by studying the spatial distribution of piezometric head within …

Quantum Mechanical Analysis Of Proton-Electron Systems Using Fourier Method, Luis Antonio Rey Caldera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) occurs in many different types of chemical reactions. PCET involves the transfer of protons and electrons from one location to another. It is involved in both organic and inorganic chemistry in systems such as those of photosynthesis, metabolism, and respiration. The theoretical formulations of PCET reactions are founded on the theoretical treatment of electron transfer. These reactions lie on a spectrum from hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) to multiple-site couple proton-electron transfer (MS-CPET). The properties that any given reaction has can be quantified with the use of a potential energy surface (PES). The specific geometry of the …

Preservice And First-Year Teachers’ Intention To Use And Actual Use Of Technology-Enabled Learning: A Case Study, Jessica Herring Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this qualitative, embedded single case study was to provide a rich description and explore the unique development and evolution of preservice teachers’ intention to use and actual use of technology-enabled learning (TEL) during student teaching and first-year teaching. The study followed four middle level education majors at a mid-size public teaching university in the southeastern United States over the course of the 2021 calendar year, during their student teaching experience (Spring 2021) and into their first semester as novice teachers (Fall 2021). Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) guided this qualitative inquiry. Interviews, observations, and analysis of …

Factors Impacting Advanced Math Course-Taking: A Multilevel Modeling Analysis Of The Hsls:09, Shelby Gayle Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The United States continues to lag other first-world countries in the number of students prepared to enter the STEM workforce. Research has shown that taking advanced math courses during high school better prepares students to enter college STEM programs (Byun et al., 2015; Chen, 2016). Both student and school characteristics often shape which courses students take in secondary school. Previous academic achievement and performance along with motivational factors, like expectations, math identity and self-efficacy, and students’ valuation of mathematics work concomitantly to shape students’ math course enrollments in high school (Attewell & Domina, 2008; Burkman & Lee, 2003; Maltese & …

Application Of Local Knowledge For Better Characterization And Modeling Of Urban Pluvial Flooding, Koorosh Azizi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Urban pluvial flooding (UPF) resulting from localized, intense, rainfall‐generated ponding and overland flow causes a range of socio-environmental impacts. UPF is driven by a complex set of interconnected factors, including physical, historical, social, cultural, institutional, and economic conditions. Its impacts are increasing due to both biophysical change (e.g., global warming) and the interactions between the human and physical dimensions of the urban environment (e.g., land-use change). Notwithstanding its complexity and the rather low level of attention it has received in both research and practice, UPF is an issue that needs to be tackled from a comprehensive perspective. Although different integrated …

Multi-Tissue Time-Domain Nmr Metabolomics For Robust And Accurate Assessment Of Dietary Effects, Hayden Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a quantitative, non-destructive analytical technique for identifying and quantifying metabolites. Conventional quantitative NMR analysis involves processing the recorded time-domain signal into a frequency-domain spectrum along with user-dependent processing and resonance characterization steps which may introduce bias and error. This study implements a Bayesian approach for data analysis in the time-domain to bypass these drawbacks and increase automation in metabolite quantification. The time-domain workflow is first assessed using metabolite reference standards to validate accurate resonance identification and quantification before profiling metabolites in liver, heart, and white adipose tissue of a diurnal animal model, the Nile …