Digital Commons Network^™

The Home Literacy Environment's Effect On Language And Literacy Outcomes In Monolingual And Bilingual First And Second Grade Students, Sarah Carney

Open Access Master's Theses

The Home Literacy Environment (HLE) is well researched to support early literacy development in children (e.g., Niklas et al., 2020; Inoue et al., 2018). The majority of research has investigated how the HLE supports children’s preschool literacy development and skills upon entry to kindergarten; however, few research studies have addressed how the HLE contributes to vocabulary, phonological awareness, and reading scores in Spanish-English bilingual first and second grade students. Our present study aims to answer two questions; if Parental Occupation Education (POE) and the HLE affect performance on inside out (phonological awareness and decoding) and outside in (language and vocabulary) …

Transnational Construction Site: Building American/Buying Chinese At The Panama Canal, 1885-1887, Jenny Elkus

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis is a case study in ethnic relations and identity formation. It attempts to problematize Jewish American immigration history by examining the actions and personal development of one 19th century Jewish immigrant, not through the literature of Jewish American immigration, but through the history and literature of the Chinese migrants with whom he interacted. In 1885, Dr. Felix A. Bettelheim launched a year-long venture to obtain 5,000 Chinese contract laborers to work on the construction of the Panama Canal. This thesis is an attempt to understand how, as a migrant and a member of a persecuted minority himself, Bettelheim …

Treprostinil Improves Hepatic Cytochrome P450 Metabolism During Renal Ischemia Reperfusion Injury, Daniel Kelly

Open Access Master's Theses

Background: Renal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) causes acute kidney injury, as well as liver injury resulting in altered hepatic metabolism. Decreased hepatic cytochrome P450 levels can impact drug clearance and increase the risk for adverse drug reactions. Currently, there is no treatment available to improve liver cyp450 metabolism during renal IRI. Treprostinil (Remodulin®) is a FDA approved prostacyclin analog that our lab has shown to have hepatoprotective effects during renal IRI. This study investigates the efficacy of treprostinil on improving hepatic cyp450 metabolism during renal IRI in vivo.

Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats were subjected to 45 minutes of …

Using Centered Kernel Alignment For Understanding And Pruning Neural Networks, Alex Lachance

Open Access Master's Theses

Understanding neural networks has been challenging since their inception. Neural networks are non-linear and learn representations without the user defining them, making the internal workings obscure. Methods for understanding networks have been researched for many years. This study uses centered kernel alignment (CKA) to measure the similarity between the representations of data between layers in a network. The method is invariant to invertible orthogonal transformation, invariant to isotropic scaling, and exhibits behavior demonstrating its superiority over other methods.

The similarity results enable understanding of how architecture choices impact learning and network representations. Depth and width changes of MLPMixer, a neural …

Predicting Morphodynamic Long-Term Changes Along The Southern Rhode Island Shoreline In The Next Decades, Alexa Leone

Open Access Master's Theses

Shoreline recession presents a real threat to coastal communities. Both the Napatree spit and the Ninigret-Trustom Ponds (NTP) barrier system in Rhode Island are at risk of erosion from physical morphodynamic processes and increases in sea level. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the ability of a new numerical model, ShorelineS, to predict the long-term shoreline position along the southern Rhode Island coast over the next 50 years. The 1-D shoreline model, ShorelineS, was calibrated and validated at these sites based on historical observations. Calibration at Napatree explicitly displayed the shoreline to be relatively static over the past …

Staying In The 90s: The Process Of Nostalgic Consumption Through A Terror Management Framework, Daniel O. Nilsen

Open Access Master's Theses

Nostalgic product marketing is as popular as ever in today’s age. Many companies are offering retro styled products in an attempt to appeal to generations such as millennials. These products can range from food items, to memorabilia, toys and more. However, there is a gap in research in regards to studying the nostalgic product consumption process, leading from the psychological need, to purchase intention in millennials. Prior literature suggests death anxiety and the need to belong are correlated with nostalgic proneness, which are used as foundation for the study. To add data to this area of study, prior literature regarding …

An Exploration Of Instagram As An Active Learning Tool For Gaining New Political Knowledge, Sarah Olearnick

Open Access Master's Theses

This paper seeks to explore the way that Instagram can be an active learning platform for the political landscape. By surveying URI students this study looks at the various ways that students use Instagram for politics, their attitudes towards the platform as a political source, and their general interest in politics. The survey showed that those who have a higher interest in politics use various sources. The survey also showed that those who have a positive perception of Instagram as a political source do not use various other sources. This study serves as an extremely valuable launching point for additional …

A High-Resolution Temperature-Indicating Paint System For Ceramic Matrix Composite Gas Turbine Engine Components, Panagiotis Panoutsopoulos

Open Access Master's Theses

With the next generation of gas turbine engines under development,manufacturers require validation of the surface temperatures and surface temperature gradients experienced by SiC-SiC ceramic matrix composite (CMC) components used as the material to construct the combustion chambers of gas turbine engines. Prior developed thermal paints lack adhesion to the substrate on which they are applied and lack resolution due to qualitative interpretation by a technician. The thermal paint system developed here in this thesis uses quantitative methods to characterize the transition state of a sintered glass to determine temperature with excellent resolution, having an error on the order of single …

Rise Above: A Patient-Centered Web-Based Intervention For Reducing Internalized Stigma In People With Epilepsy, Sabah Ummie

Open Access Master's Theses

Telemedicine and e-health has grown significantly over the last few decades with the evolution of information and communication technology. The application and implementations of information technologies have given rise to the delivery of remote patient care and contactless online healthcare service, during the uncontrolled outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Innovations in healthcare have proliferated during that period and enabled physicians to provide treatments for patients starting from primary care to cognitive disability.

Health related stigma, also known as internalized stigma, is a common cognitive illness in people with epilepsy (PWE), a neurological disorder that induces sudden unpredictable seizures within the human …

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 …

Satellite Investigation Of Drivers Of Phytoplankton Composition In A Continental Shelf Ecosystem, Somang Song

Open Access Master's Theses

Phytoplankton size classes (PSCs) play an important role in ecological and biogeochemical processes in marine ecosystems. Studying the dynamics of phytoplankton groups and the environment can inform how we manage marine resources, including fisheries, which are of critical importance in the Northeast U.S. continental shelf ecosystem. This study aims to shed light on phytoplankton community structure distribution and the environmental drivers of their variability in the Northeast U.S. continental shelf from a satellite remote sensing perspective, which has a captivating ability to view the global ocean and its dynamics on large spatial scales and long-term temporal scales. 23 years (1997 …

Design And System Identification Of A Low-Cost Usv For Coastal Observation, Roy Gilboa

Open Access Master's Theses

Monitoring areas near shore is often performed using unmanned surface vehicles but can be hampered by high cost and complexity. Existing vehicles can be expensive and difficult to operate. Recent development of consumer- and hobbyist-oriented marine hardware and control software have enabled the creation of vehicles that solve these problems. In this project, a low-cost, SUP-based USV was constructed and proved itself to be portable and capable of performing surveys at several sites in Rhode Island, with an approximate cost and vehicle mass of $3,500 and 20 kilograms respectively. It was also evaluated to determine its hydrodynamic properties and its …

Behavioural Determinants Of Human And Planetary Health: The Role Of Nature Contact And Nature Connectedness., Leanne Martin

School of Psychology Theses

The benefits of natural environments for health and wellbeing are well-established, but less is known about their links human behaviour. This thesis presents a conceptual model proposing that increased contact with - and psychological connection to – nature will be associated with: a) a lower prevalence of health risk behaviours, and b) greater engagement with pro-environmental behaviours, via positive affect, negative affect, community cohesion and temporal discounting. Studies 1-3 used representative cross-sectional datasets to systematically investigate the associations between different types of nature contact, nature connectedness and behavioural outcomes. Study 4 used a bespoke cross-sectional survey to test the full …

Contributions Of Motility To Large-Scale Search And Navigation, Rory Baxter

School of Psychology Theses

Navigation and search are fundamental daily activities, however, their ubiquity belies their complexity. These behaviours are reliant upon multiple underlying cognitive processes including our ability to reliably employ viewpoint invariant allocentric and viewpoint dependent egocentric cues. The ability to use these sources of information have been studied extensively in the human spatial cognition literature, largely on desktop PC platforms. Whilst this provides researchers with an immense amount of experimental control, participants remain static, differing fundamentally to the demands of navigation and search in real-world contexts. This thesis presents a series of experiments that interrogate place learning and probabilistic cueing on …

Peruvian Mammals Collected By The Andrews University. Department Of Biology : Expeditions & Patterns Of Diversity, Kieran M. Taylor

Master's Theses

The Department of Biology at Andrews University conducted three expeditions to Peru in 1964, 1965, and 1968. During the expeditions, thousands of specimens were collected of several taxa, including mammals. As far as we know, no complete summary of the expeditions and the mammals collected has been created. Knowledge of the expeditions and evaluation of the mammals collected compared to current literature could have conservation implications. My purpose was to recreate the story of the expeditions and use this contextual information to catalog and identify the number of mammal species collected and evaluate the mammal diversity collected according to current …

What Does A Corporation Owe?: The Scope Of Obligations In International Investment Counterclaims, Kevin Crow, Lina Lorenzoni-Escobar

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Public Interest Through Intellectual Property Law: The Creative Approach Of Chinese Judges, Haochen Sun

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Protecting International Travelers During The Pandemic: Charting The Way Forward, Fernando Dias Simoes

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Internet Censorship In Russia: The Sovereign Internet Laws And Russia's Obligations Under The European Convention On Human Rights, Erik Allerson

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Crowded At The Top: An Empirical Description Of The Oligopolistic Market For International Arbitration Institutions, Michael I. Green

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Universal Jurisdiction Cases In Germany: A Closer Look At The Poster Child Of International Criminal Justice, Susann Aboueldahab, Fin-Jasper Langmack

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Epistemic Power Of Universal Jurisdiction: Spreading Knowledge About Mass Atrocity Crimes, Joachim J. Savelsberg, Mirary Philips

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Sexual Violence In Costa Rica: A Progressive Country With Regressive Gender Politics, Fabiola Gretzinger

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

No abstract provided.

Réimaginer Le Mouvement Postcolonial: Une Étude Du Motif Du Mouvement Comme Résistance Dans Les Œuvres D'Art Postcoloniales, Katherine Knox , '22

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Molecular Dynamics On Quantum Annealers, Igor Gaidai, Dmitri Babikov, Alexander Teplukhin, Brian K. Kendrick, Susan M. Mniszewski, Yu Zhang, Sergei Tretiak, Pavel A. Dub

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

In this work we demonstrate a practical prospect of using quantum annealers for simulation of molecular dynamics. A methodology developed for this goal, dubbed Quantum Differential Equations (QDE), is applied to propagate classical trajectories for the vibration of the hydrogen molecule in several regimes: nearly harmonic, highly anharmonic, and dissociative motion. The results obtained using the D-Wave 2000Q quantum annealer are all consistent and quickly converge to the analytical reference solution. Several alternative strategies for such calculations are explored and it was found that the most accurate results and the best efficiency are obtained by combining the quantum annealer with …

Aspects On The Quantum Dynamics Of A System Coupled To A Bosonic Environment, Qidong Xu

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

In this work we study various aspects of the quantum dynamics for a system coupled to a Bosonic environment, which is described by a collection of quantum harmonic oscillators or a quantum field. We first consider two quantum mechanical oscillator system-bath models obtained by dimensionally truncating linearized gravity coupled to a massive scalar field and scalar QED, and we show that they separately map onto the phase damped oscillator model and the oscillator system subject to two-photon damping. The phase damped oscillator model also corresponds to the optomechanical system with an acoustic field environment, and we study the acoustic environment …

Information Entropic Content Of Astrophysical Spectra: Applications To Cosmology And Astrobiology, Sara Vannah

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Astrophysics faces two critical challenges: the difficulty of observing very distant targets and the difficulty of interpreting science in diverse and often extreme environments that have not been replicated on Earth. In this thesis, we discuss two types of spectra — one from early universe cosmology and one from astrobiology — where improvements in telescope technology are just ushering in a wave of precise observations, addressing the first challenge. This accelerates the need for a solution to the second challenge. Traditional methods for analyzing these two spectra rely heavily on unsettled science, biasing results to match the input assumptions. In …

Self-Acquisition Of Liquid Propellant Versatile Arsenal Of Resources Endeavour (S.A.L.V.A.R.E.), Vittorio Baraldi, Nikki Smith-Cielo, Sotirios Zormpas

Student Works

Unlocking the mysteries of Mars’s past and future habitability is just within humanity’s grasp. With a multitude of inherent similarities to Earth, Mars is one of the most promising locations to extend humankind’s reach in manned space exploration. As humanity is at the summit of taking the next leap for mankind by preparing the first crewed missions to Mars, a need that must be met is to significantly reduce the mass necessary to deliver to the surface.

The Self-Acquisition of Liquid propellant Versatile Arsenal of Resources Endeavour (SALVARE) project details a mission for creating the first Mars water-based In-Situ Resources …

Unleashing Pets From Dead-Hand Control, Kaity Emerson, Kevin Bennardo

Faculty Publications

Many pet owners feel strongly about their animals. Some feel so strongly that they desire their pets to accompany them to the grave. This Article addresses the validity of pet euthanasia provisions in decedents’ wills.

Pet owners generally have the legal power to humanely euthanize their pets. In addition, the primary focus of the law of wills is to effectuate the wishes of the decedent. These two facts seem to counsel in favor of carrying out a testamentary instruction to humanely euthanize a companion animal. Yet courts generally decline to enforce pet euthanasia provisions whenever an objection is raised by …