Digital Commons Network^™

How Parents Perceive School Readiness, Jody Silvester

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this study was to explore parents' perceptions of children entering kindergarten and their understanding of school readiness. In this collective case study, drawing on parent interviews and artifact sampling and guided by discourse analysis (Gee, 2015), I employed Saldaña's (2021) cycle coding methods to explore the themes of what parents perceive and co-construct as 'school readiness'. Data collected for this study includes video recorded interviews of four participants as well as artifacts of their child(ren)'s classroom assessments, parent-teacher conference forms and packets, and a checklist shared by the parents. The findings of the study showed parents' perception …

Leveraging Signal Transfer Characteristics And Parasitics Of Spintronic Circuits For Area And Energy-Optimized Hybrid Digital And Analog Arithmetic, Adrian Tatulian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

While Internet of Things (IoT) sensors offer numerous benefits in diverse applications, they are limited by stringent constraints in energy, processing area and memory. These constraints are especially challenging within applications such as Compressive Sensing (CS) and Machine Learning (ML) via Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), which require dot product computations on large data sets. A solution to these challenges has been offered by the development of crossbar array architectures, enabled by recent advances in spintronic devices such as Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJs). Crossbar arrays offer a compact, low-energy and in-memory approach to dot product computation in the analog domain by …

Determining The Influence Of Kids Building For Kids Workshops On Attitudes And Beliefs Of General Education Middle School Teachers Toward Students With Disabilities, Jennifer Tucker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Children with disabilities experience barriers to meaningful engagement in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) learning activities and course options. While inclusion is widely professed, general education teachers report being uncomfortable in adapting coursework or including children with disabilities. However, informal professional development opportunities could potentially impact general education teachers' attitudes and dispositions towards including children with disabilities. The UCF Go Baby Go Kids Building for Kids workshops offers a one-time informal professional development experience that incorporates STEM content along with concepts of disability awareness and social justice. Little to no research exists on the impact of this type of …

An Exploration Of K-8 Classroom-Based Mathematics Teacher Leader Development, Treshonda Rutledge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study investigated classroom-based mathematics teacher leader (CBMTL) development through analysis of interview and focus group transcripts, results from a Mathematics Teacher Leadership Experiences survey, application materials, and an evaluation report for an equity-focused, research-to-practice doctoral program centered on developing CBMTLs. A multiple case study was conducted to interpret and understand how K-8 mathematics teachers identified and described ways in which their participation in the program developed them as CBMTLs. Findings suggest that mathematics teachers develop as mathematics teacher leaders in stages and highlight the effectiveness of the research-to-practice partnership model as an impactful pathway for developing CBMTLs. Themes from …

Investigation And Enhancement Of Students’ Conceptions Of Ph Buffers, Mary Alice Woodland Sheppard

Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding how students construct knowledge of pH buffer concepts is essential to developing effective instructional strategies to support student learning. A resource theoretical framework and the phenomenographic method were used to explore 12 general chemistry students’ conceptions of pH buffers using three buffer questions ranging from algorithmic to conceptual. Open coding of student responses revealed a diverse array of resources that varied in productivity and connectedness. A layered resource graph was introduced to visually compare resource activations across question contexts, highlighting some resources as important for all sensemaking about pH buffers, while others were specific to particular topics. The phenomenographic …

Trend Stationary Time Series: Simultaneous Estimation Of Trend And Autocorrelated Errors, Jakub Michel

Doctoral Dissertations

The world of time series analysis is predominantly focused on nonstationary time series, which exhibit various patterns and behaviors that researchers across different industries aim to analyze. Decomposing nonstationary time series into a trend component and a stationary process is a common approach, with trend and stationary process estimation achieved through parametric and nonparametric methods.

Polynomial regression and nonparametric methods, such as Kernels and B-Splines, are employed to estimate the trend. Once the trend is estimated, the residuals are obtained by subtracting the estimated trend from the data, allowing for the fitting of an ARMA stationary process. However, the estimation …

A Multilevel Nonlinear Approach Of Piecewise Regression For Detecting Turning Points: Developing An Alternative Platform With An Application Of Timss, Jing Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Studies in recent years have explored the methods of identifying the turning points when dealing with the non-linear relationship. Four approaches applied by researchers, the eyeball approach, the establishment approach, the theory-driven approach, and the data-driven approach, are all under the traditional piecewise regression framework when seeking turning points. Thus, the purpose of this study is to introduce a multilevel piecewise regression model to identify the turning point beyond the traditional piecewise regression, as a completely non-linear approach.

Data used for this study is TIMSS 2019 United States sample. TIMSS is a project guided by the International Association for the …

Feature Selection In High-Dimensional Space With Applications To Gene Expression Data, Nishan Pantha

Theses

Recent years have seen rapid growth in high-dimensional datasets. Most existing machine learning (ML) algorithms fail in high-dimensional settings where many features could be redundant. A critical process of feature selection is thus applied in such a setting that helps in identifying the most relevant features while removing redundant ones. With the increase in high dimensionality, one is also faced with problems of efficiency and interpretation in performing such selection methods. Therefore, this thesis proposes a “novel” feature selection framework that uses an ensemble of interpretable ML algorithms to perform feature selection and the ranking of final features. Finally, this …

2023-2024 Halmos College Of Arts And Sciences Graduate Program Catalog, Nova Southeastern University

Halmos College of Arts and Sciences Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Increasing Impact Of North Atlantic Ocean Circulation On Sedimentary Processes Along The Passive Galicia Margin (Nw Spain) Over The Past 40 Million Years, Julia Haberkern, Till J.J. Hanebuth, Volkhard Spiess, Tilmann Schwenk

Marine Science

Off the Northwestern Iberian Peninsula, the vigorous bottom-current regime interacts with a complex seafloor topography inside the Galicia Interior Basin (GIB), which was tectonically shaped during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean basin in Cretaceous times. The evolving North Atlantic Ocean circulation determined the depositional pattern of the basin fill over time, which can, in turn, be utilized as palaeoceanographic archive. This study reconstructs the evolution of the GIB sedimentary system since the mid-Eocene, namely, resulting from interplay between down- and along-slope sediment-transport processes, using high-resolution multichannel seismic data. Six major depositional stages are identified and connected to the …

Public Records Aren't Public: Systemic Barriers To Measuring Court Functioning & Equity, Kat Albrecht, Kaitlyn Filip

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In a new era of computational legal scholarship, computational tools exist with the capacity to quickly and efficiently reveal hidden inequalities in the criminal legal system. Technically, laws exist that legally entitle the public to the requisite court records. However, the opaque bureaucracy of courts prevents us from connecting the public to documents they have a right to access. We exemplify this legal ethical problem by investigating areas of law where codified protections against inequalities exist and where computational tools could help us understand if those protections are being enforced. In general, the computational requirements of such projects needn’t be …

Impact Of Sars-Cov-2 Variants On Vaccine Breakthrough Infections, Nicholas Francis Guagliardi Chen

Public Health Theses

SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern are defined by their increased intrinsic transmissibility and ability to evade immune recognition and neutralization, yet the relative importance of these factors in determining variant fitness in population settings is unclear. We hypothesize that as population level immunity has increased throughout the course of the pandemic, immune escape has played an increasingly important role in the emergence and sustained circulation of variants. Here, we use logistic regression models to estimate the odds of vaccine breakthrough infections for several major variants of concern in a population of Connecticut residents. We investigate the impact of immune escape on …

Scoping Review On Gonorrhea Vaccines, Linyang Li

Public Health Theses

Gonorrhea infection is caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae and it is the second most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection around the globe. Although gonorrhea infection is treatable with antibiotics, the level of antimicrobial resistance continues to increase and has become a major public health concern. As options of available treatments are reduced by the emergence of AMR, it has become urgent to develop effective vaccines against gonorrhea infection. The purpose of this scoping review is to describe existing epidemiological evidence in support of gonorrhea vaccine development, to discuss the current vaccine candidates in clinical stages, and to evaluate the theoretical impact …

Ai Fairness: Assessment For Prediction Of Agitation In Mental Health Patients At Emergency Rooms, William Pang

Public Health Theses

Machine-Learning (ML) algorithms are increasingly used to assist clinicians in decision-making. Recent studies have shown, however, that machine learn- ing algorithms might be prone to unfairness, albeit unintentional. As such, it is important to ensure that algorithms do not discriminate against certain groups. This thesis examines an in-house algorithm used to predict agitation among mental-health patients in the emergency department and addresses biases that might arise from generated predictions.

Cost-Effective Analysis Of Rotavirus Vaccination In Dhaka, Bangladesh Using A Dynamic Model Of Rotavirus Transmission, Anher Pinky

Public Health Theses

Background: Despite the global introduction of rotavirus vaccinations across countries, Rotavirus infections continue to be a

leading cause of severe, dehydrating gastroenteritis in children under the age of 5 (Crawford et al., 2017). Bangladesh

experiences an extremely high burden where rotavirus infections contribute to 6,000–14,000 deaths each year in children <5

years of age (Rahman et al., 2007). A cost-effective analysis can aid decision-makers in determining the pros and cons of

introducing a rotavirus vaccination program in limited-resource countries.

Objective: A cost-effectiveness analysis was developed to evaluate the potential benefits of introducing rotavirus vaccination.

The analysis performed aims to inform key …

Developing And Using Cholera Models In Northwest Syria, Emily Rose Tobik

Public Health Theses

Researchers have utilized transmission dynamic modeling to determine interactions between hosts and pathogens in many humanitarian settings. However, modeling for the cholera outbreak in Northwest Syria (NWS) has yet to be completed. This thesis presents a path towards cholera model building in NWS by investigating the current cholera outbreak, outlining how to create a compartmental model in this region given its complexities, and determining ways potential cholera models could be utilized in NWS. Intricacies involving the region's ongoing civil war, significant internally displaced persons (IDP) population, and the February 2023 earthquake add complexities to modeling in this region. For the …

National Assessment Program: Ict Literacy 2022: Technical Report, Dominique Hall, Kate O'Malley, Renee Kwong, Emma Camus, Tim Friedman, Kristy Osborne, Zachary Watts, Dulce Lay

ICT - Digital Literacy

This report describes the various technical, operational and administrative procedures of the NAP– ICT Literacy 2022 assessment. It should be read in conjunction with the NAP–ICT Literacy 2022 Public Report, which presents a summary of the cognitive and contextual analysis of the data collected in the 2022 cycle. The assessment instrument used in NAP–ICT Literacy 2022 was based on the design principles established for NAP–ICT Literacy 2005, which continued through the assessment cycles in 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2017. The assessment was computer-based and included a broad range of task formats including multiple-choice, short text response, and simulated and authentic …

Reimagining The 4m Framework In Educational Development For Sotl, Mandy Frake-Mistak, Jennifer Friberg, Melanie Hamilton

Faculty Publications – Communication Sciences and Disorders

In this paper, we seek to contextualize our work in SoTL-focused educational development and those who work to support others in SoTL, as interstitially spaced across the 4M Framework, re-envisioned as a flexible but formalized professional continua. The establishment of a model for educational development SoTL-related activity allows for the opportunity to explore how this work is done in a systematic manner. We offer our ideas and visions through, what we term, the 4M Continua for Educational Development as a possible understanding of the work that SoTL-focused educational developers do, as well as those who engage in educational development more …

Identifying Potential Consequences Of Use Of A Measure Through Stakeholder Interviews, Melissa G. Kuhn, Joanna K. Garner, Shanan L. Chappell, Linda Bol

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The advent of Messick’s Contemporary Validity Theory (1994) led researchers in survey and measure design to develop and standardize qualitative and quantitative methods of collecting evidence for the validity of psychological instruments. However, one aspect of this theory, consequential validity, has few agreed-upon evidence-gathering methods (Furr & Bachrach, 2014). This study added a blueprint-driven interview method of collecting forecasted consequences of use of an instrument into the overall process of developing a measure of outreach impact on undergraduate engineering students (Authors, in press). The method, which included a purposeful sampling of end-users, is illustrated with thematically presented results. Potential implications …

Cit 3883 : Virtualization Technologies, Mathematics And Computer Science

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Cit 3863 : Cloud Services, Mathematics And Computer Science

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Multiomics For Elucidating The Pathogenesis Of Liver Cancers: A Transcriptomic Signature Of Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma, David R. Requena Anicama

Student Theses and Dissertations

Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma (FLC) is a rare liver cancer affecting adolescents and young adults. Almost all FLC patients present a somatic heterozygous deletion in chromosome 19p13.12, producing the chimeric transcript DNAJB1::PRKACA, which is sufficient to drive FLC in mice. Nevertheless, a few cases of liver tumors presenting FLC histopathological characteristics but missing the chimera DNAJB1::PRKACA have been reported. They have either 1) a lack of protein expression of PRKAR1A, 2) the presence of the chimeras ATP1B1::PRKACB or ATP1B1::PRKACA, or 3) a chromosome gain of PRKACA or loss of PRKAR2A, accompanied with inactivation of BAP1. A few RNA-seq studies compared FLC …

Importance Of Spending Time In Nature, Peyton M. Daniel

A with Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Data-Driven Dynamic Motion Planning For Practical Fes-Controlled Reaching Motions In Spinal Cord Injury, Derek N.N. Wolf, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert, Eric M. Schearer

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a promising technology for restoring reaching motions to individuals with upper-limb paralysis caused by a spinal cord injury (SCI). However, the limited muscle capabilities of an individual with SCI have made achieving FES-driven reaching difficult. We developed a novel trajectory optimization method that used experimentally measured muscle capability data to find feasible reaching trajectories. In a simulation based on a real-life individual with SCI, we compared our method to attempting to follow naive direct-to-target paths. We tested our trajectory planner with three control structures that are commonly used in applied FES: feedback, feedforward-feedback, and model …

Evsc 610-102: Environmental Chemical Science And Ene 663, Lijie Zhang

Chemistry, Environmental and Forensic Science Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Engram, Vol. 2 2023, Portland State University. School Of Art + Art History + Design

Engram: A Journal of Art History Student Writing

• Editorial Foreword, Hailey Brink

• Reading Queerness in Hilma af Klint’s Diagrammatic Abstractions, Ana Bane

• Opus Anglicanum and May Morris: An Art Historical Study in Meaning Through Time, Rose Caughie

• The Development of El Greco’s Technique Through Mary Magdalen, Natalie Dunlap

• The Great Gold Belt Buckle of Sutton Hoo: A Look at Scandinavian Influence on Anglo-Saxon Style, Elizabeth Hines

• The Late Avar Treasure of Nagyszentmiklos, Ashley Hood

• Demystifying the Authorship of Artemisia Gentileschi’s 1622 Susanna and the Elders Aaron, Lindsay Wilson

• Research-Based Fiction: Redemption in Ruins, John Hooley

Human Rights And Divine Holiness, Kevin Vallier

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Theists commonly hold that God endows humans with rights. Standard explanations draw on natural law theory or divine command theory. However, the natural law account does not give God a central role in explaining our rights, and the divine command account does not assign human nature a significant explanatory role. A successful theistic explanation of human rights must meet three conditions: (1) God must directly explain human rights; (2) human nature must also directly explain human rights; (3) this dual contribution must explain why morality forbids rights violations by grounding the deontic reasons associated with rights. I propose a holiness …

Disaster Relief And Humanitarian Logistics: Three Essays, Peter H. Imbriale

2023

The increased frequency and impact of natural disasters and other humanitarian crises—including events such as the COVID-19 pandemic—makes studying disaster relief and recovery particularly important. One relevant area of research in this space is humanitarian logistics. This dissertation provides insights into disaster relief logistics by exploring the government’s role in humanitarian logistics, examining the government’s efforts to address COVID-19 medical supply chain challenges, and determining how to lessen the impact of supply chain bottlenecks from unwanted post-disaster donations. Chapter one (sole-authored) is a literature review of the role of governments in humanitarian logistics. Although governments are vital stakeholders in nearly …

Using Data And Evidence To Improve Quality Of Life For Patients With Alzheimer’S Disease, Ying Wang

2023

As an irreversible, progressive brain disorder, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) imposes a severe burden upon patients and their caregivers, as well as the healthcare system. Of the ten leading causes of death in the United States, Alzheimer’s disease is the only one without a pharmacological intervention that has been proven to cure or delay the onset of the disease. Aging is the primary risk factor contributing to Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly. With an aging population that continues to grow, the challenges for the healthcare system surrounding AD become more and more serious. My dissertation aims to contribute to a better …

Digital Nudges: An Investigation Of Both Consumer And Designer Perspectives, Ja-Naé Duane

2023

This dissertation explores how knowledge of digital nudges impacts consumer decisions, and how consumer preferences based on that knowledge impacts design decisions. Paper 1 presents a systematic narrative literature review on the evolution of digital nudge literature. This investigation uncovers several themes and provides a basis for a revised definition of digital nudges and a taxonomy wheel of digital nudges. Paper 2 (co-authored with Jeffrey Livingston, Jonathan Ericson, and Patrick McHugh) investigates how knowledge about digital nudges impacts consumer preferences to have them within the digital experiences they use. This paper highlights how knowledge of digital nudges impact consumer online …