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Internalized Transphobia And The Development Of Disordered Eating Behaviors In Gender Diverse Adults, Bonnie Kester

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Gender diverse individuals experience a multitude of oppressive interactions within our society and receive incessant messages of invalidation, oppression, and aggression. These chronic stressors have been shown to increase the risk of developing disordered eating behaviors within this population. The current study aims to explore how internalized transphobia may affect the development of disordered eating behavior as viewed through the Minority Stress Framework. This study explored the lived experience of being gender diverse in our society and how this may relate to the development of disordered eating behavior while also investigating protective factors. This study utilized a qualitative phenomenological methodology, …

Relationship Goals: How Do Relational Therapists Conceptualize Cases And Treatment Plan When Working With Consensually Non-Monogamous Clients?, Caitlyn Burns

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study aimed to explore how relational therapists in the United States conceptualize cases and treatment plan when working with consensually non-monogamous clients and how dominant discourses about relationships (mononormativity) influence relational therapists during this process through a queer theory lens. This was a grounded theory study and surveyed a sample of thirty relational therapists or therapists-in- training. Results showed relational therapists conduct conceptualization and treatment planning through a two-part process. Therapists intend to treat CNM clients the same as any other client, but are unable to do so due to dominant discourses of mononormativity. Furthermore, mononormative discourses influenced relational …

Executive Functioning Among The Karyotypes In Turner Syndrome And Implications For Interventions, Sara Scull

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Turner syndrome (TS) is a genetic disorder seen in phenotypically female (pf) individuals who have either a complete or partial absence of the second sex (X) chromosome. TS includes different karyotypes, and it presents with a variety of phenotypic and genotypic features. In general, the neuropsychological profiles for individuals diagnosed suggest that TS can contribute to challenges in various aspects of daily life, including social and emotional functioning. With regard to academic performances, individuals with TS often present with relative strengths in a range of verbal abilities and relative weakness in visual-spatial/perceptual abilities, nonverbal memory, motor function, processing speed, executive …

Black Mental Health Clinicians' Experiences And Lessons From The Intersecting Crises Of Black Mental Health, Covid-19, And Racial Trauma: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Chanté Meadows

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the experiences of African American mental health clinicians’ during the intersecting crises of the Black mental health crisis, the highly publicized racial tension tied to extrajudicial violence and over-policing of Black Americans, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic started a global crisis that affected millions of people’s physical and mental health and overall well-being. Shared trauma explores the duality of mental health clinicians’ personal and professional experiences. Grounded in critical race theory and models of trauma, this study explores Black mental health clinicians’ lived experiences and lessons. This is an interpretive phenomenological study with narrative interviews of …

Mokṣa, Seeking A Humanizing Way Of Being: I Am Recognized. I Am Acknowledged. I Am Human., Lauralynn Jansen

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation delves into the intricate dimensions of humanization by shifting the analytical focus from denial and exclusion to affirmative aspects of inclusion. The central aim of this research is to unravel the mechanisms underlying the process of humanization, or how individuals perceive and internalize their being recognized as human beings. Employing the critical incident technique, this research methodically examined the lived experiences of a highly diverse group of individuals living with varying social stigmas and how they experience humanization. This research displays the intricate interplay of language, actions, and sensory elements engendered before, during, and after a humanizing moment. …

More Than Mindfulness: The Effectiveness Of An Ecospiritual Fellowship In Building Connection, Promoting Wellness, And Transforming The Ecological Worldviews Of Teachers, Medora West Willmore

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Action towards planetary well-being requires more than environmental awareness, acquisition of knowledge, or technological fixes; it necessitates a sacred connection, recognizing interdependence, and an ethic that maintains dignity for all non-human beings. It requires a shift in our ecological consciousness from the dominator and exploitative (I-it) view to the connected and participatory (I-thou) view which is best facilitated by an emerging paradigm called ecospirituality. For the next generation to adopt this paradigm, teachers must first adopt it. The research goal was to to transform teachers’ relationship with the natural world by enlisting ecospirituality as central in supporting teacher wellness, as …

From A Boy To A Leader, Alejandro Zayas

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The following autoethnographic dissertation examines my personal experiences of trauma, abuse, and violence. Drawing on journals, memories, and artifacts from my life, I use self-reflection to illustrate the impacts of trauma on my childhood and adulthood. My traumatic experiences of sexual abuse, childhood violence, and emotional abuse are situated within broader sociocultural contexts of masculinity, Hispanic culture, and social norms. This study illuminates possibilities for healing and transformation for myself and others with shared traumatic backgrounds. It calls for trauma-informed education, masculinity, and resiliency. Evocatively sharing my traumatic life events provides an accessible window into often silenced experiences, bearing witness …

New Family Law Statutes In 2022: Selected State Legislation, Family Law Quarterly 2022–23 Editors, New York Law School

Redefining Family Law: State Legislative Updates

This article provides summaries and context for 35 changes to family law that were enacted in 2022 by legislatures in 23 states. The topics include Child Custody, “Nonparent” Custody and Visitation, Child Representation and Child Welfare, Divorce and Alimony/Maintenance, Property Division, Child Support, Parentage, and Domestic Violence. These topics are based on annual Charts published in the Year in Review issue of the Family Law Quarterly. The Charts are updated each year to track changes in these specific areas of law and survey statutes within the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The laws in this article were …

Gvsu Undergraduate And Graduate Catalog, 2023-2024, Grand Valley State University

Course Catalogs, 1963 - Current

Grand Valley State University 2023-2024 undergraduate and graduate course catalog. Course catalogs are published annually to provide students with information and guidance for enrollment.

Evaluation Of Physiological Responses To Woodsmoke Inhalation During Exercise In Blood Pressure Sensitive/Chronotrope Stratified Individuals, Joseph Alan Sol

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The aim of this dissertation was to evaluate the acute physical reaction to WS exposure and identify potential fingerprints of physiological responses that may better illustrate the process leading to pathology from chronic exposure to particulate matter (PM). Study 1 developed a cost-effective, reproducible methodology for obtaining larger volume and pH-stable exhaled breath condensate (EBC) samples. Notably, the novel EBC device, compared to a commercially-available device, collected a larger sample volume, permitting an expansion in the number of biomarkers that could be examined in future WS exposures. The EBC device was then incorporated in Study 2, along with measuring key …

Tlr4 Adjuvanted Vaccine Against Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Virulence Factor, Pf Bacteriophage, Induces Increased Immunoglobulin Response And Highly Mutated Antigen-Specific B-Cell Receptors, Valery Cristina Roman-Cruz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is listed as a priority 1 pathogen by the World Health Organization. Although this Gram-negative bacterium is ubiquitous and can naturally be found in the environment, it is opportunistic. P. aeruginosa has a wide range of host immune evasion strategies; one such strategy is the establishment of biofilms. Pf bacteriophage, a P. aeruginosa virulence factor, can strengthen the integrity of biofilms and can also misdirect the host immune response from an appropriate anti-bacterial response to an anti-viral response. Previous studies have established that antibodies against Pf bacteriophage can enhance clearance of P. aeruginosa infections. Next generation adjuvants such …

A Biophysical Approach To Modeling Elevational Range Shifts In Colorado Mammal Communities, Ryan T. Mahar

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Species geographic ranges are shifting in the face of contemporary climate warming, and documenting range shifts is crucial to our understanding of the underlying drivers mediating movement in geographic range limits. Studies on elevational range shifts with climate change are beginning to accrue within the literature, though observed shifts are idiosyncratic and difficult to predict. Some species may respond to warming temperatures by shifting their range limits upslope, where temperatures are cooler owing to the adiabatic lapse rate. However, species may also respond to warming temperatures in an elevation-dependent manner: if changes in snow depth expose overwintering organisms to colder …

Quantifying The Effects Of Beaver Dams And Stream Restoration On Headwater Salmonid Populations, Andrew Biche Lahr

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The importance of freshwater habitats in supporting ecological communities and human civilization is irrefutable, yet they remain amongst the most imperiled systems in the world due to factors like resource extraction, non-native species, and climate change. In the Western United States, efforts to combat stream degradation and drought have sought to increase water storage, aggrade eroded stream beds, and increase base flows by promoting dam building by beavers and through restoration projects using human-made beaver dam analogs (BDAs). Even though beaver-related restoration projects are becoming increasingly popular, documentation of the effects of beaver dams and beaver-related restoration on headwater stream …

Life After Ice: Ecology Of Mountain Lakes Across Glacial And Elevation Gradients, Joseph William Vanderwall

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conceptual models of primary succession in lakes often do not match with empirical data. New lakes arising in mountain regions due to the loss of alpine glaciers offer an opportunity to study newly forming lakes. In addition to the loss of alpine glaciers, mountain lakes are currently experiencing rapid changes, including increased vegetation cover, variable snowpack, and increased nutrient deposition. In this dissertation, I used glacial and elevation gradients to investigate the ecology and biogeochemistry of early lakes and how they may change through time. The first chapter details the glacial gradient and shows that early lakes dominated by glacial …

Hydrologic Connectivity And Flow Generation From California Vernal Pool, Swale, And Headwater Stream Complexes To Downstream Waters, Leanne M. Stepchinski, Mark C. Rains, Lyndon C. Lee, Richard A. Lis, Wade L. Nutter, Kai C. Rains, Scott R. Stewart

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Many headwater wetlands are integrated into flowpath networks and can serve as sources of streamflow for downgradient waters. We demonstrate this with five years of data in vernal pool, swale, and headwater stream complexes in the Central Valley, California. Long-term United States Geological Survey data suggest that the mean flow duration from the smallest watersheds in this region, including those with vernal pool, swale, and headwater stream complexes, is ~ 85 days per year. Our data concur, indicating that the annual days of flow per year from our vernal pool, swale, and headwater stream complexes ranges from ~ 20–200, but …

Aquatic Invasive Species Survey And Treatment On Lake Umatilla And Lake Celilo 2022-2023 Report, Gabriel E. Campbell, Jacob Rose

Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Publications and Presentations

Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus) is an invasive aquatic plant in the Pacific Northwest that threatens salmon habitat. The Center for Lakes and Reservoirs staff surveyed for this and other aquatic species from 2022 and 2023 in the Columbia River in Lake Umatilla and Lake Celilo. This document summarizes their survey efforts including their protocols, data, and small-scale removal efforts.

Probabilistic Solutions Of Fractional Differential And Partial Differential Equations And Their Monte Carlo Simulations, Tamer Oraby, Erwin Suazo, Harrinson Arrubla

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The work in this paper is four-fold. Firstly, we introduce an alternative approach to solve fractional ordinary differential equations as an expected value of a random time process. Using the latter, we present an interesting numerical approach based on Monte Carlo integration to simulate solutions of fractional ordinary and partial differential equations. Thirdly, we show that this approach allows us to find the fundamental solutions for fractional partial differential equations (PDEs), in which the fractional derivative in time is in the Caputo sense and the fractional in space one is in the Riesz–Feller sense. Lastly, using Riccati equation, we …

Equity In Focus : Investigating Gender Disparities In Glioblastoma Via Propensity Score Matching, Solomon Eshun

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Gender disparities in health outcomes have garnered significant attention, prompting investigations into their underlying causes. Glioblastoma (GBM), a devastating and highly aggressive form of brain tumor, serves as a case for such inquiries. Despite the mounting evidence on gender disparities in GBM outcomes, investigations specific at the molecular level remain scarce and often limited by confounding biases in observational studies. In this study, I aimed to investigate the gender-related differences in GBM outcomes using propensity score matching (PSM) to control for potential confounding variables. The data used was accessed from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), encompassing factors such as gender, …

Incidents Of Snake Fungal Disease Caused By The Fungal Pathogen Ophidiomyces Ophidiicola In Texas, Alan Lizarraga, Lezley Hart, Michele Nolen, Lance R. Williams, Joseph S. Glavy

Pharmacy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The pathogen Ophidiomyces ophidiicola, widely known as the primary cause of snake fungal disease (SFD), has been detected in Texas’s naïve snakes. Our team set out to characterize O. ophidiicola’s spread in eastern Texas. From December 2018 until November 2021, we sampled and screened with ultraviolet (UV) light 176 snakes across eastern Texas and detected 27. O. ophidiicola’s positive snakes using qPCR and one snake in which SFD was confirmed via additional histological examination. Upon finding the ribbon snake with a clear clinical display, we isolated and cultured what we believe to be the first culture from Texas. This cultured …

Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity Across Time And Space, Simone M. Müller, May-Brith Ohman Nielsen

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

An interdisciplinary environmental humanities volume that explores human-environment relationships on our permanently polluted planet.

While toxicity and pollution are ever present in modern daily life, politicians, juridical systems, media outlets, scholars, and the public alike show great difficulty in detecting, defining, monitoring, or generally coming to terms with them. This volume’s contributors argue that the source of this difficulty lies in the struggle to make sense of the intersecting temporal and spatial scales working on the human and more-than-human body, while continuing to acknowledge race, class, and gender in terms of global environmental justice and social inequality.

The term toxic …

Optimizing Deep Q-Learning Experience Replay With Shap Explanations: Exploring Minimum Experience Replay Buffer Sizes In Reinforcement Learning, Robert S. Sullivan, Luca Longo, Artificial Intelligence And Cognitive Load Research Lab

Conference papers

Explainable Reinforcement Learning (xRL) faces challenges in debugging and interpreting Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) models. A lack of understanding for internal components like Experience Replay, which samples and stores data from the environment, risks burdening resources. This paper presents an xRL-based Deep Q-Learning (DQL) system using SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to explain input feature contributions. Data is sampled from Experience Replay, creating SHAP Heatmaps to understand how it influences the neural network Q-value approximator's actions. The xRL-based system aids in determining the smallest Experience Replay size for 23 simulations of varying complexities. It contributes an xRL optimization method, alongside traditional …

Chemosensory System Of Tsetse Flies (Diptera: Glossinidae), M. N. Getahun, R. W. Macharia, S. G. Nyanjom, G. F. Obiero, S. Diallo, P. O. Mireji, D. Masiga

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Tsetse flies are exclusively hematophagous and vectors of trypanosomes, which cause human and animal African trypanosomiasis. They are widely distributed in Africa, with 33 extant taxa and 22 species in three sub-genera. Despite a low reproductive rate, tsetse can maintain populations large enough to cause the restriction of the economic use of large areas of tropical Africa through the transmission of trypanosomiases. This success is largely due to their ability to navigate in their environments, using olfactory signals, which elicit critical behavioural phenotypes, such as attraction to hosts for blood meals, larviposition and resting sites, as well as avoidance of …

Drones For Large-Scale Wildlife Surveys: Raw Data To Support Manuscript - Hodgson Et Al, Amanda Hodgson

Research Datasets

We conducted trial ScanEagle drone surveys of dugongs in Shark Bay, Western Australia, covering the full extent of the drone’s range (~ 100 km), concurrently with observer surveys, with drone flying above or just behind the piloted aircraft. We aimed to test the assumption that drone imagery could provide comparable detection rates of dugongs to human observers when influenced by same environmental conditions. Data in "All data for analysis - Shark Bay Hodgson et al" include a summary of the sightings from both platforms per transect segment, including associated environmental covariates. Also included are details of each dugong group sighted …

Cellbrf: A Feature Selection Method For Single-Cell Clustering Using Cell Balance And Random Forest, Yunpei Xu, Hong-Dong Li, Cui-Xiang Lin, Ruiqing Zheng, Yaohang Li, Jinhui Xu, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Motivation

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) offers a powerful tool to dissect the complexity of biological tissues through cell sub-population identification in combination with clustering approaches. Feature selection is a critical step for improving the accuracy and interpretability of single-cell clustering. Existing feature selection methods underutilize the discriminatory potential of genes across distinct cell types. We hypothesize that incorporating such information could further boost the performance of single cell clustering. Results

We develop CellBRF, a feature selection method that considers genes’ relevance to cell types for single-cell clustering. The key idea is to identify genes that are most important for discriminating …

A Single-Cell Atlas Of Bovine Skeletal Muscle Reveals Mechanisms Regulating Intramuscular Adipogenesis And Fibrogenesis, Leshan Wang, Peidong Gao, Chaoyang Li, Qianglin Liu, Zeyang Yao, Yuxia Li, Xujia Zhang, Jiangwen Sun, Constantine Simintiras, Matthew Welborn, Kenneth Mcmillin, Stephanie Oprescu, Shihuan Kuang, Xing Fu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background

Intramuscular fat (IMF) and intramuscular connective tissue (IMC) are often seen in human myopathies and are central to beef quality. The mechanisms regulating their accumulation remain poorly understood. Here, we explored the possibility of using beef cattle as a novel model for mechanistic studies of intramuscular adipogenesis and fibrogenesis.

Methods

Skeletal muscle single-cell RNAseq was performed on three cattle breeds, including Wagyu (high IMF), Brahman (abundant IMC but scarce IMF), and Wagyu/Brahman cross. Sophisticated bioinformatics analyses, including clustering analysis, gene set enrichment analyses, gene regulatory network construction, RNA velocity, pseudotime analysis, and cell-cell communication analysis, were performed to elucidate …

Msdrp: A Deep Learning Model Based On Multisource Data For Predicting Drug Response, Haochen Zhao, Xiaoyu Zhang, Qichang Zhao, Yaohang Li, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Motivation: Cancer heterogeneity drastically affects cancer therapeutic outcomes. Predicting drug response in vitro is expected to help formulate personalized therapy regimens. In recent years, several computational models based on machine learning and deep learning have been proposed to predict drug response in vitro. However, most of these methods capture drug features based on a single drug description (e.g. drug structure), without considering the relationships between drugs and biological entities (e.g. target, diseases, and side effects). Moreover, most of these methods collect features separately for drugs and cell lines but fail to consider the pairwise interactions between drugs and cell …

An Approach To Developing Benchmark Datasets For Protein Secondary Structure Segmentation From Cryo-Em Density Maps, Thu Nguyen, Yongcheng Mu, Jiangwen Sun, Jing He

Computer Science Faculty Publications

More and more deep learning approaches have been proposed to segment secondary structures from cryo-electron density maps at medium resolution range (5--10Å). Although the deep learning approaches show great potential, only a few small experimental data sets have been used to test the approaches. There is limited understanding about potential factors, in data, that affect the performance of segmentation. We propose an approach to generate data sets with desired specifications in three potential factors - the protein sequence identity, structural contents, and data quality. The approach was implemented and has generated a test set and various training sets to study …

A Single-Cell Atlas Of Bovine Skeletal Muscle Reveals Mechanisms Regulating Intramuscular Adipogenesis And Fibrogenesis, Leshan Wang, Peidong Gao, Chaoyag Li, Qianglin Liu, Zeyang Yao, Yuxia Li, Xujia Zhang, Jiangwen Sun, Constantine Simintiras, Matthew Welborn, Kenneth Mcmillin, Stephanie Oprescu, Shihuan Kuang, Xing Fu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Background: Intramuscular fat (IMF) and intramuscular connective tissue (IMC) are often seen in human myopathies and are central to beef quality. The mechanisms regulating their accumulation remain poorly understood. Here, we explored the possibility of using beef cattle as a novel model for mechanistic studies of intramuscular adipogenesis and fibrogenesis.

Methods: Skeletal muscle single-cell RNAseq was performed on three cattle breeds, including Wagyu (high IMF), Brahman (abundant IMC but scarce IMF), and Wagyu/Brahman cross. Sophisticated bioinformatics analyses, including clustering analysis, gene set enrichment analyses, gene regulatory network construction, RNA velocity, pseudotime analysis, and cell-cell communication analysis, were performed to elucidate …

Unttangling Irregular Actin Cytoskeleton Architectures In Tomograms Of The Cell With Struwwel Tracer, Salim Sazzed, Peter Scheible, Jing He, Willy Wriggers

Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this work, we established, validated, and optimized a novel computational framework for tracing arbitrarily oriented actin filaments in cryo-electron tomography maps. Our approach was designed for highly complex intracellular architectures in which a long-range cytoskeleton network extends throughout the cell bodies and protrusions. The irregular organization of the actin network, as well as cryo-electron-tomography-specific noise, missing wedge artifacts, and map dimensions call for a specialized implementation that is both robust and efficient. Our proposed solution, Struwwel Tracer, accumulates densities along paths of a specific length in various directions, starting from locally determined seed points. The highest-density paths originating …

Response Of Some Mango-Infesting Fruit Flies To Aqueous Solutions Of The Basil Plant Ocimum Tenuiflorum L, Saliou Niassy, Samira Abuelgasim Mohamed, Xavier Cheseto, Evanson Rigan Omuse, John Bwire Ochola, Fathiya Mbarak Khamis, Boubacar Badji, Sheppard Ndlela, Levi Ombura, Noelah Leah Okun, David Mfuti Kupesa, Thomas Dubois, Yeneneh Taye Belayneh, Sevgan Subramanian, Sunday Ekesi

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Introduction: Horticulture is an important sub-sector for many African countries. Tephritid fruit flies continue to cause serious direct and indirect damage to the sub-sector. The male annihilation technique (MAT) using methyl eugenol (ME) is among the most revered techniques in fruit fly management. However, ME-based lures are only available to some farmers in Africa. Several basils of the genus Ocimum produce ME. Methods: In laboratory experiments, we used a dual choice olfactometer to assess the attraction of adult oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis to intact plants, 100 µL commercial methyl eugenol (ME) (positive control), 10 mg/mL of O. tenuiflorum aqueous …