Digital Commons Network^™

Simultaneous Submission Of Seven Ctsa Proposals: Um1, K12, R25, T32-Predoctoral, T32-Postdoctoral, And Rc2: Strategies, Evaluation, And Lessons Learned, Carolina Lema, Kwai Wa Cheng, Delanderia M Anderson, Charles C Miller, Daniel D Karp, David D Mcpherson, Satya Sree N Kolar

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Translation is the process of turning observations in the research laboratory, clinic, and community into interventions that improve people's health. The Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program is a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) initiative to advance translational science and research. Currently, 64 "CTSA hubs" exist across the nation. Since 2006, the Houston-based Center for Clinical Translational Sciences (CCTS) has assembled a well-integrated, high-impact hub in Texas that includes six partner institutions within the state, encompassing ∼23,000 sq. miles and over 16 million residents. To achieve the NCATS goal of "more treatments for all people more quickly," …

A Descriptive Study Of The Perception Of Emerging Adults Aged 18-25 Years Toward Police Efficacy And Image In The United States, Jude Louis

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of emerging adults toward police efficacy and image. The study was descriptive, used quantitative methodology, and utilized a non-experimental design. Close-ended questions were used in an online format to survey emerging adults aged 18-25 years in the United States. The data was collected using the SurveyMonkey Audience, which was relatively cost-effective, able to gather information from the target audience within a short period of time, and efficient with any sample size. The study occurred over two months in 2024. Emerging adults in the United States aged 18-25 years irrespective of …

Spouse Violence In Case Of Police Officers In Puerto Rico: Violence In Police Families, Jorge Ismael Suarez

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to explore the relationship between factors related to police work and whether these factors help predict domestic violence in a sample of officers of the Puerto Rico Police. The following factors were explored in this study: external burnout, alcohol abuse, department withdrawal, and authoritarian spillover. This study was based on a previous study by Johnson et al. (2005), which revealed that violence exposure and domestic violence among police officers are linked according to four mediation chains. The mediation chain was a model implemented by the authors to determine the influence of burnout, authoritarian spillover, alcohol …

Administrators’ Perceptions Of The Impact Of Restorative Practices On Discipline Referrals And Suspension Rates In A Rural Elementary School, Gregory W. Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed in the study involved excessive out-of-school suspensions, which have been a major concern for public school educators for decades. The purpose of the study explored the perceptions of participants regarding the effects of implementing restorative practices on suspension rates at a rural elementary school.The qualitative phenomenology study used a purposive sample of 10 educators who interacted with students suspended for violating the school's code of conduct. Six kindergarten through Grade 5 teachers, two Grades 3–5 grade-level chairpersons, the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support coordinator, and one administrator participated in the study. Utilizing case study approaches, this qualitative …

African American Parents And School-Based Parental Involvement At The Secondary Level, Mark A. Dykes

Theses and Dissertations

Parental involvement is a multifaceted construct that includes school-based, home-based, and academic socialization. School-based parental involvement in education has been positively associated with academic achievement for all students. However, educational leaders are challenged to get parents involved in school-based activities, such as the School Site Council, Parent Council, and Open Houses.

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to examine the reasons why African American parents are not fully involved in the policymaking and organizational activities at the target secondary school. This study is guided by the combined conceptual frameworks of Critical Race Theory, the Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler framework, …

A Post-Pandemic Measurement Of The Required Soft Employability Skills For Business School Graduates, Sean O. Stallings

Theses and Dissertations

This non-experimental descriptive quantitative applied dissertation was designed to identify and analyze the soft employability skills desired by mid-Atlantic employers of business school graduates in a post-pandemic environment. The study evaluated alignment of the competencies possessed by business school graduates and the desired skills of employers. The study explored opportunities to guide change in the development of learning outcomes for business school undergraduates that were influenced by the effects of COVID-19 to ensure adequate postgraduation placement and overall effectiveness of business school graduates.

Workplace readiness or employability also included identifying new hires who had the full package that included hard …

Black Teachers, Black Students, And Cultural Brokering: Leveraging Positionality To Strengthen Academic Identity, Shakasha L. Stevenson

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilized a phenomenological photovoice approach to understand the lived experiences of veteran Black high school teachers. Black teachers are positioned to serve as cultural brokers to support the academic identity of Black students. The prevalence of symbolic violence in the Eurocentric curriculum and other curricular practices continues to hinder successful outcomes for Black students. The study leverages the experiences of Black teachers to understand how their positionalities influence their decision-making and pedagogical practices.

The literature review explored research on the social and political implications of Black education, Black identity development, cultural brokering, and academic identity. More specifically, the …

Should We Disaggregate Latino Youths Based On Ancestral Group When Examining Risk Factors Of Violent And Delinquent Behavior, Elvis G. Sevilla

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers frequently aggregate Latino subgroups during statistical analyses despite findings indicating that cultural distinctions within Latino subgroups have unintended hidden impacts on analyses. This study disaggregated the Latino sample to assess if Latino youth samples differ among subgroups (i.e., Mexicans/Mexican Americans, Cubans/Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, Central/South Americans, and other Latinos) who self-reported violent and nonviolent delinquent behavior. Also, this study used Sampson and Laub’s age-graded theory to investigate life-course characteristics that predicted violent and nonviolent delinquent behaviors. A two-step approach analysis determined the differences in violent and delinquent behaviors among Latino subgroups and then which life-course risk factors predicted the …

Campus Police Legitimacy And Campus Crime Reporting: Moderating Effects Of Academic Major, James Earl Lyons Ii

Theses and Dissertations

Investigating crimes on college campuses is a prevalent phenomenon that often requires student cooperation with campus police. Using the procedural justice theory’s process-based approach, this applied research examined the likelihood of students reporting campus crime based on their perceived legitimacy of campus police and whether the student’s academic major moderated the relationship. The study used a quantitative, non-experimental design employing non-probability sampling methods.

Procedural justice is a theoretical approach that explains cooperation with police as the result of interactions. The theory asserts that regardless of the outcome, when citizens perceive interactions with police as procedurally just and fair, they are …

Punitive Experiences: Perspectives Of School Discipline Among Black American Males, Joseph Martin King

Theses and Dissertations

Among student groups within American public schools to date, Black males continue to be one of the most marginalized student groups in America. In spite of all the documented research findings that describe the problem from a research, policy, and practice standpoint, and given the plethora of well-documented knowledge of structural patterns identified and labeled as zero-tolerance policies and/or the school-to-prison pipeline, in conjunction with school reform attempts, Black males remain the largest segment of students who are academically discouraged and disproportionally affected by discipline in American public schools. Among the abundance of academic literature that describes the academic marginalization …

A Study Of K-5 Teacher Perceptions Of Home Visits On Attitude, Belief, And Behavior, Dene E. Gainey

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the qualitative descriptive study was to explore teacher perceptions of attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs as it pertained to home visits. The body of research available prior to the study focused on parent appreciation and takeaways from home visit experiences and/or students’ achievement as it pertained to having experienced a teacher coming into their home environments. Specifically, the researcher wanted to understand how K-5 teachers perceived their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs prior to conducting home visits, during home visits and after the home visits were completed.

Through semi-structured interviews, participants were asked a series of questions that were …

A Qualitative Descriptive Study Of The Perspectives Of Health Care Leaders Concerning The Implementation Of Telehealth, Gary Gerard Camille

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how healthcare leaders on the east coast United States described the role of implementing, the outer setting, inner setting, individual characteristics, and the process when implementing telehealth in a patient-centered care environment in hospitals and healthcare facilities.

The study used a qualitative method with a descriptive design to capture the descriptions of the participant’s experience during the implementation of telehealth in a patient centered care environment in different health care facilities in east coast of the United States. Due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the interview sessions and …

The Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach With Contingency Management: Examining The Effectiveness Of Relapse Prevention Program For Adolescents, Gwendolyn Bullard

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to examine the efficacy of the adolescent community reinforcement approach with and without contingency management to improve the lives of adolescents with substance use disorder in relapse prevention programs. Adolescents with substance use disorder do not have access to effective continuing care and relapse prevention in rural towns in the state of Georgia. There is no ongoing care for adolescents with substance use disorder that incorporates a comprehensive treatment plan that includes community reinforcement approaches along with contingency management.

Relying on a multi-element research design, the researcher investigated the interaction between the adolescent community reinforcement …

Middle School Mainstream Educators’ Perceptions Of Preparedness For Teaching English Language Learners, Jessica Lebron

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was crafted to investigate the perspectives of middle school educators concerning their preparedness to instruct English language learners (ELL), an expanding subgroup of students. Given that over half of the student population in the target school district communicates in languages other than English at home, there is a heightened emphasis on fostering language and cultural connections between educators and students. Despite this, a significant number of educators within the school expressed a sense of inadequacy in teaching ELL students. In response to these concerns, some educators proactively sought additional, more specialized professional development opportunities to enhance their …

A Qualitative Study: Sex Offenders’ Perceptions Of The State’S Sex Offender Registry, Ann Marie Elliott

Theses and Dissertations

Sex offender registries (SOR) were created because of gruesome crimes committed against minors and the vulnerable, and they serve as a punishment. Empirically, SORs have become more functional over the years, so providing accurate information should be fundamental. It is the topic of discussion in many conversations, specifically during holidays and events involving minors, and it is used for background searches and ongoing investigations. Consequently, society expects the information displayed to be precise. Inaccurate information can potentially be harmful, especially to sex offenders. Nevertheless, when SOR is mentioned, rightfully so, society, including law enforcement, immediately exhibits sympathetic emotions for the …

In Their Own Words: The Unique Perceptions Of Minority Encounters With Law Enforcement, Summer Louis

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the perceptions of people of color who have experienced interactions with law enforcement during adulthood. Utilizing a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 12 individuals of color. The findings illuminated various perceptions significantly influenced by personal experiences and community context. The most prominent themes identified by the majority of participants include: (1) frequency of police encounters; (2) personal experiences with law enforcement; (3) negative experiences; (4) racial profiling; (5) police misconduct or mistreatment; (6) police use of force and excessive force; (7) contributing factors to these experiences; (8) perceptions of law enforcement …

Pressure Points: A Quantitative Study Of Young Adults Perception Of Police Officers, Yasmean Talas

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to quantify factors contributing to young adults' perceptions of law enforcement based on their experiences and exchanges with police. Data were collected via an online survey from young adults to assess variables such as peer influence, familial influence, social media impact, police interactions, and perceptions of law enforcement (POPS).

On average, participants exhibited neutral perceptions of law enforcement. The analyses revealed significant relationships between family influence, social media impact, police interactions, and POPS scores. Specifically, family and police interactions showed significantly positive associations with POPS scores, indicating that strong family bonds and positive police interactions tend to …

Case Study: Implementing Strategies To Meet The Needs Of English Language Learners, Sierra Brooks

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide an understanding of effective ways to meet the needs of English language learners. To focus its inquiry and gain a thorough understanding of the experiences and methods of teachers in various classroom environments, the study used a case study approach. Extensive interviews with the participants yielded interesting insights into the methods they use to tailor their instruction to the requirements of their students as well as the useful resources they include into their instruction. A thorough grasp of instructional dynamics was also made possible by the participants' permission for the researcher to observe …

Strategies Teachers Use To Encourage Student Reading Motivation And Engagement In The High School Setting: A Generic Qualitative Study, Shelia Tate

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to provide an understanding of the practices and strategies used by Title 1 high school teachers to promote student reading motivation and engagement. Engaging students in the curriculum and motivating them to read is essential to a successful classroom experience. As districts move to a more prescribed curriculum with provided scope and sequence, teachers look for ways to engage their students and provide relevant resources to meet their students' needs creatively.

The researcher interviewed teachers to explore their beliefs, strategies, and practices for fostering student reading motivation and classroom engagement in high school. The guiding …

Female Offenders: Exploring Risk Factors For Adulthood Violence, Lauren N. Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

The number of females under correctional supervision has been increasing in the last four decades. For adult women, these offenses are generally drug offenses; however, there have also been increases in the number of women committing violent crimes. Unfortunately, violent females are an understudied population, which limits the data available to inform programs and policies that could address the problem. This study explored potential factors related to violent behavior among adult females by analyzing public-use data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016. More specifically, violent and nonviolent state and federal female inmates were assessed regarding …

Exploring The Role Of The Teacher In Motivating Students To Learn Mathematics At Alternative High Schools, Anne-Marie Johanne Mohammed

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this applied dissertation was to provide an in-depth understanding of the teacher’s role in motivating students to learn mathematics at alternative high schools because motivation impacts academic achievement in mathematics. Students in South Florida must pass an end-of-course exam in algebra as a requirement to receive a high school diploma. Therefore, it is essential that students are motivated to learn the mathematics concepts that are necessary to pass the end-of-course exam. This research study was guided by the following research questions:

1. How and in what ways do mathematics teachers adjust and integrate instructional strategies to support …

Active Code Learning: Benchmarking Sample-Efficient Training Of Code Models, Qiang Hu, Yuejun Guo, Xiaofei Xie, Maxime Cordy, Lei Ma, Mike Papadakis, Yves Le Traon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The costly human effort required to prepare the training data of machine learning (ML) models hinders their practical development and usage in software engineering (ML4Code), especially for those with limited budgets. Therefore, efficiently training models of code with less human effort has become an emergent problem. Active learning is such a technique to address this issue that allows developers to train a model with reduced data while producing models with desired performance, which has been well studied in computer vision and natural language processing domains. Unfortunately, there is no such work that explores the effectiveness of active learning for code …

Soci+: An Enhanced Toolkit For Secure Outsourced Computation On Integers, Bowen Zhao, Weiquan Deng, Xiaoguo Li, Ximeng Liu, Qingqi Pei, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Secure outsourced computation is critical for cloud computing to safeguard data confidentiality and ensure data usability. Recently, secure outsourced computation schemes following a twin-server architecture based on partially homomorphic cryptosystems have received increasing attention. The Secure Outsourced Computation on Integers (SOCI) [1] toolkit is the state-of-the-art among these schemes which can perform secure computation on integers without requiring the costly bootstrapping operation as in fully homomorphic encryption; however, SOCI suffers from relatively large computation and communication overhead. In this paper, we propose SOCI+ which significantly improves the performance of SOCI. Specifically, SOCI+ employs a novel (2,2)-threshold Paillier cryptosystem with fast …

Characterization Of A Single Bladed Propeller Used For Actuating An Autonomous Undersea Vehicle, Donald Samuel Alexander

Open Access Master's Theses

An asymmetric propulsion design using a single bladed propeller is proposed as a viable method for a Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) to obtain maneuvering capability in all 6 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) with a single actuator. This substantially reduces the cost of the UUV while enabling it to perform missions which could be assigned to an Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) or Remotely Operate Vehicle (ROV). However, they are also extremely expensive for most research applications. Current UUV architecture is either optimized for long endurance survey missions as AUVs or precise maneuvering as tethered ROVs. Both versions require several hull actuators …

A C-Met Receptor Targeting Nanoparticle Platform For Combination Therapy Against Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Subarna Das

Open Access Master's Theses

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) poses a significant global health challenge, being the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer death, with over 906,000 new cases and 830,000 fatalities globally in 2020. Conventional HCC treatments like surgery, transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), and chemotherapy are limited by high recurrence rates, limited patient eligibility - particularly applicable only to a subset with early-stage disease and optimal liver function - and chemoresistance, complicating effective disease management. Existing targeted drug therapies are often hampered by limited efficacy, with many patients experiencing rapid disease progression or significant adverse effects. This situation is further exacerbated …

Rcs-Slam: Range Of Communication Swarm Slam, Adam J. Hoburg

Open Access Master's Theses

This work presents Range of Communication Swarm SLAM (RCS-SLAM) as a novel approach to simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) that is better suited for swarm robotic systems. RCS-SLAM introduces a novel SLAM front-end that leverages the effective range of an inter-robot communication medium to add inequality constraints between nodes in a pose graph whenever two robots communicate or relay communications. The centralized SLAM back-end then converts the inequality constrained pose graph into an unconstrained optimization problem using the penalty method to enforce the maximum possible range between communicating nodes. Converting to an unconstrained problem allows for the estimate to optimized …

Innovative Bioink Formulation For 3d Bioprinting Of Tissue-Engineered Intervertebral Disc Implants, Sophia Boiani

Open Access Master's Theses

Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is a significant contributor to back pain and disability globally, necessitating advancements in treatment options. This thesis presents the development and characterization of a novel bioink to be used for generating 3D bioprinted tissue-engineered constructs of the nucleus pulposus (NP) region of the IVD. The bioink, a composite of methylcellulose (MC, 7 wt%), polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA, 15 wt%), and Lithium phenyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoylphosphinate (LAP, 0.1 wt%), is optimized for enhanced mechanical properties and cellular integration. Polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles were also incorporated in the hydrogel to potentially delivery growth factors in the future, which will support cell …

Contested Landscapes: The Origins And Consequences Of Rhode Island’S Land-Grant Institutions (1862-1892), Jenny Sullivan

Open Access Master's Theses

The Morrill Act of 1862 granted states thousands of acres of federal land, or land scrip for those states that did not have sufficient available public land, for the development of higher education institutions throughout the United States. Rhode Island was granted 120,000 acres of scrip to be located, sold, and then invested in stocks to create an endowment. The mismanagement of this allocation caused Rhode Island to earn the lowest cents/acre payout from the scrip lands. Land dispossession occurred on many levels, over many years, and the scars of these historic policies are still seen and felt today. However, …

A Longitudinal Study Of Nonword Repetition In Bilingual Typically-Developing Children And Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder, Melissa Kluglein

Open Access Master's Theses

This study aims to investigate nonword repetition (NWR) performance longitudinally in Spanish-English bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Two hundred and thirty -- typically- developing (TD) children and 41 children with DLD participated in NWR tasks in both English and Spanish. These children entered the study and were followed for 2 to 4 years between kindergarten to fifth grade. Language ability status, age, age of first exposure to English, percent of current language use, semantics, and morphosyntax measures were collected. The results indicated that, when comparing rates of change (slopes) between TD and DLD groups, there was …

Motor Insurance Claims Prediction: Comparative Study Using Machine Learning, Sankhadip Roy

Open Access Master's Theses

The report by the Insurance Information Institute underscores a notable increase in both claims frequency and severity, particularly highlighting a significant surge in accident claim severity within US car insurance from 2010 to 2019. Simultaneously, there has been a marked rise in the average expenditure on US car insurance during this timeframe. These shifts emphasize the critical need for accurate predictions to fine-tune premium adjustments and enhance the accessibility of car insurance coverage for a broader demographic of drivers. Consequently, numerous insurance companies are transitioning from traditional methodologies to incorporate machine learning (ML) techniques, providing a more sophisticated and reliable …