Digital Commons Network^™

Identity Formation Of A Pre-Service Art Educator: An Arts-Based Approach To Data Visualization As A Means Of Understanding Personal Experience, Kelsey L. Peterson Mays

Theses and Dissertations

This research centers on the emotional experience of the author as a pre-service art educator during her student teaching semester. The research utilized art-based data collection methods and analyzed both written and visual reflections over an eight-week period of teaching art at the elementary school level. The culmination of findings is synthesized in the form of a body of four visual artworks, where each work reflects the data collected over a consecutive period of two weeks. The study investigated the causation and ramifications of certain emotions during a transitional time wherein the author existed in a liminal space between student …

Characterization Of Outer Surface Protein C Of Borreliella Role In Host Tropism, Kathryn Mf Chambers

Theses and Dissertations

The Lyme disease spirochetes, Borreliella spp., are maintained in nature through a complex enzootic cycle involving Ixodes ticks and a diverse set of reservoir hosts. The outer surface protein C (OspC) of the bacterium is an essential virulence factor required for transmission from ticks and early infection of mammals. Deletion of ospC abolishes infectivity, yet the precise molecular mechanisms underlying OspC function remain incompletely defined. In this dissertation, I examined the contribution of OspC type identity to host specificity. OspC is highly diverse, with over 30 genetically stable types described. While intra-type sequences are conserved (>95% amino acid …

Genetic Studies At The Intersection Of Alcohol Use And Pain, Walker Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol use disorder and pain are complex public health concerns affecting millions of people, and these conditions are often characterized by a bidirectional relationship. People experiencing pain may drink alcohol for its analgesic effects. In turn, excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to conditions that cause pain, leading to an escalating feedback loop of pain and alcohol use. Negating this cycle requires a nuanced understanding of the mechanisms underlying alcohol analgesia, which are presently not fully understood. The Miles and Damaj labs have previously shown that ethanol-induced antinociception is moderately heritable in mice, indicating a genetic component to the trait. …

Opioid Tolerance And Withdrawal In The Mouse Colon, James Fune

Theses and Dissertations

Constipation is a major clinical obstacle associated with opioids, prompting patients to discontinue treatment due to pain, discomfort, and psychosocial stressors. Moreover, chronic users become tolerant to the analgesic effects of opioids, but not to their constipating effects. Upon cessation of long-term treatment, serious diarrhea–among other somatic signs of withdrawal–may ensue. These symptoms become a driving factor for relapse, causing patients to restart opioid treatment. In this study, we aim to understand mechanisms that contribute to opioid tolerance and withdrawal in the colon. Previous findings suggest that constipation occurs partly due to the colon’s lack of tolerance to opioids’ inhibitory …

Dickkopf1(Dkk1): A Novel Endogenous Ligand To Prime Nlrp3 Inflammasome Via Tlr4, Theingi Aung

Theses and Dissertations

Dickkopf1(DKK1) is a quintessential Wnt antagonist and immunomodulator in various inflammatory diseases. The underlying molecular mechanisms of DKK1-mediated immunomodulation remain elusive. Here, we identified TLR4 as a new receptor for DKK1 to activate NFκΒ pathway-mediated gene expression and pyroptosis via NLRP3 inflammasome in human and mouse macrophages.

DKK1 employed TLR4 to initiate NFκB signaling cascade via MyD88. MyD88-TAK1-NFκΒ pathway activation by DKK1 increased HIF1α, NFκB, and NLRP3 protein expression levels, leading to pyroptosis. Unlike LPS, DKK1 did not induce IRAK4 phosphorylation, while the interaction between MyD88 and IRAK4 was maintained for downstream signaling activation. DKK1 did not induce IRF3 phosphorylation …

“Some Vague Utopia”: Searching For Urania, Moira L. Neve

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the global pendulum swing of gender trouble marked by the United States’ President’s declaration that there are only two sexes, activists have been rejecting assimilation (ie. defining equality as gay marriage or queer people in the military) within queer studies long before 2025. In the first half of the 20th century, a journal by the name of Urania (1916-1940), privately published and circulated to their home base in the United Kingdom and beyond, five editors (Esther Roper, Eva Gore-Booth, Jessey Wade, Dorothy Cornish, and Irene Clyde/Thomas Baty), challenged the gender binary and the resulting assumptions of heterosexual marriage. This …

(Art) Education In The Afterlife Of Massive Resistance: Constructing, Capturing, And Commodifying Racialized Disability In Virginia’S Student Assignment Practices, 1956-1966 And Present Day, Jenna E. Gabriel

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores discursive functions of disability in pupil placement decisions in Massive Resistance Virginia, the relationship between disability and race that was constructed through these moves, and how these relationships surface in the reflections, perceptions, and pedagogy of a practicing art teacher, Nathan, who works at Arts High School (AHS), a Virginia specialty center high school. Under the umbrella of the Discourse Historical Approach, which relies on multiple, interdisciplinary data sources to explore how discourses evolve, I connect a robust archival analysis of historical data collected in the records of Virginia’s Pupil Placement Board (746 boxes, 1956-1966) with present-day …

Establishing A Conventional Linac-Based Electron Flash Beam, Justin Defrancisco

Theses and Dissertations

Problems: A rediscovered radiotherapy technique, FLASH, involves increasing the dose rate to >40 Gy/s. For a given dose, FLASH is shown to decrease the normal tissue complication probability without affecting the tumor control probability. More preclinical studies are necessary to confirm and enable these desirable properties on humans. Current preclinical investigations have diverse constraints, requiring FLASH apparatuses with flexible parameters and accurate control. However, there are limited FLASH platforms available, the existing ones are costly. Our institution is not in possession of any such infrastructure. Even if available, dosimetry and beam control in FLASH are extremely lacking. There is …

Social Support, Tobacco Attitudes/Perceptions Of Harm, And Asthma Status As Moderators In The Association Between Tobacco Exposure And Cotinine Levels, Rachel L. Pitts

Theses and Dissertations

Tobacco use and exposure are linked to adverse health outcomes (e.g., respiratory conditions) and increased healthcare utilization (e.g., emergency room visits). This study examined the moderating role of social support, tobacco attitudes/perceptions of harm, and asthma status on associations between tobacco use (e.g., combustible product use) and exposure (e.g., secondhand smoke) and cotinine levels among individuals in Richmond, Virginia. We also explored differences in tobacco-related variables by asthma status and associations among tobacco use, secondhand smoke exposure, cotinine levels, and asthma control. Youth (n = 201) and adults (n = 209) (95.7% Black/African American; 60.6% female; 65.8% non-tobacco users; 21% …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

Molecular Mechanisms Of Kynurenine-Mediated Lifespan Regulation In Yeast, Ryan E. Counterman Jobb

Theses and Dissertations

The kynurenine pathway is a highly conserved pathway that acts as the primary pathway for tryptophan catabolism and has been found to be involved in lifespan regulation across many diverse organisms. Caloric restriction (CR) is the only known dietary intervention to date that both increases the mean lifespan and the health span of multiple organisms, although the molecular mechanisms of these effects are not fully understood. There are known and sometimes contradictory relationships between the kynurenine pathway activity and the life- extending effect of CR but the crosstalk between the two is not well characterized. Understanding these relationships could lead …

United States Environmental Protection Agency Scientific Integrity Policy

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

US EPA SIP

Patenting The Taboo: Sex, Drugs, And Abortion, Andrew Gilden, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

The patent system provides a surprisingly rich archive of the interplay between social norms and technological change. Patent law requires applicants to publicly disclose the novelty and usefulness of their inventions, thereby bringing to light areas of innovation that may have previously lived in the shadows. In other words, patent law encourages public disclosure of technologies that are taboo—developed and practiced in secret, for reasons such as social approbation, illegality, or religious sanctity. To obtain a patent for a taboo technology, patentees must establish their legitimacy as innovators while navigating cultural norms that are hostile to their fields of innovation. …

Cheshire 4-H Presents 2025 Demonstrtion Info, Extension

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Bacteria-Engineered Vesicles For Cancer Immunotherapy: From Immunomodulation In Vitro To Anti-Tumor Effects In Melanoma Models, Lan Li

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Bacterial vesicles hold immense potential in various biomedical fields. Among these, outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) produced by Gram-negative bacteria are the most extensively studied. While the exact mechanism of OMV production remains unclear, numerous environmental factors have been shown to influence both their yield and composition. In this study, we investigated the effect of three different antimicrobial families on OMV production by E. coli. Interestingly, antimicrobials within the same family did not provide the same effects on OMV yield, suggesting that OMV production may not directly correlate with the antimicrobial mechanism of action. OMVs have demonstrated tumor-inhibitory activity in multiple …

Catalytic Deoxygenation Of Oleaginous Biomass To Renewable Diesel And Sustainable Aviation Fuel Via Decarboxylation/Decarbonylation, Chukwudalu Great Umenweke

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Several technologies have been developed to produce hydrocarbon biofuels – renewable diesel (RD) and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – from fats, oils, and greases (FOG), with the hydroprocessing of esters and fatty acids (HEFA) representing one of the most mature pathways. In its current form, HEFA is mainly reliant on the hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) reaction, which has several drawbacks since HDO requires large amounts and pressures of hydrogen, feedstocks of high purity and cost, as well as problematic sulfided catalysts that risk contaminating the biofuel product with sulfur. A process based on decarboxylation/decarbonylation (deCO_x) offers an attractive alternative to …

Impact Of Catastrophic Brain Injury Guidelines On Organ Donation Rates, Kristen D. Nordham, Danielle Tatum, Abdallah S. Attia, Mayur B. Patel, Anil Paramesh, Juan C. Duchesne, Jeffry Nahmias, Amelia W. Maiga, Allan B. Peetz, Pascal O. Udekwu, Anquonette Stiles, Chloe Shell, Joshua D. Stodghill, Taneen Maghsoudi, Erin Iacullo, Bryant Mclafferty, Erin Coonan, Ryan M. Boudreau, Steven A. Zimmerman, Berje Shammassian, Tanya Egodage, Isabella Aramento, Patrick Morris, Jacob Metheny, Michael S. Farrell, Matthew D. Painter, Owen T. Mccabe, Philomene Spadafore

Surgery Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND One third of organ donors suffer catastrophic brain injury (CBI). There are no standard guidelines for the management of traumatic CBI prior to brain death, and not all trauma centers have institutional CBI guidelines. In addition, there is high variability in management between institutions with guidelines. Catastrophic brain injury guidelines vary and may include various combinations of hormone therapy, vasopressors, fluid resuscitation, and other practices. We hypothesized that centers with CBI guidelines have higher organ donation rates than those without. METHODS This prospective, observational EAST-sponsored multicenter trial included adult (18+ years old) traumatic-mechanism CBI patients at 33 level I …

To Negotiate A Labyrinth: Indonesia Within And Without Asean During The Third Indochina War (1978-1991), Daniel Mccoy

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Southeast Asia arrived at its most stable condition since the close of World War II. In Indochina, international communism triumphed over Western democracy. However, regional peace was fleeting and tenuous. Disparate communist ideologies and combustible, extra-regional power designs soon clashed. American retrenchment emboldened the Soviet Union and China, two competing communist forces, to fill the power vacuum and inflame the enmity unfolding between their respective client states: Vietnam and Cambodia. Mounting violence between the pair culminated in late 1978 when Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea, unleashing the Third Indochina War. The Vietnamese-Cambodian War, the …

Long Term Dynamics Of A Stage Structured Population Model With Nonlocal Dispersal, Md Yasin

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis is based on the 2023 paper “Dynamics of Classical Solutions of a Two-Stage Structured Population Model with Nonlocal Dispersal.” We study the long-term behavior of a population with two life stages, juvenile and adult, moving across space using nonlocal dispersal mechanism. The main goal is to understand the conditions under which the species survives or goes extinct on the long run. This is determined by a key value called the principal spectrum point, λp.

First, using results from the literature on existence of solutions for general initial value problems on Banach spaces, we establish that for any given …

Functional And Structural Impacts Of Bison Grazing Intensity On Plant Communities, Samantha Lynn Berk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The reintroduction of grazing disturbance has become an increasingly popular tool in grassland restoration to build and maintain diverse and functioning ecosystems, but our understanding of how grazers like bison (Bison bison) shape plant communities is limited by binary grazing treatments and unanswered calls for in-depth and mechanistic examinations of community function and structure. Little research has focused on how natural variations in bison grazing intensity impact the function and structure of restored tallgrass prairie; whereby functional diversity is purely defined by changes in trait expression according to plant responses to grazing, and examining both vegetation structure and ecosystem function …

Learning Through Following: The Role Of Social Foraging In Juvenile Saddleback Tamarin (Leontocebus Weddelli Weddelli) Development In The Department Of Pando, Bolivia, Meghan E.F. Hanson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Across the primate order, the juvenile stage is an important period of development that transitions individuals from infancy to adulthood. During the juvenile stage, individuals are weaned but lack experience feeding and foraging on solid foods. As a result, juveniles must learn foraging and feeding skills during this vital period of growth and development. The purpose of this study is to assess how juvenile saddleback tamarins (Leontocebus weddelli) gain foraging and food manipulation skills. During this study, I observed feeding behaviors in a group containing two juveniles and four adults, located at the Estación Biológica Tahuamanu in the Department of …

Yoga As A Self-Care Practice For Mental Health Counselors Who Treat Trauma, Kari Michelle Fitzgerald

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Given the high rates of burnout and compassion fatigue among trauma-exposed counselors, understanding effective self-care practices is critical for sustaining clinical effectiveness and well-being. Utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), exploration of the lived experiences of licensed mental health counselors who treat trauma and use yoga as a self-care practice was conducted. Eight participants who were regular yoga practitioners each participated in one semi-structured interview and submitted one pre- and one post-interview reflective journal entry. Thematic analysis was used to identify six major themes; 1) emotional impact and sacred responsibility of clinical work, 2) yoga as a regulating and restorative practice, …

Sarge, Jon F. Merrill

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A short story on how a service dog can change a man's life.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Journal 2, Ryan Peschman

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A stunningly kaleidoscopic narrative that asks, over and over, what it means to be alive.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit. CONTENT WARNINGS: Animal death, Autopsy related gore, Child …

Extra Bucks, Joseph Stanley Maslanka

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A young married man, fresh out of the Marine Corps, has to decide whether it's worth joining the Army Reserves just for a few extra bucks every month. For a Marine, that's a heavy lift.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories …

Evaluation Of Blue Catfish Populations In Four Midwestern Power Cooling Reservoirs, Tyler Joseph Murray

Masters Theses

Blue Catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) are the largest catfish in North America and as such angler desire for trophy fisheries have grown in addition to harvest fisheries. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) has stocked Blue Catfish into several reservoirs in the state including four that have powerplants that utilize the water for cooling and discharge it back into the reservoir at increased temperatures. This study explored the potential impacts of these warm water effluents on Blue Catfish population demographics, as well as whether management changes need to be implemented in these systems. I sampled Powerton, LaSalle, Springfield, …

A Multitude In The In-Between: The Impact Of Perceived Social Support On Resilience For Neurodivergent And Gsd Identities, Along With Barriers To Receiving Support, Theo Edwards

Masters Theses

This study used intersectionality theory to examine how overlapping minority identities impact receiving social support and the cultivation of resiliency. Individuals who identify as in the Gender and Sexually Diverse (GSD) community or the neurodivergent (ND) community may experience unique stressors due to various barriers to support. Overlap of GSD and ND identities can present added struggles. Information from 46 GSD and/or ND college students was collected through self-report scales and recorded interviews to examine the effects of perceived social support on resiliency. Also assessed were common values in social support like having someone to talk to and being understood, …

Optimization Of Transformation And Regeneration In The Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus), Sara M. Kilar

Masters Theses

In addition to their value as prized ornamentals, sunflowers are important crop species due to the nutritional value and high oil content of the seeds. Sunflower oil is a significant contributor to global seed oil production, which can be used as a food additive and cooking agent as well as a raw material for biodiesel production. While traditional breeding efforts have led to the development of many unique cultivars, genetically modified variations have proven more difficult due to the recalcitrance of sunflower plants to genetic transformation. As a result, facile and efficient transformation methods for sunflowers have the potential to …

Group Flow Perceptions And Dynamics As Compared To Taxonomy And Integrative Group Flow Theory, Karen E. Wirick

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated group flow through a team-building exercise with 18 professionals, examining participants’ and an observer’s perceptions of flow in social contexts. Analysis of interviews and observer notes identified eight themes: Sensory Network of Shared Experience, Adaptive Group Identity and Performance, Goal-Skill-Motivation Alignment, Essential Social Dynamics, Calm Intensity, Synchrony and Engagement Patterns, Spontaneous Collective Celebration, and Observer Integration. These themes revealed that flow in groups manifests as dynamic forces in constant motion. When compared to an emergent Taxonomy and the Integrative Group Flow Theory (IGFT), findings aligned more closely with IGFT's conceptualization of flow as a holistic balancing …

Art Of Medicine - 2025

The Art of Medicine

No abstract provided.