Digital Commons Network^™

Analytics On Service Quality In Spectator Sports, Ahmet Ozkul, Gazi Duman

Journal of Applied Sport Management

Spectator sport events are made possible by the contributions of many different participants ranging from fans and players to coaches, managers and sponsors. Through the lens of co-creation of value in the spectator sports, we discuss how sport analytics can relate to spectator sport service quality by collecting and analyzing data from each participating actor.

Facilitators And Inhibitors To First Adult Care Visits In The Transition From Paediatric To Adult Orientated Inflammatory Bowel Disease Healthcare, Joanna Rea

Theses

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be a very debilitating disease and it is found to be more extensive in children with rapid early progression (Van Limbergen et al., 2008). As adolescents, these children transition from paediatric to adult oriented care. The first adult care visits are a pivotal phase of a successful transition process, where adolescents potentially begin to actively take control of their disease. The aim of this study is to explore the inhibitors and facilitators to first adult care visits in the transition process from paediatric to adult oriented IBD healthcare.

Methods: An exploratory, descriptive, qualitative approach …

The Development Of Cultural Intelligence (Cq) In The Secondary Social Studies Classroom, Asha Gillette

Senior Honors Theses

Cultural competence is an important skill in our globalized world. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is a good metric for cultural competence. CQ is used by businesses to improve cultural competence of their employees. There has been a lot of research on the development of CQ in undergraduate business students. Experiential teaching methods are the most effective in improving students’ CQ. CQ is a valuable skill for high school students to learn. The subject most appropriate to include training in CQ is social studies, and specifically World Geography. Pedagogical methods such as cultural interviews used in undergraduate business courses can also be …

Visionary Women Or Suspected Witches: The Shifting Use And Construction Of Reputation In Accusations Of Witchcraft During The High And Late Middle Ages, Megan E. Hattey

History ETDs

Throughout the high and late Middle Ages, an individual’s social acceptance and well-being were heavily dependent upon fama, or reputation, they cultivated within their communities. Women, especially, constructed and molded their reputations to protect themselves from hardship and social ostracization, allowing them a degree of agency in social situations. In this thesis, I argue that the mindful development of one’s fama was key for women to protect themselves from accusations of witchcraft. Through the lives of Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau, and Jeanne d’Arc, I demonstrate how medieval reputations were built, the trifold nature it could hold, and …

The Dream Of Property: Law And Environment In William T. Vollmann’S Dying Grass And Leslie Marmon Silko’S Almanac Of The Dead, Ted Hamilton

Faculty Journal Articles

This article describes how the law inflects the narration of environmental conflict in William T. Vollmann’s Dying Grass (2015) and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991). By focusing on the legal common sense of settler colonialism—its emphasis on private property in land and its subjugation of Indigenous peoples to the guardianship of the state—the article explores the ways in which Vollmann’s and Silko’s novels present counternarratives to the law’s story of justified conquest. Combining a law and literature approach with ecocriticism, this article highlights the importance of the legal imagination in defining human-land relations in the United States. …

A Suggested Data Structure For Transparent And Repeatable Reporting Of Bibliographic Searching, Neal R. Haddaway, Melissa L. Rethlefsen, Melinda Davies, Julie Glanville, Bethany Mcgowan, Kate Nyhan, Sarah Young

Publications

Academic searching is integral to research activities: (1) searching to retrieve specific information, (2) to expand our knowledge iteratively, (3) and to collate a representative and unbiased selection of the literature. Rigorous searching methods are vital for reliable, repeatable and unbiased searches needed for these second and third forms of searches (exploratory and systematic searching, respectively) that form a core part of evidence syntheses. Despite the broad awareness of the importance of transparency in reporting search activities in evidence syntheses, the importance of searching has been highlighted only recently and has been the explicit focus of reporting guidance (PRISMA-S). Ensuring …

Integrating Narratives With Digital Humanities Tools To Inform Holocaust Education Pedagogies, Beth S. Dotan

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Holocaust educators have a concern regarding how to learn and teach about the Holocaust after survivors and liberators are no longer alive to provide first-hand testimony. In response to this dilemma, I have developed a digital humanities web portal unique to Nebraska to preserve the survivors’ and liberators’ collective and individual memories. The Nebraska Holocaust Survivor & WWII Veteran Network and Educational Portal, the product for this dissertation, integrates local narratives with digital humanities frameworks to establish a dynamic, public platform and provide various educational opportunities. The site encourages engagement with online primary resources of Holocaust survivors and Nazi camp …

Evaluating The Efficacy Of Germination And Fermentation In Producing Biologically Active Peptides From Pulses, Ashley Newton

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Recently, there has been a profound increase in demand of plant-based proteins, especially pulse proteins. However, pulses contain high concentrations of antinutritional factors that hinder the digestibility of proteins. Processing techniques such as enzymatic hydrolysis, microbial fermentation, and physical processing modulate nutritional quality and functionality of pulses. Processing also releases peptides from parent proteins that exhibit health-beneficial bioactivity against various disease risk factors. In this study, germination, gastrointestinal digestion, and microbial fermentation were evaluated to determine the nutritional quality and release of bioactive peptides during and after processing.

Germination of chickpeas (Cicer arietinum L.) modulated the protein profile, and …

Human And Hydrologic Influences On Nebraska's Endangered Rainwater Basin Wetlands, Sarah Thompson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over half of wetlands in North America have been lost or degraded. Rainwater Basin (RWB) wetlands, located in south-central Nebraska, are a primary example of such loss; an estimated 90% have been destroyed by land conversion for agriculture. Remaining RWB wetlands are often embedded in row-crop fields, where they are threatened by altered surface water runoff flow, drainage features, and excess sediment inputs. Efforts at the state and federal level have been made to preserve this wetland complex due to the critical stopover habitat these wetlands provide for migratory birds. Land managers work to maintain sufficient water levels during migratory …

Egestion Rates Of Microplastic Fibres In Fish Scaled To In Situ Concentration And Fish Density, Loren Hou, Rachel Mcneish, Timothy Hoellein

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Microplastics (particles <5 >mm) are commonly found in aquatic organisms across taxonomic groups and ecosystems. However, the egestion rate of microplastics from aquatic organisms and how egestion rates compare to other rates of microplastic movement in the environment are sparsely documented.We fed microplastic fibres to round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus), an abundant, invasive species in the Laurentian Great Lakes. We conducted two trials where round gobies were fed microplastic-containing food either a single time (1 day) or every day over 7 days.There was no difference in microplastic egestion rates from the 1 day or 7 day feeding trials, suggesting no impact of …

Exploring Risk Factors Of Alzheimer’S Disease Using Mouse Models, Xian Han

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that accurately recapitulate pathology and molecular changes are crucial for understanding disease mechanisms and subsequent therapeutic development. We examined five commonly used mouse models of AD (5xFAD, J20, APPNL-F, APPNL-G-F, Tau P301S) and compared their whole- and phosphoproteomes with human AD (the integration of three published datasets) to study whether they can mimic protein/RNA expression discrepancies, molecular changes, and enriched pathways found in human AD cases. The mouse models especially 5xFAD and APPNL-G-F show proteomic signatures similar to human AD but lack human-specific AD progressions, such as dysregulation of synaptic pathways and networks. Integration …

Character First: Defining And Methodizing Character Depth, Jeff Mason

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper explores the definition of "depth" in characters and provides a radical new definition, supplemented by an applicable model. By looking into significant literary theory, contemporary works of story, and even elements of mathematics, this paper advances our understanding of characters and how they create meaning in stories.

Machine Learning-Based Methods For The Segmentation Of Scanning Electron Microscopy Images Of Fine-Grained Shale Samples, Binqian Yin

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

The segmentation of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images is critical yet time-consuming for geological studies, as it will need to differentiate the boundaries for different mineral objects to facilitate subsequent analyses, such as porosity calculation. Recently, machine learning methods, especially convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have been explored to segment SEM images for fine-grained shale samples. However, existing methods fail to address two critical issues in the segmentation of shale rock images---insufficient labeled data and imbalanced objects. To this end, this dissertation has proposed a machine learning pipeline that consists of supervised, semi-supervised, and active learning stages to reduce manual efforts …

Comparison Of The Reliability Of Four Different Movement Thresholds When Evaluating Vertical Jump Performance, Madeleine Barefoot, Hugh Lamont, J. Chadwick Smith

Kinesiology

Analyzing vertical jumps performed on a force plate can be useful for the strength and conditioning professional in managing neuromuscular fatigue. The purpose of this study was to compare different movement thresholds when analyzing countermovement (CJ) and squat jump (SJ) performance. Twenty-one college-aged participants (9 female, 12 male) performed five CJs and five SJs. Movement initiation was identified when the vertical ground reaction force (VGRF) deviated five standard deviations (5SD), four standard deviations, (4SD), 2.5% of system weight (2.5%SW), and 10% of system weight (10%SW) from their starting position. For CJs, movement was determined when the VGRF deviated either above …

The Dilemma Of Liberal Pluralism, Abner S. Greene

Buffalo Law Review

Supporters of reproductive rights and of queer rights may sometimes live in harmony with advocates for religious exemptions. But sometimes these goals conflict. This Article explores this tension as a matter of liberal democratic theory and U.S. constitutional law, offering a case for seeing a robust pluralism as contained within a proper understanding of the liberal democratic state. The state’s claimed authority may be the starting point, but just as the modern state was born in decentralized religious toleration, so should the modern state accommodate religious and other views of the good that compete with the state’s own views. The …

Factors, Scott Rempell

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tenure In New York, Matthew W. Finkin

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And The Function Of A University, Aeon J. Skoble

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

The Foreboding Campaign System, Michael Fetters

Theses

This project creates a new campaign setting compatible with the Dungeons and Dragons system utilizing the SRD Open Game License content as a starting point. The campaign setting created establishes mechanics allowing for narrative interaction between the past and present timeline of events in the world of Lunaria. This new system, entitled The Foreboding, utilizes a shift mechanic to alter the player characters in several possible ways, ranging from changes in race or character history to interactions with past time periods and events that alter the present timeline of the narrative. New character options for race and class were also …

Evolution Of Authenticity: Investigating The (De)Restoration Of Ancient Sculpture (De)Restorations In The 1970s, Amelia Griese

Theses

This thesis focuses on the period of de-restoration of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the 1970s. While three distinct periods of restoration history have been well-defined by scholars (17th to 19th century, the 1970s, and modern-day), the discussion of the motivations behind the focus on purism that led to de-restoration in the 1970s are lacking in the literature. The Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles will be used in this analysis because of their illustration of the different periods of restoration history. While both the Lansdowne Herakles and the Aegina Marbles were de-restored in the 1970s, their fate in …

Virtual Reality And Video Game Gatekeeping, Autumn Franke

Theses

This thesis focuses on the effects of the video game industry being the only influence on the development of virtual reality technology and the hindrance caused by it. The aim of this thesis is to discuss this flaw and recommend a different route to develop the technology through the education and medical fields instead of the video game industry.

The Influence Of Permafrost Soil Structure On Microbial Community Diversity And Abundance, Nathan D. Blais

Master's Theses and Capstones

Soil structure plays a critical role in shaping soil microbial communities, who directly influence biogeochemical cycling1–4. Although well-studied in temperate systems, the importance of physical structure on soil microbial community diversity, function, and overall activity in permafrost soils is largely unknown. I hypothesized that (1) decreases in pore connectivity would increase microbial diversity based on an expected inverse relationship between diversity and connectivity; (2) soil with an increased abundance of larger pores (> 75 µm), which are uninhabitable because they are too large to sustain liquid water, will exhibit lower bacterial and archaeal abundance and (3) the surface area of …

Perioperative Chanage In Cervical Lordosis And Health-Related Quality-Of-Life Outcomes, Jose A Canseco, Brian A Karamian, Parthik D Patel, Michael Markowitz, Joseph K Lee, Mark F Kurd, D Greg Anderson, Jeffrey A Rihn, Alan S Hilibrand, Christopher K Kepler, Alexander R Vaccaro, Gregory D Schroeder

Rothman Institute Papers

BACKGROUND: Surgeons have scrutinized spinal alignment and its impact on improving clinical outcomes following anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). The primary analysis of this study examines the relationship between change in perioperative cervical lordosis (CL) and health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) outcomes after ACDF. Secondary analysis evaluates the effects of fusion construct length on outcomes in patients grouped by preoperative cervical alignment.

METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed on an institutional database including patients who underwent 1- to 3-level ACDF. C2-C7 CL was measured preoperatively and at final follow-up. For primary analysis, patients were classified based on their perioperative cervical …

Towards Seamless Communication In Capillary Networks, Aliaa W. Walid, Samy Ghoniemy

Computer Networks

No abstract provided.

Nursing Abroad: A Comparison Of Healthcare In Italy, Sweden, And The Us, Sadie Stark

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing Undergraduate Honors Theses

No healthcare system is perfect, nor does one system work for all populations. History and culture have dictated the mindset of people for generations. It is the ever-changing mindset of patients and providers that will continue to expand and improve international healthcare by first changing daily practices. Nursing in Italy, Sweden, and the United States look very similar but also have a number of differences. Each country’s healthcare system works for its population, but efforts for international collaboration could still prove beneficial. Whether it be universal or private, centralized or localized, a patient centered focus is the driving force behind …

Rapid Detection Of Recurrent Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer In Urine Using Atr-Ftir Technology, Abdullah I. El-Falouji, Dalia M. Sabri, Naira M. Lofti, Doaa M. Medany, Samar A. Mohamed, Mai Alaa-Eldin, Amr Mounir Selim, Asmaa A. El Leithy, Haitham F. Kalil, Ahmed El-Tobgy, Ahmed Mohamed

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Non-muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer (NMIBC) accounts for 80% of all bladder cancers. Although it is mostly low-grade tumors, its high recurrence rate necessitates three-times-monthly follow-ups and cystoscopy examinations to detect and prevent its progression. A rapid liquid biopsy-based assay is needed to improve detection and reduce complications from invasive cystoscopy. Here, we present a rapid spectroscopic method to detect the recurrence of NMIBC in urine. Urine samples from previously-diagnosed NMIBC patients (n = 62) were collected during their follow-up visits before cystoscopy examination. Cystoscopy results were recorded (41 cancer-free and 21 recurrence) and attenuated total refraction Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) …

Machine Learning For Target Detection Using Uwb Radar Sensor Networks, Dheeral Naresh Bhole

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Machine learning (ML) has recently been used to solve critical problems. This dissertation focuses on developing systems using Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless sensor networks and machine learning to solve critical tasks such as target detection in various challenging scenarios. These tasks have been researched for several years and efforts have been made to achieve universal solutions. In the first part of this dissertation, we have proposed a system to detect metallic targets in foliage environment. Mission critical systems need to be ready for the harsh working environment such as dense foliage, water bodies, rain, heavy winds and other natural challenges. Extreme …

An Economic Impact And Investment Analysis Of Armillaria Root Rot In The United States Peach Industry, Gracie Herrin

All Theses

Peach production in the United States has decreased over the last decade due to increased disease prevalence. Armillaria root rot (ARR) is a lethal root fungus that affects many stone fruits, including peaches, often leading to rapid decline/death of trees and abandonment of orchards. This thesis is divided into four chapters which focus on answering four key questions that, to the best of my knowledge, have not been addressed in previous industry research.

The second chapter determines the magnitude of ARR disease prevalence in the United States and producers’ maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for a theoretical ARR-resistant rootstock. Results …

Good Faith: Surveillance And Evaluation Of 911 Good Samaritan Laws In The United States, Shane W. Reader

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

To fight soaring overdose mortality rates in the United States, lawmakers adopted a variety of harm reduction tools. Among these, 911 Good Samaritan Laws (GSLs) derive their name from the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, a bystander who broke cultural convention to come to the aid of a man beset by thieves. These laws provide limited criminal immunity for bystanders in possession of controlled substances to encourage them to report drug overdoses. While previous studies associate GSLs with a modest reduction in opioid mortality, analyses often model them as equivocal or divide them coarsely across individual provisions. Evaluating these …

What Is Contributing To Covid-19 Mortality In Harris County, Texas?, Rachel Roy

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed long-standing inequities that have been present in the United States since its origin. While the entire country has been devastated by this pandemic, low-income and minority communities were hardest hit. Race alone does not predict poor health outcomes. Rather, the historic strategies implemented in the United States, such as redlining, placed racial and ethnic minorities in neighborhoods where cycles of disinvestment in education, transportation infrastructure, flooding infrastructure, healthy food, and clean air and water have created low socioeconomic status and poor health outcomes. This public health research aims to understand how historical processes have created and …