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Method Development For The Analysis Of Drugs Of Abuse Using Solid Phase Extraction And High Pressure Liquid Chromatography, Sangeeta Kurre

Theses and Dissertations

The accurate detection and quantification of drugs of abuse and their metabolites for HPLC analysis is key in the medical, forensic, and environmental sectors. Additionally, the detection of compounds related to substance use disorders in clinical settings can play a crucial role in effective treatment decisions by healthcare practitioners. The ability to detect these compounds at trace levels in any given sample matrix is a known challenge. Coupling a reliable sample preparation method to HPLC analysis for matrix interference reduction and the preconcentration of species for enhanced detection limits may provide a preferred solution to the analysis of drugs of …

Narratives Or Not? Examining The Roles Of Message Format And Individuals' Stages Of Change In The Context Of Hpv Vaccination Promotion, Mengfei Guan, Shawn C. Chiang, Regan M. Murray, Wen-Juo Lo, Larry T. Hill, Ann C. Klassen, Jennifer A. Manganello, Amy E. Leader, Philip M. Massey

Department of Medical Oncology Faculty Papers

Narrative persuasion has been widely used in health communication campaigns and persuasive message design. However, several meta-analyses showed that the relative effectiveness of narratives in promoting behavior change was not consistently observed in the existing literature. With the goal of exploring boundary conditions of narrative effects, this study investigates the interaction effects of narrative persuasion and stages of change on promoting behavior change in the context of encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against human papillomavirus (HPV). Findings from an online experiment (N = 593) showed that non-narrative messages were more effective in bolstering behavioral intention than narrative messages among …

Clinical Value Of Chatgpt For Epilepsy Presurgical Decision-Making: Systematic Evaluation Of Seizure Semiology Interpretation, Yaxi Luo, Meng Jiao, Neel Fotedar, Jun-En Ding, Ioannis Karakis, Vikram R. Rao, Melissa Asmar, Xiaochen Xian, Orwa Aboud, Yuxin Wen, Jack J. Lin, Fang-Ming Hung, Hai Sun, Felix Rosenow, Feng Liu

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Background: For patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy, surgical resection of the epileptogenic zone (EZ) is an effective treatment to control seizures. Accurate localization of the EZ is crucial and is typically achieved through comprehensive presurgical approaches such as seizure semiology interpretation, electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and intracranial EEG (iEEG). However, interpreting seizure semiology is challenging because it heavily relies on expert knowledge. The semiologies are often inconsistent and incoherent, leading to variability and potential limitations in presurgical evaluation. To overcome these challenges, advanced technologies like large language models (LLMs)—with ChatGPT being a notable example—offer valuable tools for …

Staff Education To Improve Gestational Diabetes Knowledge In Family Practice Staff, Lawretta Udogadi Aghomon

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The project was a staff education program on gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) that was carried out in an outpatient primary health facility to help improve staff knowledge of GDM. GDM is a pregnancy complication where women with no history of diabetes become hyperglycemic during their gestational period. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of mothers giving birth who received a diagnosis of diabetes during pregnancy has increased in the last 10 years. Limited healthcare staff knowledge is a constraint in preventing the increase of GDM incidence. The practice-focused question was: Among healthcare staff at a …

Be Ready For What's Next: A Reflection On My Internship With Kpmg, Megan L. Bundren

Honors Theses

During my audit internship with KPMG in Dallas, I had the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge from the Patterson School of Accountancy to real-world client engagements across a variety of industries. I participated in substantive testing, financial statement tie-outs, depreciation analysis, and internal control evaluations, which deepened my understanding of audit standards and procedures. My training at KPMG’s Lakehouse in Orlando and use of tools like KPMG Clara Workflow and Microsoft Excel’s DataSnipper enhanced my technical skills and audit efficiency. I also gained insight into global collaboration through KPMG’s Global Delivery Center in India. Through engagements such as Seaport Entertainment …

Computational Modeling And Structural Generation Of Piano Music In The Classical Style, Yijing Feng

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Listening to fast-tempo piano sonatas of the Classical period (circa 1750-1820) has been shown to have therapeutic effects for neurological disorders such as epilepsy. The limited existing repertoire of music in this style motivates the creation of more long-form, coherent compositions with clearly defined structure. Despite the long history of computer-based music generation and recent progress in deep learning, particularly transformer-based models, generating structurally coherent long-form music remains a major challenge. This difficulty stems from the scarcity of reliable structural annotation datasets, the computational demands of modeling very long musical sequences, and the lack of effective structural encoding in both …

Interpreting Spatial And Temporal Variations In Global Air Quality Using A Chemical Transport Modeling Framework, Deepangsu Chatterjee

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Air quality is a major health concern. Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) is a leading mortality risk factor across the world. Numerous cohort studies conducted over the past two decades have identified strong associations between ambient air pollution and human mortality, highlighting the adverse health effects of PM2.5 and NO2 exposure. My thesis includes three studies that contribute to a better understanding of air quality. In many regions, including South Asia, elevated emissions from various sectors and sparse ground monitoring are significant challenges. The concurrent development and use of the high-performance …

Computational Complexity Of Soundness Verification For Neural Networks, Scott Sirri

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Neural networks are an increasingly ubiquitous tool in systems of varying complexity across a range of domains. While these tools can be used to learn and predict complex functions, their opaque nature limits the scope of their acceptable applications. In particular, a lack of performance guarantees means that they are unsuitable for safety-critical applications such as self-driving cars and scheduling systems. Neural networks trained to solve NP-complete problems, in particular, are unlikely to be able to solve the problem exactly. However, a weaker soundness guarantee may be sufficient for some systems, e.g., that positive instances of the problem may be …

Cyber-Physical Security Through The Lens Of Ai-Enabled Systems, Zhiyuan Yu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cyber-physical systems (CPS), powered by emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, have become integral to various critical domains such as the Internet of Things (IoTs), medical devices, and autonomous vehicles. A unique aspect of these systems lies in their interactions with the physical world, by perceiving environments through heterogeneous modalities (perception), processing digital data with human-in-the-loop intelligence algorithms (computing), and autonomously actuating controls that affect physical processes (actuation). While this intricate fusion of cyber and physical components has unlocked unprecedented capabilities, it has also introduced new security challenges. However, traditional security measures often fall short in addressing these multifaceted threats. This …

Turn-On Fluorescent Glucose Transport Bioprobe Enables Wash-Free Real-Time Monitoring Of Glucose Uptake Activity In Live Cells And Small Organisms, Monica Soma Hensley, David Hutchings, Abdelrahman Ismail, Marina Tanasova

Michigan Tech Publications

The direct link between sugar uptake and metabolic diseases highlights the iminent need for molecular tools to detect and evaluate alterations in sugar uptake efficiency as approaches to identify disease-relevant metabolic alterations. However, the strict requirements of facilitative glucose transporters regarding substrate binding and translocation pose challenges for developing effective fluorescence molecular probes. Based on the state-of-the-art understanding of glucose recognition by facilitative transporters (GLUTs), we designed a glucopyranoside mimic - GluRho - that delivers the “turn-on” rhodamine B to live cells via glucose transport, including major transporters GLUTs 1-4. The high binding affinity achieved through the secondary interaction between …

Examining The Relationship Between Teacher Characteristics And African American Vernacular English (Aave): A Quantitative Study, Mary Michelle Porter

Theses & Dissertations

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a distinct linguistic variety characterized by unique grammatical and phonological features. Despite its linguistic legitimacy, AAVE is often subject to negative perceptions that can adversely affect the educational experiences of students who speak it. The purpose of this study is to examine elementary school teachers’ attitudes toward AAVE and how these are influenced by demographic factors. Forty-eight teachers from Suffolk, New York, and Houston, Texas, participated in a survey that included demographic questions and the Language Attitude Scale (LAS), a validated instrument for assessing attitudes toward AAVE. Demographic variables included age, race, years of …

Active Insight: Using Active Learning To Detect Students Who Need Help Asap, Eric Hicks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

CS Education has been plagued with high fail and dropout rates for some time. This has put a larger strain on traditional teaching practices and lead to many attempts to assist struggling students. To deal with these problems, many teachers started to incorporate software tools into their curriculum. By using platforms that came with copious examples and built in testing features, students were able to practice and learn on their own time with immediate feedback, although at a lesser quality. Researchers have often used student data to obtain a better understanding of how students will perform in the future with …

Hadronic Vacuum Polarization For The Muon G-2 From Lattice Qcd: Complete Short And Intermediate Windows, Alexei Bazavov, David Anthony Clarke, Christine Davies, Carleton Detar, Aida X. El-Khadra, María Elvira Gámiz Sánchez, Steven Gottlieb, Anthony Grebe, Leon Hostetler, William Jay, Hwancheol Jeong, Andreas Kronfeld, Shaun Lahert, Jack Laiho, Gerard Lepage, Michael Lynch, Andrew Lytle, Craig Mcneile, Ethan Neil, Curtis Peterson, James Simone, Jacob W Sitison, Ruth S. Van De Water, Alejandro Vaquero Avilés-Casco

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

We present complete results for the hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment aμ in the short- and intermediate-distance window regions, which account for roughly 10% and 35% of the total HVP contribution to aμ, respectively. In particular, we perform lattice-QCD calculations for the isospin-symmetric connected and disconnected contributions, as well as corrections due to strong-isospin breaking. For the short-distance window observables, we investigate the so-called log-enhancement effects as well as the significant oscillations associated with staggered quarks in this region. For the dominant, isospin-symmetric light-quark-connected contribution, we obtain aμll,SD(conn)=48.139(11)stat(91)syst[92]total×10-10 and aμll,W(conn)=206.90(14)stat(61)syst[63]total×10-10. We use Bayesian model …

Beyond Boundaries: A Comprehensive Survey Of Transferable Attacks On Ai Systems, Guangjing Wang, Ce Zhou, Yuanda Wang, Bocheng Chen, Hanqing Guo, Qiben Yan

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems increasingly underpin critical applications, from autonomous vehicles to biometric authentication, their vulnerability to transferable attacks presents a growing concern. These attacks, designed to generalize across instances, domains, models, tasks, modalities, or even hardware platforms, pose severe risks to security, privacy, and system integrity. This survey delivers the first comprehensive review of transferable attacks across seven major categories, including evasion, backdoor, data poisoning, model stealing, model inversion, membership inference, and side-channel attacks. We introduce a unified six-dimensional taxonomy: cross-instance, cross-domain, cross-modality, cross-model, cross-task, and cross-hardware, which systematically captures the diverse transfer pathways of adversarial strategies. Through …

Impact Of Prior Exposures On Biomarkers Of Blast During Military Tactical Training, Zhaoyu Wang, Shengnan Sun, Alis Aksar Kranfli, Jeffrey Nemes, Molly J. Sullan, Andrew J. Hoisington, Lisa A. Brenner, Miciej Skotak, Christina R. Lavalle, Yongchao Ge, Walter Carr, Fatemah Haghighi

Faculty Publications

Blast injuries and subclinical effects are of significant concern among those Service Members (SMs) participating in military operations and tactical trainings. Studies of SMs repeatedly exposed during training find concussion-like symptomology with transient decrements in neurocognitive performance, and alterations in blood biomarkers. How prior mild TBI (mTBI) history interacts with low-level blast (LLB) exposure, however, remains unexplored, which we investigate in the present study, to identify interindividual biomarker changes from LLB exposures influenced by prior history of mTBI.

Structural Proteomics Defines A Sequential Priming Mechanism For The Progesterone Receptor, Matthew D Mann, Min Wang, Josephine C Ferreon, Phoebe S Tsoi, Michael P Suess, Antrix Jain, Anna Malovannaya, Roberto Vera Alvarez, Bruce D Pascal, Raj Kumar, Dean P Edwards, Patrick R Griffin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The progesterone receptor (PR) is a steroid-responsive nuclear receptor with two isoforms: PR-A and PR-B. Disruption of PR-A:PR-B signaling is associated with breast cancer through interactions with oncogenic co-regulatory proteins (CoRs). However, molecular details of isoform-specific PR-CoR interactions remain poorly understood. Using structural mass spectrometry, we investigate the sequential binding mechanism of purified full-length PR and intact CoRs, steroid receptor coactivator 3 (SRC3) and p300, as complexes on target DNA. Our findings reveal selective CoR NR-box binding by PR and unique interaction surfaces between PR and CoRs during complex assembly, providing a structural basis for CoR sequential binding on PR. …

Deep Learning Classification Of Drainage Crossings Based On High-Resolution Dem-Derived Geomorphological Information, Michael Edidem, Bill Xu, Ruopu Li, Di Wu, Banafsheh Rekabdar, Guangxing Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

High-resolution digital elevation models (HRDEMs) from LiDAR and InSAR technologies have significantly improved the accuracies of mapping hydrographic features such as river boundaries, streamlines, and waterbodies over large areas. However, drainage crossings that facilitate the passage of drainage flows beneath roads are not often represented in HRDEMs, resulting in erratic or distorted hydrographic features. At present, drainage crossing datasets are largely missing or available with variable quality. While previous studies have investigated basic convolutional neural network (CNN) models for drainage crossing characterization, it remains unclear if advanced deep learning models will improve the accuracy of drainage crossing classification. Although HRDEM-derived …

Ice Castles, Jacqueline Keren

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.

Variations, Leandro Fefer

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.

Blue Porch, Bill Stenson

Valparaiso Fiction Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring Hindrances To Artistic Expression In The High School Art Classroom, Meagan Matticks

Art 895 Research Papers

This qualitative phenomenological research study focuses on the exploration and understanding of the experiences of students who may feel hindered in their creativity and artistic expression in the high school art classroom due to various constraints. The major objectives of this study include researching ways artistic expression and creativity are hindered, including institutional policies, time limitations, resource availability, and other potential external pressures, such as curricular mandates. Data will be gathered through classroom observations, the collection of ninth through twelfth-grade student artwork created under varying levels of constraint, and written student reflections. This study will provide potential insights that result …

Leading Like Jesus In Organizations: Assessing The Practices Of Servant Leadership, Keenan A. Siegal

M.S. in Leadership

This project explores the concept of servant leadership through examining biblical accounts of Jesus Christ’s life and teachings. This project highlights how Jesus exemplified key principles of servant leadership, including humility, empathy, self-sacrifice, and a deep commitment to serving others before himself. The project contrasts Jesus’ leadership style with modern leadership models and discusses its relevance in today’s professional settings. Overall, it aims to explore a transformational approach to leadership in which it that prioritizes compassion, integrity, and the empowerment of others over meeting the needs of the business or serving yourself as a leader.

A Movement In Process: The Effects Of Post-Dictatorship Politics On The Legalization Of Abortion In Argentina, Corinne J. Robbins

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

Access to abortion is an inherently critical aspect of sexual and reproductive rights. That is to say that access to safe abortions is of equal importance to guaranteeing a person’s right to safety during the pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum period. This research primarily focuses on the trajectory of the legalization of abortion in Argentina after the end of the last military Dictatorship (1976-1983), the factors that impacted the movement, and how the movement is received in Argentina today. Argentina’s current administration has been unsupportive of the current abortion law, but past successes demonstrate that abortion rights activists in Argentina are …

Walking In Town: A Study Of Walkability And Its Impacts On Students At Eku, Emma Garland

Honors Theses

This project explores the current state of walkability in Richmond, Kentucky, with a specific focus on connectivity between Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) and essential services in the surrounding community. Utilizing the PRECEDE-PROCEED model as a planning framework, the study combines secondary demographic health data as well as

primary data collection—including student surveys and a walkability audit using a modified Delaware Walkability Assessment Tool—to assess pedestrian infrastructure, access to amenities, and safety concerns. Findings reveal a lack of continuous, safe, and accessible walking routes, limiting physical activity and contributing to broader health disparities. Based on these findings, two primary evidence-based interventions …

Navigating Transparency In The Digital Age: An In-Depth Study Of Disclosure Practices In Influencer Marketing On Social Media., Devan Klarisa Grey

Dissertations - ALL

This study examines the disclosure practices of nano and micro-influencers on TikTok, focusing on their adherence to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines and the impact on transparency in sponsored messaging and regulatory enforcement. With the increasing use of influencer marketing, sponsored content with disclosures has become a critical issue. Regulatory bodies emphasize the need for clear and concise disclosures, yet influencers' compliance varies despite existing guidelines. This inconsistency raises concerns about consumer deception and ethical issues within digital marketing. This research examines influencers' disclosure practices on TikTok through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The quantitative analysis …

The Rainbow Nation Goes Dark: Unjust Energy Production And Load Shedding In South Africa, Grace E. Yearwood

Student Theses 2015-Present

Numerous inequalities experienced by South Africans right now are a result of the country’s previous apartheid government. One example is South Africa’s current energy distribution, which is extremely inequitable across communities due to the structurally failing energy grid and corruption within the government. Energy distribution in South Africa encapsulates the practice of load shedding, which is essentially controlled rolling electrical blackouts. Chapter One examines quantitative data regarding energy production and distribution in South Africa, including the details of load shedding. Moreover, this chapter explores the negative relationship between energy production, load shedding, and ecosystem services. The quantitative data lays the …

Climate Change Behind Prison Walls: Environmental Justice, Prison Abolition, And Social Welfare, Mia Moody

Student Theses 2015-Present

Unbeknownst to many, human rights violations occur on a large scale behind prison walls. This paper examines some of these violations, especially those exacerbated by climate change, through an environmental lense in order to emphasize the need for social welfare-based solutions in the abolition of the prison industrial complex. It also seeks to illustrate the connection between the environmental justice movement and the prison abolition movement so that marginalized peoples may be free from shouldering disproportionate effects of environmental hazards and imprisonment. This paper is introduced with a brief overview of the human rights violations occurring in prisons. Using quantitative …

Investigating Cross-Modal Temporal Dynamics And Semantic Incongruency In Multisensory Integration, Xiaoxiao Chen

Theses - ALL

Multisensory integration is a pervasive phenomenon in daily life, where our senses (commonly visual and auditory) demonstrate a high degree of interdependence in information processing. This integration is often regarded as automatic and pre-attentional. The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) component that captures the difference between novel stimuli (deviant, unexpected trials with low frequency) and regularly occurring stimuli (standard, expected trials with high frequency). MMN can detect unexpected sensory inputs and provide information about the timing of how the brain processes information from different modalities. However, limited research has explored MMN’s application in multisensory processing, with most …

From Male Gaze To Feminist Vision: Exploration Of Women’S Roles In Film, Yuping Zeng

Theses - ALL

Every era has its own form of female consciousness awakening. As early as the 1970s, under the influence of feminist movements, a wave of outstanding female-centered films emerged. Simone de Beauvoir stated in The Second Sex: “The representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.” (166) Perhaps as a direct challenge to this so-called “absolute truth” created from the male perspective, female directors often crafted female characters who sharply contrasted with the popular portrayals of women in mainstream cinema. For …

An Examination Of Writing Attitudes And Writing Proficiency Throughout A Performance Feedback Writing Intervention, Sophia Victoria Alderman

Theses - ALL

Writing attitudes, defined as self-assessments of liking or disliking writing (Ekholm et al., 2017), are important motivational factors that can impact writing development. A review of the literature on writing attitudes found that attitudes positively predicted writing achievement and that writing interventions can increase writing attitudes (Ekholm et al., 2017). Existing empirical literature has primarily focused on examining writing attitudes before and after implementing writing interventions, which vary in empirical support (Boscolo et al., 2012; ; Knudson, 1991b, 1992; Seban, 2012). However, no studies have dynamically assessed writing attitudes throughout the course of an evidence-based writing intervention with emerging writers. …