Digital Commons Network^™

The Invisible Struggle: Unveiling The Realities Of Living With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Maura A. Stewart

Social Work Theses - Archive

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a group of rare connective tissue disorders that impact multiple systems of the body and are frequently misunderstood or misdiagnosed. This thesis explores the lived experiences of adults with EDS, focusing on the physical, emotional, and systemic challenges they face in daily life and healthcare. Using a mixed-methods survey, data were collected from 83 participants across the United States and beyond. The results revealed common themes of delayed diagnosis, medical dismissal, mental health struggles, and lack of access to knowledgeable providers. While chronic pain and fatigue were the most frequently reported symptoms, participants also described emotional …

The Unintended Consequences Of Normalization: Unmonitored Mental Health Discourse Among Youth And Suicide Risk, Farley Morris

Social Work Theses - Archive

Suicide has become an increasingly common cause of death among U.S. children ages 10–14. In 2001, suicide accounted for 8% of deaths in this age group; by 2010 the proportion rose to 12%, and by 2020 it reached 22% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). Although factors such as adverse childhood experiences (Felitti et al., 1998; Jones et al., 2024), psychache (Shneidman, 1998), burdensomeness (Joiner, 2005; O’Connor, 2011), and hopelessness (Bat Tonkus et al., 2022; Qiu et al., 2017) are associated with suicide, these elements alone do not explain the significant rise in suicide deaths over the past …

Social Drivers Of Suicide In Rural And Urban Texas Counties, Maria Y. Vaughan

Social Work Theses - Archive

Abstract

Suicide remains a critical public health issue in Texas, with rural counties consistently experiencing higher mortality rates than urban areas. This study examined county-level suicide rates across Texas and analyzed how demographic characteristics and Social Drivers of Suicide (SDoS)—including economic stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context—relate to suicide outcomes. Using a quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational design, secondary data from the 2024 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps and the American Community Survey were analyzed for 170 Texas counties with reliable suicide data. Results showed that rural …

Resilience And Reality: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of People Living With Hiv In Texas During The Covid-19 Pandemic – A Qualitative Study., Ahmed F. Alanazi

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

This study investigated the lived experiences of individuals living with HIV (PLWH) in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area of Texas during the COVID-19 pandemic, using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) framework. The research examined the intersection of health, social dynamics, and psychological resilience among PLWH, who faced compounded vulnerabilities due to systemic inequities and the dual public health crises of HIV and COVID-19. Through semi-structured interviews with ten participants from diverse backgrounds, the study captured the profound impacts of disrupted healthcare systems, heightened stigma, and social isolation on this marginalized population. The findings reveal that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequities …

Unmet Family Planning Care And Health-Literacy Needs Among Low-Income Immigrant Women In The United States, Priyanjali Chakraborty

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

Unintended pregnancies have been linked to adverse outcomes such as pre-term births and low infant birthweight (Harron et al., 2020), psychological distress(Abbasi et al., 2013; Barton et al., 2017; Gauthreaux et al., 2017; Mercier et al., 2013), relationship strain (Barton et al., 2017; Moseson et al., 2019), intimate partner violence (IPV) and reproductive coercion (K. T. Grace & Anderson, 2018), and economic strain from unanticipated medical costs despite insurance coverage (Trussell, 2007). Unintended pregnancy outcomes offer crucial insights into the complexities of women's reproductive desires and intentions (CDC, 2023; Rossen et al., 2023). These outcomes inform public health interventions to …

Improving Models Of Thermal Atmospheric Newtonian Noise For Advanced And 3rd Generation Gravitational-Wave Detectors, Wenhui Wang

Physics Dissertations - Archive

Currently, the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors use laser interferometry to measure the position change between separated test masses. Besides astrophysical gravitational waves, the motion of the test masses can also be influenced by seismic noise, thermal fluctuations, quantum mechanical effects, and other noise sources. As the next-generation detectors extend to lower and lower frequencies as well as weaker and weaker signals, certain types of noise will become important in setting the noise floor. In this research, we are working with a particular type of noise caused by the gravitational field of air masses moving around the detectors. Starting with …

Quantifying And Understanding The Role Of Bias In Astrophysical Data, Joshua A. Osborne

Physics Dissertations - Archive

Astrophysical studies are limited to the data provided. Data which is inherently prone to a range of biases such as: instrumental, selection, and methodological bias. Quantifying these biases and understanding their origin is critical to ensuring that the results we infer are representative of the physical world.

This is true even when attempting to study high-redshift phenomena, such as Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Due to their immense brightness at high redshifts, GRBs serve as a strong candidate for standard candles in high redshift space. Their use as a standard candle, however, requires a precise understanding of observational biases that affect …

Inter-Hemispheric Asymmetry In The High-Latitude Electrodynamics And Their Impacts On The Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere System, Yu Hong

Physics Dissertations - Archive

In this dissertation, the inter-hemispheric asymmetries (IHAs) in the ionosphere–thermosphere (I-T) system and their impacts on the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere–thermosphere (M-I-T) were examined using multi-instrument observations and advanced global numerical modeling frameworks. First, the drivers and consequences of IHAs in the I-T were systematically investigated and quantified, revealing that seasonal solar irradiance differences, geomagnetic field offsets, and asymmetric high-latitude electrodynamic forcing each produce significant asymmetries in electron density, neutral density, velocity, and Joule heating, with seasonal effects dominating under relative quiet conditions. During geomagnetic storms, IHAs were found to depend more strongly on asymmetric field-aligned currents (FACs) and particle precipitation (PP), …

Beyond Filters: Exploring Social Media Effects On Social Physique Anxiety And Physical Activity, Morgan T. Rios

Psychology Theses - Archive

With obesity rates reaching new heights, there has been a pressing demand for research focused on sedentary lifestyles, specifically investigating the consequences of increased screentime and social media use on mental health and physical activity levels. This study explored the impact of both screentime and social media use on physical activity engagement and social physique anxiety among college students. Additionally, it examined complex interrelationships among these variables and identified key psychosocial factors contributing to social physique anxiety. Ultimately, this research provided insights into the predictive power of social media content, social physique anxiety, and relevant psychosocial variables (e.g., perceived health, …

Exploiting Artificial Intelligence And Optimization For Smart Agriculture, Jackson K. Butcher

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Dynamic integration of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a vital component for unlocking the potential of smart agriculture. Currently, limitations such as limited computational resources, poor network connectivity, and rigid treatment strategies stifle optimal agricultural outcomes. This creates a challenge of leveraging the capabilities of modern artificial intelligence to combat the natural and artificial constraints of the smart agriculture environment. The primary contribution of this thesis is the development of frameworks to alleviate the overhead data and computational demand for AI within smart agriculture settings. The first framework, iCrop+, utilizes TinyML and LoRa to guarantee high-precision …

Assessing The Dallas-Fort Worth Urban Microclimate And Surface Ozone Variability Under Differing Drought Conditions, Patrick Sumner

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in North Central Texas is the 4^th largest and fastest growing region in the United States. In this study, the response of the urban microclimate and ozone levels to drought conditions will be assessed. The urban heat island (UHI), defined as the temperature difference between an urban and rural weather station, was filtered for low wind speeds (≤ 3 m s^-1). An in-depth analysis of the UHI at 1200 CST was done from 2008-2023 to identify trends. A significant correlation exists between the Palmer drought severity index and the UHI at 1200 CST, …

Snake Venoms As Models For Understanding The Origins And Evolution Of Gene Regulatory Networks, Siddharth S. Gopalan

Biology Dissertations - Archive

Understanding the relationship between genotype and phenotype is a fundamental goal of biology. However, the vastly complex nature of eukaryotic gene regulation can make deriving precise relationships between genotype and phenotype challenging. The gene regulatory architecture of snake venom systems provide an opportunity to study this problem in a phenotypic system with immense variation in phenotypes and the underlying genetics. Using a set of integrated functional genomic approaches with snake venoms as a central model, in this dissertation, I provide several examples of the regulatory mechanisms by which diversity in phenotypes arises. Specifically, I identify how gene expression heterogeneity between …

Genetic Analysis Of Methionine Restriction-Associated Mitochondrial Unfolded Protein Response Signaling., Josh D. Dodge

Biology Dissertations - Archive

The lifespan of an organism is dictated by various genetic and environmental factors. One such determinant is the health of mitochondria which are organelles that mediate various critical cell functions including a significant role in generating the vast supply of cellular energy. Indeed, the gradual decline of mitochondrial function is believed to be a hallmark and possible cause of aging. Paradoxically, mild mitochondrial dysfunction early in life extends lifespan in various model organisms. Cells use diverse approaches to promote mitochondrial homeostasis, including the transcriptional reprogramming of cells by mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) to mitigate mitochondrial stress. Consistently, UPRmt activation …

Self-Tor Persistence Of Modules Over Determinantal Rings, Tatheer F. Ajani

Mathematics Dissertations - Archive

Tor-persistence is the claim that Tor of a module with itself is only zero if the module has finite projective dimension. Work done by Avramov, Iyengar, Nasseh, Sather-Wagstaff, and various other authors have proved Tor-persistence of modules over certain rings. In this work, we will prove Tor-persistence for certain modules over determinantal rings, specifically for the hypersurface defined by the determinant of a generic matrix. We will then give an explicit proof that Tor^R_2(M,M) is never zero, that Tor^R_1(M,M)=0, and due to the periodicity of the given free resolution, our result can be extended to the entire complex, showing that …

Understanding Middle School Teachers’ Content Knowledge And Pedagogical Content Knowledge For Effective Teaching Of The Nature Of Science, Austin C. Wilson

Curriculum and Instruction (Ed.D.) Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine middle school science teachers’ knowledge of the nature of science (NOS) and their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching NOS. Developing students’ scientific literacy requires teachers who not only understand NOS but also know how to effectively integrate it into classroom instruction. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study investigated in-service middle school science teachers’ NOS content knowledge (NOS-CK), their NOS-PCK, the relationship between these two constructs, and the extent to which demographic variables predicted teacher knowledge. NOS-CK and NOS-PCK data were collected from 61 teachers in a large suburban district through the Views …

Innovative Approaches To Combat Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Integrating Metabolic Modulation, Advanced Therapies, And Lifestyle Interventions, Ngozi Damilola Chidumebi Akingbesote

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive and often lethal subtype of breast cancer, continues to challenge researchers and clinicians due to its poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. This thesis explores novel therapeutic strategies that integrate metabolic modulation, advanced radionuclide therapies, and lifestyle interventions to combat TNBC effectively. The first component investigates metabolic scaling and its implications for cancer metabolism. Gene and protein expression analyses across species reveal that metabolic processes, including oxidative metabolism and detoxification, scale inversely with body mass. This foundational insight underscores the importance of systemic metabolic regulation in understanding cancer progression. In the realm of cancer …

The Right To 'Trip:' Navigating Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy Under The Right To Try Pathway, Caitlyn S. Greenspun

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Comment explores the legal, ethical, and regulatory challenges surrounding the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for terminally ill patients under the federal Right to Try (RTT) Act. While psychedelics like psilocybin are demonstrating extraordinary therapeutic potential, particularly in easing end-of-life psychological distress, patients remain barred from access due to the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) narrow interpretation of its authority. Through a comprehensive analysis of legislative history, regulatory frameworks, and administrative law principles, this Comment argues that the DEA's position not only misinterprets the statutory relationship between the RTT Act and the CSA, but also …

Advanced Magic In Illinois: Amendments To The Illinois Rules Of Professional Conduct And The Confusion Over How To Handle Flat Fees Paid In Advance, Alberto Bernabe

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Attorneys face ongoing challenges in structuring legal fees, particularly when deciding between hourly rates, contingency arrangements, and flat fees. This Article examines recent amendments to the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct regarding flat fees and explores the persistent confusion over how attorneys should handle fees paid in advance. The debate centers on whether advance payments should be deposited in client trust accounts. The Article analyzes alternative regulatory approaches to address this issue, including proposals to eliminate or modify Rule 1.15(c), which currently governs the handling of advance fees. It evaluates the merits of different fee structures and examines whether there …

Mental Representations Of Computational Processes, Marlene Berke

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Human intelligence is uniquely powerful and flexible - operating in an enormous range ofsituations, from those as everyday as driving in traffic while carrying on a conversation, to those as extraordinary as cooperating to shift a culture. Work in cognitive science over the past decades has argued that two foundational types of representations form the building blocks of human intelligence: representations of the physical world in terms of objects, forces, spaces, substances, and so on (Carey, 2009), and representations of the social world in terms of agents and their mental states, like goals, beliefs, and knowledge (Gopnik, Meltzoff, & Bryant, …

The Devil Sounds Out: Affect And Intentionality In Conservative Evangelical Anti-Rock Discourse, 1965-1990, Philip Bixby

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Scholars have often described the evangelical reception of rock music as a discourse that changes in a positive direction, from the full-sail rejection of rock in the 1960s to the cautious acceptance of the genre as legitimate worship music throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. This dissertation surveys anti-rock texts written by conservative evangelicals from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, observing an alternative trajectory of the discourse. The dissertation shows that an uncompromising trend of anti-rock criticism persists well into the 1980s, especially promoted by preachers and writers (for example, Jeff Godwin and Jimmy Swaggart) who sought to deny …

Improving Thermal Comfort Of Firefighter Personal Protective Equipment With A Focus On Enhancing Insulation And Moisture Management Abilities: A Meta-Analysis, Hallie Ivory

Major Papers by TMD Master of Science Students

Firefighters wear personal protective equipment (PPE) composed of multiple layers, each designed to serve a specific function in ensuring safety and comfort in high heat environments. The thermal liner is the innermost layer and plays a crucial role in thermal comfort by providing insulation and moisture management. Insulation provides protection from external hazards while moisture management keeps the wearer cool and dry.

Heat stress is a significant safety concern for firefighters, as prolonged exposure to high temperatures and insufficient evaporative cooling can lead to discomfort, injuries and or fatalities for them while on duty. Effective moisture management is critical in …

Radial, Steffy Jeswin

Quill & Scope

No abstract provided.

When Do Children Think Inequality Is Fair?, Pinar Aldan

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Psychological research suggests that from infancy, humans are highly attuned to fairness and expect resources to be fairly allocated. However, despite this early sensitivity, people ultimately learn to live with - and sometimes even justify - widespread societal inequalities. This thesis explores how children, who in principle deeply value fairness, come to tolerate economic disparities. Through four chapters, this thesis examines how individuals of different ages interpret reasons for inequality that are common in social life yet underexplored in developmental research. Chapter 2 investigates how people reason about unequal compensation in division-of-labor contexts, where individuals assume distinct, qualitatively different roles. …

Microwave Techniques For Neutrino Mass Measurement, Arina Bykadorova Telles

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Direct neutrino mass measurement is one of the frontiers of particle and nuclear physics, with the most recent measurements setting an upper bound of 0.45 eV/c^2 and cosmological models and observations predicting an upper bound on the sum of neutrino masses of 0.12 eV/c^2. The next generation of neutrino mass experiments require new technology to push beyond the statistical and systematic limits of current measuring capabilities. Project 8 is a collaboration seeking to make this possible by combining the well-established tritium endpoint method with a relatively new technique called CRES. CRES uses the RF emission of electrons undergoing cyclotron motion …

Quantum Zeno Effects On Photon Decaying From A Microwave Cavity, Vidul Ravindra Joshi

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Quantum mechanics and classical physics differ fundamentally when it comes to measurement. In classical physics, measurement is nonintrusive, which means the act of measurement does not disturb the state of the system. In quantum mechanics, however, measurement is often invasive, meaning the act of measurement has a back action on the system's state. This difference is illustrated to its full extent by the quantum Zeno effect, where the evolution of a quantum system is inhibited when it is repeatedly measured. The system is repeatedly projected into an eigenstate of the measurement operator, preventing its natural evolution. In theory, the quantum …

Resolving The Three-Dimensional Interactome Of Human Accelerated Regions During Human And Chimpanzee Neurodevelopment, Atreyo Pal

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) are regulatory elements highly conserved across species but exhibit a significant excess of human-specific sequence changes. They include transcriptional enhancers with human-specific activity and have been implicated in the evolution of the human brain. However, our understanding of how HARs contributed to uniquely human features of the brain is hindered by a lack of insight into the genes and pathways that HARs regulate. It is unclear whether HARs acted by altering the expression of gene targets conserved between HARs and their chimpanzee orthologs or by gaining new gene targets in human, a mechanism termed enhancer hijacking. …

Continization And Language Representation Of Chemical Information, Haote Li

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Throughout human history, our ancestors have continuously expanded the frontiers of their interests in nature. Chemistry is one of the essences of such explorations. Yet, despite countless discoveries and experiments, we are still on a journey to examine the possibilities within our finite time. With an ever-growing amount of information and open access to public resources, we are experiencing an inflection point. This moment redefines how efficiently we can solve problems, and the key lies in integrating increasing insights from the entire history of knowledge. Algorithms, in contrast to human efforts, are scalable with the amount of available hardware. In …

Essays On Demand-Driven Political Methodology, Amanda Weiss

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

This dissertation demonstrates a demand-driven approach to political methodology research. The demand-driven approach entails studying and addressing technical problems while remaining in dialogue with political science as actually practiced. This dissertation, in particular, focuses on conducting credible research in politics and policy amid problems related to causal inference, statistical power, and data limitations. Chapter 2, "How Much Should We Trust Modern Difference-in-Differences Estimates?," takes up the challenge of estimating policy effects in observational settings. In particular, this chapter asks how well a range of difference-in-differences (DID)-style methods work for the empirical settings and sample sizes commonly used in political science, …

New Statistical Methods For Mediation Analysis With Independent And Correlated Data, Chao Cheng

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Causal mediation analysis is a popular statistical tool for evaluating the extent to which an observed exposure-outcome relationship is mediated by an intermediate variable, also referred to as the mediator. Through mediation analysis, the total effect (TE) from the exposure on the outcome can be decomposed into a natural indirect effect (NIE) through the mediator and a natural direct effect (NDE) whose impact is due solely to the exposure and possibly other mediators. Causal mediation analysis has been applied in a variety of empirical research fields, including but not limited to epidemiology, implementation science, economics, and psychology. In implementation science, …

Enhancing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy In Teaching And Learning For White Faculty: Can Professional Development Help?, Isabelle Jenkins

Scholarship and Professional Writing from the J.D. Power Center and Donelan Office

Pedagogies traditionally used by faculty in U.S. higher education tend to center white students and their success, simultaneously disregarding the learning strengths of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) may align better with BIPOC students; however, white faculty use of Keywords: culturally responsive pedagogy, professional development, teaching and learning, white racial consciousness CRP is limited and/or superficial. Therefore, professional development for CRP is needed to enhance and deepen the teaching and learning practices of white faculty. Using a multiple case study method, this study examines how white faculty from a diverse range of disciplines …