Improving Sedative Administration In Patients Receiving Paralytics During Intubation: A Quality Improvement Initiative Within A Large Academic Medical Center In West Virginia, David Bryon Underwood

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction: Awake paralysis (AWP) occurs when long-acting neuromuscular blockers outlast short-acting sedatives during intubation, leaving patients chemically paralyzed but conscious. This highlights the critical need for timely post-intubation sedation.

Background: A 2024 review in the Neurological Critical Care Unit (NCCU) revealed that 72% of patients who received rocuronium were not given a post-intubation sedative. The difference in duration of action of paralyzing agents versus sedatives can result in patients being conscious while paralyzed, potentially resulting in hemodynamic instability and psychological harm.

Purpose: The quality improvement initiative aimed to reduce the number of patients receiving neuromuscular blocking agents without post-intubation sedation. …

Embodiment Among Collegiate Women Athletes: The Perceived Impact On Sport Performance, Commitment, And Enjoyment, Hannah Lynne Silva-Breen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Collegiate women athletes report high rates of body dissatisfaction and wanting more support for improving their body image within their athletic departments. Guided by the Developmental Theory of Embodiment (DTE; Piran, 2017), the purpose of this study was to examine collegiate women athletes’ perceptions of the relationship between their embodiment and aspects of their sport experience. Participants were 311 women currently competing in 24 different sports within NCAA and NAIA athletics. Participants completed the Experience of Embodiment Scale, Subjective Performance Questionnaire, Sport Commitment Questionnaire-2, and open-ended response questions about the perceived relationship between these variables. A convergent parallel mixed methods …

Do Cohort Restatements Generate Contagion? A Re-Examination, Melissa F. Lewis-Western, Timothy Seidel, Michael S. Wilkins

Faculty Publications

Gleason, Jenkins, and Johnson (2008) provide evidence that restatements lead to stock price declines among non-restating industry peer firms, suggesting that investors perceive contemporaneous manipulation within the industry. In contrast, Kedia, Koh, and Rajgopal (2015) find that restatements—especially less severe ones—encourage peer firms to initiate earnings manipulation. These divergent findings, together with the rising prevalence of less severe restatements and advances in monitoring technologies, motivate a re-examination of manipulation contagion. Although we are able to replicate the results of both seminal studies, we find that the results in Kedia, Koh, and Rajgopal (2015) are sensitive to design choices that affect …

Walking In The Footsteps Of My Ancestors: A Deep Map Of Cherokee Forced Removal, Deborah Lyn Kirk

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this study of the place of Cherokee forced removal, I use a Third Space approach to blend Indigenous Methodologies, Deep Mapping, Geospatial mapping and analysis, and 3D Geography. Using a hybrid platform that provides a mélange of media types, storytelling forms, and interactive tools, I reimagine and retell the story of the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.”

In accordance with Cherokee philosophies of duyuktv, harmony, and “a good mind” I first sought out Cherokee sponsorship from community respected and culturally knowledgeable Cherokee citizens; partnered with the National Trail of Tears Association (NTOTA); submitted my research proposal to the Cherokee …

Implementation Of A Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia Bundle To Reduce The Incidence Of Ventilator-Associated-Pneumonia And Improve Patient Care, Taylor Ryan Rice

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is a concerning complication that can

develop from complications when a patient is placed on a mechanical ventilator. Endotracheal

intubation puts patients at risk for micro aspiration, which can lead to VAP.

Evidence Review: Nine articles were selected for review; after critical appraisal, seven were

kept for further review. Evidence in these articles shows that using evidence-based methods in a

VAP bundle can decrease the length of stay, mechanical ventilator days, and the incidence of

VAP.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to improve oral care for intubated patients and keep

the incidence of VAP …

Provider Satisfaction Between General Dentists And Endodontists, Vaidehi Kumar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose: Burnout and low professional fulfillment are major issues for dental providers, impacting their well-being, patient care, and workforce stability. While burnout has been widely studied in dentistry, less is known about professional fulfillment and how it varies by specialty and work environment. This cross-sectional study compared professional fulfillment and burnout between general dentists and endodontists, and examined how practice setting, demographics, and job factors affect occupational well-being. Methods: Licensed dentists (n=147; 72 general dentists and 75 endodontists) participated in an anonymous online survey. The Professional Fulfillment Index (PFI) was used to measure three sub-domains: Professional Fulfillment, Interpersonal Disengagement, and …

I Think, Therefore I Can: Self-Efficacy, Self-Regulation, And Sense Of Belonging In Introductory Physics, Danielle Christine Maldonado

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cognitive and affective beliefs in physics classrooms are important indicators of student success beyond traditional measurements of academic performance. This body of work explores major beliefs and processes, including self-efficacy, self-regulation, and sense of belonging, as they relate to academic achievement among introductory undergraduate physics students. First, this dissertation explores the development of physics self-efficacy and physics sense of belonging, two highly correlated variables. This work identifies unique sources of physics self-efficacy and sense of belonging development from current and prior academic experiences, personality factors, and demographic variables. Then, relationships between early- semester self-efficacy and sense of belonging, mid-semester …

The Tax Governance Triangle: An Attitudinal Theory Of State Capacity And Tax Compliance., Abdul Wahid Uqaily

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Tax Governance Triangle: An Attitudinal Theory of State Capacity and Tax Compliance

Abdul Wahid Uqaily

Variation in states' extractive capacity is a central puzzle in comparative politics and political economy. Existing scholarship explains this variation largely through institutional quality, administrative capability, or coercive enforcement, with less attention to the attitudinal foundations that shape key actors' willingness to sustain an effective fiscal system. This dissertation addresses that gap by asking: how do the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, bureaucrats, and elites shape variation in a state's extractive capacity?

To answer this question, the dissertation develops the “Tax Governance Triangle” and …

Assessment Of Emissions Factors For Produced Water And Other Atmospheric Liquid Storage Tanks On Natural Gas Sites, David Glenn Childs

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As the US natural gas (NG) sector continues to grow, concerns have increased regarding the effects and increasing volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. While NG is a cleaner burning fuel than diesel and gasoline, unburned methane (CH₄) has a global warming potential (GWP) 27-30 times that of carbon dioxide (CO₂). To better quantify CH₄ emissions on NG sites, the US Department of Energy (DOE) granted West Virginia University (WVU) funding to collect direct measurements at well sites and compressor stations.

In this work, a total of 18 sites, including controlled and uncontrolled …

Examining Drivers Of Brook Trout (Salvelinus Fontinalis) Fecundity And Recruitment In Central Appalachian Headwater Streams, Emilee Esther Briggs

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The persistence of fish populations depends on the repeated production and survival of new year classes, also referred to as recruitment. Recruitment is broadly defined as the number of individuals in a fish population or stock that survive to a specific stage. However, the broader recruitment process reflects the cumulative outcome of many earlier life stages, including egg survival, fry emergence, and survival through the recruitment period. As a result, recruitment can vary substantially among years and populations, producing strong or weak year classes that influence population abundance and persistence. Understanding why recruitment varies is therefore central to fisheries ecology …

Personal Narratives Of Young Adults With Epilepsy: Exploring The Transition To Adulthood Amidst Stigma And Disclosure Fears, Kirby-Estar Gilene Laguerre

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Navigating the transition to adulthood presents unique challenges for young adults with epilepsy, particularly concerning stigma and the fear of disease disclosure. While significant social difficulties, such as increased unemployment rates and decreased relationship satisfaction, are prevalent among individuals with epilepsy, current transition programs often fail to address these psychological and social aspects that are vital for an independent adult life. Instead, the majority of the attention for young adults transitioning into adulthood is focused on the shift to adult-oriented healthcare systems. Consequently, there is a critical need for research that goes beyond a healthcare focus and explores the social …

Constructing The 'Other': A Cda Of Social Actor Representation And Agency Attribution In The New York Times Reporting On Palestine And Israel (2023–2025), Faithlyn H. Graham

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Media organizations play a central role in shaping public understanding of international conflict. Following the publication of a leaked internal editorial memorandum from The New York Times in 2024 advising reporters to avoid terms such as "genocide," "ethnic cleansing," and "occupied territory," questions emerged regarding institutional influence and ideological framing in coverage of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. This study examined how The New York Times discursively constructed the conflict between October 7, 2023, and October 10, 2025, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) informed by KhosraviNik's (2010) three-level analytical framework. A purposive sample of 119 hard-news articles was analyzed using …

Evaluation Of Engineering Controls In Mitigation Of Fecal And Chloride Contamination To An Urban Stream, Gabriel J. Zenny

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fecal coliform contamination is a major contributor to surface water pollution in the United States’ (U.S.) waterways, whether from combined sewer overflows (CSOs) (point source pollution), runoff from precipitation and snowmelt (nonpoint source pollution), or exfiltration from aging and failing infrastructure. In addition to fecal bacteria, chloride contamination is also a major, prevalent surface water contaminant impacting U.S. waterways. Chloride contamination is predominantly released into U.S. waterways as nonpoint source pollution, endemic to northern areas that use industrial brine and salt as a form of mitigation for ice accumulation on roadways. The purpose of this research was to investigate impairment …

Evaluation Of Acid Mine Drainage Treatment In The Upper Deckers Creek Watershed, Sarah E. Nelson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a legacy contaminant, impairing Appalachian watersheds despite decades of regulatory work and investment in remediation. This study analyzes and evaluates the performance of seven AMD treatment systems (5 passive and 2 active) as well as thirteen untreated sources in the headwaters of Deckers Creek. Monthly influent and effluent samples measuring pH, major metals, and acidity were collected from January 2024 through 2026 to assess variability in treatment performance, and engineering site visits were conducted for each treatment system. Based on these two components, recommendations customized for each individual treatment system were made, and the implementation …

Cultural Perceptions And Willingness Or Reluctance To Use Ai Chatbots For Emotional Support By International African Students In Higher Educational Institutions In The United States, Zakariah Issah

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for emotional support underscores the need to understand how cultural perceptions shape their adoption among international African students in higher education institutions in the United States. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Social Stigma Theory, this qualitative study explored the perceptions, motivations, and barriers influencing the use of AI chatbots for emotional support. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 undergraduate and graduate students from 10 African countries. The findings reveal that participants viewed AI chatbots as conditional and situational sources of emotional support rather than replacements for human relationships. Convenience, …

Managing The Legacy Of Historical Land Use In Central Appalachia: Soil Health, Carbon Storage, And Restoration Across Disturbed Ecosystems, Kyra R. Dukich

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Historical mining, intensive timber harvesting, agriculture, and atmospheric acid deposition have left lasting impacts on soil health throughout the Central Appalachian region, reducing soil productivity, carbon storage, and ecosystem resilience. This thesis evaluated restoration strategies across two long-term research systems in West Virginia to determine how land-use history and soil amendments influence soil health, carbon dynamics, and ecosystem recovery. The first study examined reclaimed mine lands and marginal agricultural soils planted with switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) or willow (Salix spp.) and treated with biochar or inorganic fertilizer. Soil greenhouse gas production, aggregate stability, total soil C:N, pH, and soil organic matter …

Influences Of Response Rate And Distribution On Accuracy Estimates: The Value Of Replications Based On Analytic Approach, Olivia Brianne Harvey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Accurate observational data are essential for drawing correct conclusions about behavioral phenomena and ensuring the replicability of research findings. Accuracy is the extent to which an observer’s recorded responses correspond with true values (i.e., the actual occurrence of behavioral events). Correspondence is quantified using one of several percentage-based algorithms. However, these accuracy estimates may be influenced by characteristics of the data, such as response rate and response distribution, as well as the algorithm used to calculate them. The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate how response rate, response distribution, and the algorithm used to evaluate accuracy influences estimates. Across …

Plant-Wide Process Modeling, Techno-Economic Optimization, And Bayesian Uncertainty Quantification For Manufacturing Value-Added Products From Lignocellulosic Biomass, Poulomi Das

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

For decades, many chemicals have been produced from fossil resources, contributing to resource depletion, pollution from extraction and refining, and hazardous byproducts. Growing environmental concerns and declining fossil reserves have intensified the search for sustainable sources of fuels, energy, and chemicals. Lignocellulosic biomass, the only abundant renewable carbon source, is therefore being explored as a feedstock for second-generation biofuels and high-value chemicals.

Currently, global wood-panel industry heavily depends on petroleum-derived commercial adhesives like phenol-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde, etc. These formaldehyde-based chemicals cause hazards to both human health and environment through emission of toxic volatile organic compounds. Typically, lignin is considered as one …

Factors Influencing Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Productivity And Nesting Chronology In West Virginia, Kirstin Palumbo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Identifying drivers of variation in the timing of breeding behaviors, such as courtship activities and nesting chronology, is important for the effective management of avian species. Likewise, productivity is an important component of game bird population dynamics and can be broken up into multiple components such as the probability of nesting, clutch size, and nest success. One species that experiences a relatively long reproductive season is the Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Contemporary research in the southeastern United States has raised concerns regarding declines in both wild turkey populations and overall productivity. West Virginia, however, is unique …

Dataless Neural Networks For Boolean Satisfiability And Network Optimization, Andrew Evan Gautier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) require searching over a finite solution space subject to constraints, with the goal of satisfying an objective function. They arise in operations research, scheduling, resource allocation, circuit design, and many other fields. Many problems in combinatorial optimization (including satisfiability and network design) are NP-hard. Traditionally, researchers have built approximate solvers that return near- optimal solutions efficiently by developing increasingly sophisticated heuristics and meta- heuristics. Deep learning has provided new opportunities for improving combinatorial solvers by leveraging neural guidance to prune the search space. Traditional neural networks have distinct drawbacks in this context: separate training and …

Multi-Timescale Monitoring And Modeling For Resilient Smart Grids: Pmu Anomaly Detection And Battery Digital Twins, Muhammad Imran Hossain

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Modern power systems face failures at very different timescales. Cyber-physical disturbances may emerge within seconds, while battery degradation develops over hundreds of operating cycles. Both monitoring problems share the same underlying difficulty: power systems produce measurement data in abundance, but reliably labeled examples of abnormal or degraded operation are scarce. Rare grid events are difficult to label, and battery degradation data are heterogeneous across cells, cycling protocols, and chemistries. This thesis addresses these challenges through two complementary domain-informed learning frameworks that constrain representation learning using information specific to each physical problem.

First, at the system level, T-BiGAN, a Transformer-augmented bidirectional …

Conservative Discourse: How It Shapes And Is Shaped By Social Studies Education In West Virginia, Elizabeth Christine Rexroad

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This narrative inquiry dissertation investigates how conservative Discourse both shapes and is shaped by social studies teacher identity, agency, and the figured world of social studies education in West Virginia. Drawing on the storied lives of three early-career secondary social studies teachers, this study examines how conservative Discourse operates as a structuring force in the daily lives and practices of teachers working in an exceptionally conservative political and social landscape. Using Critical Narrative Analysis (Souto-Manning, 2014) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2014) as analytical frameworks, and figured worlds theory (Holland et al., 1998) as theoretical lens, this study reveals how conservative …

Data Augmentation And The Reliability Of Conformal Prediction For Uncertainty Quantification In Medical Imaging, Rizwan Ahamed

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The safe clinical deployment of deep learning models for high-stakes medical imaging tasks requires more than high average accuracy; it requires demonstrable, per-case reliability. Uncertainty quantification (UQ) provides the missing signal that tells a clinician when a model prediction can be trusted and when a case should be escalated for expert review. Among UQ approaches, conformal prediction (CP) is especially attractive because it produces prediction sets that are guaranteed, under the assumption of exchangeability, to contain the true label with a user chosen probability, and it does so without assumptions about the model or the data distribution. This report first …

Student Support In Civil And Environmental Engineering, Heather Marie Rice

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many student support services target first-year engineering students to help improve their transition from high school to college and to reach first-year retention goals. These opportunities are communicated to students through a variety of ways. The objectives of this work are to evaluate student perspectives of student services support factors in a civil and environmental engineering program and investigate how student support services and opportunities are communicated to students in a civil and environmental engineering program. The media identified for student support service outreach were the fundamentals of engineering program newsletters, academic advising newsletters, Statler eNews newsletters, and the bulletin …

Does Diverse Seeding Adoption Reduce Production Costs? The Case Of Diverse Forage Seeding Strategies In West Virginia., Ivan Andres Wong

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Feed and harvested forage represent a major share of production costs in Appalachian cow-calf systems, where a pronounced summer forage gap forces producers to rely on purchased hay. This thesis evaluates whether adopting diverse forage seeding strategies reduces production costs relative to the existing pasture management practice, accounting for the spatial heterogeneity of West Virginia’s production environments. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, an unsupervised K-means clustering of 14 farms enrolled in the NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant field trial groups the farms into two agroclimatic clusters, Highland-Cool and LowlandWarm, using elevation, growing-season Growing Degree Days, growing-season precipitation, and soil …

Romantic Narrative In Three Early Piano Cycles By Robert Schumann: Papillons, Op. 2; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12; And Kinderszenen, Op. 15, Lingqing Huang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research project compares Romantic instrumental narrative in Robert Schumann’s Papillons, Op. 2; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12; and Kinderszenen, Op. 15, with particular attention to how pianists communicate cyclic continuity in performance. In this study, narrative continuity refers to relationships formed across ordered short pieces through contrast, interruption, return, literary association, fantasy, memory, tonal and motivic recall, and the shaping of sound and time. Comparative score analysis shows that Schumann creates a distinct form of continuity in each cycle. In Papillons, he creates a public, ballroom-based form through masquerade, waltz-like dance, abrupt entrances, interruption, and the gradual dissolution of the social …

Racial Resentment, Immigration Attitudes, And The Politics Of State Immigrant Policy Adoption In The United States, Cindy Osei Agyemang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Immigration remains one of the most contested public policy issues in the United States, and racial attitudes have become increasingly important in shaping public opinion and political debate. While prior research has shown a strong relationship between racial resentment and restrictive immigration attitudes, less is known about whether these attitudes extend to legislative discourse and the adoption of immigrant-inclusive state policies. This dissertation addresses that gap by examining the relationship between racial resentment and immigration politics across three levels of analysis: public opinion, legislative discourse, and state policy adoption. Using a mixed-methods research design, the study combines quantitative and qualitative …

"If I Knew Then What I Know Now": Analyzing Online Narratives Of Regretful Parents, Marina Binti Mohd Hamdan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This exploratory study seeks to understand the extent to which parenthood affects individual self-actualization by identifying the trade-offs, compromises, and sacrifices that parents make within the context of family life. Using a thematic analysis of 221 archived posts from the Reddit community r/regretfulparents, this study examines how social pressures surrounding parenthood may be related to experiences of parental regret. Specifically, it identifies two domains: pressures to be parents, including social norms, familial coercion, and interpersonal conflict, and pressures of parenting, including issues of labor, number of children, and challenging children. Across these domains, this study explores how tensions between personal …

Psychological Distance And Auditor Assessment Of The Severity Of An Internal Control Deficiency, Scott C. Jackson, John D. Keyser, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Auditors often underestimate the severity of internal control deficiencies, particularly when associated misstatements are immaterial. We find that auditors are more likely to correctly classify a material weakness when no misstatement information is provided than when misstatement information is available, and that this finding may unconsciously arise from auditors’ construal level in judging control deficiency severity. Through a series of experiments, we manipulate misstatement information related to an internal control deficiency designed to represent a material weakness. We hold the size of potential misstatement constant and find that auditors and graduate auditing students are less likely to correctly assess the …

Exploring The Application Of Wastewater Monitoring To Determine The Prevalence And Diversity Of Influenza On The Campus Of West Virginia University, Lakyn Renee Sanders

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Influenza viruses (IV) affect populations globally, with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that IV are responsible for an estimated 3-5 million infections and 290,000 – 650,000 deaths annually^1–3. More specifically, the 2019-2020 IV season is associated with an estimated 38 million illnesses and 22,000 deaths in the United States alone⁴. IV are rapidly spread between individuals through direct contact with infected individuals, contaminated surfaces, or aerosolized virus particles². Traditional IV infection monitoring relies on clinical screening of patients presenting influenza-like symptoms, commonly through the use of multi-target panel tests such as the BioFire …