Digital Commons Network^™

Preparing For Professional Programs: Strategies And Practices For Pre-Medical Education, April Elayne Curry

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the preparation process for students in professional programs and highlights strategies and practices for pre-medical education. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted elements of the healthcare system that explore how critical physicians are that can lead with both a global perspective and with compassionate patient care. In order to understand the competencies required for this leadership process, it is critical to consider the medical school lifecycle from the undergraduate education to residency. Working from the admissions process, we consider what competencies are required for medical school success and physician preparedness and we use that to shape a solid …

Social Media Use, Disordered Eating, And Body Image In Adolescent Females: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Alara Ozpolat

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent females are especially at risk of developing eating disorders due to expectations surrounding body image, social pressures, and influence from peers. With the significant role of social media in daily life, the average adolescent currently spends several hours a day engaging with content on social media. The overall aim of this review was to better understand the impact of social media consumption on disordered eating and body image among female adolescents. The primary research questions explored within this systematic review were as follows: Is there a relationship between social media use, body image concerns, and/or eating disorder symptoms in …

Health Disparities And Psychosocial And Behavioral Interventions For Type 2 Diabetes Within Latinx Communities: A Systematic Review, Elisa Hernandez-Guerrero Smith

Theses and Dissertations

As Hispanic adults are 70% more likely than non-Hispanic White adults to be diagnosed with diabetes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022), there is an urgent need to provide culturally appropriate care to the people with diabetes of Latinx heritage. The purpose of this systematic review is to better understand the availability and effectiveness of psychosocial and behavioral interventions for T2DM within the Latinx population. Additional focus was given to the impact of health disparities and complexities within the Latinx population that have been diagnosed with, or are at risk of, T2DM. With a greater understanding of health disparities …

Board Governance In Crisis: Director Influence In Executive Crisis Leadership, Kevin Schaller

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 global pandemic is the most far-reaching crisis of the modern era and the cascading impacts on organizations is tantamount to a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment for decision-making by board directors and top management team (TMT) leaders. The pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to expand upon the disparate research associated with decision-making by board directors and TMT leaders during crises. This phenomenological study explored how the pandemic influenced decision-making distinctly from previous crisis events and how executive decisions on firm policies and strategies transpired throughout the crisis. A sample of 32 board directors and senior executives …

Beyond The Binary Male: A Systematic Review Of Gender-Responsive Modifications To Risk Assessment Tools, Devin Randle

Theses and Dissertations

The American Psychological Association’s (APA) ethical guidelines identify that psychological tests should only be utilized on populations for which reliability and validity have been established. Likewise, the APA specifies gender to be nonbinary, encouraging clinicians to utilize inclusive and accurate measures. Following such guidelines when conducting violence risk assessments with women and individuals who identify as non-binary is currently challenging because a majority of violence risk assessment tools utilize a male normative sample. Applying such tools to populations beyond a cisgender male can result in misclassifications of individual risk. When risk is misclassified, improper interventions are utilized, which leads to …

Investigation Of Pilots' Visual Entropy And Eye Fixations For Simulated Flights Consisted Of Multiple Take-Offs And Landings, Salem M. Naeeri, Ziho Kang, Ricardo Palma Fraga

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Eye movement characteristics might provide insights on pilots' mental fatigue during prolonged flight. The visual entropy, eye fixation numbers, and eye fixation durations of ten novice pilots and ten expert pilots were analyzed for a four-hour simulated flight task consisting of four consecutive flight legs. Each flight leg lasted approximately one hour and contained five flight phases: takeoff, climb, cruise, descend, and landing. The pilots maneuvered the simulated B-52 aircraft following instrument flight rules (IFR) in a moderate-fidelity Microsoft Flight Simulator environment. Our results indicate that experts’ eye movement characteristics were significantly different from those of novices. In detail, novices' …

Implications Of Gender Dysphoria On Gender Schema And Social Cognitive Theories Of Gender Development, Beau Bourgeois

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project considers the implications of gender dysphoria under two prominent theories of gender development, gender schema theory (GST) and social cognitive theory (SCT). Gender dysphoria is considered a significant motivator for transgender behavior and is presented in the DSM-5 as the experience of a strong desire, or as primarily affective in nature. GST and SCT differ in a number of ways, most notably in the role affect plays for gender development and behavior motivations. The former places primary emphasis on environmental influences, leaving the role of affect in question, while the latter posits gender behavior and motivation as an …

Late-Stage Diversification Of Select Natural Products €“ New Chemical Entities With Improved Biological Activities, Moneerah J. Alqahtani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Owing to their complexity, diverse structures and molecular targets, natural products have contributed, and will continue to contribute, to the development and discovery of new drugs. Although natural products provide numerous active compounds, their complex structures and poor pharmacokinetics make meeting the eligibility criteria for clinical trials unfeasible. In order to improve their drug-likeness, structural modification is an effective tool to generate countless natural product-based molecules with potential therapeutics. This proposal entails synthetic efforts towards late-stage diversification of natural products in two projects.

The first study highlights the multi-factorial nature of Alzheimer’s disease and brings attention to the importance of …

Synthetic Studies On Valuable Fluorinated Building Blocks, Maali Alshammari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fluorine chemistry plays a diverse role in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and material industries. In fact, around 25% of pharmaceuticals and 40% of agrochemicals contain at least one fluorine atom. The incorporation of fluorine into pharmaceuticals or natural products can increase bioavailability by enhancing lipophilicity, metabolic stability, and overall pharmacokinetics properties. Our laboratory has designed a method to generate difluoroenolates from pentafluoro-gem-diols. This reactivity can be used to produce molecules displaying a difluoromethyl group. The reaction occurs through the release of trifluoroacetate. We improved the design and synthesis of fluorinated derivatives of flavones and measured their antioxidants activities. This work expanded …

Speech Fluency Changes Following Deep Brain Stimulation Of The Subthalamic Nucleus In Parkinson’S Disease: A Meta-Analysis, Emily Morphis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: Speech fluency changes following deep brain stimulation are one aspect that is crucial to consider when exploring treatments for Parkinson’s disease. Deep brain stimulation, specifically of the subthalamic nucleus, has been linked to a decrease in speech fluency despite improved bodily motor control. This acquired dysfluency is referred to as “neurogenic stuttering.” The purpose of the current study is to determine the incidence and severity of speech fluency decline following deep brain stimulation in patients with Parkinson’s disease. A meta-analysis was conducted with 7 studies (239 subjects) that recorded changes in speech fluency. All studies used a quantitative assessment, …

Role Of Astrocytic Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 In The Regulation Of Behavior, Cognition, And Neuroinflammation, Brayden Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modern medicine has consistently extended life expectancy over recent decades and centuries. Despite this, age-associated cognitive decline and risk of neurodegenerative disease grow in parallel with lifespan, meaning the capacity to live healthier has not mirrored that to live longer. Many studies in both human and rodents have shown the association between age-related cognitive impairment and reduction of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) signaling. Additional research has indicated that dysregulated IGF-1 signaling, either systemic or local to the central nervous system (CNS) in cells like neurons and glia, leads to impaired spatial learning and memory in mice. Glia, or glial cells, …

Re-Engineered Metalloproteins And Rationally Designed De Novo Peptides: Towards Artificial Hydrogenases, Pallavi Prasad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metals play a crucial role in biology. Metalloenzymes perform various functions in various life sustaining processes. Global energy crisis is a major challenge that the world is facing. The depleting fossil fuels and increasing carbon footprint calls for a need of alternate clean energy sources. Researchers have been working to help alleviate this challenge for decades. Hydrogen gas comes up as a potential candidate which can be used as a biofuel in a hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogenase is a metalloenzyme that does a two-electron reversible conversion of protons to hydrogen, making it an excellent hydrogen source. However, this native enzyme …

The Impact Of Blended Classroom Pedagogy On Student Gpa In A Community College Stem Course, Sarah Mattox Holt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

America is facing a shortage of STEM workers and colleges must meet the demand by educating qualified graduates. However, attrition rates are high in STEM classes, particularly in minority groups. Blended learning has increased in popularity in higher education over recent years and has the potential to improve current teaching practices. Yet, limited research centers on the success of blended learning implemented in a community college STEM course. This quantitative research study (N=1264) was designed to evaluate student success in the blended learning environment versus traditional environment in an introductory community college biology course for science majors. The study indicated …

Development Of Local Depot Formulation For Sustained Systemic Delivery Of Proteins, Pranav Ponkshe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Protein therapeutics due to their high potency, high specificity, and desirable profile have gained a lot of traction in the last decade. Though the route of administration is limited to parenteral routes. There are also short half-life and instability issues observed in protein therapeutics making it necessary to develop delivery systems.

In the first chapter interleukin 15 as a cytokine was introduced while the second chapter talks more in detail about the development of a local depot hydrogel formulation for the delivery of recombinant interleukin 15. In vitro stability, and release studies were performed to select the optimum formulation for …

Exploring Non-Covalent Interactions With Quantum Chemical Tools, Morgan Perkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Computational quantum chemistry is an excellent tool for probing properties of all types of chemical systems that are not easily accessible via experimental work. In particular, computational chemistry can be used to develop a better understanding of non-covalent interactions, which are important to a variety of chemical and biological processes. This work focuses primarily on complexes held together by hydrogen and halogen bonding, investigating their relationship to each other and, in a few projects, providing data that can be used for experimental identification of the different configurations. Additionally, comparisons are made between complexes containing first-row elements (e.g. fluorine) and their …

Dye And Redox Shuttle Interactions To Promote Fast Electron Transfer In Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, Abeysinghe Mudiyanselage Dinesh Bandara Nugegoda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Harnessing the sun's power using dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is a possible answer to address the energy challenge. Increasing the performance of DSC devices by increasing the rate of productive electron transfers is critically essential. In this regard, to increase the rate of electron transfers from the redox shuttle to the dye, a strategy of coordinating the redox shuttle through non-covalent interactions such as Lewis acid-Lewis base interactions, π-stacking interactions, and halogen bonding interactions to the dye are considered. DSC devices were fabricated using newly synthesized dyes and redox shuttle pairs to study each strategy. The performance of the devices …

On Airborne Tire Wear Particles Along Roads, Labeling Microplastics With Fluorescent Dyes, Microplastics In Wastewater Treatment Plant And Beach Sand, And Microplastic-Mercury Affinity, Zhiqiang Gao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microplastics (MPs) with sizes of 1 μm to 5 mm that are intentional manufactured or result from fragmentation of large plastic debris are widely recognized as a global pollutant. The distributions and concentrations of MPs in environmental and biological systems as well as their toxicity are not well understood. This dissertation details five studies providing new insight and methods on (1) the occurrence and characteristics of airborne tire wear particles (TWPs) along roads, (2) manufacturing and labeling of MPs with fluorescent dyes, (3) fate of MPs in a secondary wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) at the University of Mississippi, (4) distribution …

Interval Delivery Of 5ht2a Agonists Using Multilayered Polymeric Films, Mehjabeen Hossain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is an urgent unmet medical need to develop therapeutic options for the ~50% of depression patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression, which is difficult to treat with existing psycho- and pharmaco-therapeutic options. Classical psychedelics, such as the 5HT2A agonists, have re-emerged as a treatment paradigm for depression. Recent clinical trials highlight the potential effectiveness of 5HT2A agonists to improve mood and psychotherapeutic growth in treatment-resistant depression patients, even in those who have failed a median of four previous medications in their lifetime. Moreover, microdosing could be a promising way to achieve long-term alleviation of depression symptoms without a hallucinogenic experience. …

From Conflict To Co-Creation Three Powerful Stories Of Transformational Change, Payton Silket, Cheryl L. Epps

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In our communities today, too often, the end goal of dialogue is to develop methods that allow people to coexist, but this is not enough. If left at that, our society will increasingly become more segmented and stratified, where groups of people are able to reside in the same vicinity but only interact when absolutely necessary or safe. This is no way to live, and, in fact, it is a recipe for polarization and the eventual death of dialogue.

Prenatal Exposure To Methamphetamine Causes Vascular Dysfunction In Adult Male Offspring, Hasitha Chavva, Adam M. Belcher, Daniel A. Brazeau, Boyd Rorabaugh

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Methamphetamine use during pregnancy can have negative consequences on the offspring. However, most studies investigating the impact of prenatal exposure to methamphetamine have focused on behavioral and neurological outcomes. Relatively little is known regarding the impact of prenatal methamphetamine on the adult cardiovascular system. This study investigated the impact of chronic fetal exposure to methamphetamine on vascular function in adult offspring. Pregnant female rats received daily saline or methamphetamine (5 mg/kg) injections starting on gestational day 1 and continuing until the pups were born. Vascular function was assessed in 5 month old offspring. Prenatal methamphetamine significantly decreased both the efficacy …

Carbon-Sensitive Pedotransfer Functions For Plant Available Water, Dianna K. Bagnall, Cristine L.S. Morgan, Michael Cope, Gregory M. Bean, Shannon Cappellazzi, Kelsey Greub, Daniel Liptzin, Charlotte L. Norris, Elizabeth Rieke, Paul Tracy, Ezra Aberle, Amanda Ashworth, Oscar Bañuelos Tavarez, Andy Bary, R. Louis Baumhardt, Alberto Borbón Gracia, Daniel Brainard, Jameson Brennan, Dolores Briones Reyes, Darren Bruhjell, Cameron Carlyle, James Crawford, Cody Creech, Steven Culman, William Deen, Curtis Dell, Justin Derner, Thomas Ducey, Sjoerd Willem Duiker, Miles Dyck, Benjamin Ellert, Martin Entz, Avelino Espinosa Solorio, Steven J. Fonte, Simon Fonteyne, Ann Marie Fortuna, Jamie Foster, Lisa Fultz, Audrey V. Gamble, Charles Geddes

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Currently accepted pedotransfer functions show negligible effect of management-induced changes to soil organic carbon (SOC) on plant available water holding capacity (θAWHC), while some studies show the ability to substantially increase θAWHC through management. The Soil Health Institute's North America Project to Evaluate Soil Health Measurements measured water content at field capacity using intact soil cores across 124 long-term research sites that contained increases in SOC as a result of management treatments such as reduced tillage and cover cropping. Pedotransfer functions were created for volumetric water content at field capacity (θFC) and permanent wilting point (θPWP). New pedotransfer functions had …

Impact Of Harvest On Switchgrass Leaf Microbial Communities, Esther Singer, Elizabeth M. Carpenter, Jason Bonnette, Tanja Woyke, Thomas E. Juenger

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Switchgrass is a promising feedstock for biofuel production, with potential for leveraging its native microbial community to increase productivity and resilience to environmental stress. Here, we characterized the bacterial, archaeal and fungal diversity of the leaf microbial community associated with four switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) genotypes, subjected to two harvest treatments (annual harvest and unharvested control), and two fertilization levels (fertilized and unfertilized control), based on 16S rRNA gene and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region amplicon sequencing. Leaf surface and leaf endosphere bacterial communities were significantly different with Alphaproteobacteria enriched in the leaf surface and Gammaproteobacteria and Bacilli enriched in the …

Yoshitsune And The Gendered Transformations Of Japan’S Self-Image, Sachi Schmidt-Hori

Dartmouth Scholarship

This essay traces the transformations of Japan’s self-image through the figure of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. As Japan in the late 600s replaced its name granted by China—“the land of dwarfs”—with “the land of harmony,” its desire to positively repackage its smallness illuminates how the “short and ugly” Yoshitsune in Heike monogatari (fourteenth century) morphed into a “small but beautiful” youth by the fifteenth century. Furthermore, the modern imperial regime repurposed the child Yoshitsune (Ushiwaka-maru) for propaganda by inundating children’s media with the image of Ushiwaka-maru fighting Benkei, which symbolized the “small but mighty” Japan subjugating the massive “West.”

The Power Of Water In Palestinian-Israeli Relations, Emily Mckee

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

Despite widespread narratives of water wars, there is no straight line between water scarcity and conflict. Rather, water scarcity is shaped by inequitable distribution, the domination of water by some at the expense of others. This chapter surveys the current situation of water access across Israel and Palestine and addresses key historical and recent developments that have raised the stakes of water within socio-political relations and created wide inequities in water access between Palestinians and Israelis. In this region, power has mediated water access through forms of governance, such as colonialism; through technology, such as diversion canals and desalination plants; …

Does Peer-To-Peer Writing Tutoring Cause Stress? A Multi-Institutional Rad Study, Matthew Nelson, Kathleen Weaver, Sam Deges, Pornchanok Ruengvirayudh, Savannah Garcia, Sarah Dunn

The Writing Center Journal

Writing center literature often notes the stress and anxiety of students as a special concern for peer writing tutors, and tutor training manuals offer advice for tutors on how to manage student writers’ anxiety and stress in sessions. Few writing center sources, however, examine the stress/anxiety tutors may experience as a result of their work in the writing center, despite increasing interest in emotions and emotional labor in writing centers. This multi-institutional study examines whether peer writing tutors experience increased stress/anxiety while tutoring. Using a mixed-methods approach combining both surveys and physiological data (salivary cortisol levels controlled against days when …

Goals And Proceedings Information, Preface And Acknowledgments, William S. Walker Iii, Lynn A. Bryan Ph. D., S. Selcen Guzey, Elizabeth Suazo-Flores

Indiana STEM Education Conference

No abstract provided.

Longevity Of An Immunocontraceptive Vaccine Effect On Fecundity In Rats, Rebecca Pinkham, Douglas C. Eckery, Richard E. Mauldin, M. Gomm, F. Hill, F. Vial, G. Massei

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Increases in human-wildlife conflicts alongside cultural shifts against lethal control methods are driving the need for alternative wildlife management tools such as fertility control. Contraceptive formulations suitable for oral delivery would permit broader remote application in wildlife species.

This study evaluated the contraceptive effect and immune response to two novel injectable immunocontraceptive formulations targeting the Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH): MAF-IMX294 and MAF-IMX294P conjugates, both identified as having potential as oral contraceptives. The study also explored whether in multiparous species immunocontraceptives may either totally prevent reproduction or also affect litter size.

Female rats, chosen as a model species, were given three …

Rapid Changes In Public Perception Toward A Conservation Initiative, Rebecca Niemiec, Richard E.W. Berl, Mireille Gonzalez, Tara L. Teel, Jonathan Salerno, Stewart Breck, Cassiopeia Camara, Matthew Collins, Courtney Scholtz, Dana Hoag, Kevin R. Crooks

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Rapid, widespread changes in public perceptions and behaviors have the potential to influence conservation outcomes. However, few studies have documented whether and how such shifts occur throughout the span of a conservation initiative. We examined the 2020 ballot initiative to reintroduce wolves into Colorado, which passed with less support than prior surveys had estimated. We conducted a postelection survey of Colorado residents using the same methods as our preelection survey to compare responses between surveys and to official election results. Reported voting in favor of wolf reintroduction in the postelection survey decreased in comparison to voting intentions shared in the …

A Model For Leveraging Animal Movement To Understand Spatio-Temporal Disease Dynamics, Mark Q. Wilber, Anni Yang, Raoul Boughton, Kezia R. Manlove, Ryan S. Miller, Kim M. Pepin, George Wittemyer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The ongoing explosion of fine-resolution movement data in animal systems provides a unique opportunity to empirically quantify spatial, temporal and individual variation in transmission risk and improve our ability to forecast disease outbreaks. However, we lack a generalizable model that can leverage movement data to quantify transmission risk and how it affects pathogen invasion and persistence on heterogeneous landscapes. We developed a flexible model ‘Movement-driven modelling of spatio-temporal infection risk’ (MoveSTIR) that leverages diverse data on animal movement to derive metrics of direct and indirect contact by decomposing transmission into constituent processes of contact formation and duration and pathogen deposition …

Large- And Small-Scale Climate Influences Spring Migration Departure Probability Of American White Pelicans, D. Tommy King, Guiming Wang, Fred L. Cunningham

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Endogenous (e.g., age and sex) and exogenous (e.g., climate and resource availability) factors influence avian migration phenology. However, little is known regarding the migration ecology of birds at the non-breeding grounds, including the American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos). We used Global Positioning System transmitters to track the movements and migration of 51 pelicans from 2002 to 2012. We used the Kaplan–Meier model to estimate pelican spring migration probabilities to quantify partial migration with 94 spring migration events and used the Cox proportional hazards model to evaluate the effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation index (NAOI), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), and …