Digital Commons Network^™

A Christian Response To Modern Extraterrestrialism, Chase Perry Cakmis

Masters Theses

Extraterrestrial beliefs (ET-ism) have become a cultural craze in contemporary times, infatuating many who encounter these ideas. ET-ism has influenced all forms of media, science, and even religion. With ET-ism permeating all facets of society, Christians need to know how to approach this craze and the ideas that sprout from it. Much research has been conducted on this subject both on the individual and scientific level, thrusting these beliefs from fringe views believed only by the paranoid into widely accepted ideas even within the scientific community. While Christian circles have discussed this subject in the past, it is becoming a …

Drawing On Imagination: Soul Care For Adolescents Through Art, Nanette Cross

Masters Theses

The most inescapable part of the human condition is aging. One of the most challenging periods of growth involves the transformation of a person from a child into an adult. Every human being descended from Adam and Eve, has had to pass through the crucible known as adolescence. While some seem to thrive during this period of life, others can have an extremely difficult and overwhelming experience. Inaccurate self-image, peer pressure, lack of acceptance, confusion, awkwardness, bullying, perceived lack of agency, high sensitivity, and high expectations are all stress factors that consistently plague this age group to the point of …

Questions With Purpose: Utilizing Technology To Maximize The Parent/Child Reflective Discourse, Earl Tubbs

Masters Theses

For a young child, parents are the “no one” and “everyone” that Saint Augustine spoke of. Providing a positive example through action is important but shaping their moral compass by reflecting on their life experiences is equally important. Stated succinctly, reflective discourse is an interactive conversation between parent and child where the parent guides one’s children through recent life experiences, viewed through a specific lens. By reviewing logic driven and emotional responses, the positive and negative consequences to their behavior, and the people involved, parents can aid their children as they shape their definition of right and wrong. By reviewing …

Lower Extremity Power And Movement Velocity In Competitive Older Athletes, Becca D. Jordre

Dissertations and Theses

Older adults are a rapidly growing population which house a subset of older athletes who regularly engage in sport competition. The physical health and risk factors of this competitive older athlete population have been largely overlooked by healthcare providers and researchers and are poorly understood. Older athletes exhibit distinctly different measures of physical performance which require unique thresholds to identify health-related risk factors. While lower extremity power and movement velocity have been identified as valuable measures of physical performance and fall risk in community-dwelling older adults this relationship has not been explored in competitive older athletes. One method for analyzing …

Mental Fatigue On Landing Performance, Madison Marie Gaffney

Dissertations and Theses

Mental fatigue has been shown to impair physical performance, especially for endurance-based sports. However, little research has been done regarding the impacts of mental fatigue on shorter maximal effort movements during a common sport related activity such as the depth jump. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of mental fatigue on short maximal performance efforts and predisposing biomechanical variables for non-contact ACL tears during depth-jumps in 18 Division I female soccer players. Each participant completed five depth jumps, followed by a 30-minute Stroop task to induce mental fatigue, and then completed five more depth jumps. Multiple …

Modulation Of Stress-Induced Behaviors Through Orexinergic Signaling In The Basolateral Amygdala, Jazmine D W Yaeger

Dissertations and Theses

Stress initiates behavioral disturbances, which are often seen as symptoms of psychiatric disorders, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. While stress is involved in the formation of disordered states, only certain individuals are vulnerable to, and therefore experience, these outcomes. Further, females are more likely to be diagnosed with stress-induced psychiatric disorders. Elements within stress neurocircuitry offer insight into differential behavioral outcomes associated with stressful experiences; and the basolateral amygdala (BLA), where pro- and anti-stress signals are integrated, is likely an important mediator in phenotype development. The orexin system, too, while being strongly associated with sleep, motivation, and …

Restorative Practice In Secondary Schools: A Case Study On Leadership, Implementation, And Challenges, Sarah M. Gross

Dissertations and Theses

Students who receive exclusionary discipline (discipline that removes them from the classroom) are less likely to graduate from high school. It has long been documented that students of color, special education students, and boys are more likely to be assigned suspensions and miss classroom instruction. Discipline matrices have been in place across the country and disparities still exist in consequences assigned to individual students. To alter this current reality, school professionals have looked for alternatives. One possibility lies in restorative practices. Restorative practices are strategies that value the whole child and consider not only an act of harm, but also …

Adjunct Fenofibrate Up-Regulates Bile Acid Glucuronidation And Improves Treatment Response For Patients With Cholestasis, Gina M. Gallucci, Trottier, Christopher Hemme, David N. Assis, James L. Boyer, Olivier Barbier, Nisanne S. Ghonem

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Accumulation of cytotoxic bile acids (BAs) during cholestasis can result in liver failure. Glucuronidation, a phase II metabolism pathway responsible for BA detoxification, is regulated by peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor alpha (PPARα). This study investigates the efficacy of adjunct fenofibrate therapy to up-regulate BA-glucuronidation and reduce serum BA toxicity during cholestasis. Adult patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, n = 32) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC, n = 23), who experienced an incomplete response while receiving ursodiol monotherapy (13-15 mg/kg/day), defined as serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) ≥ 1.5 times the upper limit of normal, received additional fenofibrate (145-160 mg/day) as standard …

Personal Digital Health In Parkinson's Disease: Case Histories And Commentary, Aidan T. Boving, L. Shuster, Theodore A. Walls, Todd Brothers

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

The use of self-tracking of bio-behavioral states along with prescription dosing information is increasingly popular in the care and study of many human diseases. Parkinson’s Disease is particularly amenable to such tracking, as patients live with the progressive disease for many years, increasing motivation to pursue quality of life changes through careful monitoring of symptoms and self-guided management of their medications and lifestyle choices. Through the use of digital self-tracking technologies, patients independently or in conjunction with professional medical advice are modulating their medications and behavioral regimens based on self-tracking data. Self-trackers engage in self-experimentation with their health, and more …

Vaccine Hesitancy - When Emotions Trump Reason, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Isn’t getting a vaccine a decision of choice or personal liberty? Yes, but only if personal choices don’t create health risks for other citizens. We no longer permit individuals to smoke in public spaces in which second-hand smoke can harm the health of others. In the case of COVID-19, at best, individuals whose choice it is not to be vaccinated slow progress toward herd immunity. At worst, if enough individuals choose not to vaccinate, this pandemic continues unabated, enabling variants of the original virus to emerge – variants that are often of increasing virulence. Fear of ingredients, however, is but …

Human Behavior In Domestic Environments: Prediction And Applications, Sharare Zehtabian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

A longstanding goal of human behavior science is to model and predict how humans interact with each other or with other systems. Such models are beneficial and have many applications, including designing and implementing assistive technologies, improving users' experiences and quality of life and making better decisions to create public policies. Behavior is highly complex due to uncertainties and a lack of scientific tools to measure it. Hence prediction of human behavior cannot be 100% accurate. However, prediction is also not hopeless because the biological needs, as well as cultural conventions (for instance, regarding meal times) set the general patterns …

Efficient Data Structures For Text Processing Applications, Paniz Abedin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis is devoted to designing and analyzing efficient text indexing data structures and associated algorithms for processing text data. The general problem is to preprocess a given text or a collection of texts into a space-efficient index to quickly answer various queries on this data. Basic queries such as counting/reporting a given pattern's occurrences as substrings of the original text are useful in modeling critical bioinformatics applications. This line of research has witnessed many breakthroughs, such as the suffix trees, suffix arrays, FM-index, etc. In this work, we revisit the following problems: 1. The Heaviest Induced Ancestors problem 2. …

Forage News [2021-12], Department Of Plant And Soil Sciences, University Of Kentucky

Forage News

No abstract provided.

Sources Of Peanut Digging Losses And Strategies To Reduce Losses During Inversion, Loren Samenko

All Theses

Presented research was conducted at Clemson University’s Edisto Research and Education Center to quantify harvest related losses associated with the effects of peanut digger blade geometry, the effects of the peanut digger inversion assembly, and the effects of vine load on digging and strategies to address vine load. Three studies were performed to determine the potential losses incurred during the digging processes; various harvest metrics were analyzed to quantify the effects of the treatments. Five objectives guided the presented research. Objectives of the effects of peanut digger blade geometry study investigated the impact of blade geometry and blade aggression on …

The Mayfly Newsletter, Donna Giberson

The Mayfly Newsletter

The Mayfly Newsletter is the official newsletter of the Permanent Committee of the International Conferences on Ephemeroptera.

Structural Dynamics And Encapsulation Properties Of Polyelectrolyte Complex Micelles, Sachit Shah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Charged therapeutics such as nucleic acids and proteins can treat a vast range of human diseases that are traditionally undruggable. Their broadness in treating disease is due to their ability to influence cellular function. However, their high charge density and physiological barriers such as enzymatic degradation, hinder the deliverability of these molecules to the sites of disease. Polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) micelles are core-corona nanostructures that can encapsulate charged molecules and offer a platform for delivery. PECs form the core, when two oppositely charged polyelectrolytes are mixed in an aqueous solution, and the micelle corona is a neutral hydrophilic polymer that …

Discriminatory Permissions And Structural Injustice, Lawrence G. Sager, Nelson Tebbe

Minnesota Law Review Vols. 106:2 onward (2021-present)

America is engaged in a nationwide conversation about conscience exemptions from equality laws. So far, that conflict has been debated in terms of religious liberty. Courts have asked whether religious actors like Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop are entitled to exemptions from civil rights laws and whether any such exemptions count as establishments of religion. This framing overlooks an important issue, namely whether any such exemptions violate the Equal Protection Clause. In this Article, we argue that explicit state enactments that both permit and encourage private discrimination against people subject to structural injustice can and should be invalidated by judges …

Ms 115 Guide To John P. Mcgovern, Md Papers (1901-2002), John P. Mcgovern (1921 - 2007)

Manuscript Finding Aids

The papers of John P. McGovern document his medical career, the creation of the McGovern Allergy Clinic, his editorial and writing leadership, and his founding assistance and support for the American Osler Society. Dr. McGovern was energetic in leading many medical associations, promoting humanism in medicine. See more at MS 115.

Iron Geochemistry Across An Estuary-To-Coastal Gradient, Lissett G. Diaz

Honors Theses

Iron is a ubiquitous earth element that participates in biogeochemical processes that occur in marine sediments. Microorganisms utilize iron for many purposes, including cell growth, conserving energy, and for maintaining metabolic activity. In coastal sedimentary settings, understanding the redox reactions involving ferric iron, Fe³⁺, and ferrous iron, Fe²⁺, in its solid phase and pore-water phases, respectively, enable an appreciation of biogeochemical transformations occurring in the coastal zone. In this study, iron concentrations in sediment of ranging permeability were determined at four stations marking an estuary-coast transition zone in Singleton Swash in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Undergraduate Research Motivations At The University Of Nebraska Omaha (Uno), Afrah F. Rasheed

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Undergraduate research provides unique experiences and skill sets that are applicable in various careers. However, there has been an increasing need for greater diversity among researchers, namely undergraduate researchers, and the motivations behind undergraduate research participation need to be further explored. The purpose of this study was to identify the demographic information of undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), and what motivations were the most prevalent in undergraduate research at UNO. A mixed-methods approach was utilized through a quantitative portion and a qualitative portion. The quantitative portion was a web-based survey which gauged for 22 independent …

Analyzing Gene Expression Profiles Of A Virus And Its Host During Infection, Elizabeth Reisher

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

In recent years, RNA sequencing has become an important part of gene expression analysis. RNA sequencing applications are used to study many aspects of RNA structure, expression, and translation. With developing technologies, RNA sequencing is used to learn more about the biology of RNA, helping to understand more about what RNA does under different conditions, such as when the RNA’s host is under attack from a virus. New RNA sequencing technologies allow researchers to learn more about what happens to the host when there is an attack from an outside source, such as a virus. RNA sequencing also tells the …

Will You Be My Special Cucumber?: A Study Of Human-Robot Interaction (Hri), Kalvry Cooper

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

2021-December-01-Meet Pamela AvendañO-Rubi, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Language is what ties everything and everyone together for Pamela Avendaño-Rubi, whose native language of Spanish has been the key to relationships and opportunities throughout her time at East Tennessee State University.

“I was born and raised in Mexico, and it wasn’t until maybe seven or eight years ago that I first learned English. That was the biggest thing ever,” said the senior pre-medical student. “So, I empathize with a lot of people for whom English is a second language, even the professors here who have English as a second language and they struggle to express themselves. I am able …

2021-December-01-Etsu Commencement, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University will confer more than 1,300 degrees during Commencement Exercises on Saturday, Dec. 11, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the Ballad Health Athletic Center. Gayle Conelly Manchin, who is federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), will deliver the keynote address at 10 a.m. ETSU faculty member Dr. Sean Fox, who won the Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching, will address graduates during the 2 p.m. ceremony.

Manchin works directly with the ARC’s 13 member governors, their state alternates and program managers, and a network of local development districts to continue to …

Toxicity And Effects Of Tire Crumb Rubber In The Aquatic Environment, Stephanie Laplaca

All Dissertations

Plastic materials have provided innovative solutions to society’s evolving needs and challenges. Due to their durability and resistance to degradation, plastics remain in the environment for long periods of time and can therefore be transported to many environmental compartments such as water, sediment, and biota. Microplastics (MPs) have been defined as synthetic plastic particles that have at least one dimension less than 5 mm and are insoluble in water. Microrubber (MR), a recently acknowledged sub-group of MPs, has been documented in environmental samples more recently, frequently comprising a large portion of total MPs of various samples. In South Carolina specifically, …

Isolating The White Matter Circuitry Of The Dorsal Language Stream: Connectome-Symptom Mapping In Stroke Induced Aphasia, Vatche Baboyan, Alexandra Basilaskos, Grigori Yourganov, Chris Rorden, Leonardo Bonilha, Julius Fridiksson, Gregory Hickok

Faculty Publications

The application of �� 1 -regularized machine learning models to high-dimensional connectomes offers a promising methodology to assess clinical-anatomical correlations in humans. Here, we integrate the connectome-based lesion-symptom mapping framework with sparse partial least squares regression (sPLS-R) to isolate elements of the connectome associated with speech repetition deficits. By mapping over 2,500 connections of the structural connectome in a cohort of 71 stroke-induced cases of aphasia presenting with varying left-hemisphere lesions and repetition impairment, sPLS-R was trained on 50 subjects to algorithmically identify connectomic features on the basis of their predictive value. The highest ranking features were subsequently used to …

Specific Splice Junction Detection In Single Cells With Sicilian, Roozbeh Dehghannasiri, Julia E. Olivieri, Ana Damljanovic, Julia Salzman

All Faculty Articles - School of Engineering and Computer Science

Precise splice junction calls are currently unavailable in scRNA-seq pipelines such as the 10x Chromium platform but are critical for understanding single-cell biology. Here, we introduce SICILIAN, a new method that assigns statistical confidence to splice junctions from a spliced aligner to improve precision. SICILIAN is a general method that can be applied to bulk or single-cell data, but has particular utility for single-cell analysis due to that data’s unique challenges and opportunities for discovery. SICILIAN’s precise splice detection achieves high accuracy on simulated data, improves concordance between matched single-cell and bulk datasets, and increases agreement between biological replicates. SICILIAN …

Index To Volume 89

Nebraska Bird Review

Adams, Marie 52

to

Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii 168 leucophrys 75, 168-169 oriantha 75, 169

Review Of The Sandhill Crane State: A Naturalist’S Guide To Nebraska By Paul Johnsgard, Ruth Stearns

Nebraska Bird Review

Dr. Paul Austin Johnsgard left us one last gift, in this reference guide to all places natural in Nebraska. Published posthumously, and available for purchase or free via UNL’s Digital Commons, this book arrived at my doorstep like a veritable “seed catalog” of Nebraska’s places of wonder to delight and inspire fair weather adventures just before the long winter set in. He wants us to explore the state as he had done, to be excited by all the out-ofdoors Nebraska has to offer.

Northern Saw-Whet Owl Autumn Migration In Eastern Nebraska: Results From A Three-Year Banding Study, Stephen J. Brenner, Joel G. Jorgensen

Nebraska Bird Review

Prior to 2019, records of NSWOs in Nebraska during fall were limited. There were fewer than five accepted reports in eastern Nebraska since the 1950s (Silcock and Jorgensen, 2021). The Hitchcock banding station along the Missouri River bluffs in nearby western Iowa has captured, banded, and released 20-50 birds during autumn migration for a number of years (J. Toll, personal communication). Furthermore, a single season banding study in central Nebraska during fall 2004 captured 14 NSWOs (Kim 2005), suggesting the species may migrate annually over much of the state in fall, or at least in more years than previously thought. …