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Cancer Stem Cells In The Screening Of Anticancer Drugs For Central Nervous System Tumors, Sarah Elizabeth Daron-Mathis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

There is a growing need (in the medical field) to design personalized therapy for cancer patients. Decades of cancer research have found no silver bullet that can cure all or even most patients. This study evaluated four patients affected by central nervous system (CNS) tumors (Ependymoma and Glioblastoma), and found that tumors with the same histology had unique responses to treatment. Each sample presented different levels of heterogeneity in expressed biomarkers and responded to drugs at varying levels.

Oncologists conventionally treat cancer patients with drugs tested in large clinical trials. However, often patients do not experience positive outcomes following treatments …

Generation Istalk: An Examination Of The Prior Relationship Between Victims Of Stalking And Offenders, Paige Ann Heinrich

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Stalking is a growing issue in the United States faced by many each year. The proliferation of social media sites has made cyberstalking a new form of social harassment and potential victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of traditional and cyberstalking on a medium sized college campus in the Southeastern United States. Included was an examination of the impact of the victim-offender relationship, to whom victimization was reported, and gender patterns of social media use. In total, 1,040 undergraduate/graduate students were surveyed using a multistage cluster sampling method. Results showed that cyberstalking was more prevalent …

A Regional Comparison Of Intellectual Disability Rates In Appalachia, Tiffany D. Yancey

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examined administrative prevalence rates of Intellectual Disability for children and adolescents within Southern West Virginia over a three-year-period compared to rates in neighboring Virginia counties with designated Appalachian status to determine if significantly different rates were evident, and if prevalence varied according to poverty, maternal age, and race/ethnicity across all districts. The results revealed that despite Southern West Virginia and Western Virginia being geographically similar, Southern West Virginia LEAs maintain significantly higher ID rates. Findings indicated poverty and teen pregnancy are correlated with higher ID rates but not race/ethnicity. The prevalence study points to the need for additional …

Evaluating Potential Plant Hormone Cross Talk Between Auxin And Ethylene In Arabidopsis, Mia Lynne Brown

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Auxin is the primary hormone responsible for plant growth and development. Regulation of auxin-response genes occurs through transcriptional activators (auxin response factors called ARFs) which bind to auxin response elements (AuxREs). Some auxin-responsive genes encode aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid synthase (ACS) enzymes which regulate the production of the plant hormone ethylene. The major research objective was to evaluate transcriptional cross talk between auxin and ethylene. Both AuxREs and ethylene response elements were found in several ACS and ARF genes, suggesting cross talk between the two hormones at the transcriptional level. Analysis of transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants deficient in ARF7 and containing a …

Epigenetic Role Of Ptip In Mouse Spermatogenesis, Chengjing Liu

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In mammals, spermatogenesis is a biological process inside the testis to produce spermatozoa from spermatogonia. This process is governed by both genetic and epigenetic mechanisms and thus is a powerful system for epigenetic research. Methylation of histone 3 lysine 4 (H3K4) is an epigenetic mark, which has been found to be dynamically modulated in mouse male germ cells during spermatogenesis. Pax2 Transactivation domain Interaction Protein (PTIP) has been recently identified as part of a H3K4 methyltransferase complex. In this study, I hypothesize that PTIP is an essential epigenetic regulator in mouse spermatogenesis. To test this hypothesis, I first established a …

The Dawn Of Sowt: Oss Weathermen In The Balkans, 1944, Bryan David Carnes

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis will examine the rise of Special Operations Weathermen during World War II, from the founding of the Weather Bureau to the formation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). OSS-weathermen and their contributions played a significant role to the overall Allied victory in all theaters of operation. Concentrating on the first documented use of clandestine weathermen in Yugoslavia, I contend that Special Operations Weather was not only crucial to the war effort, but as a result, revolutionized behind-the-line weather reporting in modern U.S. military. Since meteorological data transcends alliances and nationalities; those who can accurately forecast and observe …

Nuclear Family Dynamics: Predictors Of Childhood Crushes And Adult Sexual Orientation, Natalie M. Campbell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study investigated the effects of nuclear family dynamics on childhood crushes and adult sexual orientation. Retrospective data was gathered via an anonymous survey administered using a computer-assisted self-interview program. Data was collected from 1,242 non-transsexual males (age range 18-86) and 2,201 non-transsexual females (age range 18-78). Management of parental disagreements, maternal attitude about sex, parental composition of the nuclear family, maternal affection, and parental demonstration of affection predicted the sex of childhood crushes in males and/or females. Management of parental disagreement, parental attitude about sex, nudity practices within the home, parental demonstration of affection, and parental composition of the …

Parent Perceptions Of Parent-School Partnership Efforts For Students With Disabilities, Jessica Chadwick

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The study examined parent-school partnership efforts, as reported and perceived by parents of students with disabilities in a Mid-Atlantic State. Due to the high correlation between parent involvement and academic success, these qualitative comments were deemed vital to ongoing special education improvement in the state. The study utilized the State Education Agency parent survey data which was collected in accordance with the State Performance Plan / Annual Performance Report requirements under Section 616 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004. Survey responses from parents of students with disabilities were aggregated and analyzed for local education agencies. These comments …

Trends In Intellectual Disability Identification In West Virginia, Margaret M. Stephens

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of Intellectual Disability (ID) in each of West Virginia’s Local Educational Agencies (LEAs). Publicly available enrollment and disability counts were aggregated and used to calculate an administrative prevalence rate for each LEA annually, from 2004 to 2013. Prevalence was examined within and between LEAs, as well as between regions. The results indicate a decrease in the administrative prevalence of ID in 50 of 55 LEAs over the 10 years examined. Rates within LEAs varied between years. Additionally, school-based prevalence varied between RESAs, with RESA I and RESA VIII exhibiting the …

Policymakers' Perceptions On The Application Of Research Evidence In The Policymaking Process Within West Virginia's Higher Education System, Christopher Treadway

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this descriptive, mixed-method study was to explore the role that research evidence plays in policy-related decision-making within West Virginia’s higher education system, policymakers’ perceptions on the reliability and usefulness of various sources of information, and their insights related to factors that facilitate and/or impede the use of research evidence. Using data obtained through an internet-based questionnaire administered to more than 100 higher education policymakers, the study resulted in several notable findings, many of which reinforced similar findings uncovered in the review of the literature.

Most researchers agree that the results of high-quality research can be a tremendous …

Investigation Into The Biological Importance And Function Of Proinsulin C-Peptide, Christina L. Newsome

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The C-peptide of insulin was thought to be biologically inactive, but recent studies have shown that the C-peptide causes multiple molecular and physiological effects. Evidence has shown that C-peptide binds to a cell surface receptor, probably a G-protein coupled receptor, and that the COOH-terminal pentapeptide is essential for binding and constitutes an active site. For a further understanding of the detailed nature of the physiological effects of C-peptide, the receptor structure needs to be determined. We designed an affinity column using C-peptide to try and gain a better understanding of the biological effects by examining what proteins the affinity column …

The Quality Of Education Leadership Doctoral Dissertations In The United States: An Empirical Review, Jessica M. Hanna

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In the field of education, doctoral programs are expected to prepare the future leaders of the field. With the doctoral process being so unique, a necessary interaction between the student and faculty is essential in order for the student to develop an expert-level understanding of the field. Literature indicates, however, that doctoral programs in education are trending toward being offered as online programs, which is causing many researchers and leaders in the field to worry that the lack of traditional instruction and interaction will have a damaging effect on the quality of educational doctoral programs. This nationwide, cross-sectional exploratory study …

Esl Students' Language Anxiety In In-Class Oral Presentations, Yusi Chen

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This case study aims to explore connections between ESL students’ speaking-in-class anxiety and their presentation performance, factors causing oral anxiety during presentations, and strategies to regulate L2 students’ speaking anxiety in presentations. Findings of this research contribute to the investigation of speaking-in-class anxiety from non-English major L2 students. Three Chinese ESL students enrolled in the INTO program at Marshall University individually gave two presentations in speaking classes. Triangulated data sources were collected to delve into three research questions. The results suggest that L2 students’ anxiety forms mental blocks during presentations, but it has less influence on their presentation performance. Based …

Bullying Perceptions: Understanding Students With And Without Disabilities, Shellie B. Simpson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The study investigates perceptions about bullying for intermediate students with and without disabilities. A survey administered to each student assessed perceptions related to bullying and friendship. Interview questions related to specific instances of bullying encountered were also administered. The results indicate perception variations between students with and without disabilities. Students with disabilities reported victimization at a higher rate than students without disabilities, except for verbal bullying and relational bullying which were reported at an equal rate. Students without disabilities reported a higher rate of bullying instances by friends, while students with disabilities report a desire to have more friends. Since …

Justice Done: Outlawry Crimes In Medieval Iceland, Sarah Stapleton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Examining the Grágás and sagas of Medieval Iceland demonstrates that the laws which governed Medieval Iceland were both strict and lawbreakers were punished ruthlessly when those laws were broken. Despite this, the laws protected the injured party and the families, dependents, and mortgagees of outlaws. Outlawry crimes were broken into main categories: honor crimes, violent crimes, and crimes of wealth. By examining the Grágás and sagas one can see how the laws manifested themselves in Icelandic society.

Teacher Attitudes Of The Effectiveness Of Reading Comprehension Strategies And Interventions, Charles Hartley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study surveyed the attitudes of secondary teachers in a semi-rural school district in West Virginia in an attempt to gain an understanding of how teachers in the district perceived the comprehension skills of their students and the effectiveness of reading comprehension strategies and interventions currently being employed by the district and by individual teachers. The researcher developed a survey that was distributed to all the secondary schools in the district. The survey consisted of Likert Scale questions and opened ended responses. The results of the survey indicated that the participants believe that overall the comprehension skills of students in …

Where's The Beef Labeling?: A Policy Proposal Concerning Red Meat, Ann Elaine Bryant

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) 1990, required all foods regulated by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have nutritional information labels directly on the product. Red meat is regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is not subject to the NLEA. Red meat nutrition labeling was voluntarily until 2009, and even with the changes in the regulations most red meat still does not have to have a nutrition label directly on the package. Red meat has been linked to obesity, which is a serious health problem in the United States. This thesis argues …

Marshall Magazine Winter 2015, Marshall University

Marshall Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Teacher Efficacy And Student Engagement On Eleventh-Grade South Carolina U.S. History And Constitution End-Of-Course State Exam Scores, Jacqueline L. Persinski

Education Dissertations and Projects

This research study analyzed the impact of teacher self-efficacy and student engagement on eleventh-grade South Carolina U.S. History and Constitution end-of-course state exam scores. Research questions centered on analyzing the relationships between the variables of teacher efficacy, student engagement, and student achievement as measured by the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale, Van Amburgh Active Learning Inventory Tool, South Carolina U.S. History and the Constitution end-of-course exam scores, and U.S. History teacher interviews. This study found a positive correlation between student engagement and student achievement and a significant relationship between teacher efficacy and student achievement. The relationship of teacher self-efficacy and …

School Administrators' And Teachers' Perceptions Of Single-Gender Classrooms In Coeducational Public Middle Schools Within South Carolina, Shemmicca M. Moore

Education Dissertations and Projects

The academic achievement gap between male and female students set in motion a flurry of initiatives to help address male underachievement. The amendments made to Title IX allowed single-gender education to become a viable option for addressing those gaps in achievement. After the adjustments made to Title IX, South Carolina led the nation in the implementation of single-gender classrooms. In fact, South Carolina was the only state to have an office dedicated to ensuring the successful implementation of single-gender programs. This quantitative study examined the perceptions of school administrators and teachers concerning the effectiveness of single-gender education. The study surveyed …

The Impact Of The Role Of An Instructional Technology Facilitator On Teacher Efficacy In Classroom Technology Integration In Two Rural Public Schools In Northwestern North Carolina, Karri Campbell Adams

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to contribute to a limited body of research on the impact of the role of the school-level instructional technology facilitator on teacher technology efficacy. This mixed-methods study involved the administration of a survey instrument designed to measure teacher technology efficacy, the Computer Technology Integration (CTI) survey developed by Wang, Ertmer, and Newby (2004) as well as an ITF survey measuring the direct impact of the role of the school-level instructional technology facilitator on those efficacy levels. Interviews were conducted by proxy interviewers to further clarify the ways that the instructional technology facilitator impacted teacher …

Elite Dress And Regional Identity: Chimú-Inka Perforated Ornaments From Samanco, Nepeña Valley, Coastal Peru, Benjamin Carter, Matthew Helmer

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

This article addresses two central components of the study of perforated ornaments recovered from archaeological contexts: 1) the explication and analysis of the relationship between perforated ornaments and identity production, and 2) the collection of data specific to perforated ornaments. By comparing perforated ornaments from the Chimú-Inka period (ca. 1470-1532) elite tomb at Samanco, Peru, to those from other sites, patterns in the use of perforated ornaments in identity negotiation may be identified and assessed. We demonstrate that perforated ornaments were deployed to demonstrate local, regional, and imperial identities, though in an ambiguous way that could have been mis- or …

Data Protection Laws: Quilts Versus Blankets, Samantha Diorio

Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Slander, Buzz And Spin: Telegrams, Politics And Global Communications In The Uganda Protectorate, 1945-55, Carol Summers

History Faculty Publications

Ugandans, from the earliest days of empire, did not simply receive information and messages from a distant Britain. Instead, with methods rooted in pre-colonial understandings of communications as establishing personal, affective, social closeness and reciprocities, they invested in education, travel and correspondence and built wide-ranging information and communications networks. Networked, they understood imperial institutions and pushed their own priorities via both official and unofficial channels. By the 1940s, political activists combined these information networks with the modern technologies of newspapers, telegrams and global press campaigns to destabilize colonial hierarchies. Generating slanderous allegations, repeating them to generate popular buzz, interpreting and …

Corporate Law After Hobby Lobby, Lyman P.Q. Johnson, David K. Millon

Scholarly Articles

We evaluate the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision in the Hobby Lobby case from the perspective of state corporate law. We argue that the Court is correct in holding that corporate law does not mandate that business corporations limit themselves to pursuit of profit. Rather, state law allows incorporation for any lawful purpose. We elaborate on this important point and also explain what it means for a corporation to “exercise religion.” In addition, we address the larger implications of the Court’s analysis for an accurate understanding both of state law’s essentially agnostic stance on the question of corporate purpose and …

The Diversity Challenge: Exploring The "Invisible College" Of International Arbitration, Susan D. Franck

Scholarly Articles

As diversity can affect the perceived legitimacy of a state’s dispute resolution system and the quality of judicial decisions, diversity levels in the national bench and bar have been an area of transnational concern. By contrast, little is known about diversity of adjudicators and counsel in international arbitration. With a lack of accurate, complete, and publicly available data about international arbitrators and practitioners, speculation about membership in the “invisible college” of international arbitration abounds. Using data from a survey of attendees at the prestigious and elite biennial Congress of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration permitted one glimpse into the …

The Other Side Of The Rabbit Hole: Reconciling Recent Supreme Court Personal Jurisdiction Jurisprudence With Jurisdiction To Terminate Parental Rights, Joan M. Shaughnessy

Scholarly Articles

This Essay contrasts the jurisdictional regime followed in termination of parental rights and other child custody cases with the regime that has dominated recent Supreme Court personal jurisdiction cases. Jurisdiction in child custody cases has long been based upon the connection of the child, not the defendant parent, to the jurisdiction. Recent Supreme Court cases, on the other hand, have focused nearly exclusively on the defendant’s connection to the forum state. This Essay argues that the Supreme Court cases betray a failure of the Court to provide a consistent constitutional justification for the jurisdictional limitations it has imposed. The Essay …

Life After Limbo: Stateless Persons In The United States And The Role Of International Protection In Achieving A Legal Solution, David C. Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

Stateless persons are not recognized as citizens by any country, and as such, their enjoyment of fundamental human rights depends on the good faith of host countries, and their basic human security and dignity are often subject to the whims of immigration authorities. Despite this intense level of vulnerability, U.S. immigration law does not explicitly recognize statelessness, nor does it provide for humanitarian protection to relieve stateless persons of their suffering. Rather, stateless persons are treated like any other unauthorized migrants in the United States; when they are ordered removed, they are mandatorily detained while immigration officials undertake efforts to …

Overcriminalizing Speech, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael

Scholarly Articles

Recent years have seen a significant expansion in the criminal justice system’s use of various preemptive measures, aimed to prevent harm before it occurs. This development consists of adopting a myriad of prophylactic statutes, including endangerment crimes, which target behaviors that merely pose a risk of future harm but are not in themselves harmful at the time they are committed.

This Article demonstrates that a significant portion of these endangerment crimes criminalize various forms of speech and expression. Examples include conspiracies, attempts, verbal harassment, instructional speech on how to commit crimes, and possession crimes. The Article argues that in contrast …

Justice Scalia's Fourth Amendment: Text, Context, Clarity, And Occasional Faint-Hearted Originalism, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Since joining the United States Supreme Court in 1986, Justice Scalia has been a prominent voice on the Fourth Amendment, having written twenty majority opinions, twelve concurrences, and six dissents on the topic. Under his pen, the Court has altered its test for determining when the Fourth Amendment should apply; provided a vision to address technology's encroachment on privacy; and articulated the standard for determining whether government officials are entitled to qualified immunity in civil suits involving alleged Fourth Amendment violations. In most of Justice Scalia's opinions, he has championed an originalist/textualist theory of constitutional interpretation. Based on that theory, …