Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Race On Housing Stratification Among Latinos, Julia T. Gomez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Housing discrimination has been an ethical, social, and economic blight on the American society. Among the negative outcomes of this practice are higher crime rates, lower educational attainment, and concentrated poverty. Beyond the moral injustice of this practice, housing discrimination adversely affects the socio-economic mobility of those victimized and this extends across generations. The research on the intersection of race and Latino identity demonstrates the complexity of the issue and suggests that an examination such as done in this study can add to the current knowledge. The purpose of this study was to determine what, if any, association race has …

Race, Gender, Physical Activity, And Cancer: A Quantitative Investigation, Shawna A. Townsend

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black women are more likely to die from cancer than any other population in the United States. Physical activity is known to be associated with preventing and reducing cancer burden. However, Black women are less physically active than their White counterparts and have a higher prevalence of diseases related to lack of physical activity than any other female group. To better understand these issues, this study employed the self-and-family management framework and intersectionality as theoretical frameworks through a secondary analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) dataset and hierarchical regression modeling to examine the relative impact of (a.) …

A Quantum Approach To Language Modeling, Constantijn Van Der Poel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of six chapters. . . Chapter 1: We introduce language modeling, outline the software used for this thesis, and discuss related work. Chapter 2: We will unpack the transition from classical to quantum probabilities, as well as motivate their use in building a model to understand language-like datasets. Chapter 3: We motivate the Motzkin dataset, the models we will be investigating, as well as the necessary algorithms to do calculations with them. Chapter 4: We investigate our models’ sensitivity to various hyperparameters. Chapter 5: We compare the performance and robustness of the models. Chapter 6: We conclude …

Writing The Unwritten: Politicians, Celebrities And Activists On Lebanese Twitter, May Ahmar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the language and orthographic practices of different social groups on Lebanese Twitter. It draws on a specific event in Lebanon, namely the Lebanese presidential elections of 2016. The data, a collection of tweets from three different social groups (politicians, celebrities, and activists) during the month leading up to the announcement of the Lebanese president, delve into the choices of languages, orthographies and spelling that these groups exhibit on Twitter. My analysis shows that politicians use MSA mostly in alignment with their identity, linguistic hegemony and traditional media practices. Celebrities show more flexibility by choosing different languages and …

Factors Associated With Technology Adoption By Community-Dwelling Older Adults During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elizabeth A. Sutton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront the disparity between older and younger Americans in the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) when measures such as the COVID vaccine rollout were dependent on technology use. Technology adoption has implications for overall health and the continuation of disparities in technology adoption is associated with poor aging outcomes. The aim of this study was to understand factors associated with technology adoption by community-dwelling older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. A nationally representative sample of 2,954 community-dwelling older adults who completed the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) COVID-19 Questionnaire was …

Bearer Negotiable Instruments: Addressing A Financial Intelligence Gap And Identifying Criminogenic Weaknesses, Hollis B. Kegg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bearer Negotiable Instruments (BNI) are a long-standing category of financial instruments used to transfer large amounts of money in ways that may not be subject to regulation, reporting, tracking, review, or oversight. There is limited information available on BNIs, and no evidence that any studies have been undertaken on BNIs alone, much less reported. Increasingly, BNIs are being used for illegal purposes including money laundering. This study gathers information about their characteristics, nature, purpose, legal status, and numbers. It also focuses on the crime risks associated with BNIs, the crime opportunities they facilitate, and the criminal weaknesses in the financial …

A Novel Measure Of Narrative Self-Functioning And Its Role In The Transformative Potential Of Psychedelic Experience Across Clinical And Non-Clinical Participants, Nicole M. Amada

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The eudaimonic field of well-being is founded on the idea that self-knowledge and the realization of one’s potential is at the heart of what it means to strive for well-being. While the “self” is at the core of this perspective, theories derived from this field have yet to incorporate neurocognitive conceptualizations of the self, and account for the collection of self-referential cognitions that influence striving for well-being. Such a theory and measure could fill this theoretical gap and be applied in person centered interventions to capture change in these processes over time. One such intervention utilizes psychedelic experience as a …

Engineered Plga Nanofibers For Drug Delivery, Andrew Mancuso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) polymers are rapidly gaining momentum as a platform for next-generation drug delivery systems due to their ease and low cost of synthesis, favorable biocompatibility and biodegradability, and lack of toxicity. In particular, the application of drug-loaded PLGA nanofibers directly to a target tissue may represent a promising alternative to traditional routes of drug administration (e.g., oral, injectable) as they offer the potential to greatly improve bioavailability, increase efficacy, and reduce off-target toxicity. Furthermore, the use of such a system may potentially allow for greater flexibility in clinical drug development, by enabling the use of compounds which have …

Coloniality, Western Science, And Critical Ethnic Studies In Stem Education, Latoya M. Strong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I use a critical transdisciplinary approach to examine how the coloniality of Western Science impacts science education teaching, learning, and research. Weaving together Black geographies, settler colonialism, and decolonial theory, I illustrate how the historical, symbiotic relationship between colonization and Western Science created a culture that continues to shape modern science practices and science education. The coloniality of Western Science was codified into science education, resulting in three approaches to teaching, learning and research—the assimilationist model, the capitalist model, and the imperialist model. Moving from theory to research, I collaborated with STEM educators over six weeks to …

Analysis Of The Inter-Annotators Agreement And Its Effect On The System Of Anti-Asian Hate Crime Detection On Twitter During Covid-19, Amir Toliyat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) started in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, and after being utterly contagious in Asian countries, it rapidly spread to other countries. This disease caused governments worldwide to declare a public health crisis with severe measures taken to reduce the speed of the spread of the disease. This pandemic affected the lives of millions of people. Many citizens that lost their loved ones and jobs experienced a wide range of emotions, such as disbelief, shock, concerns about health, fear about food supplies, anxiety, and panic. All of the aforementioned phenomena led to the spread of racism and …

Preschool-Aged Household Contacts As A Risk Factor For Viral Respiratory Infections In Healthcare Personnel, Zachary M Most, Ann-Christine Nyquist, Lewis J Radonovich, Maria C Rodriguez-Barradas, Connie Savor Price, Michael S Simberkoff, Mary T Bessesen, Derek A T Cummings, Susan M Rattigan, Charlotte Warren-Gash, Charlotte A Gaydos, Cynthia L Gibert, Geoffrey J Gorse, Trish M Perl

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Viral respiratory infections (VRIs) are common and are occupational risks for healthcare personnel (HCP). VRIs can also be acquired at home and other settings among HCPs. We sought to determine if preschool-aged household contacts are a risk factor for VRIs among HCPs working in outpatient settings.

METHODS: We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a cluster randomized trial at 7 medical centers in the United States over 4 influenza seasons from 2011-2012 to 2014-2015. Adult HCPs who routinely came within 6 feet of patients with respiratory infections were included. Participants were tested for respiratory viruses whenever symptomatic and …

A Review Of Stellate Ganglion Block As An Adjunctive Treatment Modality, Kennedy Kirkpatrick, Mashfee H Khan, Yi Deng, Krishna B Shah

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Peripheral nerve blocks are becoming increasingly used as adjunctive treatment modalities for a variety of conditions refractory to medical management. Right or left stellate ganglion blocks (SGB) are a specific type of peripheral nerve block that target the sympathetic blockade of neuronal impulses using the injection of local anesthetic and steroids into nerve bundles in the cervical area. This review article is intended to summarize the common uses of stellate ganglion blocks and explain the procedural technique, which has evolved with technological advances in ultrasonography. The similarities between these disease processes are centered around sympathetic hyperactivity. This sympathetic overdrive state …

Soil Organic Matter Diagenetic State Informs Boreal Forest Ecosystem Feedbacks To Climate Change, Allison N. Myers-Pigg, Karl Kaiser, Ronald Benner, Susan E. Ziegler

Faculty Publications

The fate of soil organic carbon (SOC) in boreal forests is dependent on the integrative ecosystem response to climate change. For example, boreal forest productivity is often nitrogen (N) limited, and climate warming can enhance N cycling and primary productivity. However, the net effect of this feedback on the SOC reservoir and its longevity with climate change remain unclear due to difficulty in detecting small differences between large and variable carbon (C) fluxes needed to determine net changes in soil reservoirs. The diagenetic state of SOC – resulting from the physicochemical and biological transformations that alter the original biomolecular composition …

Biallelic Variants In Ogdh Encoding Oxoglutarate Dehydrogenase Lead To A Neurodevelopmental Disorder Characterized By Global Developmental Delay, Movement Disorder, And Metabolic Abnormalities, Ella F Whittle, Madison Chilian, Ehsan Ghayoor Karimiani, Helga Progri, Daniela Buhas, Melis Kose, Rebecca D Ganetzky, Mehran Beiraghi Toosi, Paria Najarzadeh Torbati, Reza Shervin Badv, Ivan Shelihan, Hui Yang, Houda Zghal Elloumi, Sukyeong Lee, Yalda Jamshidi, Alan M Pittman, Henry Houlden, Erika Ignatius, Shamima Rahman, Reza Maroofian, Wan Hee Yoon, Christopher J Carroll

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

PURPOSE: This study aimed to establish the genetic cause of a novel autosomal recessive neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by global developmental delay, movement disorder, and metabolic abnormalities.

METHODS: We performed a detailed clinical characterization of 4 unrelated individuals from consanguineous families with a neurodevelopmental disorder. We used exome sequencing or targeted-exome sequencing, cosegregation, in silico protein modeling, and functional analyses of variants in HEK293 cells and Drosophila melanogaster, as well as in proband-derived fibroblast cells.

RESULTS: In the 4 individuals, we identified 3 novel homozygous variants in oxoglutarate dehydrogenase (OGDH) (NM_002541.3), which encodes a subunit of the tricarboxylic acid cycle enzyme …

Prediction Of Suicide Attempts And Suicide-Related Events Among Adolescents Seen In Emergency Departments, David A Brent, Lisa M Horowitz, Jacqueline Grupp-Phelan, Jeffrey A Bridge, Robert Gibbons, Lauren S Chernick, Margaret Rea, Mary F Cwik, Rohit P Shenoi, Joel A Fein, E Melinda Mahabee-Gittens, Shilpa J Patel, Rakesh D Mistry, Susan Duffy, Marlene D Melzer-Lange, Alexander Rogers, Daniel M Cohen, Allison Keller, Robert W Hickey, Kent Page, T Charles Casper, Cheryl A King, Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (Pecarn)

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

IMPORTANCE: Screening adolescents in emergency departments (EDs) for suicidal risk is a recommended strategy for suicide prevention. Comparing screening measures on predictive validity could guide ED clinicians in choosing a screening tool.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) instrument with the Computerized Adaptive Screen for Suicidal Youth (CASSY) instrument for the prediction of suicidal behavior among adolescents seen in EDs, across demographic and clinical strata.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Emergency Department Study for Teens at Risk for Suicide is a prospective, random-series, multicenter cohort study that recruited adolescents, oversampled for those with psychiatric symptoms, who presented to …

Effect Of Liquid And Solid Test Meals On Symptoms And Gastric Myoelectrical Activity In Patients With Gastroparesis And Functional Dyspepsia, Kenneth L Koch, Mark Van Natta, Henry P Parkman, Madhusudan Grover, Thomas L Abell, Richard W Mccallum, Hossam A Shaltout, Irene Sarosiek, Gianrico Farrugia, Robert J Shulman, James Tonascia, Laura Miriel, Frank Hamilton, Pankaj J Pasricha, Gastroparesis Clinical Research Consortium

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Patients with gastroparesis (GP) and functional dyspepsia (FD) have similar symptoms, but the pathophysiology of postprandial symptoms remains uncertain.

AIMS: To compare symptoms and gastric myoelectrical activity (GMA) after liquid and solid test meals in patients with GP and FD.

METHODS: Patients enrolled in the Gastroparesis Clinical Research Consortium Registry were studied. Clinical characteristics were measured with standard questionnaires. GP was determined by 4-h solid-phase gastric scintigraphy. GMA was measured using electrogastrography before and after ingestion of a water load or nutrient bar on separate days. Symptoms were measured on visual analog scales. GMA responses to the water load …

Policing & The Problem Of Physical Restraint, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable “seizures” and thus renders unlawful police use of excessive force. On one hand, this definition is expansive. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 Term, in Torres v. Madrid, the Court clarified that a “seizure” includes any police application of physical force to the body with intent to restrain. Crucially, Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion emphasized that police may seize even when merely laying “the end of a finger” on a layperson’s body. And yet, the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment totality-of-the-circumstances reasonableness balancing test is notoriously imprecise—a “factbound morass,” in the famous …

Missed Opportunities In The Diagnosis Of Tuberculosis Meningitis, Niamh Simmons, Margaret A Olsen, Joanna Buss, Thomas C Bailey, Carlos Mejia-Chew

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) has high mortality and morbidity. Diagnostic delays can impact TBM outcomes. We aimed to estimate the number of potentially missed opportunities (MOs) to diagnose TBM and determine its impact on 90-day mortality.

METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort of adult patients with a central nervous system (CNS) TB

RESULTS: Of 893 patients with TBM, median age at diagnosis was 50 years (interquartile range, 37-64), 61.3% were male, and 35.2% had Medicaid as primary payer. Overall, 407 (45.6%) had a prior hospital or ED visit with an MO code. In-hospital 90-day mortality was not different between those …

The Bg News February 1, 2023, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. February 01, 2023. Volume 102-Issue 16.

Superior Verbal Learning And Memory In Pediatric Brain Tumor Survivors Treated With Proton Versus Photon Radiotherapy, Lisa E Mash, Lisa S Kahalley, M Fatih Okcu, David R Grosshans, Arnold C Paulino, Heather Stancel, Luz De Leon, Elisabeth Wilde, Nilesh Desai, Zili D Chu, William E Whitehead, Murali Chintagumpala, Kimberly P Raghubar

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: Radiotherapy for pediatric brain tumor has been associated with late cognitive effects. Compared to conventional photon radiotherapy (XRT), proton radiotherapy (PRT) delivers lower doses of radiation to healthy brain tissue. PRT has been associated with improved long-term cognitive outcomes compared to XRT. However, there is limited research comparing the effects of XRT and PRT on verbal memory.

METHOD: Survivors of pediatric brain tumor treated with either XRT (

RESULTS: Overall, patients receiving PRT demonstrated superior verbal learning and recall compared to those treated with XRT. Encoding and retrieval deficits were more common in the XRT group than the PRT …

The Disembodied First Amendment, Nathan Cortez, William M. Sage

Faculty Scholarship

First Amendment doctrine is becoming disembodied—increasingly detached from human speakers and listeners. Corporations claim that their speech rights limit government regulation of everything from product labeling to marketing to ordinary business licensing. Courts extend protections to commercial speech that ordinarily extended only to core political and religious speech. And now, we are told, automated information generated for cryptocurrencies, robocalling, and social media bots are also protected speech under the Constitution. Where does it end? It begins, no doubt, with corporate and commercial speech. We show, however, that heightened protection for corporate and commercial speech is built on several “artifices” - …

Do We Need Patient-Specific Qa For Adaptively Generated Plans? Retrospective Evaluation Of Delivered Online Adaptive Treatment Plans On Varian Ethos, Xiaodong Zhao, Dennis N Stanley, Carlos E Cardenas, Joseph Harms, Richard A Popple

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: The clinical introduction of dedicated treatment units for online adaptive radiation therapy (OART) has led to widespread adoption of daily adaptive radiotherapy. OART allows for rapid generation of treatment plans using daily patient anatomy, potentially leading to reduction of treatment margins and increased normal tissue sparing. However, the OART workflow does not allow for measurement of patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) during treatment delivery sessions and instead relies on secondary dose calculations for verification of adapted plans. It remains unknown if independent dose verification is a sufficient surrogate for PSQA measurements.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the plan quality of previously treated …

Lgmdd1 Natural History And Phenotypic Spectrum: Implications For Clinical Trials, Andrew R Findlay, Sarah E Robinson, Stephanie Poelker, Michelle Seiffert, Rocio Bengoechea, Conrad C Weihl

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: To delineate the full phenotypic spectrum and characterize the natural history of limb girdle muscular dystrophy type D1 (LGMDD1).

METHODS: We extracted age at clinical events of interest contributing to LGMDD1 disease burden via a systematic literature and chart review. Manual muscle testing and quantitative dynamometry data were used to estimate annualized rates of change. We also conducted a cross-sectional observational study using previously validated patient-reported outcome assessments (ACTIVLIM, PROMIS-57) and a new LGMDD1 questionnaire. Some individuals underwent repeat ACTIVLIM and LGMDD1 questionnaire assessments at 1.5 and 2.5 years.

RESULTS: A total of 122 LGMDD1 patients were included from …

Potassium Fertilizer Rate Recommendations: Does Accounting For Soil Stock Of Potassium Matter?, Kimberly B. Oliver, Michael P. Popp, Di Fang, John D. Anderson, Nathan A. Slaton, Gerson L. Drescher, Trenton L. Roberts, Jada Thompson

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

Profitability, yield, and fertilizer use are compared across three different potassium (K) fertilizer rate recommendation ideologies. Existing agronomic, “build and maintain” rate recommendations (KE) are compared to profit-maximizing rates with and without taking long-run soil-test K (STK) implications into account. Regardless of starting STK, K use equilibrated over the course of 3 years irrespective of ideology. Since taking long-run STK into account did not alter ending STK and only led to a miniscule yield effect, we encourage producers to use annual profit-maximizing K rates that were 3–11% lower than KE rates and generated more profit with minimal yield loss.

Effective Farm Management Promotes Native Amf And Benefit Organic Farming Systems, Pushpa Soti, Rupesh R. Kariyat, Alexis Racelis

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Highlights

• Agricultural practices have significant influence on the AMF community dynamics.

• Soil nutrients regulate AMF spore abundance and diversity.

• Using grass cover crops can promote native AMF in farms.

Abstract

Using soil inoculants containing naturally occurring beneficial microorganisms has become a popular practice in sustainable agriculture. However, an understanding of the environmental variables that affect plant-microbe interactions and the benefit of using commercial inoculum is relatively sparse. To address this, we examined the efficiency of three different methods to inoculate AMF (Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi) in organic vegetable farms in south Texas: cover cropping, application of farm-produced (indigenous) AMF inoculum, …

Combinatorial Identities Associated With A Bivariate Generating Function For Overpartition Pairs, Atul Dixit, Ankush Goswami

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We obtain a three-parameter q-series identity that generalizes two results of Chan and Mao. By specializing our identity, we derive new results of combinatorial significance in connection with N(r,s,m,n), a function counting certain overpartition pairs recently introduced by Bringmann, Lovejoy and Osburn. For example, one of our identities gives a closed-form evaluation of a double series in terms of Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind, thereby resulting in an analogue of Euler's pentagonal number theorem. Another of our results expresses a multi-sum involving N(r,s,m,n) in terms of just the partition function p(n). Using a result of Shimura we also relate …

Coloring Complexes And Combinatorial Hopf Monoids, Jacob A. White

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We generalize the notion of a coloring complex of a graph to linearized combinatorial Hopf monoids. We determine when a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid has such a construction, and discover some inequalities that are satisfied by the quasisymmetric function invariants associated to the combinatorial Hopf monoid. We show that the collection of all such coloring complexes forms a linearized combinatorial Hopf monoid, which is the terminal object in the category of combinatorial Hopf monoids with convex characters. We also study several examples of combinatorial Hopf monoids.

Cultural Factors Associated With Human Trafficking Of Girls And Women In Northern Tanzania: The Case Of Arusha Region, Rehema John Magesa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Human trafficking is persistent in many regions of Tanzania despite different efforts to reduce the practice by the Government and other stakeholders. Girls and young women are more affected by this practice in violation of their human rights than men and boys. This study explored the cultural factors attributing to the trafficking of girls and women in Northern Tanzania. The study involved 400 girls and young women for a quantitative and qualitative study on cultural determinants of human trafficking. The study found the following cultural practices pushed girls and women towards situations in which they could be trafficked: female genital …

The Process Of Sexual Misconduct By Male Teachers And Staff In K-12 Institutions, Mollee Steely Smith

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Despite the increased media attention of teachers who engage in sexual misconduct with their students, research on such incidents remains limited, specifically on how these incidents are initiated and evolve. The purpose of the current study was to examine the nature of sexual abuse incidents by K-12 teachers who engaged in sexual misconduct with students by focusing on the onset, progression, and conclusion of these cases. Data included 10 secondary narrative interviews with male sex offenders who used their position as school employees to target and engage in sexual misconduct with their students in 2014 in a southern state. All …

Hentai And The Pornification Of Childhood: How The Porn Industry Just Made The Case For Regulation, Gail Dines, Mandy Sanchez

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

One of the most popular genres of online pornography today is hentai, sexualized animation, and cartoons in the style of Japanese anime. Data from Pornhub, the world’s best-known pornography website, as well as a recent report from a British regulatory agency and our research, show that much of hentai appeals to children and depicts child-like characters engaged in sexual violence. In almost every instance, this violence targets female characters. Hentai, we show, encourages adults to see minors, especially girls, as legitimate targets of sexual violence. Until the day when these depictions of sexual violence are eradicated, we call for three …