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Juvenile Drug Court: Predictors Of Graduation And Non-Graduation Status, Joshua D. Hoyt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Joshua Hoyt and Dr. David Stein at Utah State University evaluated the differences between juvenile drug court participants who graduate and don’t graduate from the juvenile drug court program in Idaho. Joshua Hoyt and Dr. David Stein coordinated this project with Scott Ronan, Idaho Supreme Court felony sentencing alternative specialist. Dr. David Stein has significant experience in conducting research projects centering on drug courts and will be assisting Joshua Hoyt in the implementation of this thesis project. Further, Scott Ronan has significant experience in working with the juvenile drug court program and has access to data that were used in …

An Exploration Of African Folktales Among The Gullah Community Of The South Carolina Sea Islands : History, Culture, And Identity., Tytianna Nikia Maria Wells Smith 1987-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration of Black cultural space and its influence on the retention, adaptation, and transmission of African folktales during and after the antebellum era. During slavery, the survival of kinship and family helped to create an environment that existed through which African folktales were used to educate and socialize children on South Carolina Sea Islands plantations. This research conducted a literary and cultural analysis of the historical and current function of ten folktales that impart moral lessons and cultural values that encourage children in Gullah communities to appreciate their African heritage and challenge the world in which …

The Patient's View Of Orthodontic Training Requirements And The Influence Of Board Certification Or A Master's Degree On Their Choice For An Orthodontist., Justin Trisler 1980-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Competition for orthodontic patients is at an all time high. Ways to differentially market an orthodontic practice are essential in attracting patients. It is hypothesized that the patients don't understand the extra training that an orthodontist must complete and that being board certified by the ABO or completing a Master's degree does not make an orthodontic practice more attractive. A sample of 204 perspective patients was surveyed. 4 participants were resurveyed. Participants were asked to quantify the education of a general dentist and an orthodontist and use a VAS scale to measure their perception of differently qualified orthodontists and a …

A Sartrean Reading Of American Artists : Walker Percy, Edward Hopper, And Mike Nichols 1940-1970., Zhenping Wang 1963-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jean-Paul Sartre's existential philosophy concerns the free human individual, particularly his possibilities to continuously create his own identities. Human existence is never defined by objects, and he is only determined by his own actions. As long as he is alive. he possesses this freedom and never ceases to project himself into the future. The undefined nature of human existence is conceived as human beings on the move. A study of this sense as it is revealed in the art helps us feel and embrace the fundamental core of Sartre's thought. In this dissertation, I examine selected works of American novelist …

Grief And Lost Potential In The Parents Of Adult Children With Severe Mental Illness., Karen Eisenmenger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an investigation into the intensity, nature, predictors, and time course of grief that parents of adult children with a severe mental illness experience. This is an area of research that has not been fully understood or addressed by the mental health community. Parents were recruited through National Alliance on Mental illness (NAMI-KY) family support group meetings. Each participant completed a package of anonymous surveys measuring grief due to the mental illness of their child, parental burden, and vocational lost potential, as well as completing demographic information. The results of the statistical analyses indicated that parental grief begins …

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis : Diagnosis, Management, And The Search For A Cure., Daniel Fioret

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a fibrotic lung disease with poor prognosis. To address this disease broadly, the candidate engaged in clinical work, literature analysis, database analysis, and laboratory work. The clinical work culminated in a case report that highlights the controversies inherent in the diagnosis and treatment of IPF. The literature analysis discusses ongoing clinical trials and challenges inherent in the management of IPF. Evaluation of a national database unveiled information about the burden of IPF on the healthcare system. Finally, the laboratory work examined the role of oxidant stress and the interaction of lung fibroblasts and lung cancer …

Teacher Motivation As An Enhancement To The First Step To Success Early Intervention Program For Children With Tertiary Level Behavioral Challenges., Jon Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The First Step to Success early intervention program (Walker, 1998) is a secondary prevention intervention that targets primary grade children with moderate or emerging behavior disorders. While the effectiveness of the First Step to Success early intervention program has been documented repeatedly (see Loman, Rodriguez, & Homer, 2010; Walker et aI., 2009), it has also been shown to be less effective with more severely disordered children and has a less dramatic impact on behavior in the home than in the school setting. Efforts to enhance the program's effectiveness with even the most severely behaviorally disordered children have been undertaken, and …

Biophysical And Bioanalytical Studies Of Hyaluronan And Lipids., Kristen Ann Magness 1981-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hyaluronan (HA) is a major structural component of the ocular vitreous humor (VH) and lipids are essential building blocks of cell membranes. However, little is known about their possible interactions. The VH is known to undergo liquefaction throughout the lifetime that may result in complications such as posterior vitreous detachment. The possible roles of lipids in the age-dependent liquefaction of the VH are unknown. As a first step in this new area of research in our group, model studies of the repeating unit of polymeric HA were performed. This unit contains glucuronate (GlcU) linked to N-acetylglucosamine (G1cNAc) via a 1-3 …

Genetic Variation In The Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System : Associations With Blood Pressure Dipping In The Jackson Heart Study., Jersy L. Napoleon 1984-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, are the leading causes of death in the United States. African-Americans carry the highest burden of disease with 32% of adults with hypertension. Blood pressure (BP) dipping, defined as a drop of> 10% in blood pressure from daytime to nighttime, occurs less often in African-Americans and is a risk factor for CVD. BP dipping has a significant genetic component. This study focuses on the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system that may influence BP dipping in this population. A total of 928 participants (266 dippers and 664 non-dippers) from the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) …

A Holistic Examination Of The Impact Of Child Maltreatment On Child Behavioral Outcomes : A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis., April L. Murphy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Child maltreatment touches almost 700,000 children annually. The effects of child maltreatment range from micro-level consequences, such as behavior problems and mental health issues, to mezzo-level consequences, such as increased child welfare worker caseloads and overcrowding residential facilities, to macro-level consequences, such as increased costs and policy implications. Data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) were analyzed to examine the factors that impact child behavior in children who have been reported to child protective services (CPS) as a result of child maltreatment. The model investigated the influence of child, caregiver, and environmental factors on child behavior …

Individual And Developmental Differences In Susceptibility To The Irrelevant Speech Effect., Amanda Frances O'Bryan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Irrelevant Speech Effect (ISE) is a phenomenon in which the presentation of auditory materials (typically speech) impairs the serial recall of visually presented materials, either digits or letters. Although this effect has been replicated in a large number of studies, a wide range of individual differences in susceptibility to the auditory distracters has been found. The current study investigates four possible determinants of individual differences of the ISE: (1) The sequence length of the short-term memory (STM) task, (2) the content of the STM task and auditory distracter, (3) the STM capacity of the individual, and (4) developmental differences. …

Fenichel's Theorems With Applications In Dynamical Systems., Jeremy Warren Riley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Three main theorems due to Fenichel are fundamental tools in the exploration of geometric singular perturbation theory. This expository paper attempts to provide an introduction to the concepts stated in Fenichel's theorems and provide illustrative examples. The goal is to provide enough insight to gain a basic understanding of the usefullness of these theorems.

Enhanced Web-Based Summary Generation For Search., Brent Wenerstrom 1980-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After a user types in a search query on a major search engine, they are presented with a number of search results. Each search result is made up of a title, brief text summary and a URL. It is then the user's job to select documents for further review. Our research aims to improve the accuracy of users selecting relevant documents by improving the way these web pages are summarized. Improvements in accuracy will lead to time improvements and user experience improvements. We propose ReClose, a system for generating web document summaries. ReClose generates summary content through combining summarization techniques …

Uab Researchers Help Id Genetic Differences That Control Sex Hormone Levels, Jim Bakken

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No abstract provided.

Uab Welcomes Students: Fun Activities, Free Andy Grammer Concert, Shannon Thomason

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No abstract provided.

Uab Adds Unique Life-Saving Treatment To Heart-Valve Program, Jim Bakken

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No abstract provided.

The Folliculin-Fnip1 Pathway Deleted In Human Birt-Hogg-Dubé Syndrome Is Required For Murine B-Cell Development, Paul W. Bible

Computer Science Faculty publications

Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by cutaneous fibrofolliculomas, pulmonary cysts, and kidney malignancies. Affected individuals carry germ line mutations in folliculin (FLCN), a tumor suppressor gene that becomes biallelically inactivated in kidney tumors by second-hit mutations. Similar to other factors implicated in kidney cancer, FLCN has been shown to modulate activation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). However, its precise in vivo function is largely unknown because germ line deletion of Flcn results in early embryonic lethality in animal models. Here, we describe mice deficient in the newly characterized folliculin-interacting protein 1 (Fnip1). In …

Analysis Of Microrna Microarray (Mm Chip) Data For Aging Mice Models., Vikranth Shetty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present experimental designs have unique challenges in the analysis of microRNA expression intensity levels. In this project, various Normalization techniques were discussed with different statistical techniques and their application in an analysis performed at the Genes Centre of aging on mice models. The project involved repeated measures over time, and the intra-subject correlation caused by the repeated measurements should be incorporated into the analysis, resulting in additional significant miRNAs. Collection of multiple samples from the same individuals over time from an experiment may have issues with the commonly used methodologies-these issues are discussed here. Mixed model approach is used …

A Mechanistic Study Of Catalytic Promiscuity In Protein Phosphatase 1, Yuan Chu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

"Catalytic promiscuous" enzymes, which possess additional activities besides their "native" activity, albeit with a lower efficiency than the main reaction, have become a new frontier for biochemistry and have received considerable attention. Catalytic promiscuity has been suggested to contribute to enzyme evolution through the mechanism of gene duplication followed by specialization of one of the two copies for the new function. Mimicking this evolutionary shortcut could also provide a more efficient route to changing the function of proteins by directed evolution.

The promiscuous phosphatase PP1 is a member of the phosphoprotein phosphatase (PPP) gene family, which is critical for the …

Marital Quality, Acculturation, And Communication In Mexican American Couples, Audrey Lyn Schwartz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Marital quality is a broad measurement of perceptions of satisfaction, happiness, and stability by partners in an established relationship. Marital quality has been relatively understudied among Mexican Americans, a population that warrants the inclusion of cultural constructs in any model concerning relationship outcomes. Therefore, acculturation differences between Mexican American couples were conceptualized as a distal context for understanding marital quality. Traditional gender role values and communication style (warmth and hostility) were included as proximal contexts. Data from Conger’s California Families Project were utilized; results indicated that while most measures of acculturation did not impact marital quality, language use interacted with …

The Use Of Life History Collage To Explore Learning Related To The Enactment Of Social Consciousness In Female Nonprofit Leaders, Susan R. Seymour

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper advances a novel qualitative research approach using life history collage. Rather that utilizing an interview protocol to enter into a participant’s story, life history collage invites participants to create a longitudinal collage of significant life events around a theme such as learning, relationships, or identity. The longitudinal nature of the collage situates and prioritizes significant life events with images, words, and elements chosen to represent events and circumstances. Each image within the collage contains rich and nuanced storylines that invite exploration by both researcher and participant. Meanings and subtexts are revealed as participants describe their collage and the …

Compressive Point Cloud Super Resolution, Cody S. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Automatic target recognition (ATR) is the ability for a computer to discriminate between different objects in a scene. ATR is often performed on point cloud data from a sensor known as a Ladar. Increasing the resolution of this point cloud in order to get a more clear view of the object in a scene would be of significant interest in an ATR application.

A technique to increase the resolution of a scene is known as super resolution. This technique requires many low resolution images that can be combined together. In recent years, however, it has become possible to perform super …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Thermomechanically Processed Sulfur And Boron Doped Amorphous Carbon Films, Lonnie Carlson

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Small scale, high power density, reliable, and long-life power supplies would be useful or even critical for space missions or the growing number of microdetectors, microsensors, and miniature vehicles. Alpha or beta particle voltaic devices could satisfy these requirements but have been shown to degrade quickly due to radiation damage. Amorphous carbon (a-C) PN junctions or PIN devices could provide radiation hardness and sufficiently high efficiency. As the range of alpha and beta particles in a-C is ~20-120μm, much thicker films than are typical are needed to maximize collection of the particle energy.

In this work, the fabrication of thermomechanically …

Quorum Sensing And Other Aspects Of The Biology Of Candida Albicans, Kenneth W. Nickerson

Kenneth Nickerson Papers

Most dimorphic fungi exhibit cell density dependent effects in that they grow as yeasts when inoculated at > 10⁶ cells per ml and as mycelia when inoculated at < 10⁶ cells per ml. For Candida albicans, we discovered (2001) that this phenomenon (quorum sensing) is due to the production and secretion of the C₁₅ isoprenoid trans-trans farnesol. Since then, we found that C. albicans cells treated with sublethal levels of zaragozic acid (2003) or fluconazole (2004) produced 10-40X more farnesol and that these fluconazole treated cells were ca. 5X more toxic to mice following tail vein injection. This suggestion …

Measurement Of The Underlying Event Activity In Pp Collisions At S√=0.9 And 7 Tev With The Novel Jet-Area/Median Approach, The Cms Collaboration, S. Chatrchyan, V. Khachatryan, Marc M. Baarmand, B. Dorney, Marcus Hohlmann, Himali Kalakhety, Igor Vodopiyanov

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

The first measurement of the charged component of the underlying event using the novel “jet-area/median” approach is presented for proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 0.9 and 7 TeV. The data were recorded in 2010 with the CMS experiment at the LHC. A new observable, sensitive to soft particle production, is introduced and investigated inclusively and as a function of the event scale defined by the transverse momentum of the leading jet. Various phenomenological models are compared to data, with and without corrections for detector effects. None of the examined models describe the data satisfactorily.

Healing Hands Reviewing The Potential Applications Of Energy Therapies To Redirect Pain During Labor And Childbirth, Cecilia Dinh

HIM 1990-2015

The birth experience is a highly subjective phenomenon that leaves a lasting impression for mothers and their families and friends. Although the passage of a child from the mother's womb into the world is typically joyous, the experience is not always as positive. Negative physical and psychological factors may greatly impact a woman's impression of the childbirth experience. Among childbearing women, the two main concerns of childbirth are pain and safe management. Similarly among healthcare providers, management of labor pain is one of the main goals of maternity care. Pain is a highly subjective phenomenon that is expected during the …

Minimizing Incivility In The Workplace To Increase Retention Of New Graduate Nurses, Amanda D'Ambra

HIM 1990-2015

Efforts to maintain a sufficient nurse workforce are hampered by dissatisfaction with the work environment. Incivility in the work environment is a major source of dissatisfaction. A healthy work environment is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and improved retention. New graduate transition programs have been recommended as a deterrent to high levels of turnover associated within the first two years of employment, some of which is related to incivility. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the influence of incivility in the nursing workplace on new graduate job satisfaction and determine if there is an association between …

Nursing Attitudes Toward The Use Of Reprocessed Single-Use Medical Devices, Laura Maben-Tenney

HIM 1990-2015

Background: Before the implementation of single-use devices (SUD) in health care, medical equipment was sterilized and reused. Now many medical devices are used once and then thrown away, contributing to the 5.9 million tons of medical waste produced yearly. This project explores nursing attitudes toward single-use medical devices, evaluates current recycling practices and examines whether student nurses would be likely to use reprocessed SUDs in their practice if given the option. Methodology: After obtaining IRB approval, students enrolled in nursing research courses were invited to participate in this exploratory study. 157 undergraduate nursing students completed the 46-question survey. Descriptive statistics …

Review: Hank Glassman, The Face Of Jizō: Image And Cult In Medieval Japanese Buddhism., James Mark Shields

Other Faculty Research and Publications

Review of Hank Glassman, The Face of Jizō: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism.

Narrative Of Modern Chinese Masculinity In Ha Jin's Fiction., Lezhou Su

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of readings of three selected novels by Ha Jin-Waiting, The Crazed, and A Free Life. These novels cover three historical periods of Contemporary China under the rule of the Communist Party in sequence-the Mao's era (1949-1976), post-Mao era (1976-1989) and post-Tiananmen Square Incident era (1989 onwards). The readings are predominated with gender issues in the literary works, particularly with the construction and representation of contemporary Chinese masculinity. Drawing mainly on the Kam Louie's theory which pins down traditional Chinese masculinity in terms of wen (literary power) and wu (physical power)-the two concepts deeply entrenched in Confucianism, the …