Digital Commons Network^™

On The Lower Levels Of The Ivory Tower: What Color Collars Do Adjunct Faculty Wear?, Frederick Tucker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Institutional reliance on tenure-line faculty reached a historic low after the Great Recession in 2009, remaining at approximately a third of all faculty through 2022. Postsecondary institutions have steadily increased their reliance on full-time adjunct faculty over the last two decades. Part-time adjuncts, meanwhile, were hired in great numbers before and during the Great Recession, as student enrollment increased, but have steadily declined since 2012, as college enrollment waned. Almost all evidence suggests that tenure expansion would benefit both the recipients of tenure and their students, but would come at a cost. There are few studies, however, that distinguish between …

Categorical Chain Conditions For Étale Groupoid Algebras, Sunil Philip

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Let R be a unital commutative ring and G an ample groupoid. Using the topology of the groupoid G, Steinberg defined an étale groupoid algebra RG. These étale groupoid algebras generalize various algebras, including group algebras, commutative algebras over a field generated by idempotents, traditional groupoid algebras, Leavitt path algebras, higher-rank graph algebras, and inverse semigroup algebras. Steinberg later characterized the classical chain conditions for étale groupoid algebras. In this work, we characterize categorically noetherian and artinian, locally noetherian and artinian, and semisimple étale groupoid algebras, thereby generalizing existing results for Leavitt path algebras and introducing new results for inverse …

Who Are You Rooting For? T20 Cricket World Cup 2024, Usa & Wi, Purvesh Desai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The T20 Cricket World Cup '24 played in USA & WI will bring immense excitement to the cricket lovers around the world and have a question to themselves “Who shall I Root for?” How do people or fans support their favorite teams and on what criteria do they pick these teams will discuss in here.

Patriotism, tradition, and favorite individual players, are the main reasons for the fans to choose their and support the team. Nation is the biggest pride of an individual and many people choose their pride over everything. People celebrate when the home team plays on the …

La Vida: Towards A Motivated Goal Reasoning Agent, Ursula Addison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An autonomous agent deployed to operate over extended horizons in uncertain environments will encounter situations for which it was not designed. A class of these situations involves an invalidation of agent goals and limited guidance in establishing a new set of goals to pursue. An agent will benefit from some mechanism that will allow it to pursue new goals under these circumstances such that the goals are broadly useful in its environment and take advantage of its existing skills while aligning with societal norms. We propose augmenting a goal reasoning agent, i.e., an agent that can deliberate on and self-select …

Disappearing Immigrant Shadows: A New Analytical Framework And Typology For Second-Generation Chinese American Ethnic Engagement, Annie Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone challenges the predominant narrative that upwardly mobile, second-generation individuals prefer to socially distance themselves from working-class, first-generation co-ethnics, a concept referred to here as ethnic distancing. It argues that this narrative fails to capture the second generation’s affinity and capacity for ethnic engagement, which includes desired and actual participation in ethnic-based activities ranging from casual consumption to more meaningful volunteerism, activism, and community building with co-ethnics of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing on 32 interviews with second-generation Chinese Americans aged 18-35, I argue that we can better understand ethnic engagement in New York City’s Manhattan Chinatown by …

Voltage Set Points For Sodium Channel Inactivation: Intrinsic And Modulatory Mechanisms, Akshay Sharma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During an action potential, voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSC) control sodium ion flow into the cytoplasm of cells by using membrane voltage to alter channel conformation. These membrane proteins exhibit three main functional conformations: closed, open, and fast-inactivated, with transitions between these states dependent on membrane voltage and kinetics. The channels open within 1 millisecond and swiftly transition from open to fast-inactivated within 1-2 milliseconds following membrane depolarization. Subsequent membrane repolarization resets the channels to the closed state. Notably, even at mildly depolarized potentials that preclude channel opening, VGSCs can undergo transitions between the closed and inactivated states, known as closed-state …

Advanced Predictive Analytics On Financial Donations To Nonprofit Organizations, Fhamida Keya

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Non-profit organizations rely on donation contributions to carry out their social driven agenda. In the context of fundraising and donor management, it is crucial to uncover complex insights about donor behavior for optimizing strategies and enhancing donor engagement. This project employed advanced analytical techniques on the dataset Donations Received by City Agencies sourced from NYC Open Data by implementing predictive modeling, clustering segmentation, and time series analysis and forecasting. The project will attempt to uncover patterns in donation behavior, identify factors that influence donation amounts, and segment out donor profiles all of which can be leveraged to optimize strategy decisions, …

"White Slaves Of California": Race, Religion, And The Railroad In Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton's The Squatter And The Don, Katie Buonanno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In The Squatter and the Don (1885), Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton depicts the decline of the Alamars, a patrician Californio family, in the years after California was annexed by the United States. This thesis explores the different rhetorical maneuvers Ruiz de Burton makes to place the Californios in a broad, enfranchising Anglo-American national paradigm. The novel negotiates the messy, competing histories of Spanish, Mexican, and American colonialism, ultimately making the case for the enduring presence of Spanish missionization in the region, as well as the cultural assimilability of the Californio population. While the novel has frequently been read as …

Ordinary Care: Affective Politics Of Migration And The Everyday Lives Of Syrian Refugees In Istanbul, Yasemin Ozer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation makes two significant interventions into the literature on Syrian refugees in Turkey and the anthropology of migration and refugee studies more broadly. First, it focuses on the everyday lives of working-class urban refugees and argues that “ordinary care” is a crucial means by which they build sustainable and dignified lives while living in precarity in an often hostile environment in the aftermath of war and displacement. Ordinary care, as I theorize in this ethnography, includes sharing of resources, information, and advice as well as the formation of mutual relationships between kin, neighbors, and friends. Compared to the more …

United States Foreign Policy Towards South Africa: From Constructive Engagement To Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act Of 1986, Jennifer J. Squires

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

U.S. domestic pressure groups have historically utilized the tactic of lobbying Congress as a tool to pressure the legislative body to make specific foreign policy decisions. My research findings suggest that over various periods of time, in total spanning approximately four decades, first heralded by African American human rights leaders and organizations, the actions of six separate domestic anti-apartheid economic sanctions and divestment organizations, influenced by episodic anti-apartheid protest actions in South Africa, used their varied American protest actions to remind and to admonish Congress that apartheid is synonymous with racism. Thus, apartheid had to be dismantled. An important number …

Original Vs. Simplified Miranda Rights: The Impact On Miranda Rights Comprehension And Subsequent Waiver Decisions, Sydney Baker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Youths’ developmental immaturity negatively impacts their ability to meaningfully understand and appreciate their Miranda rights, raising questions about the validity of their waiver decisions. Moreover, most Miranda warnings are long, written at advanced reading levels, and contain complex sentence structure and vocabulary, which further hinders comprehension. In response, several jurisdictions have begun to use developmentally informed Miranda warnings for youth. However, research has yet to determine whether this improves youths’ ability to make informed Miranda waiver decisions. As such, the current research study explored whether simplified Miranda warnings increased youths’ comprehension of their rights, whether Miranda comprehension was related to …

Supporting Social Equity Through Informal Spaces On An Urban Campus, Eve B. Klein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on applying research to design in the setting of higher education. Specifically, it explores the informal spaces outside the classroom at a predominantly Black college in an urban setting. The existing structural challenges facing college students are many, including issues related to financial resources, mental health/wellness, family responsibilities, psychosocial identity formation, and structural racism. These challenges were compounded by the events of the spring of 2020, when a heightened awareness of anti-Black racism, combined with the hardships of COVID-19, brought college campuses to a close and masses of people to the streets to protest the unjust killings …

The Crisis Of Market Society And The Fascist Solution In The Work Of Karl Polanyi, Nicholas E. Reynolds

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The revival of interest in the work of Karl Polanyi, which has generated valuable lines of inquiry across disciplines, has largely neglected Polanyi’s extensive writings on fascism. This dissertation argues that Karl Polanyi should be considered a theorist of fascism, one whose thinking revolves around the concept of a “fascist solution” arising as a consequence of a terminal deadlock of market society. This dissertation surveys two decades of Polanyi’s work to construct a full picture of his theory of fascism and its importance for his broader theorizing about the dynamics of capitalist societies. Polanyi makes at least three specific contributions …

Examining Mental Health Differences Between Traditional And Nontraditional College Students From 2017-2022, Terrence A. Calistro Jr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic and societal changes in response to the pandemic have contributed to increasing the prevalence of mental health issues among college students globally. Because of their additional responsibilities, the prevalence of mental issues among the subpopulation of Nontraditional College Students (NTCS) is even more concerning. NTCS possess at least one of the following characteristics (e.g., working full-time, part-time employment, having financial dependents, etc.) that differentiates them from typical college students who enter higher education right after high school. Prior research has shown that NTCS generally experience more life stressors and challenges associated with mental health issues (e.g., depression, …

Individual Differences In Wild Asian Elephant Behavior: Links Between Innovation And Responses To Novelty Across A Mosaic Landscape, Sarah L. Jacobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An animal’s responses to a novel or changing environment are influenced by a number of behavioral traits and cognitive abilities associated with flexible decision making. Animals also exhibit strong consistency in some behavioral responses, described as personality traits, which may influence their ability to adjust to environmental changes. It is important to investigate both flexibility and consistency in behavior, as well as how these two characteristics interact with each other, to understand the range of individual variation in behavior and decision making within a species. This knowledge can also help us understand how some species and individuals within a species …

Maternal Subjectivities In The 18th And 19th Century British Novel, Anastasia Vahaviolos Valassis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How is the maternal subjectivity narrated in the pages of the 18th and 19th century British novel? This dissertation examines this question. The novel’s close connection to the child’s subjectivity and perspective is something woven into its very fabric, and so the mother is often a side character, an object in the story. She is an obstacle to be overcome, a distant idea, an absent figure, or even someone too perfect to be represented on the page. The novel often reflects or mirrors this culturally and psychologically accepted way of viewing the mother. The tracing of the narratives in which …

Timbres Oubliés: The Forgotten Sounds Of Loeffler's Octet, Graeme Steele Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modern musicians play a lot of old music and a lot of new music, but not so much “new old music.” This study—with its accompanying critical edition score, world-premiere recording and first present-day performances—represents, at long last, the deliverance of one such work from the ashes of history to the ears of the present: Charles Martin Loeffler’s forgotten Octet for Two Clarinets, Harp, Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Double Bass, a piece that was left unpublished, unrecorded and unheard since 1897.

This paper documents my efforts to finally reintroduce the Octet to the repertoire. By cross-referencing the autograph manuscript score …

Relationship Interventions For Autistic Children And Their Non-Autistic Siblings, Susan Vanessa Mchugh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Relationships between children with autism and their non-autistic siblings are often characterized by great warmth, empathy, and affection. However, because of core deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, autistic children and their siblings often experience difficulties with communication, play, and associated mental health problems. Interventions aimed at improving relationships in these sibling dyads historically have involved teaching non-autistic children to behave similarly to interventionists for autistic siblings, and support groups for children with broad chronic illnesses. More recent interventions have shifted focus to improvement of play between siblings, and support groups for siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder. Some are naturalistic …

Exploiting The Heavy Chain Glycans For The Improvement Of Radioimmunoconjugates, Cindy Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Radiolabeled antibodies have become indispensable tools in nuclear medicine. However, the natural roles of antibodies within the immune system mean that they have several intrinsic limitations as a platform for radiopharmaceuticals. A handful of recent preclinical studies suggest that binding by FcR and particularly FcyRI can affect the pharmacokinetic profiles of 89Zr-labeled radioimmunoconjugates. Fc receptors (FcR) are responsible for many of the interactions between immunoglobulins (IgG) and immune cells. In biomedicine, this interplay is critical to the activity of several types of immunotherapeutics; however, relatively little is known about how FcRs affect the in vivo performance of radiolabeled antibodies. Antibodies …

Essays In Health Economics And Applied Econometrics: Assessing Recreational Marijuana Laws, Dragos Ailoae

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the diffusion and impacts of state recreational marijuana laws (RML). Chapter 1 examines factors driving state adoption and spread of RML, finding that states with citizen ballot initiatives, expansive legislative capacities, and higher fiscal stress are more likely to enact RML. Ideological proximity, rather than geography, drives policy diffusion, with learning from early adopters likely serving as a key mechanism in the process. Chapter 2 assesses first-order effects of RML on marijuana consumption and drug policing using various econometric methods. Results suggest amplification bias in difference-in-differences point estimates due to an endogenous policy variable. This has economic …

Trends And Predictors Of Internet Use For Health-Related Purposes Among Adults In The United States Of America, Paul Ayamah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This longitudinal study draws on data from the Computer and Internet Use Supplement (CIUS) of the Current Population Survey (CPS) across 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021 and examines three domains of internet use for health-related purposes: seeking health information online, communicating with healthcare providers via digital platforms, and using electronic health monitoring devices to monitor and transmit health data. The study reveals a 10.60% increase in health-related internet use between 2015 and 2021 among all respondents. Communication with healthcare providers online increased from 21.71% in 2015 to 27.7% in 2021 (p < 0.001), while the use of electronic devices to monitor and transmit health data recorded the least growth of 3.15% in 2014 to 5.93% in 2021 (p < 0.001). Patient communication with a health service provider over the internet demonstrates the most significant increase of 3.74%. Furthermore, this study uncovers disparities between internet use among younger (aged 18-39) and older (aged 75 and older) adults, in which young adults were more likely to seek health information online. From the multivariable logistic regression, factors most likely to contribute to online information seeking include: higher educational attainment, access to multiple digital devices, and access to multiple internet sources.

The study highlights persistent digital divides, particularly among older …

Essays In Machine Learning, Econometrics, And Computational Economics, Lulu Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1 Data-Driven Graph Neural Networks And Realized Volatility Prediction through Graph Discovery: Financial markets’ interconnectedness plays a crucial role in financial predictions. However, existing network structures often fall short in aligning with specific prediction tasks. This paper presents a novel model that integrates graph discovery techniques with Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to address this challenge, focusing on short-term intraday realized volatility prediction. Our investigation from a graph theory perspective reveals that precision-based graph discovery methods substantially enhance GNNs accuracy by generating meaningful graphs and node embeddings. In contrast, conventional covariance-based approaches exhibit limited effectiveness due to their consideration of …

Pulsey: Stellar Pulsation Models In Python, Andrew Ayala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The era of the Kepler/K2 and TESS space-telescope missions has inundated the astrophysics community with photometric data for millions of stars with continuous observation and very high cadence. This data confirms that nearly every observed stellar source exhibits an oscillating luminosity, with stellar pulsation being the driving mechanism behind a large fraction of the cause. The result has been an explosion in the field of asteroseismology, where the recorded luminosity variations, or "light curves", of pulsating stars to probe their interior structures. By modeling observed light curves, we can constrain values of the physical stellar parameters producing them. The brightness …

Synthesis Of C-Di- And C-Tri- Saccharides From Glycosyl Crotylating Agents, Steven Truong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The involvement of carbohydrates in a plethora of fundamental biological pathways, including disease related processes, has created a demand for molecular probes for elucidating these mechanisms. Accordingly, synthesis of tailored and diverse carbohydrate-like molecules, commonly referred to as glycomimetics, is a very active area of research. Among the more popular classes of glycomimetics are C-glycosides, analogues in which the anomeric carbon of a parent sugar is attached to a carbon substituent. C-glycosides have attracted attention in the medicinal chemistry community as there are several naturally occurring examples with interesting pharmacologically activity. C-glycosides are also of interest because in …

Data Management Report September 2024, Tennessee. Department Of Disability And Aging

Compliance & System Data/Reports

This monthly report provides data on various aspects of the department's activities and programs.

The Recruitment And Retention Of Professional Volunteers To Mentor Dental Students, Sandra Gibson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recruitment and retention of volunteers in society is a critical endeavor for many nonprofit organizations that look to serve our communities. For many organizations, it is a way to keep costs down and to supplement the physical resources necessary to keep the organization afloat. This study centered on recruiting and retaining professional dental volunteers to mentor dental students at the Social Wellness Services (SWS: pseudonym) organization in Upstate, NY. The general problem addressed in this study was that many nonprofits need help acquiring highly specialized volunteers, which requires a unique amalgamation of education, skill/experience, selfless attitude, resolve, and available …

The 10 Commandments Of Endo-Bentall Repair, Mehrdad Ghoreishi

All Publications

No abstract available

Remote Court Hearings (Past, Present, And Future): Arizona’S Next Steps For A New World To Enhance Access To Justice, Samuel A. Thumma, Marcus W. Reinkensmeyer

SMU Law Review Forum

In this article, the Arizona Supreme Court COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During a Public Health Emergency Workgroup (“Plan B Workgroup”) provides an update from its prior efforts, building on the Post-pandemic Recommendations: COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During a Public Health Emergency Workgroup, 75 SMU LAW REVIEW FORUM 1 (2022). This article focuses on the Plan B Workgroup’s February 2022 Recommended Remote and In-Person Hearings in the Arizona State Courts in the Post-Pandemic World and developments after those Recommendations. The article highlights the consideration and adoption of the Recommendations by the Arizona Judicial Council and the Arizona Supreme Court, …

Pathways To Learning In Data-Based Policy Innovation Labs, Sojeong Kim, Tanya Heikkila, Adam Wellstead

Michigan Tech Publications

In recent years, policy innovation labs (PILs) have emerged to develop greater capacity for addressing pressing public policy problems and achieving policy objectives. An implicit assumption is that PILs can bring new data and evidence to support policy learning. Policy learning enables individuals, organizations, and systems to advance their capacity to achieve policy objectives and produce desirable policy outcomes. We investigate the role of policy learning in “data-based” PILs, which address the growing interest in big data and advanced technologies to address public policy issues. With a focus on applying new information and data systems technologies to assess public policy …

Transvenous Tissue Sampling In The Diagnosis Of Intravascular Neoplasm., Christopher J Neely, Christopher M Huff, Andrew C Gordon, Raghu Kolluri, Kush R Desai

Heart and Vascular Articles

No abstract provided.