Digital Commons Network^™

L2 Readers’ Strategy Use With Academic Texts: The Role Of Working Memory, Interest, And Strategic Adjunct Questions, Yanjie Li

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Aiming to promote L2 learners’ academic success at the university level by cultivating strategic readers, this dissertation reported the findings of three original studies. With intermediate-advanced level Chinese EFL learners, the first two studies investigated working memory capacity (WMC) and reader interest as well as how these variables were associated with L2 reading strategy use during reading. Building on the findings of the first two studies, the third study, an intervention study, implemented five types of higher-order adjunct questions (AQs), which asked the participants to carry out five corresponding reading strategies during reading. This study examined whether answering these strategic …

Iterative Machine Learning Of A Cis-Regulatory Grammar, Ryan Z. Friedman

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Gene regulation allows for the quantitative control of gene expression. Gene regulation is a complex process encoded through cis-regulatory sequences, short DNA sequences containing clusters of transcription factor binding sites. Each binding site can occur millions of times in multicellular genomes, and seemingly similar collections of binding sites can have very different activities. A leading model to explain these degeneracies is that cis-regulatory sequences follow a “grammar” defined by the number, identity, strength, arrangement, and/or context of the underlying binding sites. Understanding cis-regulatory grammar requires high-throughput technology, quantitative measurements, and computational modeling. This thesis describes an iterative machine learning approach …

Fluorescent-Based Approaches For Quantifying Bacterial Transcription Initiation Kinetics, Drake Jensen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

All cellular life depends on the precise regulation of its genome to adapt to environmental changes. This thesis focuses on exploring gene expression mechanisms at the level of transcription. Transcription is the process in which the enzyme RNA polymerase (RNAP) uses DNA as a template to generate nascent RNA. RNAP first binds to a regulatory sequence within the DNA called a promoter. The combined processes that occur at the promoter define transcription initiation, including promoter binding, promoter opening around the transcription start site, and initial synthesis of short RNA transcripts. Once RNAP escapes the promoter, it elongates the initial RNA …

How Can One Be Happy? Conteuses’ Lessons On Proper Conduct And Mentality In The Court Society Of Louis Xiv, Zhiyuan Meng

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

“How can one be happy?” is an age-old question that has been asked countless times throughout history. The answer, however, varies considerably according to when and where the question is asked. In seventeenth-century French court society, marked by patriarchal and monarchical domination, the key to happiness depends heavily upon the individual’s gender and social position. This dissertation examines three cross-dressed heroines in fairy tales written by first-generation French storytellers at the end of the seventeenth century. Their adventures as male chevaliers are conducive to the evaluation of advice for an audience of both genders from aristocratic and high bourgeois backgrounds …

Musical And Spiritual Meaning In The Franciscan Works Of Franz Liszt, Jorge Luis Modolell

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Liszt’s relationship to St. Francis of Assisi was an integral part of the composer’s identity. His devotion to the saint, cultivated from an early age, served as a constant source of spiritual guidance that only grew stronger over time. Texts by St. Francis and anecdotes from the saint’s life provided the artistic incentive for a number of important works, which form the core of the present study. By examining several of these works together, with full analyses and within a broader cultural framework, this dissertation aims to arrive at a true understanding of the messages Liszt took from this figure …

Essays In Sovereign Default And Central Banking, Andrea Paloschi

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The recent phenomenon of debt redemption is posing new challenges in emerging economies, whichare typically characterized by high levels of sovereign default risk. How do sovereign default risk and sovereign debt affect central bank independence? And how does this affect reserve accumulation in these countries? In the first chapter of this dissertation I study how business cycle fluctuations affect sovereign debt and sovereign default risk and how the de facto central bank independence is endogenously determines in emerging economies. I build a sovereign default model in which, period-by- period, the fiscal authority determines the degree of independence of the monetary …

Essays In Transportation Economics And Regional Science, Minsung Park

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three chapters that attempt to examine the effects of new infrastructure of transportation systems.This first chapter "The Impact of High Speed Rail on Traffic Congestion" examines the impact of high-speed rail systems on highway congestion, using the case of South Korea. I use different strategies to address the endogeneity problem of evaluating the impact of transport infrastructure on traffic congestion. The results indicate that building high-speed rail lowers demand for intercity driving by 7.5\% to 30.9\%. However, the detailed data suggests that the reduction in congestion comes primarily from night time, during which high-speed trains do not …

Painless Hylomorphism: A Deflationary Metaphysics Of Form, Graham Renz

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops and defends a deflationary or minimalist version of hylomorphism, the Aristotelian view according to which objects are composites of matter and form. According to hylomorphists, a house has various material components—bricks and timbers—and a special, non-material or formal component that makes the bricks and timbers to be a house. Hylomorphism is intuitively appealing and explanatorily powerful, but its primary posit—form—is hard to get a firm grip on. Because of this, contemporary hylomorphists have proffered myriad accounts of form. Forms might be structures, relations, principles of unity, inherent character-grounders, abstract offices, functions, emergent powers, configurational states, activities, processes, …

Essays In International Reserves And Sovereign Risk, Rocio E. Suarez

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1990s, international reserves accumulation has particularly surged in emerging economies. What are the rationals behind this rise and the implications of international reserves accumulation for emerging economies? Chapter 1 of the dissertation, titled The Effects of Reserves Accumulation on Sovereign Default Under Terms of Trade Shocks, studies what is the value of holding international reserves in emerging economies when they experience fluctuations in their terms of trade and the sovereign debt is denominated in foreign currency. Firstly, I document stylized facts regarding a sample of emerging economies over the period 1997-2019 and find that there is a negative …

Essays On Market Reallocation And Economic Growth, Lei Ye

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the causal factors that contribute to the reallocation of economic activity in the product, financial and labor market, and to analyze the implications of these phenomena on the aggregate economic performance.The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter, "Bank Concentration, Product Market Competition and Firm Dynamics", investigates the concentration trend in the U.S. banking industry since the implementation of the Riegle-Neal Act in 1994 and its impact on product market competition, firm dynamics and aggregate economic performance. Empirically, I document that bank concentration is associated with less competition in product markets. …

Essays On Statistical Inference, Nonconvex Optimization And Machine Learning, Yanjie Zhong

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decades, numerous optimization and machine learning (ML) algorithms have been proposed, many of which have demonstrated success in real-world applications and significantly impacted people's lives. Researchers have devoted considerable effort to understanding the theoretical underpinnings of these methods and to improving their performance, as well as designing algorithms compatible with demanding real-world constraints. This dissertation focuses on investigating the statistical properties of several mainstream optimization and ML algorithms, enabling us to make decisions with statistical guarantees.First, we examine the classical stochastic gradient descent algorithm (SGD) in a general nonconvex context. Utilizing the multiplier bootstrap technique, we design …

Edgar 10x Filings’ Sentiment And Predicting A Firm’S Stock Return, James Horn

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This research paper investigates the role of managerial sentiment in predicting future stockreturns by constructing firm characteristics based on sentiment words. Through the analysis of all Securities and Exchange filings submitted by publicly traded companies from 2001 to 2022, this study demonstrates that certain sentiment words provide a robust and significant cross-sectional predictor of future monthly stock returns. The paper utilizes a unique ap- proach by leveraging a long time frame and analyzing all available filings. This allows for a comprehensive analysis of the impact of managerial sentiment on stock returns, highlighting the importance of sentiment analysis in financial markets.

Data-Driven Platform And Digital Operations, Bing Bai

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to study the emerging operations issues on data-driven platforms and digital operations. With the increasing availability of data and the development of information technologies, platforms process a large amount of data in order to efficiently make daily operational decisions. Understanding human behaviors and the human-algorithm connection is instrumental to the success of this process. In my research, I implement field experiments and use structural models to study in-warehouse worker behavior and out-of-warehouse customer behavior in the last mile of logistics.

In Chapter 1, “The Impacts of Algorithmic Work Assignment on Fairness Perceptions and Productivity: …

The Efficacy Of A Regime-Switching Asset Pricing Model Conditioned On Market Volatility, David Baines

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to explain stock prices in a simple and articulate manner, researchers in asset pricing have long employed a “one model fits all prices over time” approach. In this thesis, a regime-switching linear asset pricing model, conditioned on trailing market volatility, is introduced in an attempt to map specific linear model specifications to specific macroeconomicconditions which are quantifiable and observable at t. Called the Time-Robust Iterative Adaptive LASSO (TRIAL) model, this model computes the expected return more efficiently out-of-sample than a benchmark model which does not use volatility-defined regimes, yielding a risk-adjusted mean monthly return of 1.36%, compared …

Manage Your Money Wisely: How Consumers And Marketers Can Effectively Communicate Money Issues, Alexander Park

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Consumers and marketers find it challenging to communicate money matters. For example, consumers experience discomfort and uneasiness when discussing financial issues with their social relationships. Firms often receive backlash when sharing their good financial deeds (e.g., charitable efforts) with consumers. Because financial matters can be a sensitive topic, in my research, I explore the difficulties consumers and marketers experience when communicating money issues and how they can better navigate these problems.In Chapter One, I investigate a particularly uneasy interaction that consumers often face with their friends and acquaintances: the need to ask for money back. Seven fully preregistered studies (N …

Essays In Entrepreneurship, Mostafa Salari

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation concentrates on the determinants of entrepreneurship and consists of two essays. The first essay develops a dynamic model of occupational choices to capture how big-five personality traits influence entrepreneurial decisions and returns. More importantly, I divide entrepreneurs into incorporated and unincorporated to differentiate between high-growth and lifestyle entrepreneurs. I use the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data set for this study. My model captures the role of personality traits, cognitive ability, human capital, information accumulation, and non-pecuniary benefits in entrepreneurial dynamics. The estimated model demonstrates that personality traits affect pecuniary and non-pecuniary from incorporated and …

Supply Chain Management Under Technology Innovation And Pandemic, Xiaoyu Wang

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this dissertation is to study supply chain issues under the challenge of technology innovation and pandemic; and to identify the implications for individuals and businesses.

In Chapter 1, ``Consumer Privacy in Online Retail Supply Chains", we study the implications of newly adopted privacy policies such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) for online retail supply chains consisting of a retailer and a supplier. Exploitation of consumer data allows online retailers to enhance services provided to consumers, but at the risk of causing unintended privacy issues. There has been debate about whether to devise regulation policies …

The Transparency Dilemma: Competition, Innovation, And Organizational Performance With Corporate Transparency, Xiaoli (Shirley) Tang

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three distinct chapters, all centered on the critical phenomenon I term the “transparency dilemma.” This dilemma arises when firms are requested by regulators and stakeholders to reveal proprietary operational information to address externalities created by their business activities. In doing so, they risk losing vital intellectual property or damaging relationships with stakeholders who may benefit from keeping the information confidential. How do firms navigate this dilemma? In Chapter 1, I explore alternative strategies firms employ when disclosure threatens their intellectual property. By focusing on the trade secret provision in chemical disclosures within the hydraulic fracturing sector of …

Essays On Customer Relationship Management, Nan Zhao

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The general topic of my dissertation is customer relationship management. Specifically, I use quasi-experimental causal inference methods, randomized field experiments, and machine learning methods to study and measure consumer response to co-branded credit cards and email communications promoting subscriptions.

In Chapter 1, “The Impact of Co-branded Credit Card Adoption on Customer Loyalty”, we estimate the treatment effects of adopting a co-branded credit card on spending and loyalty behaviors using a comprehensive longitudinal dataset from a North American airline. Our data set contained detailed records of both airline credit card adopters and non-adopters, including their travel and loyalty program activities over …

Reflectance Quantitative Polarized Light Imaging For Microstructural Evaluation Of Musculoskeletal Soft Tissues, Leanne Elizabeth Iannucci

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Musculoskeletal soft tissue injury is common and can lead to debilitating pain, loss of tissue function, and overall decrease in quality of life. Proper biomechanical function of musculoskeletal soft tissues is dictated by their hierarchically organized collagenous extracellular matrices, which are disrupted in periods of disease or injury. To best understand dynamic structure-function relationships of these tissues in normal and pathological conditions, it is imperative to be able to visualize collagen microstructure using a quantitative, high spatiotemporal resolution imaging modality. The innate birefringence associated with collagen fibers permits the use of biomedical polarimetry techniques to probe collagen in a specific …

Roger H. Habersham

African American Funeral Programs

Roger_H_Habersham.pdf - Funeral program for Roger Habersham

Nh 4-H Foundation Golf Sponsor, Avery Adam

UNH Cooperative Extension

No abstract provided.

Safety And Efficacy Of Axicabtagene Ciloleucel Versus Standard Of Care In Patients 65 Years Of Age Or Older With Relapsed/Refractory Large B-Cell Lymphoma, Jason R Westin, Armin Ghobadi, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: Older patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) may be considered ineligible for curative-intent therapy including high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation (HDT-ASCT). Here, we report outcomes of a preplanned subgroup analysis of patients ≥65 years in ZUMA-7.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with LBCL refractory to or relapsed ≤12 months after first-line chemoimmunotherapy were randomized 1:1 to axicabtagene ciloleucel [axi-cel; autologous anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy] or standard of care (SOC; 2-3 cycles of chemoimmunotherapy followed by HDT-ASCT). The primary endpoint was event-free survival (EFS). Secondary endpoints included safety and patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

RESULTS: Fifty-one and …

Factors Affecting Self-Reported Physical Activity In Children Ages 10-12, Shirley Sherrick-Escamilla

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between the current level of physical activity in older school-age children and their self-perception of what promotes and hinders their participation in physical activity. The study also addresses how well Pender's Health Promotion Model (HPM) predicted older school-age children's current level of physical activity.

An Opportunity To Increase Collaborative Science In Fetal, Infant, And Toddler Neuroimaging, Marta Korom, M Catalina Camacho, Aiden Ford, Hana Taha, Dustin Scheinost, Marisa Spann, Kelly A Vaughn

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The field of fetal, infant, and toddler (FIT) neuroimaging research—including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, among others—offers pioneering insights into early brain development and has grown in popularity over the past 2 decades. In broader neuroimaging research, multisite collaborative projects, data sharing, and open-source code have increasingly become the norm, fostering big data, consensus standards, and rapid knowledge transfer and development. Given the aforementioned benefits, along with recent initiatives from funding agencies to support multisite and multimodal FIT neuroimaging studies, the FIT field now has the opportunity to establish sustainable, collaborative, and open science …

Structural Insights Into Ligand Recognition And Selectivity Of Somatostatin Receptors, Corey F Hryc, Venkata K P S Mallampalli, Evgeniy I Bovshik, Stavros Azinas, Guizhen Fan, Irina I Serysheva, Genevieve C Sparagna, Matthew L Baker, Eugenia Mileykovskaya, William Dowhan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cardiolipin is a hallmark phospholipid of mitochondrial membranes. Despite established significance of cardiolipin in supporting respiratory supercomplex organization, a mechanistic understanding of this lipid-protein interaction is still lacking. To address the essential role of cardiolipin in supercomplex organization, we report cryo-EM structures of a wild type supercomplex (IV

Cortical Atrophy And Leukoaraiosis, Imaging Markers Of Cerebrovascular Small Vessel Disease, Are Associated With Driving Behavior Changes Among Cognitively Normal Older Adults, Ganesh M Babulal, Ling Chen, David B Carr, Ann M Johnson, Joshua S Shimony, Jason Doherty, Samantha Murphy, Alexis Walker, Hailee Domash, Russ Hornbeck, Sarah Keefe, Shaney Flores, Cyrus A Raji, John C Morris, Beau M Ances, Tammie L S Benzinger

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) as measured by cortical atrophy and white matter hyperintensities [leukoaraiosis], captured via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are increasing in prevalence due to the growth of the aging population and an increase in cardiovascular risk factors in the population. CSVD impacts cognitive function and mobility, but it is unclear if it affects complex, functional activities like driving.

METHODS: In a cohort of 163 cognitively normal, community-dwelling older adults (age ≥ 65), we compared naturalistic driving behavior with mild/moderate leukoaraiosis, cortical atrophy, or their combined rating in a clinical composite termed, aging-related changes to those without …

Reinforcement Learning-Based Resilience And Decision Making In Cyber-Physical Systems, Fisayo Sangoleye

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) transform how humans interact with technology by integrating sensing, computation, networking, and control with physical processes to facilitate smart services and innovative applications in our environments. Recent advances in CPS have led to rapid growth in the amount of information constantly generated by people, systems, and processes. Most of this information, however, is underutilized due to the lack of efficient information utilization and decision-making techniques. Also, the increasing interconnectivity of CPSs presents security risks that, if left unaddressed, could be highly disruptive to systems, processes, and economies. In this dissertation, we present a study and proposal of …

Meltwater Layer Dynamics In A Central Arctic Lead: Effects Of Lead Width, Re-Freezing, And Mixing During Late Summer, Daiki Nomura, Yusuke Kawaguchi, Alison L. Webb, Yuhong Li, Manuel Dall'osto, Katrin Schmidt, Elise S. Droste, Emelia J. Chamberlain, Nikolai Kolabutin, Egor Shimanchuk, Mario Hoppmann, Michael R. Gallagher, Hanno Meyer, Moein Mellat, Dorothea Bauch, Carolina Gabarró, Madison M. Smith, Jun Inoue, Ellen Damm, Bruno Delille

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Leads play an important role in the exchange of heat, gases, vapour, and particles between seawater and the atmosphere in ice-covered polar oceans. In summer, these processes can be modified significantly by the formation of a meltwater layer at the surface, yet we know little about the dynamics of meltwater layer formation and persistence. During the drift campaign of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), we examined how variation in lead width, re-freezing, and mixing events affected the vertical structure of lead waters during late summer in the central Arctic. At the beginning of the …

Assessment Of Urban Physical Features On Summer Thermal Perceptions Using The Local Climate Zone Classification, Cho Kwong Charlie Lam, Salman Shooshtarian, Inji Kenawy

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Urbanisation has changed local meteorological conditions worldwide. The physical features of outdoor spaces are critical in determining outdoor thermal comfort through changes in meteorological parameters. Past studies comparing subjective thermal perception between local climate zones (LCZ) were mainly conducted in humid subtropical regions. This study aims to investigate this relationship using outdoor thermal comfort survey data collected in three research projects in Melbourne, Australia (temperate oceanic climate) (n = 4717). The physical features investigated included the sky view factor (SVF) and LCZ classification. During Melbourne's summer, people preferred a higher PET value than neutral PET across all LCZs. People in …