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Equity And Diversity 2022-2023 Committee Report, Equity And Diversity Committee

Equity and Diversity Committee

No abstract provided.

Language And Literacy Development For Young Toddlers, Tori Johnston

Graduate Teacher Education

Language and literacy development is tremendously important for young children in the first year of life. The purpose of this capstone is to discover strategies to foster emergent literacy and implement those strategies. Towell, Bartram, Murrow, & Brown, (2021) suggested several strategies to help educators foster literacy development including lap reading, reading aloud, reading to children from birth, dialogic reading, establishing routines, creating books with children, asking questions, and making comments. According to Dowling, Shanty, Sonnenschein, and Hussey-Gardner (2020), it is never too early to introduce language and literacy skills. Infants learn best through responsive, playful interaction that occur in …

Qualitative Chemical Analysis Of Elf Bar E-Liquids And Their Effect On Phenotypic Characteristics Of Arabidopsis Thaliana, Genevieve Neuwirth

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

After their initial market introduction in 2003, the popularity and use of e-cigarettes have exponentially increased. There are three main components that have contributed to this: marketing, ease of access, and emerging flavors. The marketing industry uses claims that ecigarettes are a ‘safer’ and ‘healthier’ alternative to cigarettes as a way to entice previous smokers into using this product. With the increase in popularity, there is also an increase in demand, which has led to the creation of stores designed to target customers and sell e-cigarettes and similar products at convenient locations. Finally, the emerging flavors have enticed many nonsmokers …

Mind Over Matter: The Role Of Resilience, Crime Victimization, And Age At The Time Of Victimization On Psychological Health, Alana Compton

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between crime victimization, age at the time of victimization, psychological health, and resilience. Past research has shown that crime victimization has been linked to higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders, and that those who experience a traumatic event as a child are influenced more negatively than those who experience trauma as an adult. Additionally, resilience has been shown to mediate the influence that trauma has on an individual. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty and staff were surveyed to determine their …

Rural Appalachia And The Opioid Epidemic: Overcoming Current Barriers With New Solutions, Olivia Croft

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The opioid epidemic has damaged the lives of many Americans since the early 2000’s. As America continues to look for ways to fight the opioid epidemic and save this country, the idea of providing the rescue drug, naloxone, to the general public has been discussed and implemented in some areas. An overdose from opioids causes a person to have respiratory depression and eventually stop breathing. Without intervention, this quickly leads to death. Although the opioid epidemic is nationwide, some of the most significantly affected populations are the rural communities tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains. In rural areas of America, …

Immunomodulatory Effects Of Glycerol Echinacea Purpurea Stem And Leaf Extract On Raw 264.7 Murine Macrophages, Maxwell D. Garcia

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The eastern and central North American flowering plant Echinacea purpurea (EP) is used by Native Americans as a traditional remedy for upper respiratory illnesses (URI). Active chemical constituents in EP include caffeic acid derivatives, alkylamides, and polysaccharides. The use of EP extracts have been suggested to shorten the duration of upper respiratory illness symptoms. Most studies suggest an immunomodulatory effect on innate immune responses. This research will test the immunomodulatory effects of a 50:50 glycerol:water extraction of EP stem and leaf on LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 murine macrophages. Results will be compared to previous work using 75:25 ethanol root and 75:25 …

The Effect Of Weight Bias On The Prevalence Of Cardiovascular Disease, Manuela Paki Amouzou

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The condition of obesity has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as a multi-faceted chronic disease. Previous studies have shown an associational relationship between recorded weight bias in healthcare providers, in society at large, andtowards oneself and negative health outcomes. In addition, the increased rate of recorded obesity is often tied to the increased incidence of cardiovascular disease in the population. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss the causes of this relationship and an updated course of treatment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how the attitudes and beliefs of healthcare providers towards people who are …

Mind Over Matter: The Role Of Resilience, Crime Victimization, And Age At The Time Of Victimization On Psychological Health, Alana Compton

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between crime victimization, age at the time of victimization, psychological health, and resilience. Past research has shown that crime victimization has been linked to higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders, and that those who experience a traumatic event as a child are influenced more negatively than those who experience trauma as an adult. Additionally, resilience has been shown to mediate the influence that trauma has on an individual. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty and staff were surveyed to determine their …

An Analysis Of Sediment Collected By Pogonomyrmex Salinus From The Jurassic Sundance Formation, Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, Josephine H. Laprad

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Pogonomyrmex salinus is a species of harvester ant found in the Bighorn Basin area of Wyoming. Harvester ants are aptly named as they “harvest” seeds for food, but this harvesting behavior is also seen in their collection of sediment particles to build their mounds. For decades, paleontologists have looked to harvester ants for microfossils because the small size of the fossils makes them difficult for human eyes to find. But there are unresolved questions about the data that can be gleaned from the fossils collected by the ants. The mounds collected for this study include material from the Stockade Beaver …

Sec Proposed Regulations On Climate Related Disclosures And Climate Related Risks, Paloma Alvarado

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Today many large corporations voluntarily produce climate-related disclosures with detailed breakdowns of their environmental impact from corporate activities. As consumers have become more concerned with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) requirements and government intervention has increased with environmental impacts, it is no surprise that companies have voluntarily moved to release these reports. Many of the voluntary reports have been longstanding. The authors of “How Green is the Apple?” (2020) author reports that between “2003 and 2018, Apple published 40 product environmental reports, and 24 appeared in 2018 alone that covered 8 product lines” (pg. 314). As another example, Ford published …

The Effect Of Joint Versus Soft Tissue Flossing On Overall Performance In The Lower Extremities, Emily Bray

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Effective warm-up routines result in a reduction in muscle soreness post-exercise, a lessened risk of injury, and an enhanced performance output ability. Existing research has shown promising effects of muscle tissue flossing, a novel method of warming up in which a latex band is used to apply pressure to a specific area in the body. The purpose of this study was to determine how active college students respond to flossing applied to both a joint as well as soft tissue in the lower extremities, focusing on the ankle joint and calf muscle. Floss bands were applied bilaterally for each of …

How Automation Is Making A Positive Impact On The Fast Food Industry, Noah Bullock

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

As the fast food industry has rapidly evolved, so has the use of technology within these businesses. Artificial intelligence is something that is being used in these fast-food restaurants to drive change. With restaurants adding artificial intelligence into their business model, many of their goals have changed. Restaurants are now having the goal of improving their speed and accuracy when it comes to order taking, enhancing the customer experience, and reducing their costs. All of which are attainable through the use of artificial intelligence. Though businesses are now using artificial intelligence; there are many concerns about the downsides that come …

Use Of Eeg-Based Machine Learning To Predict Music-Related Brain Activity, Charles Skutt

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Music has many awe-inspiring characteristics. Some may refer to it as a “universal language” with the ability to transcend the barriers of speech, while others may describe its ability to evoke intense emotional experiences for the listener. Regardless of the description, it is a commonly held view that music can have many profound effects. Studies of music’s effects have found these beliefs to be more than pure conjecture, finding that music interacts with and changes our brains in physical and emotional ways. Music can even have clinical applications, such as music therapy. This type of therapy has been shown to …

Perceived Effectiveness Of Mental Health Rehabilitation On Recidivism, Sydni Spradlin

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

As the American criminal justice system moves towards rehabilitation over punishment it is important to see if rehabilitation of mental illness reduces recidivism rates on a large scale. As established by previous research (Gonzalez & Connell, 2014; see also, Osher, et al, 2003), people with mental health issues are notoriously ignored or not provided the proper treatment during incarceration and it is necessary to examine this connection so new policies can be implemented to help incarcerated Americans. By reducing recidivism the amount of people incarcerated is lowered, because most people incarcerated are repeat offenders (Bureau of Justice Statistics), saving America …

A Quantitative Analysis Of Gender Inequality On Efforts To Reduce Human Trafficking In Countries, Amelia Simmons

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The phenomenon of human trafficking is a growing problem that affects millions worldwide. Literature on the subject suggests that inequality between men and women can be a crucial factor in determining national efforts to combat trafficking in persons. This research studies the association between a country’s efforts to reduce trafficking with the measure of inequality being the literacy rate difference and unemployment rate difference between men and women in each country. An analysis of variance yielded statistically significant results that national efforts to combat human trafficking were associated with inequality between men and women in those nations. Discussion on how …

Inflammatory Comparison Of Raw 264.7 Cells, J774a.1 Cells, And Murine Bone Marrow-Derived Macrophages, Dylan Shuster

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Parallel examination of bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) to the viral transformed murine RAW 264.7 and J774A.1 cell lines provides a basis for comparison for experimental models of inflammation. Equivalent inflammatory responses would allow the substitution of the RAW 264.7 or J774A.1 cells for BMDM, reducing the use of animals in experimentation. The mammalian cell lines are maintained in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM) complete with passage by scraping every 72 hours. BMDM are generated by culturing bone marrow cells from femurs of female Swiss mice (Hilltop Lab Animals, Inc.) with murine macrophage colony-stimulating factor for 7 days. The two cell …

The Effect Of Social Influence, Patient Type, And Treatment Type On Ethical Medical Decision Making, Kessa Romero

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Laws are set into place in order to guarantee proper rights for U.S. citizens in need of medical care. Previous research suggests that public opinion of mental health influences the treatment of vulnerable populations diagnosed with mental illness. This study explored the ways in which social pressure to conform influences policies regarding prison inmates, children, and adults. It concludes with suggesting changes to existing policy. The present study was a 3x3 factorial design. The independent variables were public opinion (pro-issue, anti-issue, and no opinion) and type of ethical dilemma (forced medication on children, forced medication on prison inmate adults, involuntary …

History Doesn’T Repeat Itself, But Often Rhymes: An Analysis And Extension Of Models Influencing Special Education, Rebecca Owens

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The American special education system is largely hailed as a beacon for inclusion and support of students with disabilities, but was developed on the back of a deep, complicated history of isolation, fear, and ignorance. This historical analysis examines special education in the context of parallel-developing models of how those with disabilities are perceived and treated in the United States. Rather than juxtaposing the widely-discussed models of disability (moral, medical, and social) with the development of special education, I argue that they are consistent with a wave pattern, initially proposed by disability scholar and advocate Wolfensberger (1969), that traces the …

Analyzing And Computing Complete Solution For Dots And Boxes Game, Carl Mcaninch

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

This thesis improves a process that analyzes all the states of a game of Dots and Boxes. We use retrograde analysis and simulations to create a solution that provides significant performance improvements over our previous best solution. Expanding upon a previous 4x4 solution using rotations, reflections, better optimization, and cloud computing to limit the processing time and gather more data efficiently. We compute a file and the number of states associated with each file and process every state starting with a completely filled board. We optimized the data for cloud computing by running simulations to find the most efficient number …

Self-Selected Pacing Strategy And Lactate Response In Individual Medley Time Trials, Claire Galloway

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The 200 and 400-yard individual medley (IM; 200 IM and 400 IM, respectively) are two swimming events that challenge swimmers' versatility. Each of these events has different physiological requirements, where the 200 IM is viewed as an anaerobic event and the 400 IM as an aerobic event. Additionally, the IMs require performance in all four competitive stroke disciplines in a specific order (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle), with each stroke requiring a different magnitude of intensity, efficiency, and speed. Purpose: To study the different pacing strategies and corresponding blood lactate response during the 200 IM and 400 IM in National …

An Analysis Of Sediment Collected By Pogonomyrmex Salinus From The Jurassic Sundance Formation, Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, Josephine H. Laprad

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Pogonomyrmex salinus is a species of harvester ant found in the Bighorn Basin area of Wyoming. Harvester ants are aptly named as they “harvest” seeds for food, but this harvesting behavior is also seen in their collection of sediment particles to build their mounds. For decades, paleontologists have looked to harvester ants for microfossils because the small size of the fossils makes them difficult for human eyes to find. But there are unresolved questions about the data that can be gleaned from the fossils collected by the ants. The mounds collected for this study include material from the Stockade Beaver …

Money Laundering In The Global Art Market, Arran Walton

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

It is no secret that money laundering has seeped into the art market for years, but veils of anonymity and lack of regulation have kept many of those who foster the illegal operations immune from justice. As criminal operations permeate the art market on a regular basis, what can be done? This thesis will approach this question through an examination of qualitative data and studies, including investigating applicable recent cases, to understand four unique vulnerabilities of the art market and how these weaknesses are exploited. Additionally, the major groups who use the art market as a means of money laundering …

Tcf4 Is A Key Mediator Of Cell Identity And Oncogenesis In Neuroblastoma, Nour Aljouda

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Neuroblastomas (NB) are embryonal childhood tumors that derive from the multipotent neural crest cells (NCCs) of the peripheral nervous system. NB accounts for more than 15% of all childhood cancer-related deaths. Despite the most intensive multimodal therapy, more than 50% of patients with high-risk NB relapse with often fatal, resistant disease. Novel therapies are desperately needed to improve cure rates. Previous studies proposed that the deregulation of normal neural crest developmental programs contributes to NB oncogenesis by retaining the highly migratory and proliferative traits of NCCs. Thus, activation or repression of neural crest developmental pathways have been implicated in NB …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Factors Influencing Online Meal Delivery Services, O. Jawabreh, R. Mahmoud, O. A. Alananzeh, B. J. A. Ali

Journal of Statistics Applications & Probability

The study examined the effects of diversity, advertising, ease of demand, and service quality. The study used a quantitative approach, distributing a questionnaire to a randomly selected sample of (514) consumers from the study population. The studys factors (menu variety, promotion, and service quality) had a statistically significant effect on consumer satisfaction with food delivery. In contrast, the findings revealed that consumers were dissatisfied with the ease of ordering (convenience). The online meal delivery market is still in its infancy, necessitating additional research from academics and industry professionals to determine its full potential. This study examines the few available studies …

The Scoop, Vol. 10 Issue 2, May 2023, Health Sciences Library

Volume 10

Latest news and updates from the Health Sciences Library in our monthly newsletter for May 2023.

Fair Enough: Standardizing Evaluation And Model Selection For Fairness Research In Nlp, Xudong Han, Timothy Baldwin, Trevor Cohn

Natural Language Processing Faculty Publications

Modern NLP systems exhibit a range of biases, which a growing literature on model debiasing attempts to correct. However, current progress is hampered by a plurality of definitions of bias, means of quantification, and oftentimes vague relation between debiasing algorithms and theoretical measures of bias. This paper seeks to clarify the current situation and plot a course for meaningful progress in fair learning, with two key contributions: (1) making clear inter-relations among the current gamut of methods, and their relation to fairness theory; and (2) addressing the practical problem of model selection, which involves a trade-off between fairness and accuracy …

Optical Metrology And Beam Shaping Using Active Lensing And Engineered Diffusers, Minjae Kim

Graduate Theses - Physics and Optical Engineering

This thesis encompasses three chapters that delve into innovative studies within optical experiments. The overarching motivation behind this research is to enhance the efficiency, and versatility of measurement techniques used in the field. Furthermore, by exploring novel technologies and methodologies, these studies aim to overcome existing limitations and open new avenues for optical experimentation.

The first chapter addresses the challenge of accurately measuring the radius of curvature of a sample without physically moving the lens position. Conventional methods using single lenses are prone to errors caused by mechanical drift or instability. To mitigate these issues, the study introduces Tunable Focal …

Umsgp The Emergency: A Sci-Art Facilitative Process And Collective For Um, Diana Six, Eric Jensen

University Grant Program Reports

Thanks to a UM Small Grant, over the last year we developed a scientist-artist collective to communicate pressing issues in ecology. The collective, called The Emergency, facilitated collaborations between scientists and artists to produce works to reach broad audiences in unique and effective ways on ecological problems in the Anthropocene.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Adolescents And Young Adults In Brazil, Sabrina Ruiz

Ballard Brief

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are infections that are mainly transmitted through sexual contact. These infections are typically caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites and can affect anyone who is sexually active. Some of the most common types of STDs include chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and human papillomavirus (HPV). STDs pose a significant global health problem, with young people in Brazil being particularly vulnerable. They are at a higher risk of contracting STDs due to several factors, including risky sexual behavior, substance abuse, and sexual violence. The consequences of contracting STDs in this population include cervical cancer, chronic pelvic pain, and pelvic …

An Integer Garch Model For A Poisson Process With Time-Varying Zero-Inflation, Isuru Panduka Ratnayake, V. A. Samaranayake

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

A serially dependent Poisson process with time-varying zero-inflation is proposed. Such formulations have the potential to model count data time series arising from phenomena such as infectious diseases that ebb and flow over time. The model assumes that the intensity of the Poisson process evolves according to a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) formulation and allows the zero-inflation parameter to vary over time and be governed by a deterministic function or by an exogenous variable. Both the expectation maximization (EM) and the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) approaches are presented as possible estimation methods. A simulation study shows that both parameter …