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open access

Access to Health Care and Rates of Mortality and Utilization for the Elderly in Rural America

Description: The aging experience of men and women in rural America is different than that of their urban counterparts. In this study, I identified key disparities in access to health care, mortality, and utilization of health care that result from geographic location. Foundational theories are discussed to illustrate that disparities can originate from historical societal behaviors. Secondary data and literary reviews create a combined qualitative and quantitative approach to explore the rural/urban divide… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Johnson, Barbara Ann
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Accurate Joint Detection from Depth Videos towards Pose Analysis

Description: Joint detection is vital for characterizing human pose and serves as a foundation for a wide range of computer vision applications such as physical training, health care, entertainment. This dissertation proposed two methods to detect joints in the human body for pose analysis. The first method detects joints by combining body model and automatic feature points detection together. The human body model maps the detected extreme points to the corresponding body parts of the model and detects the … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Kong, Longbo
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Alloy Development and High-Energy X-Ray Diffraction Studies of NiTiZr and NiTiHf High Temperature Shape Memory Alloys

Description: NiTi-based shape memory alloys (SMAs) offer a good combination of high-strength, ductility, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility that has served them well and attracted the attention of many researchers and industries. The alloys unique thermo-mechanical ability to recover their initial shape after relatively large deformations by heating or upon unloading due to a characteristic reversible phase transformation makes them useful as damping devices, solid state actuators, couplings, etc. H… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Carl, Matthew A
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Animal Rights and Human Responsibilities: Towards a Relational Capabilities Approach in Animal Ethics

Description: In this thesis, I analyze some of the most important contributions concerning the inclusion of animals in the moral and political sphere. Moving from these positions, I suggest that a meaningful consideration of animals' sentience demands a profound, radical political theory which considers animals as moral patients endowed with specific capabilities whose actualization needs to be allowed and/or promoted. Such theory would take human-animal different types of relationships into account to deci… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Guerini, Elena
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Application-Specific Things Architectures for IoT-Based Smart Healthcare Solutions

Description: Human body is a complex system organized at different levels such as cells, tissues and organs, which contributes to 11 important organ systems. The functional efficiency of this complex system is evaluated as health. Traditional healthcare is unable to accommodate everyone's need due to the ever-increasing population and medical costs. With advancements in technology and medical research, traditional healthcare applications are shaping into smart healthcare solutions. Smart healthcare helps in… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Sundaravadivel, Prabha
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Art and Science of Data Analysis

Description: This thesis aims to utilize data analysis and predictive modeling techniques and apply them in different domains for gaining insights. The topics were chosen keeping the same in mind. Analysis of customer interests is a crucial factor in present marketing trends and hence we worked on twitter data which is a significant part of digital marketing. Neuroscience, especially psychological behavior, is an important research area. We chose eye tracking data based on which we differentiated human conc… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Daita, Ananda Rohit
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Artificially Structured Boundary for Control and Confinement of Beams and Plasmas

Description: An artificially structured boundary (ASB) produces a short-range, static electromagnetic field that can reflect charged particles. In the work presented, an ASB is considered to consist of a spatially periodic arrangement of electrostatically plugged magnetic cusps. When used to create an enclosed volume, an ASB may confine a non-neutral plasma that is effectively free of applied electromagnetic fields, provided the spatial period of the ASB-applied field is much smaller than any one dimension … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Hedlof, Ryan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Association of College and Career Readiness Indicators on Hispanic College Enrollment and Postsecondary Resiliency

Description: This investigation was a post-hoc, quantitative analysis of secondary academic performance and participation choices of Hispanic students. Three years of longitudinal student-level data was collected to examine the likelihood of college enrollment based on college and career readiness (CCR) factors. At the time of the study, CCR was defined as qualifying exam scores, credit for at least two advanced/dual enrollment courses, or enrollment in a career and technology education (CTE) coherent seque… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Parker, Patricia
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Association of Personality Facets with Unique Dimensions of PTSD

Description: The present study aims to examine which maladaptive and Big Five personality traits, as well as which lower order facets, are related to symptoms specific to PTSD (i.e., intrusions and avoidance). Unique effects were isolated by controlling for nonspecific general depression that occurs in the disorder but is not specific to it. 707 undergraduate students were administered a self-report online survey to assess their personality, trauma history, PTSD and mood symptoms. Additionally, data from 5… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Shteynberg, Yuliya A
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Automated Tree Crown Discrimination Using Three-Dimensional Shape Signatures Derived from LiDAR Point Clouds

Description: Discrimination of different tree crowns based on their 3D shapes is essential for a wide range of forestry applications, and, due to its complexity, is a significant challenge. This study presents a modified 3D shape descriptor for the perception of different tree crown shapes in discrete-return LiDAR point clouds. The proposed methodology comprises of five main components, including definition of a local coordinate system, learning salient points, generation of simulated LiDAR point clouds wit… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Sadeghinaeenifard, Fariba
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

The Biogeographic Distribution of Caddisflies (Insecta: Trichoptera) within the South-Central United States

Description: Through the use of natural history records, published literature, and personal sampling (2011-2016) a total of 454 caddisfly species represented by 24 families and 93 genera were documented from the south-central United States. Two Hydroptilidae species were collected during the 2011-2016 collection efforts that are new to the region: Hydroptilia scheringi and Mayatrichia tuscaloosa. Eightteen species are endemic and 30 are considered species of concern by either federal or state agencies. The … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Perry, Heather Ann
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

"A Blossoming Tree": A Study and Interpretive Guide to the Songs of Nan-Chang Chien on Selected Poems of Muren Hsi

Description: According to a recent United Nations report, China's population of 1.4 billion represents 19% of the world's entire population of 7.6 billion. As the distance between east and west contracts in business, so too do the arts. This dissertation focuses on six selected contemporary Chinese art songs composed by Nan-Chang Chien. By providing the references of musical facts, synopsis of the poems, word-for-word translation, IPA transcription, poetic translation, and interpretive and performance guide… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Tsai, Wei-Shu
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Changes in Student Borrowing at Private Not-for-Profit Four-Year Institutions in the United States

Description: Trends in tuition and financial aid policy have increased the number of students who borrow for higher education and the aggregate debt students acquire. Most research on student borrowing over the years has analyzed the effects of borrowing and the prospects of indebtedness on individual students' choices and persistence. However, dynamics at the institutional level such as the need to ensure a stable flow of resources may accelerate or slow down student borrowing. Drawing on resource dependen… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Namalefe, Susan A.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

A Comparative Evaluation of Functional Analytic Methods

Description: The individual functional analysis (FA) is the most widely used method to identify variables that influence the occurrence of problem behavior. Researchers often modify the FA after the analysis reveals undifferentiated responding. The interview-informed synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA) is one of the most substantial variations of the FA that builds upon the FA modifications. We evaluated the use of the two different functional analytic methods, the FA and IISCA, and the subsequent func… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Perkins, Crysta
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Comparison of Heterogeneity and Heterogeneity Interval Estimators in Random-Effects Meta-Analysis

Description: Meta-analyses are conducted to synthesize the quantitative results of related studies. The random-effects meta-analysis model is based on the assumption that a distribution of true effects exists in the population. This distribution is often assumed to be normal with a mean and variance. The population variance, also called heterogeneity, can be estimated numerous ways. Accurate estimation of heterogeneity is necessary as a description of the distribution and for determining weights applied in … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Boedeker, Peter
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

A Comparison of Major Factors that Affect Hospital Formulary Decision-Making by Three Groups of Prescribers

Description: The exponential growth in medical pharmaceuticals and related clinical trials have created a need to better understand the decision-making factors in the processes for developing hospital medication formularies. The purpose of the study was to identify, rank, and compare major factors impacting hospital formulary decision-making among three prescriber groups serving on a hospital's pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) committee. Prescribers were selected from the University of Texas, MD Anderson Can… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Spence, James Michael
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

A Comparison of Observation Systems for Monitoring Engagement in an Intervention Program

Description: The measurement of engagement, or the interaction of a person with their environment, is an integral part of assessing the quality of an intervention program for young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Researchers and practitioners can and do measure engagement in many ways on the individual and group level. The purpose of this methodological study was to compare three commonly used recording systems: individual partial interval, group momentary time sampling, and group partial … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Linden, April D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Computational Approaches for Analyzing Social Support in Online Health Communities

Description: Online health communities (OHCs) have become a medium for patients to share their personal experiences and interact with peers on topics related to a disease, medication, side effects, and therapeutic processes. Many studies show that using OHCs regularly decreases mortality and improves patients mental health. As a result of their benefits, OHCs are a popular place for patients to refer to, especially patients with a severe disease, and to receive emotional and informational support. The main … more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Khan Pour, Hamed
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Computational Investigation of DNA Repair Enzymes: Determination and Characterization of Cancer Biomarkers and Structural Features

Description: Genomic integrity is important for living cells' correct functioning and propagation. Deoxyribonucleic acid as a molecule is a subject to chemical reactions with agents that can come from environment as well as from internal metabolism processes. These reactions can induce damage to DNA and thus compromise the genetic information, and result in disease and death of an organism. To mitigate the damage to DNA, cells have evolved to have multiple DNA repair pathways. Presented here is a computat… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Silvestrov, Pavel
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Computational Simulations of Cancer and Disease-Related Enzymatic Systems Using Molecular Dynamics and Combined Quantum Methods

Description: This work discusses applications of computational simulations to enzymatic systems with a particular focus on the effects of various small perturbations on cancer and disease-related systems. First, we cover the development of carbohydrate-based PET imaging ligands for Galectin-3, which is a protein overexpressed in pancreatic cancer tumors. We uncover several structural features for the ligands that can be used to improve their binding and efficacy. Second, we discuss the AlkB family of enzym… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Walker, Alice Rachel
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
open access

Connected and Benevolent: The Positive Impact of Social Connections in Reducing Economic Concerns for Volunteering

Description: This dissertation attempts to answer how social and economic mechanisms operate in individual, community and state levels to impact volunteering. Both social processes and economic factors significantly impact the amount of volunteering. However, researchers have a tendency to explain volunteering only by one of these factors. As both theories are equally important in explaining volunteerism, the development of a coherent theory is necessary to combine economic and social theories. This dissert… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Baktir, Yusuf
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
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