This research aims to study the consumer perception, acceptance and adoption of menstrual underwear as it provides a sustainable option to the current feminine hygiene management solutions widely used in the consumer market in the U.S. In addition to the functional and utilitarian aspect of the underwear, I further delve into studying the social psychological effect the usage of the underwear (i.e., hedonic) has on consumer adoption. A longitudinal, qualitative study employing a three-step approach was conducted. The findings suggest that participants have never heard of menstrual underwear and did not fully understand the phenomenon. Contradicting responses between subject's attitudes and behavior towards the environment were revealed although, menstrual underwear had a positive psychological effect on the participants. Overall, menstrual underwear was most accepted amongst participants in the study.

This study examines African American stereotypes in film. I studied six directors, Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Lee, the Russo Brothers, Ryan Coogler, Tate Taylor, and Dee Rees; and six films Detroit, BlacKkKlansman, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Help, and Mudbound. Using the framework of critical race theory and auteur theory, I compared the common themes between the films and directors. The main purpose of my study is to see if White or Black directors predominantly used African American stereotypes. I found that both races of directors rely on stereotypes for different purposes. With Black directors, the stereotype was explained further through character development, while the White directors used the stereotype at face value with no further explanation.

Word embeddings is a useful method that has shown enormous success in various NLP tasks, not only in open domain but also in biomedical domain. The biomedical domain provides various domain specific resources and tools that can be exploited to improve performance of these word embeddings. However, most of the research related to word embeddings in biomedical domain focuses on analysis of model architecture, hyper-parameters and input text. In this paper, we use SemMedDB to design new sentences called `Semantic Sentences'. Then we use these sentences in addition to biomedical text as inputs to the word embedding model. This approach aims at introducing biomedical semantic types defined by UMLS, into the vector space of word embeddings. The semantically rich word embeddings presented here rivals state of the art biomedical word embedding in both semantic similarity and relatedness metrics up to 11%. We also demonstrate how these semantic types in word embeddings can be utilized.

Regurgitating test answers, needing more time to digest a reading, or being spoon fed information are just a few of many digestive metaphors currently used in education. In taking seriously the use of these metaphors, I suggest that humans recognize a connection, on some level, between the mental act of taking in and processing knowledge and the physical act of digestion, yet in educational discourse, these processes are more often than not cast in a negative light. The following philosophical exploration begins with a close look at two digestive practices, rumination and regurgitation, in non-human animals such as ruminants, seed-eating birds, and honey bees. By looking to these animals, it becomes possible to rehabilitate an affirmative human version of rumination and regurgitation in which our physical and mental selves are intrinsically intertwined in and through bodily education. The works of Giorgio Agamben, Tyson E. Lewis, Nathan Snaza, and Vinciane Despret support a theoretical framework which moves beyond human-centered education towards the development of an inhuman biopedagogy that embraces digestion rather than discriminates against it. I offer practical applications of rumination and regurgitation, shedding light on moments when rumination and regurgitation are already present in education, and introduces slight adjustments to …

Several historians have identified North Texas as constituting a unique cultural region in antebellum Texas, due to the more limited cotton and slave economies and greater opposition to secession. Different settlement patterns have been put forward as an explanation for the distinct "character" of North Texas, with North Texas being portrayed as being settled largely by migrants from the Upper South while the rest of the state was primarily settled by Lower Southerners. The argument rests on the assumption of differing economic and political cultures between Upper and Lower Southerners. This study investigates migration into North Texas counties and the economic life and secession vote in those counties. It challenges the simplistic dichotomy between migrants from the Upper and Lower South by demonstrating the similar rates at which these two groups grew cotton and owned slaves. It also illustrates how geographic considerations better explain the apparent distinctions between North Texas and the rest of the state. Transportation limitations are likely the reason for the more limited cultivation of cotton and, consequently, the lowered importance of slavery in North Texas. Concerns about Indian depredations following the removal of federal troops in the case of secession also seem to have promoted Unionist …

An investigation of luminescent sensing has been presented. Neutral Red, a common pH luminescent sensor, was shown to be an effective carbon dioxide sensor for the first time. Sensing experiments were performed both through fluorometric and fluorescent microscopy studies, giving rise to the possibility of carbon dioxide sensing for biological applications. Neutral Red was benchmarked against the well-established carbon dioxide sensor Pyranine (8-hydroxypyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid trisodium salt), HPTS. Neutral Red was shown to have improved response times and higher consistency within the sensing drift compared to HPTS. Trinuclear Au(I) complexes have previously shown to sense metal ions through changes in their luminescent properties. A computational study on d10-d10 interactions, which exist in complexes where Cu+, Ag+, and Au+ are intercalated with [Au(μ-C2,N3-ethylImidazolate)]3 in the form of both half and full sandwich adducts. Binding energies, total density plots, and Morse and Dunham analyses of potential energy surfaces are employed to better understand the metal-metal interactions and the effects of electron correlation, basis set superposition error, and dispersion of metallophilic interactions of the adduct complexes. As metal-metal interactions within these types of complexes become better understood, the tuning of trinuclear Au(I) complexes for luminescent sensing of metals becomes increasingly possible.

Small apparel retailers face extreme competition with larger retailers. Large retailers have the upper hand in resources to stay updated with various trends, specifically social media. Social media has lowered the barriers to enter the retail industry. However, once these small retailers enter, half of them fail because they don't attract and retain customers. Small-medium enterprises (SMEs) greatly impact the economy, so it is important to study various facets of their business to increase performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate customer's development of social capital (i.e. affiliation, responsiveness, shared values, norm of reciprocity) in small apparel retailer's Instagram page that ultimately lead to purchase intentions for the retailer. Perceived benefits (i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment) are also investigated in relation to purchase intentions. More specifically, social bonding, brand identification and trust are examined as mediating variables between the perceived level of social capital, perceived benefits and purchase intentions. Over a 3-month period, 200 responses were collected from students at a southern university. The findings reveal that younger customers develop a relationship with retailers on Instagram and it transfers to behavioral outcomes towards the retailer. The theoretical contribution of this study draws from the lack of literature for …

This study was conducted at a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide responsive, caring, and effective services to children with autism. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of D.A.N.C.E. training on teaching interactions, harmonious engagement, instructional engagement, and progress on child goals for two early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) staff and the children in their care. A multiple baseline design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Results indicated that staff increased teaching interactions and maintained instructional engagement; that children increased target goal responses; and that harmonious engagement between the two increased for both dyads. These results are discussed in the context of measurement, training, and social validity.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and systematically replicate the effectiveness of the DANCE training for a staff member to be an effective change agent for the children in her care, while maintaining the organization's and family's values. The study was conducted in an organization that values and focuses on building rapport, avoids the use of coercive procedures, and teaches children in a caring and meaningful way. A multiple baseline across indoor and outdoor settings was used to evaluate the effects of the package. Results demonstrated that DANCE training was an effective procedure to teach a staff member how to increase teaching interactions. Harmonious engagement, instructional engagement and vocal approximations also increased while challenging behavior maintained at zero levels.

The current study used secondary analysis of existing data to examine associations between bullying experiences, parental partner violence, and partner violence in young adulthood. We hypothesized that bullying in adolescence would be associated with witnessing parental IPV in adolescence and IPV in young adulthood. We believed that deficits in social information processing, particularly hostile attribution biases, would be associated with adolescent bullying. Lastly, we believed that decentering would act as a moderator, affecting the relationship between adolescent bullying and IPV in adulthood. We used correlational and moderation analyses to examine these hypotheses and found that relational bullying victimization was associated with witnessing parental IPV, and the frequency of bullying perpetration was associated with IPV perpetration in adulthood. We found that some aspects of bullying victimization were negatively associated with being unassertive, bullying perpetration was associated with hostile attribution biases, and the relationship between bullying and IPV was significant only at certain levels of decentering maturity.

C-lignin (caffeyl-lignin) is a novel linear lignin polymer found in the seed coats of several non-crop plants, notably Vanilla planifolia (Vanilla), Jatropha Curcas (Jatropha), and Cleome hassleriana (Cleome). C-lignin has several advantages over normal G/S-lignin, found in the majority of lignocellulosic biomass, for valorization in the context of bioprocessing: less cross-linking to cell wall polysaccharides (less recalcitrant biomass), ordered linkages between monomers (homogeneous polymer), and no branching points (linear polymer). These properties make C-lignin an attractive replacement for native lignin in lignocellulosic biomass crops. The seed coats of Cleome hassleriana (Cleome) synthesize G-lignin during early seed maturation, then switch to synthesis of C-lignin during late maturation. This switch to C-lignin in Cleome seed coats is accompanied by loss of caffeoyl-CoA 3-O-methyltransferase (CCoAOMT) and caffeic acid 3-O-methyltransferase (COMT) activities, along with changes in transcript abundance of several lignin related genes. The focus of this research thesis is to understand the biochemical changes leading to C-lignin deposition in Cleome hassleriana seed coats, and to explore the ability of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings to polymerize caffeyl alcohol to C-lignin. In this thesis, candidate transcripts were implicated in C-lignin biosynthesis by differential gene expression analysis of transcripts in seed coat tissues at 8-18 days after …

Self-forgiveness is a growing sub-field of the broader study of forgiveness, and initial research has linked self-forgiveness to positive mental and physical health outcomes. However, the extant literature on self-forgiveness is in its infancy, and there is a need for further research to understand the predictors of self-forgiveness and the clinical implications that might follow. The current study aimed to build on the extant literature by exploring two sets of predictors of self-forgiveness: (1) the four Rs as proposed in Cornish and Wade's four-R therapeutic model of self-forgiveness (i.e., responsibility, remorse, restoration, and renewal) and (2) personality as measured by the Big Five. This study also explored how responsibility for the offense and humility might moderate the relationship between self-forgiveness and well-being. Participants were undergraduates recruited from a large, public university in the southwestern United States. They were instructed to describe a recent interpersonal offense they had committed and complete a questionnaire. The overall results suggest that there is a negative cross-sectional relationship between responsibility, remorse, and restoration with self-forgiveness and that, when taken together, the four-Rs account for a significant amount of variance in self-forgiveness. Neuroticism was negatively associated with self-forgiveness while conscientiousness and extraversion were positively associated with …

In research on disordered eating in female collegiate athletes, psychosocial correlates including elevated scores on measures of body image concerns, weight pressures, sociocultural internalization, and mood state were found significantly more often in either the eating disorder or symptomatic group as opposed to the asymptomatic group. Unique or nuanced pressures exist for male athletes as well, specifically a different ideal for body image, often described by a drive for muscularity. I examined these effects in a sample of 698 male collegiate athletes. All participants completed questionnaires, which provided measures of drive for muscularity, social desirability, body satisfaction, negative affect, sociocultural pressures, sport weight pressures, and internalization and social comparison among other factors not pertinent for this analysis as part of a larger study. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the existence of five factors (general and sport pressures, internalization, body dissatisfaction, negative affect and drive for muscularity) to which a sixth was added to reflect dietary intent, all of which are explained in the Petrie and Greenleaf sociocultural model. A logistic regression showed that dietary intent and drive for muscularity differentiated significantly between the symptomatic/eating disordered athletes and those who were asymptomatic.

The main objective of this work is to give contribution in both additive manufacturing (AM) and tribometry derived from the application and study of materials available with the use of biomimetic designs. Additional contributions are determining what effects treatments for flooring surfaces may have on the dynamic coefficient of friction and the effects of these products on common surfaces. The validity of the proposed methodology for a proof of concept was demonstrated by comparing measured dynamic coefficient of friction for designs using standardized equipment and comparing these values to plantar skin tested using an accepted and standardized testing method that has been extensively researched and validated. Initial biomimetic designs and characteristics unique to each design were researched and compared. Eleven designs were selected to be fabricated, tested, and compared to select the most desirable applications for further investigation. Research into potential treatments commercially available for use was done to determine the efficacy of these products. Prototype sensor designs were selected and fabricated using direct light processing (DLP) technology. Examination of the measured values was done through an analysis of the variances in the response variable and comparisons using Fisher and Tukey pairwise comparison method. Future work recommendations are provided for …

This study argues that the American Relief Administration (ARA) operationally and culturally was defined by the character and experiences of First World War American military veterans. The historiography of the American Relief Administration in the last half-century has painted the ARA as a purely civilian organization greatly detached from the military sphere. By examining the military veterans of the ARA scholars can more accurately assess the image of the ARA, including what motivated their personnel and determined their relief mission conduct. Additionally, this study will properly explain how the ARA as an organization mutually benefited and suffered from its connection to the U.S. military throughout its European missions, in particular, the 1921 Russian famine relief expedition.

Consumer drones have used both standards such as Wi-Fi as well as proprietary communication protocols, such as DJI's OcuSync. While these methods are well suited to certain flying scenarios, they are limited in range to around 4.3 miles. Government and military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) controlled through satellites allow for a global reach in a low-latency environment. To address the range issue of commercial UAVs, this thesis investigates using standardized cellular technologies for command and control of UAV systems. The thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter 1 is the introduction to the thesis. Chapter 2 describes the equipment used as well as the test setup. This includes the drone used, the cellular module used, the microcontroller used, and a description of the software written to collect the data. Chapter 3 describes the data collection goals, as well as locations in the sky that were flown in order to gather experimental data. Finally, the results are presented in Chapter 4, which draws limited correlation between the collected data and flight readiness Chapter 5 wraps up the thesis with a conclusion and future areas for research are also presented.

Binge-watching, the act of watching large amounts of television at a time, has become a popular phenomenon internationally; however, it has yet to be sufficiently defined. In order to define binge-watching, data was collected on specific watching instances from 216 undergraduate students at a large research university. Hierarchical and k-means cluster analyses were conducted in Phase I to empirically determine how binge-watching should be defined. In Phase II, that definition was tested by correlating the number of instances of binge-watching in a one-week period, collected by seven days of daily diary logs, with several theoretically related measures including body mass index, dissociative tendencies, psychological distress, compulsion to watch, boredom proneness, and escapism through watching. The data-driven definition was found to be that eight hours or more of continuous watching was binge-watching, while anything less than that was not. In Phase II, the frequency of binge-watching through the seven-day period was calculated based on that new definition. The frequency of binge-watching was positively correlated with body mass index and dissociative tendencies with statistical significance at the alpha = .05 level. Compulsion to watch was not statistically significant; however, there was a positive correlation. These findings indicate that the proposed data-driven definition …

Improving water efficiency is and will continue to be a top concern to meet the world food production demands for a growing population. By having a clear understanding of water efficiencies, communities will be able to address these concerns from an economic standpoint and use more productive methods to grow food and limit water consumption. This study examines the water efficiencies of three irrigation methods over a single growing season in southeastern Oklahoma. Two crops, tomatoes and cucumbers, were grown using drip irrigation, a self-wicking container, and a non-circulating hydroponics barrel. Results at the end of the season showed the drip irrigation method had the highest water efficiency in terms of yield of product over water applied for both crops. The drip irrigation method also had the lowest associated set up costs and second lowest time requirements after the hydroponics method. These results were found to be consistent with other studies that compared drip irrigation to other irrigation methods and showed drip to have the highest water efficiencies.

Artist Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "In my recent work, I have expanded upon the deconstruction, reconstruction, and reflection that has informed my artistic process for many years. My working method involves using remnants from previous works; they reappear in their original form or are reworked, aged destroyed, or recreated from different materials. My Process allows me to illustrate the passage of time as older work takes on new forms in a renewed context. New connections begin to surface as my paintings and accompanying objects are layered into a work about the passage of time as well as other passages; a migratory mentality know to all who live away from home."

This study explored the lived experience of Gen Z adults in a liminal life-stage crisis where the symbolic meaning of health, identity and brands are in transition. Sixteen ethnographic in-home interviews with college students were conducted and analyzed using Geertz's interpretive and Turner's symbolic anthropology. A hermeneutic textual analysis was used to interpret three types of phenomenological data: text, pictures and collages. An "incubation" step was key in the creative interpretation process where the leap from data to abstract themes was made. Environmental circumstances like money, time, resources and social networks change the quality of health, but the fundamental health explanatory system of a young person is a reflection of their family of origin experiences. Women associate health with mental health-independence and empowerment. Men define health as physical health-food and cooking. Skills such as cooking and shopping as well as the consumption of water, cannabis and other complementary products impact health and identity. Three health worldview themes emerged: health as negotiating identity; creating home; and taking responsibility. Implications for branding and public information campaigns to change the health beliefs and practices of young adults are offered. This thesis closes with a reflection on the "research study," the dominant symbol in …

Optical microlasers have been used in different engineering fields and for sensing various applications. They have been used in biomedical fields in applications such as for detecting protein biomarkers for cancer and for measuring biomechanical properties. The goal of this work is to propose a microfluidic-based fabrication method for fabricating optical polymer based microlasers, which has advantages, over current methods, such us the fabrication time, the contained cost, and the reproducibility of the microlaser's size. The microfluidic setup consisted of microfluidic pumps and a flow focusing droplet generator chip made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Parameters such as the flow rate (Q) and the pressure (P) of both continuous and dispersed phases are taken into account for determining the microlaser's size and a MATLAB imaging tool is used to reduce the microlaser's diameter estimation. In addition, two applications are discussed: i) electric field measurements via resonator doped with Di-Anepps-4 voltage sensitive dye, and ii) strain measurements in a 3D printed bone-like structure to mimic biomedical implantable sensors.

The goal of this study is to determine the intentional movement direction based on the neural signals recorded from the motor cortex using optical brain imaging techniques. Towards this goal, we developed a cross-correlation analysis technique to determine the movement direction from the hemodynamic signals recorded from the motor cortex. Healthy human subjects were asked to perform a two-dimensional hand movement in two orthogonal directions while the hemodynamic signals were recorded from the motor cortex simultaneously with the movements. The movement directions were correlated with the hemodynamic signals to establish the cross-correlation patterns of firings among these neurons. Based on the specific cross-correlation patterns with respect to the different movement directions, we can distinguish the different intentional movement directions between front-back and right-left movements. This is based on the hypothesis that different movement directions can be determined by different cooperative firings among various groups of neurons. By identifying the different correlation patterns of brain activities with each group of neurons for each movement, we can decode the specific movement direction based on the hemodynamic signals. By developing such a computational method to decode movement direction, it can be used to control the direction of a wheelchair for paralyzed patients based …

RSA cryptography is one of the most widely used cryptosystems in the world. FPGA/ASIC implementations for the classic RSA cryptosystem have high resource utilization due to the use of the Extended Euclid's algorithm for MOD inverse generation, the MOD exponent operation for encryption and decryption, and through non finite-field arithmetic. This thesis translates the RSA cryptosystem into the finite-field domain of arithmetic which greatly increases the range of encryption and decryption keys and replaces the MOD exponent with a multiplication. A new algorithm, the SPX algorithm, is presented and shown to outperform Euclid's algorithm, which is the most widely used mechanism to compute the GCD in FPGA implementations of RSA. The SPX algorithm is then extended to support the computation of the MOD inverse and supply decryption keys. Lastly, a finite-field RSA system is created and shown to support character encryption and decryption while being designed to be integrated into any larger system.

The purpose of this study was to explore theorized predictors, intrapersonal effects, and interpersonal effects of political humility. Participants (N = 469) were adults recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and undergraduate students who completed a series of measures online. First, I found that political humility is (a) positively associated with openness to experience, (b) negatively associated with political commitment, and (c) not significantly related to political diversity in one's social network. Second, regarding intrapersonal effects, I found that political humility was (a) positively associated with low emotional reactivity when presented with a different political perspective, (b) identifying positive aspects of the opposite political perspective, and (c) not significantly related to identifying negative aspects of one's own political perspective. Third, I found that both the self-reported political humility of the participant and the perceived political humility of the individual who hurt or offended the participant were positively associated with one's motivation to forgive the individual. Fourth, I found that the association between political humility and forgiveness was not significantly moderated by how close the participant felt to the offender before the hurt or offense. I conclude by discussing my findings in light of the present literature on humility.