Many previous studies have demonstrated that gold compounds possess successful results in catalysis and in medicinal chemistry. The central aim of this dissertation is the design and synthesis of novel gold (I) acyclic diamino carbene complexes as a chemotherapeutic agent for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and for catalysis. In this study, a series of chiral neutral and cationic gold (I) acyclic diamino carbene (ADC) complexes and neutral gold (I) bis- ADC complexes have been synthesized. As the chiral neutral gold (I) ADCs, four diastereomers of S binaphthyl L proline tertiary butyl ester gold (I) chloride, S binaphthyl D proline tertiary butyl ester gold (I) chloride, R binaphthyl L proline tertiary butyl ester gold (I) chloride, and R binaphthyl D proline tertiary butyl ester gold (I) chloride have been synthesized and characterized. Different chiral gold (I) ADC complexes with bulky chiral binaphthyl group and with different amine groups of morpholine, chiral proline methyl ester, and benzyl ester have been synthesized and characterized. After that four diastereomers of the nitrile adduct of cationic binaphthyl proline tertiary butyl ester nitrile and four diastereomers of the isonitrile versions of it have been synthesized and characterized. A series of gold (I) cationic bis ADC complexes …

Thomas E. Dewey and Charles "Lucky" Luciano became household names during a 1936 vice trial in which Dewey successfully prosecuted Luciano, a prominent Mafioso, who received a thirty-to-fifty-year prison sentence. Later, Dewey became the Governor of New York and a perennial Republican presidential candidate while Luciano, still in prison, took part in a joint Navy-Mafia intelligence operation in World War II. In 1946, Governor Dewey commuted Luciano's sentence on the condition that he be deported to his native Italy. The commutation led to years of controversy fomented by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), which downplayed Luciano's wartime services, spread rumors that he had bribed his way out of prison, and claimed that he was smuggling drugs into America from Italy. The FBN's narrative was echoed by muckraking journalists and Dewey's political opponents, finally prompting Dewey in 1954 to order an investigation that thoroughly debunked FBN assertions. However, the records of that investigation were quarantined until the mid-1970s. Since then, most scholars have used those records to explore the Navy-Mafia wartime alliance, but this dissertation exhaustively mines them and other documents in Dewey's papers, along with federal records, to disprove the FBN's narrative that there was something untoward about Dewey's …

Observational learning (OL) allows an individual to acquire novel responses by observing others' behavior and the corresponding consequences. The complexity of skills involved with OL may vary with the learning context. A learner may observe modeled responses to both trained (known) and untrained (unknown) stimuli or they may observe both reinforced (correct) and nonreinforced (incorrect) responses. The purpose of this study was to develop assessment and training procedures for OL component skills when the learner observes a combination of learning contexts: reinforced and nonreinforced responses to both trained and untrained stimuli. Two children with autism, Tom and David, participated. We assessed the following component skills in the context of tact trials: (1) Discriminating trained and untrained stimuli, (2) attending to the modeled performance, (3) discriminating consequences, and (4) conditionally responding based upon a name call. Next, we trained the component skill(s) for which the learner's performance did not meet criterion and then reassessed for OL. For both participants, immediate increases in OL were observed; however, modifications to the post-assessment (differential observing response for consequences and/or differential reinforcement) were required to produce (Tom) or maintain (David) criterion levels of responding. Interpretations of these outcomes, as well as limitations and directions for …

The American's battle of St. Mihiel in September 1918 has long been a marginalized battle in an almost forgotten war. In the historiography of American World War I involvement, the battle is relegated to a side-show that was little more than a distraction from the Meuse-Argonne. This stance needs to be re-evaluated as St. Mihiel proved an essential training ground for the US Army. The army rapidly expanded and participated in a major offensive, completed the complicated planning process, undertook a significant deception and intelligence-gathering campaign, and led coalition forces to reduce a salient that existed for years, in only a few short months. While not a perfect operation, the Americans overcame several obstacles to form the US First Army and achieve victory. St. Mihiel is a turning point in military training and doctrine as students studied the tactics after the war into the modern day. The memory of the battle was affixed in the minds of those who fought it and those on the home front who eagerly read the news stories coming from the Western Front. Modern audiences should also recognize the significance of the Battle of St. Mihiel.

In Essay 1, we seek to expand the insights on an individual's decision to share group content. Social networking sites (SNS) have become a ubiquitous means of socializing in the digital age. Using a survey, we collected data from 520 respondents with corporate work experience to test our research model. Our analysis highlights the complex interplay between individual and group factors that shape users' risk-benefit analysis of sharing group content on social networking sites. Furthermore, the results of this study have important implications for social networking site design and policy, particularly with regard to providing granular control over the privacy settings of group content and clear and concise information about the potential risks and benefits of sharing group content. Essay 2 aims to extend the knowledge of information security policy (ISP) compliance. Using a comprehensive approach, we extended the perspective of control mechanisms in the context of ISPs. It is evident that maintaining information security is an important concern for organizations of all sizes and industries. Organizations can establish policies and procedures to regulate and ensure compliance with information security policies, and various control mechanisms can be employed to ensure compliance. Among these control mechanisms, enforcement, punishment, evaluation, and recognition …

Small-scale fracture behavior of four model alloy systems were investigated in the order of increasing microstructural complexity, namely: (i) a Ni-based Bulk Metallic Glass (Ni-BMG) with an isotropic amorphous microstructure; (ii) a single-phase high entropy alloy, HfTaTiVZr, with body centered cubic (BCC) microstructure; (iii) a dual-phase high entropy alloy, AlCoCrFeNi2.1, with eutectic FCC (L12) -BCC (B2) microstructure; and (iv) a Medium-Mn steel with hierarchical microstructure. The micro-mechanical response of these model alloys was investigated using nano-indentation, micro-pillar compression, and micro-cantilever bending. The relaxed Ni-BMG showed 6% higher hardness, 22% higher yield strength, and 26% higher bending strength compared to its as-cast counterpart. Both the as-cast and corresponding relaxed BMGs showed stable notch opening and blunting during micro-cantilever bending tests rather than unstable crack propagation. However, pronounced notch weakening was observed for both the structural states, with the bending strength lower by ~ 25% for the notched samples compared to the un-notched samples. Deformation behavior of HfTaTiVZr was evaluated by micropillar compression and micro-cantilever bending as a function of two different grain orientations, namely [101] and [111]. The [111] oriented micropillars demonstrated higher strength and strain hardening rate compared to [101] oriented micropillars. The [111] oriented micropillars showed transformation induced plasticity …

This qualitative case study aims to understand the ways in which students identifying as Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous navigate attending a university informed by their identities. Through semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students and participant observation with a Native American student organization, this study identified how this demographic of students navigate and conceptualize their identities as Native and Indigenous peoples, the benefits of joining a Native American student organization on their university campus, and how they experience the university as a racialized organization. One overarching and three nuanced research questions were examined to illustrate how students' identities inform how they experience university life with themes surrounding Native and Indigenous identity construction informed by federal policy and Indigenous community practices, collective identity and student involvement, sense of belonging at college, and understanding universities as racial organizations that participate in racial capitalism. The study findings indicated that students' identities are regularly negotiated, engaged with, and leveraged throughout their college experiences and recommendations were made for how colleges and universities can more adequately and equitably serve this student demographic.

This dissertation is an examination of Divertimento for Solo Trombone and Wind Band by renowned wind band composer and conductor Jack Stamp. The result of this study is the illumination of a 21st-century composition for solo trombone and band that is made accessible for future performers, accomplished by constructing original musical exercises that are influenced by current trombone pedagogical materials that have either been edited, annotated or created by current performers and pedagogues such as Joseph Alessi, Brad Edwards and Michael Mulcahy. The piece also incorporates 20th -century American wind band influences. The careful selection of pedagogical materials serves the purpose of making this challenging solo accessible for the advanced academic trombonist and can serve as a template for surveying advanced literature of the present and future. Additionally, the pedagogical materials selected for use in this dissertation were considered based on their value in the present academic trombone repertory. Thus, this performance guide reflects on the validity of the modern trombone pedagogical literature to guide a performer's study, interpretation, and performance of a 21st-century work for solo trombone.

In this dissertation, I investigate the existing smart contract problems that limit cognitive abilities. I use Taylor's serious expansion, polynomial equation, and fraction-based computations to overcome the limitations of calculations in smart contracts. To prove the hypothesis, I use these mathematical models to compute complex operations of naive Bayes, linear regression, decision trees, and neural network algorithms on Ethereum public test networks. The smart contracts achieve 95\% prediction accuracy compared to traditional programming language models, proving the soundness of the numerical derivations. Many non-real-time applications can use our solution for trusted and secure prediction services.

Seventeen new dithiophenyl- and napthodithiophenyl- fused porphyrins were synthesized; from these an additional 7 porphyrin oligomers were also synthesized. Additionally freebase 2,7-dimethoxytriphenylene fused porphyrin was also synthesized from a freebase precursor. Aromatic indices NICS and AICD were used to evaluate these new molecules.

The present study provides an example of implementing the difference in differences (DD) estimator for a two-group, pretest-posttest design with K-12 educational intervention data. The goal is to explore the basis for causal inference via Rubin's potential outcomes framework. The DD method is introduced to educational researchers, as it is seldom implemented in educational research. DD analytic methods' mathematical formulae and assumptions are explored to understand the opportunity and the challenges of using the DD estimator for causal inference in educational research. For this example, the teacher intervention effect is estimated with multi-cohort student outcome data. First, the DD method is used to detect the average treatment effect (ATE) with linear regression as a baseline model. Second, the analysis is repeated using linear regression with cluster robust standard errors. Finally, a linear mixed effects analysis is provided with a random intercept model. Resulting standard errors, parameter estimates, and inferential statistics are compared among these three analyses to explore the best holistic analytic method for this context.

Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically endorsed approach for children facing specific clinical concerns and life circumstances alike. The majority of research to date has accrued data about clients from secondary sources, such as adult report and observation. The purpose of this study was to explore children's perceptions of participating in CCPT by implementing a developmentally accessible interview medium, allowing children to share their experiences directly. Ten children between the ages of 4 and 7 who had completed at least eight sessions of CCPT were invited to create a drawing and respond to an interview protocol with their counselor. Data sources included the picture produced, a transcript of the interview between the child and counselor, and observation notes of the interview process. Using a phenomenological approach, three themes were identified to describe children's awareness and experience of the intervention: expressions of relationship, experiences in the playroom, and reluctance to engage in counselor-directed activity. The first two themes reflect children's report of the intervention and the third represents reactions to the research activity. Findings from this study support conclusions that children are aware of relationship between themselves and their counselor and recognize the uniquely unstructured features of play therapy and …