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Effects of Antecedent Choice on Academic Engagement and Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom
No full textThe number of students enrolled in public school systems receiving special education services continues to increase. Students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and those classified with emotional disturbance (ED) often engage in challenging behaviors such as inappropriate outbursts, disruptive behaviors, and off-task behavior that distract other students from learning. These behaviors can negatively impact educational outcomes for both the student and their classmates. Unfortunately, teachers often lack adequate training in addressing disruptive behavior in the classroom and have limited access to feasible interventions. Across-activity choice is a feasible antecedent intervention teachers can use in the classroom. It allows students the option to choose which of two structured activities they want to complete first, and teachers reinforce that choice by giving the student the selected activity. The purpose of the current study was to (a) evaluate the effects of across-activity choice on on-task and disruptive behaviors for elementary students with ASD or ED and (b) assess to what extent teachers were able to implement across-activity choice with fidelity. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate across-activity choice as an intervention for improving on-task behavior and decreasing disruptive behaviors. Choice did not substantially increase academic engagement therefore reinforcement was added and resulted in improvements for all three students in academic engagement and decreases in disruptive behavior
Sea Turtle Nesting on Nourished Beaches with Different Construction Designs: A Case Study in Southeast Florida, USA.
No full textThis study examines the influences of different beach nourishment designs and subsequent post-nourishment profile adjustments on loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonia mydas) sea turtles nest survival and reproductive success. Data on time-series post-nourishment beach-profile changes, positions and elevations of turtle tracks and nest/false-crawl apices, and sea turtle nest hatch/emergence success were collected on five high density nesting beaches along the east coast of Florida: Melbourne Beach, Jensen Beach, Jupiter Island Beach, Juno Beach, and South Hutchinson Island Beach. The field data collection was conducted in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022 with the main goal of documenting and comparing turtle nesting during the first and second years after nourishment. All the beaches except Jupiter Island Beach, which followed a traditional design with a flat back beach and steep foreshore, were nourished with a slope break, also known as a turtle-friendly nourishment design, although with varying morphological characteristics.Three beach morphological zones are distinguished for turtle nesting, active berm, storm berm, and dune field. Overall, 65.9% of loggerhead sea turtles laid their nests in the active berm, with 23.2% in the storm berm, and 10.8% in the dune field. For green turtles, 40% of the nests were in the dune, 36.1% in the active berm, and 23.9% in the storm berm. A nourishment design with a lower slope break elevation can lead to active berm growth during the nesting season. Completing construction a few months before the nesting season would allow essential profile equilibration. The design elevations of back beach and slope break had a significant influence on flooding potential of the egg chambers in the active berm, with lower design elevations having higher flooding potential. Due to the deeper egg chamber, green sea turtle nests in the active berm have a higher flooding risk than loggerhead sea turtle nests. Substantial spatial and temporal variations were measured, and no apparent trend in nesting and hatching success
Kevin R. Youngberg
No full textCivil War generals are among the most celebrated figures of their time. In the post-Civil war era, many of these officers retreated to farms, and businesses and disappeared into obscurity. This was not the case with Colonel John Singleton Mosby, who quickly transformed into a figure whose legacy from the Civil war gave him a unique place in the American imagination as the legendary Gray Ghost of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He lived until 1916, a remarkable fifty years filling those decades with a host of accomplishments in public service both at home and abroad. His legacy is complex, and his life is a fascinating story of myth, contradictions, and romanticism that has provoked continual reexamination of his accomplishments and failures
In case I Make It: An Autoethnographic Argument for Care, Space, and Utopia
No full textTaking an autoethnographic and autotheoretical approach I examine within this project TomboloBooks’ Queer Comic Book Club. Drawing from José Esteban Mun֮oz’s ideas of queer utopia and Jen Jack Gieseking’s framework of constellations, and analyzing my own experiences, I present the Queer Comic Book Club (QCBC) as a moment of utopic queer worldmaking and argue for it’s potential as a site of alternative mental health care. Though I cannot provide here a generalizable model of book clubs as care, what I offer here is a series of possibilities, arguing for the potential of these spaces as community resources and sites of utopic potential
Essays in Development Economics
No full textThis dissertation investigates how environmental shocks and early-life health conditions influence child and adolescent development in low- and middle-income countries, using longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. The two chapters address distinct but interrelated dimensions of human capital formation: the effect of environmental shocks on adolescent self-esteem and the causal impact of birth weight on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.
Chapter 1 analyzes how shocks such as droughts, floods, and crop failures affect adolescent selfesteem, a key non-cognitive skill linked to long-term well-being. Using a fixed-effects model, the study finds heterogeneous effects: environmental shocks increase self-esteem in Ethiopia and Peru but decrease it in India and Vietnam. These differences reflect variations in local economic conditions, cultural norms, and institutional responses. In India, deteriorating physical health is identified as a key pathway linking shocks to reduced self-esteem.
Chapter 2 examines the causal impact of birth weight on cognitive ability (measured by Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test scores) and self-esteem, employing an instrumental variables approach using maternal height and preterm birth status as instruments. A 1% increase in birth weight is associated with a 0.71% increase in cognitive scores, underscoring the importance of early-life health for cognitive development. No significant effect is found on self-esteem, suggesting noncognitive outcomes may be more sensitive to environmental and social factors.
Overall, the findings highlight the need for integrated policies that promote resilience by addressing both early-life health and environmental vulnerabilities in developing countries
Reparative Cuteness: Summer Camp Island’s Obfuscated Streaming Distribution Reveals Our Dependence on Monetary Care
No full textSummer Camp Island exhibits the culmination of the animation styles and ethics of dependent care produced within contemporary Cartoon Network animations. As part of the production cycle of Warner Bros. animated television programs following Adventure Time, Julia Pott’s animated program depicts networks of collaborative care informed by the lived realities of the creator-animators. By employing a reparative reading of the narratives and cute aesthetics which appear in the program, I maintain that the care networks presented within the diegesis of Summer Camp Island depict alternatives to the precarious economic and industrial realities that actively shaped the show’s production and distribution. Most notably accomplished in episode 107 and 210 – titled “Feeling Spacey” and “We’ll Just Move the Stars” – Summer Camp Island depicts and emphasizes social organizations predicated on collaborative care which resemble humanities conceptions of heterodox economies and actor-networks. Recognizing the reparative cuteness in the program, I read the aesthetics as evident of the collective networks which inform the program’s ethics of collaborative care. Challenging established animation studies accounts which recognize humanistic and pro-social aspects within contemporary Cartoon Network narratives, I extend my examination of Summer Camp Island to include extra-diegetic socio-political concerns. Consequently, many of the animated programs produced on the heels of Adventure Time assume confusing and needlessly austere distribution models, leaving spectators with extremely limited avenues for viewership, thereby diminishing the reach and impact of these narratives. Primarily, I maintain that Summer Camp Island recognizes reparative alternatives to its austere production relations, exhibiting and subsequently denying the zero-sum logics of neoliberal economies with positive-sum aesthetics and narratives which offer interdependence, heterodox economics, and repaired social relations as viable solutions
Synthesis, Characterization and Delamination Studies of Metallic Thin Films Prepared Using Sputtering and Ebeam Evaporation Methods
No full textIn many mechanical applications, including the manufacturing, automotive, and cutting tool sectors, metallic thin film coatings are crucial due to their tribological and protective properties. This research focuses on the development of metallic thin films of Aluminum (Al), Chromium (Cr) and Titanium (Ti) using deposition techniques like Sputtering and Electron Beam Evaporation. Metallic thin films were fabricated, with variations in thickness for each material, allowing for an in-depth study of the effects of Sputtering and Ebeam Evaporation deposition method on film characteristics. The thickness of these metallic thin films were evaluated using High-Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy (HRSEM) and Profilometer while the surface morphology was examined using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and HRSEM. Surface roughness of these metallic thin films were also measured by AFM. Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffraction (GIXRD) was used to find crystallographic structures and peaks and High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) provided details of the atomic arrangement of these thin films. Qualitative Delamination studies were conducted and a comparison of the interfacial delamination of these metallic thin films deposited via Sputtering and Ebeam Evaporation methods were made. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of the fabrication, characterization and delamination studies of metallic thin films, providing valuable insights into their performance for various industrial applications.
The findings from Profilometer and HRSEM measurements revealed that metallic thin films developed using the Sputtering method exhibited better deposition accuracy, with an average error of ± 9.8%, in contrast to an error of ± 21.9% for Ebeam Evaporation. However, the surface topography analysis from HRSEM and AFM confirmed that Ebeam Evaporation deposition method produced smoother and more uniform thin films (particularly for Al and Ti) than Sputtering. GIXRD confirmed that both deposition methods yielded polycrystalline films with expected crystallographic structures, while TEM analysis revealed that Ebeam Evaporated thin films had a thinner interface layer (3.53 nm) compared to Sputtered thin films (5.41 nm). Delamination tests demonstrated that Ebeam Evaporated films exhibited superior strength than Sputtered films, withstanding higher loads before failure across all three metals. Overall, this study concludes that the Sputtering deposition method is preferable for applications requiring precise thickness control for thin films, while the Ebeam Evaporation deposition is better suited for applications demanding smoother and stronger thin films
Efforts to Improve General Chemistry Student Success: Describing Stoichiometry Solution Patterns and Investigating Challenge Perceptions
No full textThere is a need for capable STEM graduates to fill needed STEM career gaps, particularly for people who have been historically under-represented in the STEM field (e.g., women, people of color, people of lower economic status, etc.). A course that have great impact would be General Chemistry which typically acts as a pre-requisite for manty STEM majors and careers. The efforts to be described in this thesis was conducted at a large, public doctoral granting university in the southeastern United States of America. The first effort described in this thesis explores how students solve different types of stoichiometry-based problems along with the potential influence of supplementary table representations on students’ solution processes. One key finding is that students had a tendency to omit the units of their calculated values that could potentially be related to their likelihood of choosing a common error on the exam. Another key finding is that students were found to apply the dilution equation (M1V1 = M2V2) for the solution stoichiometry problem, even when the dilution equation assumes a 1:1 mole ratio that would not apply to the solution stoichiometry problem. The second effort involves investigating the relationship between students’ challenge perceptions while taking general chemistry and their performance on the final exam in both the GCI and GCII class as well as on STEM students’ persistence to enroll into the GCII course. A key finding was that, while all three factors did have a relationship with both final exam performance and persistence to GCII, the Challenges with Teaching factor did not appear to have a uniquely significant relationship with either measure of students’ success when analyzed with regression analyses. Chemistry related challenges were found to have a fairly consistent uniquely significant relationship with both STEM students’ persistence to GCII and on final exam performance. Though it was also observed that Individual challenges saw an increase in its unique influence on final exam performance from GCI to GCII
Predicting Freshwater Spring Distribution Using MaxEnt Modeling: A Case Study in Groundwater Management Area 9 (GMA-9), Texas
No full textFreshwater springs are one of the most vital groundwater sources and they have been a reliable water source for mining, irrigation, drinking, and farming, particularly in hot and arid regions like Groundwater Management Area-9 (GMA-9), Texas. However, excessive groundwater extraction, climate change, and environmental degradation have created tremendous stress on the sustainability of freshwater springs and as a result, they might not be able to meet the future water demand. This study uses the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model to predict the distribution of springs in GMA-9 and to identify the key topographic and climatic factors influencing their occurrence. This study utilized a total of 244 groundwater spring outlet records combined with topographic and climatic datasets to model spring occurrence. MaxEnt algorithms effectively developed a model by calculating the complex and nonlinear relationships of these variables. The model achieved good predictive accuracy with an AUC value of 0.852 for training and 0.831 for testing data. The results indicate that the distance from rivers (71.3%) has the most influence on the results, followed by isothermality (3.4%) and annual mean temperature (2.9%). The spatial distribution maps generated by MaxEnt modeling identify the most suitable areas for spring occurrence within GMA-9. Additionally, these findings contribute to GMA-9’s sustainable management of water resources and provide an imitable management framework for areas facing water scarcity problems with similar hydrological settings
Functional Characterization of Cryopreserved Plasmodium yoelii Sporozoites in vitro
No full textMalaria is a major global health burden, contributing to morbidity and mortality across various continents. Due to challenges in malaria research and its advancements, developing novel interventions and further understanding host-parasite interactions is required for future studies. Plasmodium vivax is a human malaria species that is difficult to maintain in laboratory settings, posing obstacles in research. Cryopreservation offers a reliable method to provide a consistent supply of sporozoites for reproducible studies. Plasmodium yoelii is a rodent malaria model commonly used in studies due to its genetic similarity to human malaria species. Utilizing cryopreserved P. yoelii sporozoites potentially extends their usability that can be applied to P. vivax studies. In vitro assays were conducted to assess the infectivity capabilities of cryopreserved sporozoites. Sporozoites were collected via salivary gland dissections of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes and prepared for gliding motility, cell traversal, and liver cell invasion assays. These assays are designed to evaluate sporozoite viability, infectivity capacity, and suitability for cryopreservation for downstream application. The findings from this study are expected to contribute to advanced malaria vaccine research and provide key insight into the utility of cryopreserved sporozoites for future studies