Scholars Junction - Mississippi State University Institutional Repository
Not a member yet
83664 research outputs found
Sort by
Using Cutting Immersion to Apply Rooting Hormone for Propagation of Camellia japonica.
No full textFew varieties of Camellia japonica have a high success rate in rooting cuttings. Once rooted, the subsequent growth rate is slow and differs by variety. This makes the commercial production of Camellia challenging. Previous research on C. japonica propagation confirms that using a basal cut dip in indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) is effective in rooting C. japonica. However, basal dip applications can be time-consuming. Foliar applications and total cutting immersion are more efficient methods of rooting hormone application, but they have not been thoroughly tested with Camellia. The objective of this research was to determine the effective IBA concentration applied as a total cutting immersion to stimulate rooting. Semi-hardwood, terminal cuttings were collected from C. japonica \u27Lady Clare\u27, \u27Sarah Frost\u27, \u27Imura\u27, and \u27Magnoliaeflora\u27. Before auxins treatments, all cuttings received a half-inch wound on one side near the base. Four IBA treatments were applied at concentrations of 0, 200, 400, or 600 ppm for 5-minute immersion period. Additionally, a control treatment involved a 15-second basal dip in 3000 ppm of IBA. Each variety of C. japonica tested responded differently to increasing IBA. The total immersion application was no different than the basal dip application, indicating that this more efficient method of application is effective for use in Camellia propagation
The Relation Between Perceived Parental Physical Maltreatment and Psychological Problems: Moderation by Conservative Religiosity
No full textThe relation between parental physical maltreatment and psychological problems experienced by children has been examined in previous literature. Studies have also examined how religiosity is associated with the psychological problems individuals experience as a byproduct of parental physical maltreatment. These processes have not been examined as often in emerging adults. Thus, the current study examined how personal conservative religiosity moderated the relation between perceived parental physical maltreatment and psychological problems in emerging adults. It was hypothesized that higher personal conservative religiosity would decrease the association between parental physical maltreatment and psychological problems. Participants completed the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits (SMART), the Adult Self Report (ASR), and the Conflict Tactics Scale Parent Child (CTSPC) as a part of this study. PROCESS 4.3 (Hayes, 2022) model 1 was used to conduct a moderation analysis. The analysis showed that the interaction between maternal physical maltreatment and conservative religiosity was significant, but there was not a significant interaction for paternal physical maltreatment. The interaction showed that high conservative religiosity seemed to increase the relation between psychological problems and maternal physical maltreatment; therefore, the data did not support the proposed hypothesis
A Retrospective Descriptive Study of Maternal Morbidity Based on Mississippi Poison Control Center Data
No full textMaternal morbidity and mortality remain significant public health concerns in the United States, but particularly in Mississippi, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. This study analyzes data from the Mississippi Poison Control Center (MPCC) from January 2020 through December 2024 to assess trends in exposures among pregnant women. A total of 168 cases were identified. Exposures were categorized as unintentional, intentional, adverse reactions, or unknown, with unintentional exposures (47.6%) being the most common, often due to medication misuse. Intentional exposures, often linked to suspected self harm (31.5% of cases), represented 39.9% of the total. The most common substances involved were over-the-counter medications, environmental elements, and cleaning chemicals. Most cases (54.8%) experienced no clinical effects, while 41.7% had minor effects, and 13.0% had moderate effects. No fatalities were reported. These findings highlight the need for targeted public health interventions, including education on safe medication use during pregnancy and mental health support for pregnant women. Despite limitations in reporting, the data suggests that decreasing exposure, poison prevention and early intervention are crucial to improving maternal health outcomes
The Relationship Between Prenatal Stressful Life Events and Breastfeeding Initiation Among Mississippi Mothers
No full textBackground: Early initiation of breastfeeding increases the likelihood of exclusive breastfeeding, which can be linked to improving both the mother’s and infant’s health. However, breastfeeding rates in Mississippi continue to be one of the lowest in the United States, with infant mortality and morbidity rates at the highest. Purpose: This study aims to explore the impact SLEs may have on initiating breastfeeding, as research is limited. Methods: Analyzed data from 2016 to 2021 Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) was used to determine a correlation between life stressor experiences during pregnancy and initiation of exclusive breastfeeding with a sample size of n=6192. Results: The study found higher self-reported breastfeeding initiation rates among women identified as white and other races, married, insured, more educated, older, and in higher-income households. Over 70% of women reported at least one SLE during pregnancy. After controlling for maternal characteristics, women with any stressful life event (OR=1.31, p=0.003) were more likely to initiate breastfeeding, specifically, women with financial stress during pregnancy (OR=1.19, p=0.033) and women who experienced the death of someone close to them (OR=1.22, p=0.0370). Conclusion: Recommendations include tailoring prenatal visits by screening for stressful life events to identify barriers associated with breastfeeding initiation
The civilization of slavery vs. that of freedom: The Civil War and Reconstruction as an ideological struggle
No full textThis dissertation argues that Reconstruction was shaped by an irreconcilable conflict between two competing visions of American civilization: the civilization of freedom, grounded in the democratic ideals of liberty and equality, and the civilization of slavery, rooted in racial hierarchy and white supremacy. While Union victory in the Civil War destroyed slavery as an institution and resolved the question of secession, it could not bridge nineteenth-century Americans’ deeper ideological divide over the meaning of freedom and the moral foundations of democracy
The effect of ultrasound transducer type on diagnosing medial meniscal injury in dogs with cranial cruciate ligament injury
No full textUltrasonography is reported to be accurate in diagnosing meniscus injuries in dogs but the effect of transducer type has not been studied. The aim was to determine the effect of ultrasound transducer type on utility of meniscal ultrasound. We hypothesized that ultrasonography will provide good diagnostic utility for meniscal injury and that linear transducers will perform best. In this prospective study, the ultrasonographic findings of the medial meniscus using three transducers were compared to arthrotomy findings. Thirty-nine stifles were included with an injury prevalence of 23/39 (59%). The standard linear transducer provided the highest negative predictive value (60%). The small footprint linear transducer provided the highest positive predictive value (76%). Higher frequency, linear transducers outperform microconvex transducers in diagnosis of medial meniscal injuries. However, sonographic assessment of medial menisci may be less accurate than previously reported. Caution should be used when using ultrasound to guide treatment options for meniscus injuries
Do depressive symptoms moderate the mediating role of executive function between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity symptoms and functional impairment?
No full textThe number of college students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been increasing over the last years. ADHD can co-occur with other mental health disorders, such as depression, which can impair emerging adults’ functioning. Executive functions, including working memory, inhibition, and sustained attention, mediate the association between ADHD symptoms and functional impairment. However, there is a lack of research on how depressive symptoms influence these relations. The purpose of this study was to examine whether EF mediates the relationship between ADHD symptoms and functional impairment and whether depressive symptoms moderate this association. The author hypothesized that EF would mediate the relation between ADHD and functional impairment, and depressive symptoms would serve as a moderator, specifically between EF and functional impairment. The results supported the hypothesis, with EF mediating the relation between ADHD symptoms severity and functional impairment and depressive symptoms moderating the relation between EF and functional impairment
Impact of an automated brush system on intensively managed lactating dairy cattle behavior, production, and stress physiology
No full textThe dairy industry has increasingly prioritized improving animal welfare for intensively housed cows. This study evaluated the effects of environmental enrichment (EE) using an automated brush system on stress physiology, behavior, and productivity of lactating dairy cows. Fifty-nine pregnant and lactating dairy cows were divided into two groups: CON (no brush) and TRT (automated brush system). Saliva samples were collected to measure cortisol concentrations, and behaviors were monitored in the morning (07:00 h - 11:00 h) and evening (19:00 h - 23:00 h) using high-resolution cameras. The results indicated that cows with brush access had lower cortisol concentrations, suggesting reduced stress. However, no significant differences were observed in affiliative, grooming, or oral behaviors between brush users, and milk production remained unaffected. These findings suggest that automated brushes reduce stress without significantly affecting behavior or milk production, highlighting their potential to improve animal welfare through grooming enrichment
Investigating the diagnostic performance and interpretation of the Tritrichomonas foetus direct reverse transcriptase real time quantitative polymerase chain reaction
No full textTritrichomonas foetus, an extracellular protozoan parasite, causes reproductive inefficiency in cow-calf herds when transmitted from the asymptomatic bull host to the cow during coitus. The potential economic impact of T. foetus on the beef cattle industry has led many states to adopt regulations regarding testing, movement, and the culling of infected bulls. A RT-rtPCR offers advantages over other diagnostic modalities, including: 1) it can be performed utilizing smegma samples collected in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) without culture enrichment, 2) has reported improved diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, and 3) has a reported lower limit of detection (LOD). However, veterinarians do not regularly stock PBS. This work aims to determine if 0.9% physiologic saline, a fluid media readily available to veterinarians, is noninferior to PBS as a collection and transport media for T. foetus RT-rtPCR. Further, this work investigates the clinical interpretation and performance of the RT-rtPCR near the LOD
Advancing wood chip moisture content prediction using advanced generative AI techniques
No full textIn this study we propose a deep learning method to optimize the classification of wood chip moisture content levels using the Vision Transformer and then ultimately increase the classification performance by creating synthetic images using the diffusion transformer model. In the first chapter of our study, we complete a detailed explanation of how the moisture content levels of 10 different wood chips were gathered ranging from 2 to 50. This chapter serves as a foundation for subsequent sections, illustrating the challenges associated with the current data collection process, which is both time-consuming and inefficient. Accurately determining moisture content for wood chips is significant in different industries such as pellet mills, bio refineries, and paper mills, and for that reason, in the second chapter of our study, we concentrate on developing an advanced computer vision model named MoistViT. To achieve the MoistViT, we complete an extensive evaluation of fourteen different Vision Transformer models and supplement them with the Bayesian Optimization Hyperband method to achieve superior performance when classifying moisture content levels. In our third chapter, we concentrate on creating high-definition synthetic wood chip images while using the computational limitations faced by many researchers when training advanced models. The importance of creating the generated wood chip images comes from the fact that current data-driven methods used to measure the moisture content of wood chips need a large amount of data to train the models to eventually achieve state-of-the-art results and the current method used to create the wood chip images is destructive and time-consuming. Therefore, we propose a diffusion transformer that is used to generate images in a fraction of the time needed by current methods. The diffusion model obtains strong results, achieving high-quality synthetic images that are then used to augment existing smaller datasets to train computer vision classification models for real-time industrial applications. Finally, the last two chapters present a detailed analysis of the results achieved by both proposed models, along with a comprehensive explanation of their development. With these explanations, we aim to improve model interpretability, mitigating the black box nature often associated with deep learning methods