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Maintaining Medicaid and MAT : policy analysis for post-incarceration
No full textThe federal Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (MIEP) suspends Medicaid during incarceration, creating healthcare access gaps upon release, particularly for those with substance use disorders. Michigan House Bill 5698 (2024) aims to address these gaps by mandating Medicaid reactivation and comprehensive mental health discharge planning before release. This project evaluates the bill's potential to improve Medicaid access, assess the need for mental health services, and ensure continuity of care for formerly incarcerated individuals. Using the CDC's Policy Analytical Framework, this analysis evaluates H.B. 5698 through data from Michigan's Department of Corrections (MDOC) and input from key stakeholders, including Representative Stephanie Young and Shawanna Vaughn of Silent Cry. It also compares Michigan's approach with states like California, Montana, and Washington, which utilize Section 1115 waivers allowing Medicaid reinstatement pre-release. The policy analysis employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data from MDOC with qualitative insights from stakeholders. This comparative evaluation of Michigan's H.B. 5698 and Section 1115 waiver states aims to understand the bill's potential impact on healthcare access for formerly incarcerated individuals. The evaluation focuses on H.B. 5698's effectiveness in enhancing Medicaid access and mental health service utilization post-incarceration. Key metrics include enrollment rates, continuity of care, and reductions in relapse rates among individuals with substance use disorders.Thesis (D.N.P.)--Michigan State University. Psychiatric mental health practitioner, 2025Includes bibliographical references (pages 32-36
IDENTIFYING PHYSIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS AND WINTER PREPARATORY MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES TO REDUCE WINTERKILL LOSSES IN GRASS SPECIES
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Crop and Soil Sciences- Doctor of Philosophy, 2025Damaging winterkill stresses, such as ice encasement and waterlogging stresses, are expected to worsen with global climate change, damaging turfgrass species such as annual bluegrass (Poa annua) and crops like winter wheat (Triticum aestivum). Ice encasement can cause hypoxic or anoxic conditions that trap toxic gasses and metabolites, harming plant structures, growth, and yield. Fluctuating temperatures during winter can further exacerbate these issues by melting the ice, which is one of the leading causes of waterlogging. Managing these winterkill stressors is crucial for maintaining sustainable crop yields and playable field conditions. This dissertation investigates physiological mechanisms and winter management strategies for winter wheat and annual bluegrass. The first study assessed the impact of fall mowing height on spring recovery of annual bluegrass. Field plots in East Lansing, Michigan were mown at height of 3.17 mm (control), or gradually raised to maximum heights of 3.81, 4.44, and 5.08 mm. Field measurements, including normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI), and chlorophyll index (CHL), were taken during fall 2021/2022 and spring 2022/2023. These results indicated that NDVI, LAI, and CHL typically decreased throughout fall of both years and increased during the spring, with the 5.08 mm during fall of both years having highest NDVI, LAI, and CHL values across most sampling dates compared to the shorter mowing treatments. Higher mowing heights of 4.44 mm and 5.08 mm in the first year resulted in greater green cover percentage and faster recovery after ice encasement of either 0, 10, 20, or 40 days. Lastly, prolonged ice encasement durations decreased total nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC). In the second study, the effects of seeding depth of 0.5 inches (shallow) or 2.5 inches (deep) on photosynthesis during acclimation, oxidative damage (measured by lipid peroxidation), leaf area, biomass and yield after ice encasement stress of 0, 7, or 14 days was explored in two genotypes with contrasting coleoptile lengths: DynaGro with a longer coleoptile, and WhiteTail, with a shorter coleoptile. Shallow seeded plants resulted in consistently larger leaf area, less oxidative damage under prolonged durations of stress, and overall higher yields compared to the deeper seeded plants, and deeper seeded plants were more photosynthetically active during acclimation. The DynaGro genotype, with a longer coleoptile, resulted in larger biomass when compared to WhiteTail genotype, and tillers in both genotypes resulted in the highest biomass compared to spikes and roots. The third study analyzed photosynthetic performance and antioxidant levels in winter wheat after simulated overwintering of 0, 4, 10, or 20 days of surface ice encasement or winter desiccation. Photosynthetic parameters were measured using a dynamic environmental phenotypic imager (DEPI) chamber after respective durations of stress for four days during recovery, followed by antioxidant measurements. This resulted in finding that photosynthetic parameters such as \u3a6NPQ, qI, and qE helped distinguish between ice encasement and winter desiccation stress, with longer durations of stress leading to higher oxidative damage. The fourth study assessed the combined effects of ice encasement for 0, 7, 10, or 13 days, followed by 3 days of control or waterlogging on root length, leaf area, total and reproductive tiller production, and malondialdehyde (MDA) content in two genotypes with differing ice encasement tolerances: MSU and OSU. The combination of stresses reduced root length, leaf area, and increased MDA levels in leaf and root tissues of the winter wheat plants. MSU genotype produced a larger number of total tillers than OSU. Prolonged levels of ice encasement reduced reproductive tiller production during the first year, with 13 days causing the most damage to reproductive tiller production. This research improves our understanding of the effects of ice encasement on turfgrass and winter wheat growth, as well as the research methodology and mechanisms that may contribute to resilience against ice encasement.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
The Consequences of Literacy in the Workplace
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Rhetoric and Writing - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025The Consequences of Literacy in the Workplace explores the intersection of Black literacy, institutional logics, and racialized organizations through ecological ethnographic frameworks. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on Black academic professionals who work in hierarchical higher education settings. This project follows a tradition of Black literacy scholars who investigate how the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States engage in daily practices amidst conflicting institutional logics due to the phenomenological realities of modernity via coloniality (Mignolo, 2011). The research here explores the ruling relationships and literate practices that shape Black academic professionals' agency in post-secondary education organizations through an institutional ethnographic methodology broken into three case studies. Each of these case studies responds to each organizational context derived from a series of interviews scaffolded around informant\u2019s Black racial identity, their work history within academia, and a moment of tension that illuminates the interaction of their Black literacy practice and the ruling relationships.Through these case studies, two research questions are interrogated: (1) How does Black academic professionals\u2019 literacy inform their navigation of academic workplace ruling relationships and (2) How do Black academic professionals\u2019 literacy interact with the institutional logics of the academic workplace? Findings demonstrated that each informant\u2019s Black literacy practices lent themselves to an entropic feedback loop whereby colonial workplace ruling relationships led to identity reconstruction under the phenomenological paradigm of modernity. Additionally, when the Black academic professionals utilized Black literacy to attempt to circumvent modernity. The outcomes of Black academic professionals engaging in Black literacy led to elements of emergent strategies (brown, 2017) and kairotic actions informants accessed outside of modernity. I conclude this project by naming implications for Black academic professionals who labor under modernity by illustrating how each informant manages to move outside of modernity via Black literacy. Overall, the major implications for this study lie in the opportunities for analysis outside of phenomenological paradigms that delimit Black identity, and in turn Black literacy practices, as being insufficient for combating modernity and, instead, offers up a rationale for why additional ways of constructing reality are critical for Black personhood outside of modernity.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
DECARBONIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF SILICON PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS : MANUFACTURING, ADOPTION, AND END-OF-LIFE MANAGEMENT
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Environmental Engineering - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025As solar photovoltaics (PV) continue to scale globally, ensuring their long-term sustainability requires particular attention to materials use, manufacturing emissions, system deployment, and end-of-life management. While solar PVs offer a promising pathway for decarbonization, challenges persist across multiple stages of the technology\u2019s lifecycle, including emissions from manufacturing, barriers to adoption in key sectors, and the growing volume of PV waste. This work examines the material intensity and carbon footprint of PV manufacturing, investigates barriers and benefits of PV adoption in the commercial and industrial sectors, and forecasts the volume and material composition of PV waste in the residential sector.Using specification data from commercialized silicon PV modules, this work quantifies material intensity trends and reveals a 30% reduction in aluminum frame usage between 2010 and 2021. Incorporating sub-national electricity grids and PV supply chain partnerships into the life cycle assessment (LCA) shows that overlooking manufacturing geography leads to underestimating emissions, particularly in countries like China, where solar factories are concentrated in carbon-intensive provinces. In the deployment phase, interviews with C&I stakeholders reveal that while many stakeholders are motivated by sustainability goals and energy cost savings, PV adoption is constrained by high upfront costs and limited access to reliable technical resources for estimating the financial returns. Results of PV system performance based on facilities\u2019 high-resolution electric consumption data highlight that matching PV electricity generation to peak demand consumption is critical for optimizing both financial returns and carbon savings. Lastly, by integrating historical installation records and module-specific characteristics, the cumulative residential PV waste in California is expected to range from 8.4 GW to 10.7 GW by 2055, depending on the failure scenario. Additionally, advanced recycling yields almost 3 times higher economic returns than mechanical recycling, despite achieving a similar mass of material recovery.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
Sample Extraction and Parallel Detection of Carbapenem Resistance Genes using a Field-Portable Plasmonic Nano-Biosensor
No full textThesis (M.S.)--Michigan State University. Biosystems Engineering - Master of Science, 2025In this work, a rapid and portable method for bacterial extraction and concentration using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) was combined with a gold nanoparticle (GNP)- based plasmonic DNA biosensor for the detection of carbapenem-resistant bacteria (CRB). Experiments were conducted using pure bacterial cultures, clinical isolates, and inoculated water samples. The plasmonic biosensor was used to detect blaNDM-1, blaOXA-1, and blaKPC-3 carbapenem resistance genes (CRGs). GNPs change color upon aggregation, due to their unique properties. This allows for applications in visual-aided biosensors without expensive analytical equipment. Results from this study indicate the successful detection of the target CRGs when compared to non-target susceptible bacteria at DNA concentrations lower than 1 ng/\uf06dL extracted using a simple boiling procedure. This assay, when combined with a portable thermal cycling device and an RGB cellphone application, shows promise for rapid on-site CRB detection. The novelty of this biosensor technology lies in the parallel detection of CRGs using a simple boiling DNA extraction method and portable equipment, making it a potential field-operable system. With further optimization, this technology can be implemented for point-of-care testing and for improving surveillance initiatives for AMR in low-income areas.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
ESSAYS ON WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : INFRASTRUCTURE, AFFORDABILITY, FOREVER CHEMICALS, AND POLLUTION
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025Management of water resources is essential for a sustainable society. However, the water sector faces multiple, interrelated challenges that complicate effective water resource management. This dissertation focuses on four major challenges in the water sector: aging water infrastructure, water affordability, forever chemicals in drinking water, and runoff from agricultural fields. The first chapter investigates public support for policies that replace aging water and sewer infrastructure and improve water affordability for low-income households. Much of the U.S. water and sewer infrastructure is nearing the end of its functional life and requires costly replacement. While government funding has increased in recent years, it remains insufficient to meet the projected funding gap. Additionally, water affordability is a concern for many U.S. households. Rising costs to cover infrastructure upgrades could worsen affordability issues, especially for vulnerable households. Since water and sewer utilities rely on user fees for their revenue, understanding consumer preferences for such policies is crucial. This study uses an online survey with a choice experiment to estimate support for infrastructure replacement and affordability program among Michigan and Ohio residents. This study also explores potential behavioral factors that can influence preference for water and sewer policies. Specifically, we hypothesize that altruistic preferences and concerns about resource waste can affect consumer preferences for water and sewer policies. Findings reveal that respondents value improvements in health and environmental outcomes resulting from infrastructure replacement as well as affordability programs assisting low-income households. Notably, altruists generally display a higher willingness to pay (WTP) for programs compared to non-altruists. However, altruists harboring concerns about beneficiaries\u2019 water wastefulness have a lower WTP for an affordability program compared to non-altruists without such concerns, which underscore the complex dual nature of altruism in public support for community water programs. The findings offer critical insights for academics, policymakers, and stakeholders aiming to design effective strategies that address both infrastructure replacement and water affordability challenges.The second chapter of this dissertation estimates the WTP for monthly per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) testing in in public water systems. PFAS, or \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d are a growing health concern due to their presence in drinking water. Despite increasing regulations, consistent and comprehensive testing is still lacking. Using survey data for 1547 Michigan and Ohio respondents, this chapter estimates (1) WTP for monthly PFAS testing across all water utilities, (2) the cost of implementing the program, and (3) the affordability burden on households. Findings show strong public backing for monthly testing, with an average WTP of $277 per year. While testing costs vary by utility size and most systems could recover costs, smaller utilities are likely to face financial challenges due to their smaller user base. Notably, WTP is higher than the estimated policy cost for all utilities. Further the affordability analysis reveals that less than 1% of the sample households would cross water burden thresholds due to their additional costs for monthly PFAS testing. These results underscore the economic feasibility and net benefits of routine PFAS testing and highlight the need for targeted financial support for particularly small water systems.The third essay of this dissertation shifts focus to surface water pollution, specifically, non-point sources of pollution from agriculture. While Phosphorus (P) is essential for crop growth, excess application can pollute freshwater systems. For states with large freshwater resources, P management is an ongoing challenge. P can accumulate in the soil with repeated application over time and interact with the applied P to affect crop yields. To understand the role of P in the agricultural production process and design effective nutrient management strategies, it is important to analyze how crops react to this nutrient. Using data from 1,650 Michigan corn fields and a crop simulation model, this chapter analyzes how corn yields respond to P under different soil conditions. The analysis calculates both agronomic and profit-maximizing P application rates for corn production across regions and soil types. Corn is an ideal case study for this analysis, given its high nutrient demand and prevalence in Michigan's agricultural landscape. Results suggest that corn yield responds to P only in low soil P (0-5 ppm) fields. For existing average soil P levels in Michigan (79 ppm), the self-reported average P application of Michigan corn farmers exceeds the profit maximizing P application rate. We also estimate that a 10% increase in P prices faced by farmers would lead to a 3.1% reduction in the economically optimal private P application rate. Comparing model results with survey data confirms excess P application. This research offers practical insights for improving nutrient management and reducing agricultural runoff.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
Philosophical Politics : The Tension Between A Philosophic Life and A Political Life in Cicero's Republic
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Political Science - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025The tension between a philosophic life and a political life is a problem that has long been recognized by both philosophers and politicians, both sides claiming their choice of life is better than the other\u2019s. Marcus Cicero, a Roman philosopher-statesman, seemingly argues in his Republic in favor of the political life and urges young Romans to pursue political life. TheRepublic is a dialogue in which two main characters, Scipio and Laelius, defends the merits of a philosophic life and a political life respectively. While Laelius defends the worthiness of the political life openly, Scipio does not defend the superiority of the philosophic life as openly as Laelius does for the political life. I argue that Cicero ultimately agrees with Scipio and prefers a philosophic life to a political life, yet he does not openly defend the superiority of the philosophic life due to the demands a political community puts on its citizens, including philosophers.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
SPATIO-TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF BROWN BEAR (URSUS ARCTOS) HARVEST AND DENNING, KODIAK ARCHIPELAGO, ALASKA, USA
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Fisheries and Wildlife - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025Legal harvesting of game animal species is a popular recreational activity across North America, where some hunters attempt to harvest individuals with larger body parts (e.g., horns, antlers, or body sizes), referred to as selective harvest. Selective harvests could negatively affect body size or age structure of harvested populations, leading to population-level declines in these attributes over time. Moreover, professional guides can play an important role in selective harvests whereby hunters accompanied by guides tend to harvest larger mammals with larger body parts more often and in less time (i.e., fewer days) compared to hunters that harvest without guides. Additionally, some large mammals with larger body parts often occur in remote areas that are more difficult to access by hunters, and require longer modes of transportation (e.g., airplane). I used records of 13,793 brown bear (Ursus arctos) hunters (8,543 unguided; 5,250 guided) that harvested 6,426 brown bears (4,625 males; 1,801 females) on the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska, USA, during the 1987\u20132023 regulatory years, to evaluate the effects of selective harvests on brown bears and importance of professional guides, remote areas, and modes of transportation for brown bear harvesting. In Chapter 1, I evaluated selective harvest and hunter origin effect hypotheses and found that selective harvests were associated with an increase of almost 2 years in age and 1.6 cm increase in skull size of harvested brown bears over this 37-year period. Additionally, my results indicated that guided hunters on average harvested larger bears more often than unguided hunters but spent more days in the field to harvest bears compared to unguided hunters. In Chapter 2, I examined mode of transportation, trophy hunting, and remote area harvest hypotheses, where I found that longer (airplane or boat) and shorter (all other modes of transport) modes of transportation were more likely used by guided and unguided hunters, respectively. My results also showed that guided hunters on average harvested bears with larger skulls more frequently than unguided hunters, and that hunters harvested larger bears more often in remote areas than in areas near human development. In Chapter 3, I used 478 winter den site locations of brown bears on the Kodiak Archipelago collected from 1982\u20132021 to evaluate the physiography, young protection, and food quality dependent hypotheses among sex and age classes of brown bears. I found that den site elevations (m) and slopes (degrees) between adult males, and adult females and subadults were similar. Also, timing of den entry, den exit, and duration of den use for adult females with dependent young were similar to adult males, solitary adult females, and subadults. Den site distance to the nearest North Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) spawning stream (km) for adult males were similar to adult females and subadults. My results suggest that brown bears exhibit behavioral plasticity in den site selection that facilitates adaptability to diverse environmental conditions.Harvest of brown bears in late fall or early spring and in areas where pre- or post-denning behaviors occur can have negative outcomes beyond direct mortality of the harvested individual (e.g., increased cub mortality if a female with dependent young is harvested). There is also a human safety element in knowing when denning occurs because brown bears are more likely to attack hunters after they have entered a state of pre-denning lethargy. Detailed knowledge of spatial and temporal patterns of brown bear denning and harvest, therefore, can help managers set hunting seasons outside of den entrance and onset of den emergence periods, and protect areas brown bears may use for denning during the hunting season.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
CRAFTING AND ASSEMBLING : EXPLORING THE FORMATION OF SELF AND IDENTITIES AMONG FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN FACULTY IN THE U.S.
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025ABSTRACTThe increasing presence of foreign-born faculty in U.S. higher education has drawn growing scholarly attention to their contributions and challenges. However, existing literature often frames foreign-born faculty within asset-deficiency debates, emphasizing their role in global knowledge production while highlighting struggles with linguistic barriers, cultural adaptation, and academic legitimacy. This dissertation shifts the focus to the lived experiences of foreign-born women faculty, centering their agency in the formation and negotiation of self and identity within transnational academic spaces. Grounded in decolonial feminist theories\u2014particularly Gloria Anzald\ufaa\u2019s Borderlands theory and Mar\ueda Lugones\u2019 concept of world-traveling\u2014this study examines how foreign-born women faculty navigate multiple, intersecting identities in the liminal spaces of U.S. academia. Using an arts-based narrative inquiry approach, the study engages twelve foreign-born women faculty across disciplines through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and visual artifacts. Findings reveal that global mobility positions participants in Nepantla, an in-between space where cultural, institutional, and professional expectations collide. Their mobility journeys are shaped by complex motivations\u2014including career advancement, family obligations, and personal relationships\u2014requiring them to negotiate competing demands and, at times, sacrifice aspects of their identity. Self-formation and negotiation unfold across three interwoven dimensions: cultural, gender, and academic identity. Participants experience persistent foreignness in U.S. academia, confronting linguistic insecurities, racialized microaggressions, and social exclusion. Simultaneously, they struggle with shifting perceptions of belonging in their home countries, often viewed as "too Americanized." Gender further complicates their experiences, as they navigate workplace inequities and familial expectations while balancing the pressures of being both ideal faculty members and caregivers. Despite these tensions, participants actively resist assimilation and reclaim agency. They engage in playfulness\u2014drawing on creative outlets, cultural traditions, and community networks\u2014to carve out spaces for joy, self-preservation, and alternative knowledge production. This dissertation challenges deficit-based narratives of foreign-born faculty, shifting the focus to agency, transformation, and resistance. By introducing decolonial feminist theories as my conceptual lens, it highlights how foreign-born women faculty navigate tensions between cultural, institutional, and professional expectations, reclaiming their identities through strategic negotiation, playfulness, and collective resistance. The study advances theoretical understandings of global mobility by incorporating emotional and relational dimensions into discussions of academic migration and expanding self-formation frameworks to account for the fluid, non-linear identity work of transnational scholars. Methodologically, its arts-based narrative approach offers a decolonial and feminist perspective, centering participants\u2019 voices and lived experiences in ways that challenge dominant epistemologies. By amplifying the voices of foreign-born women faculty, this study advocates for reimagining academic spaces that embrace pluralistic ways of being, knowing, and belonging.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references
Essays in Health Economics
No full textThesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Economics - Doctor of Philosophy, 2025This collection of essays studies the diverse consequences of state opioid prescribing policy. In response to the epidemic of misuse and overdose death from prescription opioid painkillers, states enacted policies to reduce excessive prescribing. One policy, a Must-Access Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (MA-PDMP), requires physicians to check a state-run database prior to prescribing opioids, adding a time-consuming task, or hassle cost, to the prescription decision. In Chapter 1, I estimate the impact of MA-PDMP-related hassle costs on prescribing of opioids as well as substitution to alternative therapies for pain. Using rich ACA Exchange Plan medical and pharmaceutical claims data from 2016-2019, I find that physicians who face a high hassle cost of prescribing opioids, relative to those who do not, reduce opioid prescribing by 6.2% and increase prescribing of unproven therapies that are not FDA-approved to treat pain by 12.7%. Because MA-PDMPs alter physicians\u2019 prescribing environment and reduce the size of the market for opioids, opioid manufacturers may adjust their marketing strategies following policy implementation. In Chapter 2, I use rich data on pharmaceutical firm marketing from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments database to examine the effect of MA-PDMPs on county-level, opioid-related marketing to physicians. Given geographic economies of scale in direct marketing, I also assess for marketing spillovers into bordering counties in states without an MA-PDMP. Using an event study model and exploiting the staggered adoption of MA-PDMPs over 2014-2019, I find no effect of MA-PDMP implementation on county-level opioid-related marketing to physicians, both within MA-PDMP states and across state borders.Description based on online resource. Title from PDF t.p. (Michigan State University Fedora Repository, viewed ).Includes bibliographical references