Middle Tennessee State University
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Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry in Deep Eutectic Solvents
No full textElectrochemistry is an increasingly well-known method of organic synthesis due to its sustainability and specific reaction manipulation capabilities. Organic electrochemical synthesis requires an electrolyte, or a salt, to facilitate charge transport in addition to a solvent. Both the electrolyte and the solvent are sources of waste in an organic reaction and thus contribute to its environmental impact. Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) are increasingly well-known recyclable liquids that contain salts as at least one of their components. This thesis project explores the use of DESs as organic electrochemical solvents for the first time. By performing various allylations of aldehydes using different DESs and electrode pairings and analyzing the yields of each round, reaction conditions are optimized. The recyclability of the DES is also explored. It is discovered that DESs are excellent solvents to use for electrochemical allylations because each 2 mL of DES can be reused at least three times, and other reaction components such as SnCl2 are easily regenerated for future use. The combination of electrochemistry and DESs yields a doubly green synthetic reaction that can be replicated in many large-scale settings, such as the pharmaceuticals industry. This process would minimize waste production and allow for reusable materials, saving both money and the environment. KEYWORDS: organic chemistry; chemistry; synthesis; electrochemistry; deep eutectic solvent
From Soundscapes to Songs: A Creative Music Production Project
No full textThis creative project explores how soundscapes can be used as source material for electronic music compositions. The written component of this project consists of research into the history of soundscapes, the history of soundscapes within music, notable figures in the soundscape movement and any techniques and approaches they may have towards recording soundscapes and creating soundscape compositions. The creative component consists of recording soundscapes, using the recorded soundscapes as source material for musical compositions and the process of editing and mixing these samples into full length songs. A written breakdown of each song explores techniques used from the research, the process of creating these songs and challenges faced along the way. KEYWORDS: audio; music; soundscapes; electronic music; music production; music creation; musique concrete; abstract music; creative; audio productio
“ANXIOUS TO KNOW”: EMERGENT EPISTEMOLOGY IN THE WOMAN IN WHITE
No full textScholars understand legal shifts and growing industrialization of mid-Victorian culture as combining to give rise to sensational forms in journalism and fiction. Circling taboo topics (murder, forgery, adultery), sensation fiction’s narratives engage cultural struggles concerning new and old ways of knowing. The foundation of characters’ ability to acquire objective knowledge through sense perception becomes unstable while verification systems such as legal reliance on reputation and testimony are proving inadequate both inside and outside the novels. Populated with characters and events drawn from news reports of criminal activity, Victorian sensation fiction relentlessly calls epistemological discourse into question. Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1860), often pointed to as registering the genre’s birth, encodes cultural anxieties about knowing that sensation forms register. The centrality of knowledge and concern over its acquisition in The Woman in White demands an approach that adequately confronts the novel’s progressive epistemological dimensions, making the novel fit to demonstrate the productivity of reconceptualizing “philosophy and literature” approaches. My analysis of The Woman in White shows literature’s philosophical capacity through recourse to two so-called Gettier problems, which mark milestone developments in twentieth-century epistemology. I then show the literary critical potential of concepts from responsibilist virtue epistemology, a later, post-Gettier development. My thesis forges a “philosophy and literature” approach practiced as a conjunctive subdiscipline and characterized by disciplinary reciprocity. In deploying this approach, a detailed portrait of Marian Halcombe’s cognitive behavior emerges, and the ways in which her powers of intellection propel the novel’s resolution in restored “epistemic community.”M.A
COVID-19 Conspiracies At Work
No full textPrevious research has illustrated several links between workplace aggressive behaviors, such as ostracism, and paranoid thinking patterns such as conspiracy beliefs. Research has also indicated that there are unique differences in aggression and ostracism based on individuals of different status. The purpose of this study is to examine these effects in tandem to explore how individuals may treat others in the workplace with aggression or ostracism based upon coworker and supervisor beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario depicting either a coworker or supervisor as the source of information discussing their belief or disbelief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories before completing scales assessing their intentions to be aggressive or ostracizing toward the hypothetical individual. Results show an interesting interaction between belief similarity and information source on ostracism intention. While future research is needed to elucidate these findings, these results highlight a potential need for organizations to have caution regarding these discussions in the workplace.M.A
Alexander Tcherepnin's Musical Footprint in Twentieth-Century China
No full textIn April 1934, Soviet modernist composer and pianist Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) visited China during a world tour meant to stretch from Japan to Palestine. After falling in love with Chinese music, Tcherepnin cancelled the rest of his tour outside of the East Asia and returned to China, spending two years as a teacher, composer, publisher, and concertizer. This thesis examines Tcherepnin's impact of Chinese musical identity and education. Chapter One provides a review of the literature used in this thesis. Chapter Two describes the historical and political environment in China at the time of Tcherepnin’s visits, including an examination of the Shanghai Conservatory. Chapter Three establishes Tcherepnin's musical upbringing and philosophy, including his interest in national and folk music and his international musical perspective. Chapter Four discusses his efforts in China, including his composition competition, publishing company, and relationships with Chinese educators and composers. Chapter Five discusses limitations on Tcherepnin’s impact and the various factors that mitigated it following his departure. I conclude that Tcherepnin's influence was affected by a complex collection of political and social factors of the twentieth century, not the least of which was the disconnect between Tcherepnin’s Chinese music and that of his students and peers.M.A
Associating Afro-Uruguayan Candombe with Niger-Congo and Other Latin Music
No full textAfter years of government whitewashing, Uruguay is not often considered in discussions
surrounding the African diaspora, even less so in conversations about African percussion or
Afro-Latin music. Still, the transatlantic slave trade created a Black minority in the country,
which has influenced the popular culture with it’s Afro-Uruguayan drumming style, candombe.
This thesis aims to clarify candombe’s role as a contributing member to the story of Afro-Latin
music and integrate it into existing scholarship which the Afro-Latin musician and scholar will
recognize.
Because candombe is lesser known among studies of Latin music, chapter 1 will give
background and history to this music. Chapter 2 will musically analyze the African foundation of
candombe to establish ancestral traits which have become common knowledge in other Afro-Latin styles. Finally, chapter 3 will study candombe as a contemporary of better studied Afro-Latin styles, engaging it in the current conversations of Latin music.M.S
An Art-Based Critique of the Media's False Images of Racial Protests
No full textWe live in a very visual culture, surrounded by images everywhere we turn. These images, especially in news and advertising, influence our ideals, thoughts, and actions. With my interactive thesis art exhibition, I challenged my audiences’ notions of race representation and what makes them think the way they do about race representation and racial protests. By framing the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings in two different perspectives, I opened the conversation up to how media coverage influences the way we perceive events, including the recent coverage of George Floyd's death and subsequent protests in 2020. My creative project emphasized the importance of reading for the dominant forces that influence a visual form (visual rhetoric), and how visual rhetoric functions persuasively
Forecasting Bitcoin Price Using an Adaptive Grey System Deep Neural Network
No full textBitcoin was created in 2009 by a person or group of persons under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin trading quickly grew along with the creation of numerous other cryptocurrencies in what is now the crypto market. Linear and non-linear methods have been applied to the prediction of bitcoin price including Support Vector Machines, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average, Random Forests, and Recurrent Neural Networks among many others. Grey System Theory, developed by Deng Julong in 1982, is a linear forecasting method known for performing well with limited data sets. The aim of this research is to forecast bitcoin price using a non-linear approach that incorporates Grey System Theory. The result is a well generalized non linear model trained on only 60 days of bitcoin price data.M.S
QUALITY OF NURSING CARE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO WORK ENVIRONMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF BEDSIDE NURSES
No full textAbstract
Quality of nursing care has become an important when looking at patient outcomes and the impact it has on long-term care of the patient. Quality can be defined in many ways. Defining quality of nursing care can be a diverse approach based on the perspective of many individuals, including the perspective of nurses. Quality of nursing care from the nursing perspective is complex and has many variables that influence that perspective. Variables include nursing work load, patient acuity, supportive administration, teamwork within the facility/unit, patient/family conflict, and overtime shifts. Patients are the individuals that nurses commit to caring for and throughout research; the patient identifies the quality nursing care provided. Facilities often utilize patient satisfaction and patient outcomes when evaluating nursing care. The purpose of this research is to explore how quality of nursing care is defined historically and how the nurse perceives quality of nursing care and its relationship to work environment. Additionally, how their perception may change based on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Existing evidence indicates that if nurses have a supportive or positive work environment, then a nurse is motivated to provide quality of nursing care. Healthcare presents its own unique stressor to nurses in their attempt to provide quality care. Healthcare is constantly changing, and it impacts the work environment of the nurse. There is a significant shortage of the nursing workforce. More nursing jobs will be needed in the United States than any other profession through 2022. 11 million more nurses are needed to prevent a further shortage. The aging population, aging workforce, workforce burnout, violence in the health care setting, and growth in certain regions make it difficult to provide the support nurses need in health care facilities.
Measuring quality from the nursing perspective is complex. Ways to measure quality address the connection of quality of nursing care and nurse work environment. The hypothesis is supportive that quality of nursing care is given if there is a supportive work environment. The challenge is what a nurse identifies as a barrier, in giving quality of nursing care and what their facilities identify as quality of nursing care.Ph.D
USING NETWORK ANALYSES TO UNDERSTAND THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN SMALL GROUP DYNAMICS AND SOCIOSCIENTIFIC ISSUE DISCUSSION
No full textSince socioscientific issues (SSI) are scientific issues situated in the larger society, it is important for many students to understand and effectively communicate information surrounding them. In-class small groups have been used by science instructors to provide students the opportunity to discuss and negotiate difficult SSI. However, learning about SSI in these small groups can be influenced by numerous factors beyond just the content. Therefore, it is important to gain a greater understanding of how these factors are impacting small group and individual responses to SSI. Because of the interactional nature of small groups, social network analysis (SNA) can be used to capture the structure of interactions between individuals, while also gaining an understanding of the flow of information between individuals.
In Chapter One, this dissertation sets out the case for using social network analysis to understand the intersection between SSI and small groups. This dissertation is in an alternative format structure in which Chapters Two through Four are presented as individual manuscripts for publication.
Chapter Two presents a systematic literature review that looks at how education research literature is using SNA to understand student discourse. The goal of this review was to better understand how social network methodologies have been applied in education research to highlight the usefulness of SNA in understanding discourse interactions particularly between students in small group settings. This review showed that SNA has only begun to be used to study discourse in education contexts, with the majority of those studies being conducted in online environments.
Chapter Three is a cross-sectional survey study that looked at the connection between undergraduates’ acceptance of SSI and the sources they use to gain information on these SSI. From this survey, it was shown that undergraduates differed in their acceptance of various SSI and the sources from which they gathered information about these SSI. When comparing groups derived from cluster analysis, undergraduates indicated that they were using similar information sources, even though they differ on their acceptance of SSI. This may highlight that students are receiving siloed information from their information sources.
In Chapter Four, a longitudinal analysis of small-group discussion on SSI was conducted to gain an understanding of how small-group dynamics impact the learning outcomes of group work. This study found that interactions within groups varied across the semester, with groups becoming less collaborative toward the end of the semester. It also found that all groups used supportive statements to move group conversations forward. The contribution of new knowledge to the conversation varied by group and week of the semester.Ph.D