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The Effects of a Powdered Post-milking Teat Dip on Mastitis and Teat Condition in Dairy Cattle in the Winter Months
No full textMastitis is disease that is very prevalent in dairy herds around the world. It has many effects on both the cow and the farm. The effects of a powdered post dip (Derma Soft n' Dry) on teat end health and somatic cell count (SCC) were observed over a 21-day period. Holstein cows (n = 8 per treatment) were randomly assigned to the control group (regular iodine-based post-milking teat dip) or the treatment group (powdered postmilking teat dip). Daily milk yield and activity levels were measured throughout the study using the Afimilk® parlor system. Milk samples were collected weekly to test for SCC and teat end scores were assigned prior to collection of the milk samples. Samples with a SCC of>250,000 cells/mL were cultured using a tri-plate agar to determine which bacterial species were present. There were no significant differences in daily milk yield, conductivity, SCC, activity time, or rest time between the control and treatment groups
(P > 0.05). Teat end sores in relation to the treatment were not significantly different (P = 0.9794). Furthermore, the control and treatment group showed similar bacterial growth indicating that there was no significant difference by treatment
Student Self-Efficacy as Related to Portfolio Grading
No full textGrades are used to inform parents, students, and educational institutions of student mastery of content. Colleges rely on research that indicates that high school grades are predictors of how students will perform in college (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009; Geiser & Santelices, 2007). Grading is also tied to development of positive mathematics self-efficacy. Therefore, it is important that teachers are grading in ways that show students’ knowledge and ability while supporting self-efficacy development. Portfolio grading, an alternative grading structure, has potential to provide accurate reporting and impact self-efficacy.
The research question for this study is: How does the use of portfolio grading in high school mathematics classrooms effect student mathematics self-efficacy, if at all? The methodology for this study employed an action research approach involving pre- and post-surveys and interviews. Both the pre- and post-survey results and the interview findings indicate portfolio grading effects characteristics that influence self-efficacy.M.S
Mortuary Practices and Sustainability: The Rise of Natural Burials in the United States
No full textKEYWORDS: Natural burial; environmental issues; emotional implications; economic impediment
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GIRLS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES AND CONFIDENCE IN MATHEMATICS
No full textGirls are less likely than boys to pursue a degree or career in a mathematics-based field. Girls tend to have higher grades and similar test scores when compared with boys. However, girls’ affective beliefs, including confidence, fall behind those of their male counterparts. The purpose of this study was to understand how girls perceive the connection between classroom activities and their feelings of self-efficacy in the mathematics classroom. I used a multiple case study to explore five Algebra 2 students’ confidence throughout a unit of study on polynomial functions.
The study addressed the following research questions:
1. What are high school girls’ perceptions of the connection between various forms of classroom activities and their confidence on mathematics assessments, if any?
2. How do specific forms of classroom assessment contribute to the growth of high school girls’ mathematical confidence, if at all?
This case study analyzed survey responses, assessment reflections, and interview data collected from five students over the course of approximately three weeks as their Algebra 2 classes covered a unit on polynomial and rational functions. The survey, reflections, and interview questions were centered around understanding the girls’ confidence in mathematics. Bandura’s (1995) four sources of self-efficacy provided a framework for analyzing the reflection and interview data.
The findings of this study included a collection of student perceived benefits and limitations to their confidence in mathematics based on the type of classroom activity discussed. Mastery experiences had the greatest impact on student confidence. Vicarious experiences and social experiences influenced the students’ confidence; however, the social influence came from the teacher rather than peers most of the time. Finally, there were other factors outside of the classroom impacting the students’ confidence in mathematics.
This study produced results that are significant in four ways. First, the results connect to prior research by supporting the four sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) as influential to girls’ confidence in mathematics. Second, this study offers theoretical implications as to how Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky et al., 1986) informs the four sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Third, the results provide suggestions for practice for secondary mathematics teachers to support girls’ confidence in mathematics. Finally, questions and considerations for future research emerged from the results of this study.Ph.D
Geospatial Analysis of Mental Health Outcomes Following the 2013 West, TX Fertilizer Plant Explosion
No full textNatural and man-made disasters have increased in the frequency of occurrence and the extent of their impact on people, agriculture, and infrastructure over the previous 40 years (UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2020). Given the growing frequency of disasters occurring, it has become crucial in the field of public health to better understand the mechanisms behind how disasters impact health and well-being. This study examined the geospatial relationship associated with the Euclidean distance from the site of an explosion in the rural community of West, TX, and the adverse mental health outcomes the community faced in the years following the incident. Data for this analysis was collected via in-person and online surveys of residents of the City of West. The findings from this study found that the prevalence of potential PTSD in rural communities meets and potentially exceeds that of urban communities. Additionally, we found that adverse mental health was clustered closest to the disaster site, and that the density of potential prevalence tapered off as distance increased.M.P.H
“Before the Eye of the World”: Authorial Self-Construction in Poe’s Creative and Critical Canon
No full textA skilled linguist from an early age, the young Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) believed himself to be a poet of great genius destined to engage in literary taste-making within the American literary establishment. His earliest attempts at publication, however, reaped little attention from that establishment, which preferred to consolidate its power through an exclusionary clique system that promoted its favorite authors at the expense of superior but lesser-connected artists. In 1831, Poe, recognizing his own disadvantaged position within this system, adapted his strategy for achieving a literary career within his era’s establishment and began to focus on reforming that establishment while carving out a place for himself within its ranks as a means of gaining audience for his poetry.
This thesis examines Poe’s positioning of himself in relation to his era’s literary establishment, focusing particularly on how his professional and personal interactions with that establishment’s literati impacted the trajectory of his career and the subject matter of his canon. Pursuant on this theme, the thesis employs a historical-biographical lens to analyze selections from Poe’s Poems (1831), critical essays, book reviews, New York “Literati” sketches, and late revenge tales as a means of contextualizing Poe’s work and author-figure within his own print culture. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Poe employed his creative and critical works not only to carve out a position for himself and his works within the American literary establishment of the 1830s-1840s by placing himself “before the eye of the world,” but also to channel and transmute his affective responses to the repeated rejections, resistance, and retaliation he experienced at that establishment’s hands.M.A
A Flame Upon the Hearthstones: The Columbian, The Cresset, and Tennessee Catholicity, 1915-1932
No full textFor nearly a hundred years, a hackberry tree dedicated to the memory of an Irish Catholic soldier who perished fighting in the First World War stood in Nashville, Tennessee. Though historians have largely overlooked its significance, the living memorial to James Simmons Timothy was symbolic of a larger struggle by Irish Catholics to integrate into Southern society. This project explores the ways in which Catholic institutions like the Knights of Columbus and Diocese of Nashville used the press to further their assimilative campaigns before, during, and after World War I. Two papers, The Columbian and The Cresset, provide a rich base of primary source material. The Columbian illuminates how Irish Catholic activism during the war years led to a regionally distinct form of assimilation that I call Southernization. The Cresset chronicles how Nashville’s Irish Catholic community harnessed its assimilative successes in World War I and the beginning of the 1920s to stake a claim to indigeneity by the end of the decade.M.A
FOUR ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY
No full textThis dissertation uses public choice economics to analyze market and governance institutions. Chapter one focuses on the free-rider problem of aid, the collective action problem of getting people to contribute privately to charity. It compares zakat, the third pillar of Islam, with ordinary charity to show that zakat solves the collective action problem by changing the very framework of giving. Chapter two examines monetary policy, monetary institutions, and public finance through the lens of public choice. It provides a historical case of Venice’s Zecca Mint which provided the elite patricians of Venice with a stable currency, playing a role in fostering the economic success of the Republic of Venice. This chapter identifies three factors that together formed a self-enforcing monetary constitution to inhibit public currency debasement in historic Venice: (i) the assignment of public debt to patricians, (ii) the nearly uniform trade-centric focus of the patricians, and (iii) the use of turn-taking in office for mintmasters. Chapter three provides a public choice explanation for the growth in unfunded liabilities at the state and local level based on James Buchanan and Richard Wagner’s explanation for the growth of government spending under Keynesianism; that eliminating traditional balanced budget constraints enabled the intergenerational transfer of debt. By interpreting this growth in unfunded liabilities through this public-choice framework, this paper helps provide a more comprehensive public-choice explanation for the growth in unfunded pension liabilities. Transitioning from defined-benefit pensions to defined-contribution retirement accounts would help restore taxpayer constraint on the growth of these unfunded liabilities. Chapter four expands on Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurial alertness. We develop a framework to study creative genius. We identify the conditions under which market forces will favor the performance of both functions (the entrepreneurial and the artistic) by the same person and those under which a different person performs each task. We use evidence from the historical records on the markets for paintings in the Italian Renaissance and those on the contemporary market for the visual arts.Ph.D
Historic Preservation and Nashville's Historic Cleveland Park Neighborhood
No full textThis thesis discusses the Cleveland Park neighborhood, located in Northeast Nashville. The first chapter gives a history of the neighborhood, which began as a streetcar suburb in the late 19th century. As white flight occurred in the late 20th century, Cleveland Park became predominantly African American, and is currently experiencing gentrification. The second chapter examines the architecture of the neighborhood, which I conducted a survey of in the summer of 2021. The third chapter discusses the rise of gentrification in the neighborhood.M.A