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Although significant research has been conducted on opportunity gaps between White and racially minoritized students, the percentage of minority students has reached 53% of the United States K-12 public schools (NCES, 2022). While the percentage of minority students now constitute the majority of public schools, the teacher workforce and school leadership remains majority White. As such, there is a need for additional investigations examining the role of culturally responsive classroom and school leadership practices in public schools. In particular, in the research, less is known about African American males and their culturally responsive school leadership practices. Thus, this study uses autoethnography to explore the experiences of a Black male school leader and the role of culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) and conscientization in promoting effective school practices. As a member of a minority group, the school leader had relevant life and educational experiences of struggles and triumphs that impacted his leadership practices. These practices included but are not limited to fostering empathy, care, relevance, and rigor, which impacted the overall school climate and achievement. With the use of these practices that are grounded in CRSL, this urban school outperformed schools in the neighboring district. In sum, the findings suggest that there remains a need for more investigations on the role of CRSL in promoting urban school success.
In this dissertation, we propose a broad class of so-called Cox-Aalen transformation models that incorporate both multiplicative and additive covariate effects on the baseline hazard function through a transformation framework. The proposed model offers a high degree of flexibility and versatility, encompassing the Cox-Aalen model and transformation models as special cases. For right-censored data, we propose an estimating equation approach and devise an Expectation-Solving (ES) algorithm that involves fast and robust calculations. The resulting estimator is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal via empirical process techniques. Finally, we assess the performance of the proposed procedures by conducting simulation studies and applying them in two randomized, placebo-controlled HIV prevention efficacy trials.
We also consider the regression analysis of the Cox-Aalen transformation models with partly interval-censored data, which comprise exact and interval-censored observations. We construct a set of estimating equations and implement an ES algorithm that ensures stability and fast convergence. Under regularity assumptions, we demonstrate that the estimators obtained are consistent and asymptotically normal, and we propose using weighted bootstrapping techniques to estimate their variance consistently. To evaluate the proposed methods, we perform thorough simulation experiments and apply them to analyze data from a randomized HIV/AIDS trial.
Safety, often understood as freedom from unacceptable loss, and reliability, the capacity to accomplish particular outcomes repeatedly through operational sensitivity, are compelling performance objectives for high-risk organizations. If either is absent, people, organizations, and their external environments are potentially at unnecessary risk. Focused on continuous performance improvement, debriefs are team meetings that are often implemented to enable safe, reliable outcomes in these settings through post-incident discussion. Historically, research has presumed debriefs to support the capacity of teams to pursue the twin objectives of safety and reliability simultaneously without contradiction. However, this theoretical assumption has never been assessed according to how a team’s discourse in debriefs constitutes safety and reliability as distinct outcomes. This research adopts Craig and Tracy’s (2021) grounded practical theory methodology to analyze talk in post-competition debriefs among stock car racing pit crews. Analysis framed debrief participants’ talk according to problem and technical levels of grounded practical reconstruction, suggesting a central dilemma that constrains pit crews’ efforts for safety and reliability in these meetings, namely a contradiction among performance expectations for regulatory adherence and for boundary pushing. Results also feature several discursive techniques that pit crews employ during debriefs in response to this dilemma. A model of dilemmatic talk in debriefs situates these outcomes in the context of fragility, an implicit value of this complex, dynamic work environment made explicit.
We are developing a real-time infrared image technique, Enhanced Thermal Imaging (ETI), that can detect blood vessels embedded in tissue and assess tissue perfusion. ETI is a combination of standard thermal imaging (8-10 µm) and selective heating of blood relative to surrounding water-rich tissue using LED sources at low power. Blood absorbs strongly at 530 nm. Illumination of water rich tissue and embedded blood vessels at this wavelength selectively increases the temperature of the blood vessels relative to the surrounding tissue causing the vessels to appear brighter in a thermal image. ETI does not require the use of injectable dyes and has a compact footprint allowing for use both during surgery and at the bedside. Previous studies using ETI were limited due to lengthy post-processing times required to delineate vessels. The first study presented in this dissertation shows the real-time capabilities of ETI in mapping vascular structures. Real time application of computational filters highlighting temporal and spatial changes reveal embedded blood vessels. ETI was obtained for a model with simulated blood vessels and a porcine heart tissue, and for both models, temporal and spatial filters outperformed standard thermal imaging. In the second study, ETI was simulated computationally to determine limitations and optimizations. The models were also analyzed to determine parameters that can delineate vessel depth and size and these results were compared with ex vivo tissue studies. The final study involved monitoring the reperfusion of skin flaps in a murine model. ETI appears to be more sensitive to the deeper healing while fluorescent imaging provides information about superficial healing. The use of intra-operative and post-operative optical guidance has beneficial impacts on patient costs and tissue viability.
The teaching practices of African American teachers are rooted in their personal and racialized experiences and have implications for teacher preparation programs and teacher scholarship. While research is abundant on how the teaching practices of Black male teachers positively impact student outcomes, the formation of their teaching practices is not as explicit in the existing literature. Employing critical race theory theoretical framework, this study explored how Black male teachers in the South's racialized and gendered experiences impact their teaching practices. The following research questions guided this qualitative study: 1) What are the racialized and gendered experiences of Black male teachers in the South; 2) What are the teaching practices of Black male teachers in the South?; and 3) How do the racialized and gendered experiences of Black male teachers in the South impact their teaching practices? A thematic analysis of participant interviews and archival documents revealed themes that add to the existing literature on how Black male teachers racialized and gendered experiences impact their teaching practices. Recommendations are provided for school and district leaders, professional development staff, teacher preparation programs, and other educational stakeholders.
The next pandemic is already underway in the proliferation of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes. Evolutionary principles guide this ``silent pandemic'', resulting in multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria that resist three or more classes of antimicrobial compounds. One hypothesis for the development of MDR Escherichia coli (E. coli) theorizes that resistance results from increased mutations attributed to bacteria with a deficient Mutator S gene.
First, I used phylogenetic comparative analyses on the mutS genes from 817 high-quality E. coli isolates. Although I observed 271 MDR isolates in this data set, I found no evidence for a deficient mutS gene. Additionally, when modeling the coevolution of MDR and variant residues in the MutS protein, the evidence supported independent evolution between the traits.
To understand this confounding result, I trained five random forest estimators to predict AMR, achieving a mean ROC AUC of 0.87 +/- 0.04 on 66 features engineered from 5511 annotated genes in the pangenome. The top performing predictors did not include mutS, but instead genes associated with horizontal gene transfer. This result supports the role of accessory genes in spreading MDR. My work demonstrates the combined usefulness of phylogenetic methods and machine learning to arrive at hypotheses for polygenic traits.
Although significant research has been conducted on opportunity gaps between White and racially minoritized students, the percentage of minority students has reached 53% of the United States K-12 public schools (NCES, 2022). While the percentage of minority students now constitute the majority of public schools, the teacher workforce and school leadership remains majority White. As such, there is a need for additional investigations examining the role of culturally responsive classroom and school leadership practices in public schools. In particular, in the research, less is known about African American males and their culturally responsive school leadership practices. Thus, this study uses autoethnography to explore the experiences of a Black male school leader and the role of culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) and conscientization in promoting effective school practices. As a member of a minority group, the school leader had relevant life and educational experiences of struggles and triumphs that impacted his leadership practices. These practices included but are not limited to fostering empathy, care, relevance, and rigor, which impacted the overall school climate and achievement. With the use of these practices that are grounded in CRSL, this urban school outperformed schools in the neighboring district. In sum, the findings suggest that there remains a need for more investigations on the role of CRSL in promoting urban school success.
Latinx students already constitute the largest minority group of students graduating from the United States secondary school systems and projections show the Latinx population continuing to increase between now and 2036 (WICHE, 2020). Both in the United States overall, and within the Appalachian Region, the increase in the Latinx population and continued projected increase in population, warranted a closer examination as to how these individuals engaged with higher education and ultimately the impact their participation in higher education can have on the economy. Research exists on the deficits of Latinx students and reasons which impact their lack of persistence at the four-year college level, but little literature exists focusing on the assets of these individuals, and little if any literature exists on Latinx students from the Appalachian Region. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of 6 Latinx students from the Appalachian Region who utilized a two-year institution in the Appalachian Region and then transferred to an urban four-year institution. The participants had to have persisted at the institution for at least two semesters and be in good academic standing. The research study examined the lived experiences of the participants through the theoretical framework of Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model, examining the various assets these students utilized to help them transition from the two-year institution and persist at the four-year institution. The purpose of this study was to provide a foundation for understanding factors that are important to Latinx students from the Appalachia Region in successfully persisting at a four-year institution after transferring from a two-year institution. The research was guided by a primary research question (RQ) and three sub questions (SQ); RQ: What are the lived experiences of first-generation Appalachian Region Latinx students who successfully transfer from a two-year institution to a four-year institution? SQ 1: How does a student’s community cultural wealth impact their transition experience? SQ 2: What are the roles of significant individuals, such as mentors, advisors, teachers, and counselors, in students' lives on their educational journeys? SQ 3: What other factors do these students identify as critical in their successful transition experience? Primary data collection was captured through two semi-structured interviews with each participant. These interviews were analyzed, revealing eight themes and sixteen sub-themes, all which demonstrate the participant’s ability to successfully navigate and persist in higher education. The findings of this study provide possible suggestions and examples of how institutions can better support Latinx students from the Appalachian Region.
With the rapid increase in connected devices and SoC design architecture being used in diverse platforms, they become potential targets to gain unauthorized access for data and privacy invasion. Therefore, heterogeneous SoC architecture raises security concerns in addition to the benefits they offer with improved throughput. They are susceptible to side-channel attacks where secure information is extracted through communication channels. Crypto algorithms implemented for secure authentication tend to leak sensitive information jeopardizing system security. Memory corruption vulnerabilities, code injection, buffer overflow attacks and other software-based attacks through untrusted channels tend to control the flow of the application with malicious data. Though traditional defense mechanisms have been implemented, they are still vulnerable to side-channel attacks. Secure measures to protect the interfaces and data propagation through different channels are critical and building a resilient model consists of the on-chip security factors. In this work, a platform-based SoC model is implemented to meet the security objectives using the RISC-V architecture. An information flow tracking module tracks the flow of data for the system’s integrity along with crypto engines and a secure boot mechanism for secure device authentication providing encrypted data transfers. For bitstream resilient SoC models the work extends a logic obfuscation module with runtime security leading to a secure assessment framework. This work explores the microarchitectural side-channel attacks with machine learning models.
Affect has long been a central topic in marketing, particularly within branding. Despite the extensive research on affect, however, a significant lack of attention has been paid to the concept of wonder. This is surprising given that Adam Smith (1869), the father of modern capitalism, considered wonder to be the most important emotion, and Descartes (1649), known as the father of all passions, described wonder as the “first of all emotions.” The absence of understanding regarding the construct of wonder in marketing represents a significant gap in the literature. This research aims to address this gap by exploring the construct of brand wonder. By better understanding brand wonder, marketers may gain insights into how and why consumers connect with their brands and products. This study employs Hunt's indigenous theory development and inductive realist methodology to develop an initial theoretical framework, as this methodology is ideal for relatively new research areas. This theoretical foundation will likely accelerate future academic research on wonder and branding and facilitate the development of more effective branding strategies. This dissertation will also include an empirical analysis using a textual analytics methodology to support the theoretical framework. Finally, the dissertation concludes with directions for future research.
