Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Geology

The Cambrian Eau Claire Formation in western Ohio was examined using depositional systems analysis. This study investigated whether the transgressive barrier depositional model of Banjade (2011) for the adjacent Conasauga-Kerbel Formations also applies to the Eau Claire Formation. This research has determined that Cambrian estuarine/lagoonal deposits are present in western Ohio. This research found a systematic upward change in the Eau Claire Formation from siliciclastic deposits to carbonate deposits. As such, the Eau Claire Formation represents a transition between siliciclastic deposition of the underlying Mt. Simon Sandstone to the carbonate deposition of the overlying Knox Dolomite. This study also found that the contact between the Mt. Simon Sandstone and Eau Claire Formation to be a ravinement surface, and a probable transgressive surface of erosion, in the key study well. Two cores of the Eau Claire Formation were examined: one core contains 184-m of section from well DGS-2627 (Warren County, OH) and the other contains 134-m of section from well BP- 4 (Core 3502) (Allen County, OH). Microfacies analysis was conducted from each core as well as paleontology (cryptospore) analysis. Gamma-ray logs were obtained in LAS format from the Ohio Geological Survey for Warren (DGS-2627), Allen (BP-4), Miami (Walker Ella-1), Auglaize (Hoelscher D&B Comm-1), Defiance (Haver Pearl A-1), and Shelby (Borland-1) counties in Ohio. Once the data was constructed into log format, the BP-4 (Allen County) core data could be correlated with the log data, in other words, lithofacies observed in the core could be matched to the respective geophysical profile. Based on the relationships described above, a geophysical log model was constructed for BP-4. This log model is used to predict depositional facies from other wells that have only geophysical log data. The model was calibrated using both core and geophysical log data from core DGS 2627 in Warren County by predicting d (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James Evans Ph.D. (Advisor); John Farver Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jeffrey Snyder Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Geology

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2014, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Metabonomics is a novel tool to investigate diseases and therapeutic treatments. This dissertation describes novel statistical methods for metabonomics based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and their application in studying the mechanism of human cancers. Chapter 1 introduces the currently used metabonomics data interpretation methods and instruments. Chapter 2 investigated how the reproducibility of metabolite resonances measured by NMR depends on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and normalization methods using the coefficient of variation (CV) method. An inverse correlation was detected between SNR and CV for all normalization methods, which will aid the researchers to optimize experiments. Chapter 3 demonstrates a new potential biomarker discovery method for metabonomics studies called Standard Deviation Step Down (SDSD). Unlike most of commonly used methods, SDSD gives weight to relative metabolite concentration and is progressively more sensitive for more concentrated metabolites. Chapter 4 provides a new algorithm for Principal Components Analysis (PCA) in protein sequence analysis. The method provides a way to know which amino acid position variations are most responsible for driving separation into sub-clusters. Chapter 5 describes metabonomics study of human neuroblastoma cell line induced by Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and its Y2 receptor. High conversion of glucose into lactate in abundance oxygen (Warburg effect) and lower intracellular nutrient in NPY Y2R group was observed. NPY and Y2R may influence glycolysis, glutaminolysis and possibly TCA cycle. Chapter 6 describes role of osteopontin-a in tumor progression by studying breast cancer cell metabolites. Osteopontin-a upregulates the levels of glucose in breast cancer cells, likely through STAT3 and its transcriptional targets apolipoprotein D and IGFBP5. The splice-variant-specific metabolic effects of osteopontin add a novel aspect to the pro-metastatic functions. Chapter 7 describes the microbi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Kennedy (Advisor); Neil Danielson (Committee Chair); Carole Dabney-Smith (Committee Member); Gary Lorigan (Committee Member); Michael Robinson (Committee Member) Subjects: Biochemistry; Biostatistics; Chemistry

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2007, Allied Health Sciences : Genetic Counseling

Autosomal dominant nonsyndromic hearing loss (ADNSHL) is characterized by postlingual, progressive hearing impairment. This study sought to identify the gene responsible for hereditary nonsyndromic sensorineural hearing loss in a family with multiple generations affected by hearing impairment presenting in the second decade of life. The Affymetrix GeneChip was used to identify three linkage intervals on chromosomes 4, 10, and 16. The observed hearing loss in this family is not likely due to previously identified deafness-causing genes as no such genes have been reported in the identified intervals. Since preliminary candidate gene sequencing within the regions did not identify any pathogenic mutations, haplotype mapping was employed to further refine the intervals. The intervals on chromosomes 4 and 16 were excluded and the interval on chromosome 10 was narrowed to a 0.4Mb region at 10q22-q23. Future work will employ candidate gene analysis to identify the gene responsible for this family's hearing impairment.

Committee: Dr. John Greinwald (Advisor) Subjects: Biology, Genetics

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Sociology

Existing scholarship has highlighted the importance of maternal employment in shaping children's labor market outcomes, yet most studies overlook the dynamic and evolving nature of maternal employment. This study takes a trajectory-based approach to reassess the associations between maternal employment and adult children's labor market outcomes and further investigates how these associations differ between mother-son and mother-daughter dyads. Using mother-child dyadic data from the NLSY79 and NLSY79 Child and Young Adults (CNLSY79), the study identifies five distinct patterns of maternal employment trajectories across children's childhood: Full-time, Early Return, Late Return, Part-time, and Not Working. Results from random-effects regression models indicate that compared to children of non-working mothers, children with mothers in Full-time employed trajectory have higher probabilities of full-time employment in their adulthood, with distinct benefits observed for sons and daughters. The Early Return trajectory is especially advantageous for daughters, associated with a higher probability of full-time employment, increased working hours, and higher income. Conversely, the Late Return trajectory shows gender-divergent associations: it positively links to sons' better labor market performance, while for daughters, the pattern is less favorable. Additionally, part-time employment does not confer significant advantages compared to non-working mothers, highlighting the precarious nature of part-time work in the U.S. context. These findings highlight the critical role of maternal employment timing and continuity, emphasizing the need for policies that support early and continuous maternal employment to promote more equitable labor market outcomes across generations and genders.

Committee: Kristi Williams (Committee Chair); Fangqi Wen (Committee Member); Rachel Dwyer (Committee Member) Subjects: Demography; Sociology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Animal Sciences

Bovine coronaviruses (BCoVs) are important members of the Betacoronavirus genus, Embecovirus subgenus in Orthocoronavirinae subfamily within the Coronaviridae family. They can cause enteric or/and respiratory diseases in cattle. However, the mechanisms for BCoV tissue tropism and pathogenesis are still unknown and could be due to interactions of viral, host, and environmental factors. There are limited studies to investigate whether co-infection with other bovine pathogens, environmental factors (such as season of the year) and host factors (such as beef vs dairy; age, such as pre- vs post-weaning; and the level of pre-existing BCoV antibodies) contribute to enteric or respiratory tropism. In our study, we isolated recent BCoV strains and compared them with historical strains to study the evolution of BCoVs. Bovine fecal samples were collected from dairy calves, dairy cows, and beef cattle in Georgia by Dr. Palomares Lab at the University of Georgia. Bovine fecal and nasal samples from asymptomatic veal calves from an Ohio farm were provided by Dr. Habing's Lab at The Ohio State University. We detected BCoVs from both nasal (n=10) and fecal samples (n=156) and isolated BCoV strains from enteric samples. The BCoV genomic sequences of five strains BC7, BC8, BC9, BC39, and BC47 were characterized, and they all belong to genogroup II by phylogenetic analyses. Sequence analyses were performed to compare the mutations between the historical and current viruses and between the viruses isolated from respiratory and enteric samples. We found that one pair of samples BC8 and BC18 from the same calf, but different collection sites (fecal and nasal sites), showed two amino acid differences in the spike (S) protein; We predicted the locations of these two amino acid residues in the 3D protein structures. Reverse genetics is a state-of-the-art technology to study viral factors, but until now no infectious clones have been generated for BCoVs, and this has hampered in-dept (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Qiuhong Wang (Advisor); Linda Saif (Committee Member); Roberto Palomares (Committee Member) Subjects: Animal Sciences; Virology

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2022, Comparative and Veterinary Medicine

Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae (Pss) is an emerging seed-borne pathogen that causes Pseudomonas leaf spot (PLS) disease in bell peppers. It causes severe necrotic lesions on pepper leaves that can spread to 50-80% of the field under favorable environmental conditions. PLS can cause significant economic losses to pepper production if the disease is left uncontrolled. However, not much is known about the genes that Pss carries to be able to cause disease in peppers. It is important to understand the virulence genes that Pss carries so that appropriate measures can be developed to control Pss in peppers. Therefore, part of my research aimed to use comparative genomic analysis to understand the genes in Pss that are important for virulence in pepper seedlings. The Pss strains (n=16) evaluated showed varying levels of virulence (disease severity and Pss population) at 3-, 7-, and 14-days post-infection (dpi) on the susceptible 'California Wonder' pepper variety in a controlled growth chamber environment. The Pss strains also displayed varying growth, biofilm development, and motility in vitro in M9 minimal broth at 28˚C, however, the variation in in vitro performance did not explain the variation in the virulence of the Pss strains in pepper seedlings. Whole genome sequencing was performed on these Pss strains. The genes were functionally characterized, and core genomes were separated from the variable genomes between the Pss strains. A total of 812 genes were variable among the Pss strains including known virulence genes. Additionally, a multivariate correlation analysis identified 285 genes that were significantly correlated to the virulence of Pss in pepper seedlings (r2 of  0.5 to 0.675; P<0.01). The genes that were significantly correlated with the virulence of Pss strains included known virulence genes associated with motility (n=2), biofilm (n=5), and Type III and VI secretion systems (T3SS and T6SS) (n=9). Further, the two strains (SM156-18 and SM226-1) that (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Gireesh Rajashekara (Advisor); Sally Miller (Committee Member); James Fuchs (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Microbiology; Plant Pathology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Sociology

The heterogeneity of the timing and order of achieving the “big five” markers of the transition to adulthood is often treated as a taken-for-granted feature of emerging adulthood, reflecting a tendency of “leisure to explore” between adolescence and adulthood. With the central assumption of emphasizing how individuals take greater control of personal biographies in postmodern societies, the individualization thesis has also received wide acknowledgment in conceptualizing the changing patterns of the life course, especially when accounting for the growing heterogeneity in the pathways to adulthood. The first substantive chapter of this dissertation identifies an individualization-heterogeneity nexus in the current life course research on the transition to adulthood. It interrogates the conceptual pitfalls that distract researchers from understanding the real source of heterogeneity observed in the pathways to adulthood. The illustrative example shows that educational attainment stratifies the level of heterogeneity in school-to-work and family formation trajectories, which challenges the notion that individualized choice-making leads to the de-standardization of transition patterns. The two empirical chapters examine how structural inequality shapes early work-family trajectories and reveal how “failure to launch” pervades in an age of expanding precarity in the youth labor market. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979 & 1997), the first empirical study compares the work-family trajectories between Late Baby Boomers and Early Millennials. By employing multichannel sequence analysis, this study identified seven distinct transition patterns reflecting mutual reinforcement of domain-specific dis/advantages. The cohort comparison suggests that Early Millennials are more likely than Late Baby Boomers to enter work-family trajectories characterized by labor market precarity, and there is no declining relevance of stratifying mechanisms such as (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jessica Kelley (Committee Chair) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Sociology

Fertility experiences have been found to be associated with long-term health advantages and disadvantages over the life course. To date, much of the literature on women's reproductive health focus on the long-term effects of discrete fertility events. How fertility history as a whole influences women's health in older age is still understood to a limited extent. This line of inquiry is primarily conducted in Western countries. Nearly no study focuses on women's fertility patterns in China, where reproductive behaviors are deeply impacted by the dynamic interactions of the patriarchal norm and the family planning policy. By employing sequence analysis and a comparative cohort design, This study advances the existing research of fertility history and later life health by using a holistic classification of fertility characteristics of Chinese women aged 15-49. Guided by a life course cumulative risks thesis, my dissertation undertakes the first systematic attempt to examine the influences of fertility trajectory patterns on later life mental health and functional health using a nationally representative dataset: the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The findings reveal that women's improved socioeconomic status is associated with the fertility groups featured with low parity and late childbearing, regardless of the cohort membership. The birth planning policy only matters for the One-child policy cohort. Both the compositional shifts of cohorts' social-demographics and the behavioral changes induced by the birth planning policy contribute to the shifting fertility patterns across cohorts. For the two health outcomes, a high parity, longer reproductive years profile is positively associated with elevated depressive symptoms among the One-child policy cohort. The relationship between functional health and fertility history has been greatly attenuated once pre-fertility characteristics that select women into various fertility patterns have be (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jessica Kelley (Committee Chair); Eva Kahana (Committee Member); Susan Hinze (Committee Member); Jing Li (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Horticulture and Crop Science

The production of greenhouse ornamental crops relies on extensive inputs of water and chemical fertilizers to produce high-quality plants for consumers. These inputs are both economically and resource expensive, leading to increased concerns of sustainability. In addition, ornamental crops can encounter water and nutrient stress throughout their life span, impacting their health, quality, and resiliency for consumers. Water stress decreases the health and quality of horticulture crops by inhibiting photosynthesis, transpiration, and nutrient uptake, contributing to a reduction in plant size and flower number. The lack of bioavailable nutrients for plant uptake negatively impacts plant metabolism, influencing different aspects of plant growth and development. The effect of both abiotic stresses decreases the salability of crops at retail and can impact consumer success in the landscape. Therefore, it is important that the horticulture industry has sustainable tools to decrease resource-intensive inputs while also increasing plant abiotic stress tolerance, without sacrificing crop quality. Plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) can increase plant growth under water and nutrient-limiting conditions by enhancing stress tolerance and increasing nutrient availability, uptake, and assimilation by plants. PGPB colonize their plant host and can stimulate plant growth and stress tolerance through a myriad of different mechanisms. The identification of PGPB for greenhouse ornamental crops will contribute to the formulation of commercial productions that can be implemented into greenhouse production systems for the sustainable production of high-quality and resilient crops. This work outlines the identification, evaluation, and characterization of PGPB for greenhouse ornamental crops subjected to water stress and low-nutrient conditions. A core collection of 45 bacterial isolates was utilized to develop a high-throughput approach for the selection and evaluation of PG (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michelle Jones (Advisor); Christopher Taylor (Committee Member); Ye Xia (Committee Member); Jyan-Chyun Jang (Committee Member) Subjects: Horticulture; Plant Biology; Plant Pathology

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Computer Science

Along with the immense popularity of Android applications, the Android ecosystem is under constant threat of malware attacks. This issue warrants developing efficient tools to detect malware apps. There is a large body of work in the literature that has applied static analysis for malware detection. For instance, one popular idea has been to extract API-calls from the app code and then to use those API-calls as artifacts to train machine learning models to classify malware and benign apps. However, most of this line of work does not incorporate the true execution sequence of the API-calls, and thus misses out to capture a potentially rich signature. Furthermore, while evaluating the vetting accuracy, many of the prior work report their primary results on a randomly selected test set that are not spatially consistent (malware percentage in the test set approximating real-world scenario) and/or temporally consistent (having correct time split of train and test data) which artificially inflates the performance of the model. In this thesis, we explore if tracking the true sequence of the API-calls improves the effectiveness of the vetting process and present results ranging from testing on a random test set to a spatially and temporally consistent test set. We perform deep learning-based malware classification using a graph that we name API sequence graph which preserves the true sequence of API calls. The experiments show that our best performing model achieves AuPRC ranging from 0.977 to 0.86 and an F1-score of 0.955 to 0.83 depending on the consistency of the test set. The results show that our best-performing model, based on the true sequence of API calls, outperforms a quasi-sequence-based model.

Committee: Sankardas Roy Ph.D. (Advisor); Jong Kwan Lee Ph.D. (Committee Member); Qing Tian Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2015, Management

Open Source Software (OSS) is a perplexing and complex context for the study of organizing. Effective coordination is often achieved despite weak, ephemeral, and virtually mediated relationships among volunteering developers. Understanding why this is possible and how such coordination forms emerge can provide us with important insights into how to build capabilities for a wider range of digitally mediated collaboration processes. This dissertation explores the origin, evolution, and variation of routines, which contribute to effective coordination of OSS development tasks. The dissertation is comprised of three separate studies. The first study uses computational sequence analysis and qualitative inquiry to conduct a cross-sectional case study of a single OSS project. This study explores how routines emerge and what information processing functions they serve in supporting coordination of OSS development. The second, longitudinal, case study seeks to show how routines evolve over longer periods – in this case across a multiyear release cycle. This serves as the basis for developing an OSS lifecycle model based on the identified shifts in the dominant routine patterns during consecutive phases of the release cycle. The third, comparative, case study, examines four OSS projects to find out to what extent alternative `imprinted' problem-solving rationalities shape observed variation in routine structures across the four projects. All these three studies deploy new tools and propose new constructs to explain the origin, evolution, and variation of routines in OSS development. While the dissertation limits itself to study routine-based coordination in the OSS context, the models and methods proposed herein can be generalized for a wider range of virtual (design) contexts with shared `open' characteristics providing anybody access to shared design artifacts. These contexts foreshadow many new organizing forms that are likely to become more prominent as myriads of product (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lyytinen Kalle (Committee Chair); Collopy Fred (Committee Member); Singh Jagdip (Committee Member); Yoo Youngjin (Committee Member); Howison James (Committee Member); Boland Richard (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2014, Management

Design methodologies exist in espoused theories while methods-in-action never adhere to the entirety of the concepts envisaged by the methodology itself (Avison and Fitzgerald 2003). Currently, there is no deficit in design methodologies but, rather the deficit is in accurate understanding of the application and tailoring of the methodology in a given situation. Despite extensive methodology research over the last two decades we still know very little about how design methodologies are enacted in real-time. To date, there are no studies, which have systematically explored these differences. To uncover the differences, I ask these primary questions in the thesis: 1) What are the sources of variations in methodologies? 2) How iterations-in-practice differ in design methods? And 3) how projects evolve over time? At the core, this thesis work examines the differences in two contrasting design methodologies - agile and waterfall- using the lens of organizational routines. Specifically, I propose here four different types of variation in this thesis: (1) method-induced variation (2) agency-induced variation (3) fitness-induced variation (4) random variation. These sources explain some of the differences occurring in practice between these competing methodologies. The findings from these studies suggest that methods (by themselves) do not generate drastic variation in routines but it is rather the agency and fitness aspects (i.e. the method use) that accounts for most of the routine variation. Further, the differences in the structures of iterations in agile and waterfall were minimalistic, however qualitative data suggests otherwise.

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Chair); Dick Welke (Committee Member); Dick Boland (Committee Member); Fred Collopy (Committee Member); John Paul Stephens (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Systems

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2013, Integrated Bioscience

The protein Sry has been studied for over twenty years, with much focus on its role in sex determination. Recent evidence suggests that it has multiple functions outside of testis determination. Comparing Sry throughout evolution, from its duplication of copies in a single species (such as in Rattus norvegicus), to its evolution in all of mammals, to how it is homologous to the SOX protein family, has helped to elucidate that the Sry protein has likely evolved to function in other pathways outside testis determination. One of the pathways Sry is suggested to function on is the renin-angiotensin system and thus has a potential to regulate blood pressure. The work with Sry and the Sox proteins was aided by a sequence-to-structure-tofunction approach, which was additionally applied to several other proteins, such as proteins of the renin-angiotensin system, the KRAB domain, SNAIL, and Leptin. These show the potential for such an approach and encourage its usage in more molecular research.

Committee: Amy Milsted Dr. (Advisor); Monte Turner Dr. (Committee Member); Thomas Leeper Dr. (Committee Member); Richard Londraville Dr. (Committee Member); John Huss Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Molecular Biology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Biophysics

With the tremendous growth in biological information, bioinformatics has become a powerful approach to aid in assigning the functional role of proteins. By establishing an ancestral relationship or homology to a well-understood protein, the function of a previously uncharacterized protein can be inferred. The most common method to detect homology between proteins is to use sequence alignment, of which BLAST and PSI-BLAST are the most popular tools. The challenge is to find as many true positives as possible, and distinguish these true positives from false positives when sequence similarity falls into the twilight zone (<25%), as is commonly observed for distantly related sequences. A two-pronged approach is presented to address the challenge in distant homology detection. In the proposed LESTAT algorithm, conserved structural features are incorporated into an iterative profile-based sequence alignment method. This imparts LESTAT with the ability to finding more true positives than PSI-BLAST based on seven test case studies. In the proposed SimpleIsBeautiful (SIB) algorithm, a mathematical model and a novel model validation approach is utilized to improve PSI-BLAST's ability to discriminate true and false positives without sacrificing its computational efficiency. These additional features result in improved performance in deciphering true and false positives when compared to existing PSI-BLAST approach. A web-server that runs the SIB algorithm, SIB-BLAST, was launched in December 2008 under the URL (http://sib-blast.osc.edu). One alternative application of homology prediction is to utilize that information to predict protein-protein interactions. As a first step to explore such questions, an algorithm was developed that attempts to predict interacting partners of a hetero-oligomer from a homo-oligomer using a structure-based sequence alignment strategy in conjunction with correlation analysis of amino acids pair. The prediction algorithm was applied to the human (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ralf Bundschuh (Advisor); Umit Catalyurek (Committee Member); Charles Daniels (Committee Member) Subjects: Bioinformatics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Geography

Human space-time activities are dynamic with many interacting dimensions. The analysis of human space-time activity patterns plays important roles for the understanding of many phenomena, such as urban sprawl and growth, transport planning and management, locating new facilities, disease outbreak control, etc. Understanding the dynamics of human space-time activities in human and environment systems, reasoning their relationships, modeling spatio-temporal behavior, and predicting future changes are essential for many people-based applications. In transportation research community, the analysis of space-time activity patterns has been extensively studied, but some issues have not been sufficiently addressed so far. First, space and time are two fundamental dimensions that are important for the understanding of spatiotemporal activity patterns. However, they are often analyzed separately, which makes the interpretation of space-time interaction difficult. Second, human activities take place in the real world, but few of the existing research can handle activity pattern with real geographic locations that are important to reason the space-time relations. Recently, GIS-based time-geographic analysis has been proposed to analyze human space-time activity patterns and it proves to be an efficient to understand complex patterns with real geographic locations. However, the number of individuals can be analyzed by this method is still limited, which limits broader applications. In this research, group pattern analysis based on GIS-based time-geographic analysis has been proposed based on activity pattern classification and geovisualization. This research aims to solve the following key problems in the classification of human space-time activity patterns. First, what kind of mathematic measures can be developed to compare the differences between space-time activity patterns with many interacting dimensions? Second, based on the time-geographic approach, how to analyze and cla (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mei-Po Kwan (Committee Chair); Morton O'Kelly (Committee Member); Ningchuan Xiao (Committee Member) Subjects: Geography

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2011, Geography (Arts and Sciences)

Mountain glaciers are an important resource for monitoring how regions are being affected by global environmental changes because their advance and retreat are influenced by fluctuations in precipitation and temperature. Using Mt. Shasta in northern California as the study area, this thesis employed a time-series approach to remote sensing image analysis coupled with a Markov-based procedure to demonstrate how remote sensing can be used to define the environmental trajectories active in the region and project those trends into the future. This experimental approach was applied to a series of yearly images from 1985 to 2010 to examine the long-term implications of environmental change and then the trends were projected forward in varying increments to 2110. The long-term change signal showed that El Nino cycles strongly influenced regional land cover patterns and controlled glacial advance and retreat. When this pattern was projected into the future, two scenarios were observed: 1) growth if El Nino cycles strengthen or 2) recession if El Nino cycles weaken.

Committee: James Lein (Advisor); Dr. Dorothy Sack (Committee Member); Dr. Gaurav Sinha (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Science; Environmental Studies; Geography; Physical Geography; Remote Sensing

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2012, Management Information and Decision Systems

Digitally-enabled generative organizational processes (such as product design and development) change frequently and vary greatly within and between companies, and over time, making them difficult to understand and manage. These kinds of generative processes can be viewed as sets of organizational routines afforded by technology, which in this thesis are commonly labeled as “sociomaterial routines”. To further complicate sense-making of such processes for scholars and practitioners, digital innovations continue to alter the form of sociomaterial routines through the simultaneous consolidation of tasks and expansion of capabilities, and thus provide means to both increase and decrease complexity and variety in organizations. This complex dynamic of sociomaterial routines offers a tantalizing, yet heretofore elusive, opportunity to explore the effects digitalization and process structure have on process variety. The primary research questions addressed in this thesis are: 1) How are sociomaterial routines structurally composed, 2) what variations (over time and space) can we identify across sociomaterial routines, and 3) what can explain these variations? The theorizing and analysis of routine variation and evolution provides new insights and genuine opportunities for research inquiries—such as finding systematic drivers of variation among routines—that have been hitherto out of reach (Pentland et al. 2009). The substance of the thesis draws primarily upon three research articles my colleagues and I have published. The first introduces the suite of tools and techniques we have developed for exploring the structure of sociomaterial routines and analyzing their variation. The second article examines the way in which routines evolve, and the role embedded digital capabilities play in driving that evolution. The third develops and validates a theory of routine variation over across four world class design organizations . The findings from these studies suggest that soc (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen (Advisor); Youngjin Yoo (Committee Member); Brian Pentland (Committee Member); Fred Collopy (Committee Member); Richard Buchanan (Committee Member); Richard Boland Jr. (Other) Subjects: Design; Epistemology; Evolution and Development; Information Systems; Information Technology; Management; Philosophy of Science; Social Research; Social Structure

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 1991, Macromolecular Science

Infrared spectroscopy was used to study the photooxidation of styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) samples that were exposed to ultraviolet radiation having a minimum wavelength of 295 nm. It was determined that the photooxidation of SAN occurs exclusively at the styrene repeat units within the copolymer structure. The major infrared spectral changes resulting from the degradation process involve the appearance of new peaks within the hydroxyl and carbonyl regions. Using factor analysis results, it was concluded that there are a minimum of four different types of hydroxyl groups and three different types of carbonyl groups formed during the photooxidation of SAN. Furthermore, it was found that after 200 hours exposure the rate of increase in the concentration of the carbonyl groups within the degraded material is greater than the rate of increase in the concentration of the hydroxyl groups. The infrared spectra for a series of random styrene-acrylonitrile (SAN) copolymers of various compositions were then analyzed to determine the dependence of the individual spectral peaks on the copolymer composition. Correlations were established to relate changes in the peak positions and intensities to changes in the copolymer composition and monomer sequence distribution. A peak was assigned to a given microstructure if there existed a positive linear relationship between the peak intensity and the number fraction of this microstructure. These peak assignments were then applied to the photooxidation studies of SAN to determine the effect of the sequence distribution on the photooxidative process of the copolymer. Peaks at 1952, 1881, 912 and 549 cm-1 were found to have negative intensity values in the difference spectrum of photooxidized SAN. While the peaks at 1881 and 912 cm-1 had been assigned to the SAS triad structure, the peaks at 1952 and 549 cm-1 were assigned to the monad, dyad or triad structures of the styrene repeat unit. It was therefore concluded that the microstructure s (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jack Koenig (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2012, Geology

The Ignacio Formation and the Devonian Elbert Formation of southwest Colorado represent the lowest succession Paleozoic strata in the San Juan Basin of Colorado and New Mexico. This study reinterprets the Ignacio Formation-Ouray Limestone as Devonian (Famennian) in age and finds that the succession represented a laterally continuous depositional system of fluvial and estuarine environments (Ignacio Formation), prograding shoreline environments (McCracken Sandstone Member, Elbert Formation), tidal flats and shallow marine shales (Upper Member, Elbert Formation), and marine limestone and shales (Ouray Limestone). The present study is based on lithofacies analysis, 137-m of measured stratigraphic sections at 11 outcrops, provenance analysis from 24 representative thin sections, 72 paleocurrent measurements, and photomosaics. Lithofacies analysis identified 14 lithofacies that are organized into fluvial channel, tidal channel, tempestite, and tidal flat sequences. This study suggests that the Ignacio and Elbert formations may be reinterpreted an incised valley sequence. Evidence for this conclusion include variations in thickness, facies distribution, the conformable contact between the Ignacio Formation and the McCracken Sandstone Member, lithofacies associations and ichnology, which confirm the shift from fluvial to estuarine to marine environments, and the onlap of these Paleozoic sedimentary rocks onto Precambrian basement paleohighs. It is suggested that initial accommodation space was provided by paleotopography on the Precambrian basement surface. Later accommodation space was provided by relative sea-level rise, and the paleovalleys were backfilled by fluvial - estuarine sediments and later overtopped by marine sediment.

Committee: James Evans (Advisor); Margaret Yacobucci (Committee Member); Charles Onasch (Committee Member) Subjects: Geology; Sedimentary Geology

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 2010, Geology

The Pictured Cliffs Sandstone (Upper Cretaceous) is a progradational nearshore-marine sand body that was deposited in the San Juan basin (Colorado-New Mexico) during the last regression of the Western Interior Seaway. Previous workers interpreted the unit as deltaic or beach-barrier environments. In order to interpret the depositional environment of the Pictured Cliffs Sandstone, detailed lithofacies analysis of the exposed outcrops along the northern portion of the San Juan basin is carried out. Gamma-ray log and density log along with well core data are used to determine the subsurface lithofacies. The architecture of the reservoirs is understood by correlating the subsurface well data with outcrop data. From this study, 14 different lithofacies and 4 lithofacies assemblages are identified and interpreted to be part of storm-dominated clastic shelf and shallow marine strand-plain environments. The most common lithofacies in these environments are hummocky-stratified sandstone (Sh), planar-laminated sandstone (Sl), and scoured erosional surface (Ss). Distal delta-plain deposits are also found within the Pictured Cliffs Sandstone, but there is no local evidence of a delta system or channel deposit. The paleocurrent analysis suggests the paleoflow is to the southwest. The provenance analysis suggests the sediment source is from the Laramide uplift, the San Juan Dome to the north. Lithofacies assemblages separated by bounding surfaces are classified to represent architectural elements. In this study, thirteen architectural elements are identified of which four are tempestite elements, three are amalgamated tempestite elements, and four are turbidite elements. In addition, four orders of bounding surfaces are identified, which represents the internal architecture of these elements. The geometry of the architectural elements are determined using photomosaics from the outcrops along with the hierarchy of bounding surfaces and lithofacies association found between succe (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: James E. Evans PhD (Advisor); Charles M. Onasch PhD (Committee Member); Jeffrey A. Snyder PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Geology