Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.), Xavier University, 2023, Psychology

Certain risk factors may increase the likelihood that MM patients will experience depression. This study examined the impact of demographic variables and well-being domains as risk factors for depression. MM patients (N = 140) were recruited from support groups and online social media platforms. Participants' mean age was 67 years with a mean of 7.5 years since diagnosis. The sample was 43% male and 57% female, with 91% identifying as White. Overall, 15% of participants reported experiencing significant depression symptoms. Results indicated significant negative relationships between sexual satisfaction, physical well-being, functional well-being, financial well-being, HRQoL and depression symptoms. Additionally, there was a significant positive relationship between the experience of bone pain and depression symptoms. Female participants reported significantly more depression symptoms than male participants, although the effect size for the difference was small. Younger participants reported significantly more depression symptoms than older participants and the effect size for the difference was large. Further analyses indicated that the socioemotional elements of well-being accounted for incremental variance in depression above and beyond symptom burden. The current study provided novel information about risk factors for depression in MM patients. It clarified the impact of age and gender as risk factors for depression in this population. Together, these findings may be advantageous for clinicians as they develop strategies for the prevention, assessment, and treatment of depression in MM patients.

Committee: Reneé Zucchero Ph.D. (Advisor); Lyn Sontag Psy.D. (Committee Member); Stacey Raj Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Oncology; Psychology

BA, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

I develop an interpretation of Wilfrid Sellars' distinction between the manifest image and scientific image and apply this interpretation to several philosophical issues, including the history of philosophy, ontology, the fact/value distinction, metanormativity, folk psychology, and types of naturalism. The dialectic centers around how normativity can be understood within a naturalistic worldview. My ultimate conclusion is that the most plausible form of naturalism will be one which in fact leaves room for normativity--metaphysically, epistemically, and semantically/pragmatically. I identify the great mistake of prior philosophical understandings of the manifest image as the mistake of taking it as an ontology, or as a theory of what exists. Finally, I come to support Huw Price's subject naturalism.

Committee: David Pereplyotchik Ph.D (Advisor); Deborah Smith Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Dunlosky Ph.D. (Committee Member); Susan Roxburgh Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Philosophy

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2019, Computer Science and Engineering

In today's online world with millions of voices all making numerous claims, it can be difficult to tell who is telling the truth and who is lying (or maybe just wrong.) Even if the correct information is available, it can seem insurmountable to try and check every supposedly true statement made. Additionally, the fact that it is so easy to quickly spread new information can make fact-checking existing assertions a sisyphean task. It is for this reason that an automated solution is needed to combat the flood of falsehoods found online. This work explores the viability of an automated system and its components which could be used to verify any claims, given a database of facts. The system is based on a heuristics-based model to identify key words and phrases within a claim, and then match it with relevant document titles from a corpus of over five million Wikipedia articles. After identifying noun phrases and named entities within each sentence of the documents, the claim is matched with evidence that could potentially either verify or refute it. Finally, each piece of evidence is entered into an inference classifier alongside the claim and scored as to how much it either verifies or refutes it. The scores are tallied and the "best" classification label (or potentially simply "not enough info" if there is no sufficiently scored evidence to support or refute the claim) is assigned to the claim alongside the supporting evidence. With this system, we were able to achieve extremely promising results when classifying test data. It was tested against the FEVER shared task dataset and evaluated using their scoring system. Our F1 score in retrieving relevant evidence was 58.54%, beating the baseline of 18.66%. When evaluated based on whether we could correctly classify the claim and retrieve at least one relevant piece of evidence, we achieved a score of 43.22%, beating the baseline of 27.71% and ranking 7th out of 24 teams in the shared task.

Committee: Marie-Catherine de Marneffe (Advisor); Alan Ritter (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

Specialist in Education, Miami University, 2019, Educational Psychology

Today professions and post-secondary opportunities in the United States in the areas of science, technology, and engineering are continuously growing and requiring students to have complex understandings of mathematical concepts. As the demand for these professions continues to grow, mathematic achievement scores in the U.S. continue to decline. The current study seeks to examine if an alternative to explicit instruction, such as play, through a multiplication fluency game, can improve mathematic motivation and multiplicative fluency. Students in two third grade classrooms were given pre and posttest curriculum-based fluency tests and surveys focused on their attitude toward math to compare results between the treatment and control classrooms. The treatment classroom played a multiplication fluency game for three days a week for four weeks while the control classroom engaged in traditional instruction. Results were examined qualitatively and quantitatively to conclude that the play intervention appears to have no significance when compared to instruction without a fluency game on mathematical fluency scores.

Committee: Sarah Watt (Committee Chair); Doris Bergen (Committee Member); Brooke Spangler-Cropenbaker (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology; Mathematics; Mathematics Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Molecular Genetics

The maternal to zygotic transition is a developmental phase shared by all multicellular organisms. It is during this time that control of the developing embryo is transferred from maternally provided mRNAs and proteins to the zygotic genome. In order for the zygotic genome to be transcribed, transcription factors must be able to access the promoters of their target genes. Prior to this point, the chromatin has been held in a transcriptionally silent state which must be alleviated before transcription can occur. There are several mechanisms by which chromatin can be rearranged into a more transcriptionally competent state. In this work, I focus on the nucleosome reorganizing FACT complex. FACT is a heterodimeric complex composed of SSRP1 and SPT16 and is known to be involved in various functions such as transcription, DNA replication, and DNA repair. Both SSRP1 and SPT16 have been found to be essential for embryonic development, and in their absence, lethality occurs early. While much is known regarding the functions of the FACT complex at the level of the cell, the requirement for FACT during embryogenesis has been a significant impediment to understanding the role of FACT in development on an organismal scale. In this study, I have evaluated the developmental consequence of FACT depletion during the embryonic development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans using RNAi and genetic mutants. I provide evidence for a requirement for FACT in the formation of the anterior pharynx and in the maintenance of cell cycle length and progression. Additionally, I investigate the relationship between FACT and APX-1, a well described component of the pharyngeal development pathway, and, from those data, propose two possible models for how FACT may be involved in pharyngeal development. Together, these data begin to show how the cellular functions of FACT impacts the development of the organism as a whole.

Committee: Helen Chamberlin PhD (Advisor); Sharon Amacher PhD (Committee Member); Christin Burd PhD (Committee Member); Robin Wharton PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Biology; Developmental Biology; Genetics; Molecular Biology

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2017, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Current food labels include comprehensive nutritional information, but evaluations of their effects on judgments of nutritional quality and food choice are scarce. Building on previous empirical research that demonstrates that amount and complexity of information is negatively related to judgment accuracy, this study used an experimental design to evaluate nutritional information labels of varying complexity. Lens model analysis (Brunswik, 1955; Cooksey, 1996; Hammond, 1955; Stewart, 1976) was used to quantitatively compare individuals' judgment accuracy to a gold standard nutritional quality criterion in three conditions that implemented front-of package (FOP) labels. The conditions were: no highlighted information, information highly related to nutritional quality highlighted, and information marginally related to nutritional quality highlighted. Findings indicate that different FOP labels had different effects on accuracy, but there were no effects of FOP labeling on judgment consistency, model agreement, or nutritional choice. Implications for understanding efforts to improve American food choices and reducing obesity are discussed.

Committee: Claudia González-Vallejo (Committee Chair); Jeffrey Vancouver (Committee Member); Sarah Racine (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

As personality assessment continues to become more common in business settings, the need to understand and address faking and misrepresentation of personality in selection processes becomes extremely important. The recent advances in ideal point item response theory offer a new and more nuanced way to create personality inventories and to investigate the psychology of faking. The present study uses a within-subjects experiment to investigate how intermediate items, specifically those of the FACT taxonomy, behave under honest and faked response conditions. The effects of faking on item characteristics and respondent scores are assessed, and a technique for identifying faked responses is demonstrated.

Committee: Michael Zickar PhD (Advisor); Steve Jex PhD (Committee Member); William O'Brien PhD (Committee Member); Kate Magsamen-Conrad PhD (Other) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2015, Molecular Medicine

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) drives downstream signaling pathways that promote cancer progression. EGFR is often constitutively active in tumors, e.g., non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and glioblastoma (GBM), either by overexpression or mutations. Nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) is a master transcription factor that controls inflammation and innate immunity. NF-κB, often constitutively activated in cancer, drives tumor development by activating antiapoptotic and prosurvival genes, and has been implicated in anticancer drug resistance. We and others have shown that EGFR activates NF-κB signaling in both noncancerous and cancer cells. In an attempt to overcome drug resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI): erlotinib and lapatinib in NSCLC and GBM respectively, we combined EGFR-TKI with a novel class of NF-κB inhibitors, including quinacrine and curaxins, which inhibit NF-κB-driven transcription by targeting the facilitates chromatin transcription (FACT) complex. Unexpectedly, we discovered preferential targeting of GBM stem cells (GSCs), another major player in cancer therapeutic resistance, by curaxins, uncovering a potential role of FACT in the maintenance of stem cell phenotypes. Beyond applications in anticancer therapeutics, we are interested in the basic biological question of how EGFR, compared to canonical NF-κB activators such as interleukin 1 (IL-1), regulates NF-κB distinctively. Specifically, we utilize genomic approaches including RNA-sequencing (RNA-sequencing) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-sequencing to investigate the signal-specific, genome-wide regulation of NF-κB-driven transcription by EGFR versus IL-1. One possible mechanism that underlies specificity in transcription factor regulation is differential phosphorylation. We speculate that phosphorylation of the serine 276 residue on the NF-κB subunit p65 (RELA) plays a role in EGFR-mediated NF-κB regulation. Using the gene editing approach CRISPR, we have introduced t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: George Stark PhD (Advisor); Mark Jackson PhD (Committee Chair); Charis Eng MD, PhD (Committee Member); Brian Rubin MD, PhD (Committee Member); Micheala Aldred PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cellular Biology; Genetics; Molecular Biology; Oncology

DNP, Otterbein University, 2015, Nursing

Abstract Filipino-Americans (FAs) are considered the fastest growing Asian immigrant population in the United States. There are about 2.6 million Filipino-Americans living in the United States (U.S. Census, 2010). Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death among FAs in the United States (National Vital Statistics, 2009). Research studies on CHD and CHD risk factors among FAs are limited. The purpose of the study was to explore FA's knowledge of CHD, risk factors for CHD and to provide a personalized educational intervention in raising awareness and changing attitudes about CHD among FAs aged 35-75 in a community setting in Woodside, New York. Knowledge about CHD and its risk factors are vital components in engaging FAs to a healthier lifestyle. A quantitative study with a descriptive design was used in the study to explore CHD knowledge and CHD risk factors among FAs in a community setting. The Heart Disease Facts Questionnaire (Wagner, Lacey, Chyun, & Abbott, 2005), Socio-demographic and Cardiac Risk profile was used to obtain the data for the study. Data was gathered and obtained from September 2014 to December 2014 in a convenience sample of thirty seven participants. Simple descriptive statistics, such as mean, standard deviation and percentages, were used to analyze the data in the study. A personalized education program was provided to the participants based on their CHD knowledge and cardiac risk profile. The participants had suboptimal scores on the HDFQ questionnaire and the participants had some significant risk factors for CHD. The study revealed that the majority of the participants' attitudes or feelings about making lifestyle changes related to the prevention of CHD changed after their personalized education intervention. Despite the limitations in the study, data gathered in the study is a step toward developing evidence-based prevention and health promotion interventions to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease amon (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Patricia Keane (Committee Chair); John Chovan (Committee Member); David Rubenstein (Committee Member); Domingo Susan (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Education; Health Sciences, Public Health; Nursing

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Communication

Political misperceptions are a complex problem for scholars, journalists, and politicians. Despite ubiquitous fact-checking and corrective messages online and in the media, polls show citizens are consistently misinformed about a variety of political issues. To date, most explanations for the failure of these messages to correct false beliefs have centered only on partisan-based information processing strategies, which suggest citizens are more likely to believe a claim that reflects well on their preferred party while rejecting those that reflect poorly. However, I argue there are several reasons to suspect this approach by itself is insufficient for explaining and predicting why and how fact-checking messages often fail. In this dissertation I build on affective intelligence theory and propose a theoretical model that outlines how citizens' unique emotional states interact with their party affiliation to influence belief in political misperceptions. I argue the experience of two discrete emotions of the same valence, anxiety and anger, can have dramatically different effects on citizens' beliefs about politics by determining whether they consider misinformation in either a partisan or more deliberative fashion. The unique influence of anxiety and anger is tested in two experimental studies that manipulate emotional states and show how these discrete emotions come to have contrasting effects on people's beliefs about contemporary political issues. Study 1 tests whether emotions unrelated to the target of the misperception can influence belief, while Study 2 examines if emotions stemming directly from the issue of interest affect beliefs. These studies provide evidence that anger facilitates partisan, motivated processing of inaccurate political claims, which results in beliefs that are consistent with prior attitudes. Anxiety contributes to more deliberative consideration of the content of the claims and less reliance on partisanship, which results in belie (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: R. Kelly Garrett Ph.D. (Advisor); David Ewoldsen Ph.D. (Committee Member); R. Lance Holbert Ph.D. (Committee Member); Emily Moyer-Gusé Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Political Science

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: School Psychology

This study compared the effects of the Detect, Practice, and Repair (DPR) intervention package versus traditional Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC) procedures in increasing multiplication math fact accuracy and fluency using an alternating treatments design with a modified control condition. Interventions were administered one-on-one across 4 fourth grade students. Three mutually exclusive multiplication sets were used with one set being assigned to each condition. Effectiveness was assessed through traditional curriculum-based measurement (CBM) procedures and through flashcard card procedures to measure accuracy. In addition, the efficiency of each intervention (i.e., amount of learning per instructional minute) was calculated. Maintenance data were collected to determine if newly learned math facts would be better maintained when taught with the DPR intervention or with the traditional CCC intervention procedures. Social validity data were collected with teachers and students to determine whether one intervention was preferred over another. Although DPR has been examined in five published research studies, it has never been examined through a one-on-one implementation or in a study directly comparing its effectiveness, efficiency, maintenance, and social validity against another intervention. In addition, this study serves as a component analysis since CCC is one component of the DPR package.

Committee: Julie Morrison Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Anne Bauer Ed.D. (Committee Member); Renee Oliver Hawkins Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education

Specialist in Education, Miami University, 2013, Educational Psychology

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety in female elementary students. It was hypothesized that a mathematics fluency intervention (FASTT Math) would help students increase mathematics automaticity, and therefore decrease mathematics anxiety. Fourth grade female students' levels of mathematics anxiety were measured using the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale - Elementary (Suinn, Taylor, & Edwards, 1988). Students either received the FASTT Math intervention or typical classroom instruction. At the conclusion of the intervention, the subjects were reassessed using the MARS-E. Results indicated that students who completed the FASTT Math intervention did increase their automaticity, but did not experience significantly decreased levels of mathematics anxiety. This study supported the hypothesis that although female students typically perform at a similar level as their male peers in mathematics, they perceive their abilities as being significantly lower.

Committee: Raymond Witte PhD (Committee Chair); Susan Mosley-Howard PhD (Committee Member); Sally Lloyd PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology; Educational Technology; Gender; Gender Studies; Mathematics Education

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2005, Arts and Sciences : Germanic Languages and Literature

During the past two decades, a vast body of German literature has appeared that is interested not only in the Holocaust but also in the way Germans have dealt with the legacy of National Socialism over the last sixty years. Especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the German reunification, a number of literary works have appeared that use photographs to approach this limit-event and its remembrance in German national and private discourses. At the same time, the scholarly attention given to questions of memory and its representation has also sharply increased over the last few decades. Such debates have brought forth a number of demands in order for Holocaust literature to become productive for remembrance as well as for the creation of the present and the future. The following study investigates works by Monika Maron, W. G. Sebald, and Irina Liebmann. Of particular interest is the question of how these authors have integrated photographs within their texts in order to address and overcome the problems of Holocaust representation: the generational distance, absences and silences as well as the institutionalization and instrumentalization of memory. The first chapter lays out the theoretical framework that informs the discussion of the most vital concepts treated in this study: fact and fiction, history and memory, photography and text. The subsequent three chapters investigate the respective works written by the three authors: Monika Maron's Pawels Briefe (1999), W. G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten (1992) and Austerlitz (2001), and Irina Liebmann's Stille Mitte von Berlin (2002). I maintain that the complex and paradoxical nature of photography, most significantly its simultaneous claim to truth and to deception, renders it a particularly fruitful means to negotiate questions of factuality and fiction as well as memory and history. It allows these authors to engage the reader in a problematization of the concept of truth as well as the constructedness of all f (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Katharina Gerstenberger (Committee Chair); Dr. Sara Friedrichsmeyer (Other); Dr. Todd Herzog (Other); Dr. Richard Schade (Other) Subjects: