Doctor of Healthcare Administration (D.H.A.), Franklin University, 2025, Health Programs

This dissertation investigates the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the utilization of preventive colorectal cancer (CRC) screening among Americans under 65, focusing on healthcare providers' perspectives. The ACA, a significant healthcare reform, aimed to expand access to preventive services, including CRC screenings, vital for early detection and improved outcomes. This study employed quantitative analysis with a component of qualitative analysis utilizing a modified version of the Survey of Physician Attitudes Regarding the Care of Cancer Survivors (SPARCCS) to gather quantitative and qualitative data from healthcare providers in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The quantitative analysis assessed changes in CRC screening rates, patient compliance, and the effects of ACA-related policy changes, while the qualitative analysis explored providers' insights on barriers to screening, the role of patient education, and the overall effectiveness of the ACA in improving preventive care. Findings indicate a substantial increase in CRC screening utilization and frequency since the ACA's passage, with healthcare providers perceiving significant improvements in patient access and compliance. However, the study also highlights ongoing challenges, including financial barriers and enhanced patient education. These insights are critical for informing future healthcare policies and practices to reduce disparities in CRC screening and improve overall preventive care outcomes. This research contributes to the growing body of literature on healthcare reform and preventive care, offering valuable perspectives from those directly involved in delivering care. The findings underscore the importance of continued efforts to address disparities and optimize the benefits of healthcare policies like the ACA.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Educational Studies

As mobile learning (m-learning) becomes increasingly prevalent in education, it is recognized for its potential to enhance the overall quality of teaching and learning. Despite the many benefits, m-learning apps often experience low retention rates, which directly impede learners' benefit from using them and cause a waste of resources in app design, development, and maintenance. To investigate the critical factors influencing learners' acceptance of m-learning outside the classroom, this study introduced a novel model, the Mobile Learning Acceptance Determination (mLAD) Model, based on the Technology Acceptance Model and the updated DeLone and McLean Information System Success Model. Through the mLAD model, the study identified the critical app quality factors that influence learners' acceptance of m-learning. The moderating effects of the type of m-learning apps on learners' acceptance of m-learning were also revealed. An online questionnaire named the m-Learning Acceptance Questionnaire (mLAQ) was developed and disseminated through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of seven hundred forty-seven adult learners in the U.S. participated in the study. The descriptive statistical results of the examined factors revealed that m-learning apps available in the market demonstrate high mobility and content quality. Still, their interactivity and service quality could be improved. Furthermore, the results of the structural equation modeling analysis indicated that learners' two beliefs, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, are the two essential determinants of learners' intention to use m-learning apps outside the classroom. Quality factors, such as content quality, interface design, mobility, and service quality, are the antecedents of learners' m-learning acceptance, given that they significantly and directly influence perceived usefulness and ease of use and indirectly impact learners' intention to use m-learning apps through learners' two beliefs. Through (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, English

What can readability studies tell us about the novel genre? By tracing both the history of readability studies, a partially abandoned field located at the intersection of education and literacy studies, and the history of the English language novel, this project makes a case for the validity of conversations around readability within literary circles. One of the primary outcomes of readability studies is a number of formulas that measure various elements of a text, such as vocabulary and sentence structure. However, few formulas were created with fiction, or more specifically, the novel genre, in mind. To determine the possible applications of classic readability formulas for the novel genre, this project uses a digital readability formula to measure the readability of a corpus of 127 English language novels from 1800 to 1922. However, the resulting data highlights the difficulty of measuring such a wide-ranging, unique literary genre. Finally, this project proposes a framework for using a statistical analysis of novels to identify potential lines of inquiry favorable to close reading. By approaching novels through a quantitative lens, this project highlights how considering the bigger picture can help us determine which specific elements may lead to a richer understanding of the text.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Environment and Natural Resources

The ongoing shale energy revolution has transformed global energy markets and positioned the United States as a leader in oil and natural gas production and exports for the first time in generations. However, little scholarly attention has been directed toward the downstream impacts of these developments on the people and places which experience energy export activity or host related infrastructure, particularly those in rail export corridors. This research presents a first-of-its kind, cross-regional comparative analysis of community risks, risk perceptions, energy and environmental attitudes, and related discourses in oil train export corridor communities. The mixed-methods design uses household-level survey data (N=571), interview data (N=58), and news media content analysis data (N=149), to address three key knowledge gaps regarding impacts of and attitudes toward crude oil by rail in examining: 1) the influences and distributions of support, opposition, and increased concern to oil by rail; 2) views toward hydrocarbon exports as well as broader energy preferences; and 3) dominant news media and stakeholder discourses and discursive channels concerning oil train activity. Results and related recommendations include the identification of community risk perceptions, vulnerabilities, and broader energy and export attitudes as well as predictors of their variation; discussion of implications for related community energy siting and planning, news media reporting, and communications; and the contribution of novel baseline data vis-a-vis predictors of risk perception and opposition concerning oil train activity and infrastructure to the risk perception and energy impacts fields.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, English

This dissertation investigates the writing practices of disability service transcribers, professional speech-to-text writers who translate sound into written text as a form of communication access. Scholars across the fields of disability studies, digital media studies, and communication studies have documented transcription as a complex rhetorical practice; however, the strategies speech-to-text writers use when composing in real-time environments, and the composing methodologies and technologies that underlie them, remain severely understudied. This lack of knowledge is significant because it constrains advocacy for disabled people and their allies in naming and understanding specific forms of real-time transcription that best increase access to spaces that depend upon sound to convey meaning. This lack also puts educators and their institutions at a disadvantage when working to make classrooms more accessible for disabled students, faculty, and staff. I intervene by applying a disability-studies lens to original composition-based research to ask: “How do different speech-to-text writers write, and why do they write the way they do?” To answer this question, this study is divided into two phases of qualitative and quantitative data collection: (1) a survey of speech-to-text writers working at a large, Midwestern university; and (2) a comparative survey of English-speaking speech-to-text writers across the United States and Canada. Collected qualitative data are coded and analyzed following Adele Clarke's (2005) methods for situational analysis, and qualitative data are analyzed following Cindy Johanek's (2000) adapted methodological model for mixed-methods research, also known as the “contextualist research paradigm” (p. 27). This study's most important findings reveal several major methodologies of transcription are currently in practice among professionals, and their differences tend to be hotly contested. Data show a speech-to-text writer's chosen method (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2016, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Imitation and evaluation procedure is important for ASL learning and teaching. However, the current online ASL learning resources do not provide affordable and convenient imitation-evaluation function. To solve this problem, we propose an Automatic American Sign Language Imitation Evaluator (AASLIE) to evaluate the hand movement in the imitation. The proposed AASLIE system extracts 3D trajectory of the centroid of the hand by first applying a two-stage algorithm for 2D hand detection and tracking allowing possible hand-face overlaps. The 3D trajectory is extracted using a Structure from Motion algorithm with the point correspondences calculated from minimizing an affine transformation. The evaluation contains two parts, recognition and quantitative evaluation, for giving more sensitive feedback than the current sign language recognition systems. The recognition is achieved by a classification algorithm. The quantitative evaluation score, which indicates the goodness of imitation, is given by a weighted sum of point-wise distance between the imitation trajectory and the standard trajectory. Experiments were conducted for testing the recognition and quantitative evaluation functionality proposed in the system. The results show that the AASLIE system recognizes the trajectories with an average accuracy 0.8581 (±0.05) and the score accurately captures the different levels of goodness of imitation.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Medicine: Molecular and Developmental Biology

Epilepsy is a common and devastating neurological disease with no real preventive or cure. In most cases of acquired epilepsy, an initial precipitating injury to the brain is followed by a silent period which eventually culminates into the development of spontaneous, recurrent seizures. This interval between the primary insult and the first seizure is referred to as the latent period of epileptogenesis and is characterized by abnormal morphological and physiological changes in the hippocampus. In the studies described herein, I aim to elucidate changes in the different phases of epileptogenesis with the end goal of deciphering critical epileptogenic mechanisms. To study the initial stages of epileptogenesis, I employed the early kindling model. In this protocol, it is possible to administer a limited number of stimulations sufficient to produce a lifelong enhanced sensitivity to stimulus evoked seizures without associated spontaneous seizures. In these experiments, I characterized the morphology of GFP-expressing granule cells from Thy-1 GFP mice either one day or one month after the last evoked seizure. I observed several morphological changes at the one day time point, which all normalized to control levels at the one month time point. Interestingly, I did not observe the presence of basal dendrites, frequently observed in other models of epilepsy. These findings demonstrate that the early stages of kindling epileptogenesis produces transient morphological changes but not the dramatic pathological rearrangements of dentate granule cell structure seen in typical models associated with spontaneous seizures. To study epileptogenesis after the incidence of spontaneous, recurrent seizures, I used the pilocarpine model of epilepsy. Our lab has previously used this model to show that adult hippocampal neurogenesis is profoundly altered under epileptic conditions, leading to the production of morphologically abnormal dentate granule cells. Under epileptic conditions, (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2015, Communication and Development Studies (International Studies)

Products have been placed in films since the appearance of Sunlight soap in a 1896 film. However, in-film placement has started to gain much traction in recent decades due to technological advances, such as the internet, Digital Video Recorders, and over-the-top providers that have been lessening the impact of traditional marketing. Product placement expenses in the American media have risen from $190 million in 1974 to around $3.5 billion in 2004 (Lehu, 2007). The practice is also existent in major regional film centers such as Bollywood, Korea, and Egypt. This study examined the in-film placement trends in Hollywood and Egypt through a quantitative content analysis of the top earning films between 2010 and 2013. Results show that the average number of placements was 35.30 and 27.65 per Hollywood and Egyptian films respectively. The practice was aligned in both in terms of modality, product category, scene setting, and character association.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Media and Communication

In spite of its prevalence in the contemporary media landscape, the effects of exposure to sexually explicit materials have received relatively little attention from media and communication scholars. From a Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) perspective, the present study investigated whether the consumption of sexually explicit materials predicts the adoption of risk behaviors, particularly sex- and body image-related risk behaviors. In addition, the study focused on the psychological mechanisms - represented by the Sexual Self-Concept (SSC) - that could facilitate the adoption of said risk behaviors. In order to address these issues, quantitative data was collected using a self-administered online survey design. Also, in response to mounting criticism according to which quantitative research methods could offer only truncated snapshots of individuals' interactions with sexually explicit materials, a second, qualitative data set was collected using a self-administered diary design. The analysis of the quantitative data revealed that consumption of sexually explicit media content significantly predicts SSC scores. In turn, SSC was found to be a significant predictor of the adoption of sex-related risk behaviors (sex risk partners and sex risk practices). SSC was found to not be a significant predictor of body image health-related risk behaviors. A path model revealed that the SSC moderates the adoption of risk behaviors, thus supporting the theoretically-driven hypothesis that the SSC functions as a psychological mechanism that could facilitate the adoption of risk behaviors. Also, the path model revealed that age and gender significantly predict the adoption of risk behaviors. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed a complex and nuanced picture of participants' interactions with sexually explicit media content. The underlying assumption of most quantitative studies of pornography is that exposure to pornography is likely to have detrimental effects on (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Biomedical Engineering

Coronary artery disease (CAD), which involves narrowing of the vessels supplying blood to the heart, is the leading cause of death in the United States. Stress testing is a common approach for diagnosing myocardial ischemia, a state of blood supply-demand imbalance resulting from CAD. Physical exercise or pharmacologic agents raise the heart's oxygen demand, failure to meet which sets in myocardial ischemia leading to left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. Stress echocardiography (echo) and stress single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which provide complementary anatomical and perfusion information about the heart, remain the two most commonly prescribed cardiac stress testing procedures. Stress echo manifests the LV dysfunction as abnormal myocardial wall motion and thickening, whereas stress SPECT shows the myocardial perfusion defects. However, these two procedures remain limited in their sensitivity and specificity. This dissertation utilizes real-time three-dimensional (RT-3D) ultrasound - an emerging innovation in ultrasound imaging, and focuses on development of automatic image analysis techniques that will increase the diagnostic accuracy of cardiac stress testing using echo and SPECT. The first hypothesis in this dissertation is that a truly quantitative 3D stress echo procedure, that utilizes advanced quantitative image analysis techniques together with RT-3D ultrasound, is capable of overcoming many of the limitations of conventional stress echo and therefore improving diagnostic accuracy. The current research involves the development of a novel interactive and quantitative stress echo software that combines, for the first time, fully automatic tools for accurate pre-/post-stress image alignment, LV myocardial segmentation and quantification of global and regional left ventricular (LV) function for RT-3D echo images. The second hypothesis states that simultaneous improvement in sensitivity and specificity for detecting CAD can be achieved with a (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2010, Chemistry and Biochemistry

This dissertation describes the use of infrared and Raman microspectroscopic methods for the analysis of small mineral inclusions in kidney biopsies and efforts to quantitatively analyze components at the localized mineral/tissue interface. Chapter 1 provides a background on the current state of kidney stone disease research and also describes the instrumental methods utilized. Chapter 2 presents the use of attenuated total internal reflection (ATR) infrared spectroscopy to generate calibration curves for mixtures of powdered kidney stone components. This study demonstrates that reproducible quantitation can be achieved if the particle sizes of the components are small and comparable. ATR imaging was employed to analyze kidney biopsies with small mineral inclusions in Chapter 3. ATR imaging has several benefits over other infrared sampling methods (primarily transflection and transmission) for the analysis of kidney biopsies due to the smaller focused beam size achievable and the reduced optical pathlength that eliminates spectral artifacts. Chapter 4 describes an investigation into small particle analysis with transmission infrared microspectroscopy and ATR imaging. The results of the study show that spectral artifacts are dependent on the particle's size and shape and it is anticipated that this research will provide a framework for the analysis of particles below the diffraction limit. Chapter 5 presents a comparative study of Raman microspectroscopy and ATR imaging for kidney biopsy analysis. Using both methods in unison allows the investigator to obtain a full spectroscopic picture of the sample. Because Raman interrogates a larger, more uncontrolled sample volume, ATR may be more beneficial for quantitative studies. Chapter 6 summarizes the presented research and discusses future work.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Antioch Seattle: Counselor Education & Supervision

Supporting the development of an antiracist identity in counselors could facilitate change toward equity, justice, and opportunity within the counseling profession and increase awareness of white counselors in working with clients of color. Understanding obstacles to and enablers of antiracist attitudes in white women counselors holds the potential to bring change to the profession as a whole, given their position in the majority. This quantitative study used instruments to assess white racial affects of white fear, anger, and guilt along with antiracist self-efficacy as influencing antiracist accountability in a sample of white women counselors in the United States (N = 64). White fear was shown to have a moderate inverse relationship with antiracist accountability, and white anger was demonstrated to have a moderate positive relationship with antiracist accountability. White guilt did not show a statistically significant influence. Both white fear and white anger were mediated by antiracist self-efficacy, and a strong positive relationship was shown between antiracist self-efficacy and antiracist accountability. Implications for the counseling profession, the practice of counseling, and counselor education are presented. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2023, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

This body of research is focused on susceptibility risk factors associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including History of Child Abuse, Attribution Style, Moral Injury, Biological and Familial Risk Factors, Intelligence, Gender, and Social Support (Unit Cohesion and Family Support). The objective of this study is to investigate PTSD risk factors the literature has identified. The goal of this research is to highlight risk factors for PTSD and increase the efficiency of the clinical interview process during the assessment phase of a clinical intake and treatment. The data comes from The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS) which includes the All-Army Study (ASS), and New Soldier Study (NSS), a de-identified cross-sectional survey of active-duty soldiers exclusive of those in Basic Combat Training or deployed to a combat theater. The de-identified research data comes from a 5-year study on risk and resiliency factors impacting our service members a total of N = 21,449. The overall model for this proposed analysist is based on the Diathesis Stress Model, also known as the vulnerability-stress model. The Diathesis Stress model made it possible to generate and study new hypotheses about the role of risk factors in causing mental health illness. A multiple regression model will be utilized to assess whether PTSD symptomology could be predicted by the following variables: history of child abuse, Attribution style, Moral Injury, Biological and Familial Risk Factors, Intelligence, Gender, and Social Support (Unit Cohesion and Family Support.) This dissertation will be available when complete in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

Media affect audience cognition and impact public and foreign policy decisions. People are influenced by the news narratives, and the sources from which the media obtain their information to report on political, economic, social, and security events influence what audiences internalize from the news. This study examines news narratives surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war from four media outlets within the two political camps: NATO allies (US and UK) and non-NATO allies (China and India). Through a document analysis of official government announcements for government positions and content analysis of news articles (n =230) examined for their news framing and source attribution strategies within the New York Times (US), Guardian (UK), China Daily (China), and The Times of India (India), the study finds that media objectivity remains a myth to news reporting and the unavailability of competing frames in the news report on the war across the media is an evidence of news reporting bias. The higher use of pro-Ukrainian sources within NATO ally media and pro-Russian sources within non-NATO ally media showed that political alliances influence media portrayal. Attribution of the cause of the war differed significantly across media with NATO ally media attributing the cause of the war to Russia/Putin whereas Chinese media made attributions to NATO and its allies (especially the U.S.). The research finds that the New York Times, the Guardian, and The Times of India used more provocative narratives against Putin/Russia in their news report, whereas China Daily's use of provocative narratives targeted only NATO. This research confirms the indexing and media propaganda hypothesis in reporting political and security events. The research also finds that news framing of the Russia-Ukraine war across both the NATO ally and non-NATO ally news outlets corresponded with the news media's home government's position of the conflict with US and UK media being pro-Ukrainian and China and Indi (open full item for complete abstract)

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Arts and Sciences: Chemistry

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), as a promising analytical tool, has been widely used due to the finger-print spectra of the molecular vibrations and the enhancement of signals between hotspots. In this dissertation, different synthesis methods of noble metal-containing nanoparticles have been explored and SERS applications of these nanoparticles in environmental and biological fields have been illustrated. In the first project, trichloroethylene (TCE) in environmental water was determined by SERS quantitatively. Au-core/Ag-shell nanoparticles with 4-mercaptophenylboronic acid (4-MPBA) embedded as internal reference were used as SERS substrates. TCE has little Raman signal, but it can react with 4-mercaptopyridine (4-MPy) through Fujiwara Reaction. 4-MPy was used as the SERS analyte, and the consumption of 4-MPy with the presence of TEC resulted in the intensity change of 4-MPy Raman signal at 1220 cm-1. The 4-MPBA signal at 534 cm-1 was used as an internal reference to normalize 4-MPy signal. The intensity ratio of 4-MPy/4-MPBA linearly decreased when the concentration of TEC increased between 0.2 and 1.0 µM. The detection limit of TCE was 8 ppb and this method was applied to detect TCE in spiked lake water successfully. In the second project, SERS was used as an analytical tool to detect polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in environmental soil. ß-cyclodextrin was conjugated to 4-MPBA modified gold nanoparticles to capture and bring the hydrophobic PAHs closer to the surface of gold nanoparticles. Pyrene and anthracene were used as the model PAHs, and 4-MPBA was used as an internal reference. The intensity ratio of pyrene/4-MPBA (580 cm-1/1570 cm-1) was linear in the 2 to 10 nM concentration range and the intensity ratio of anthracene/4-MPBA (750 cm-1/1570 cm-1) was linear in the 10 to 100 nM concentration range. This method was applied to determine pyrene and anthracene in a soil sample and the results had a good recovery when compared to the (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2020, Public Health

Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) has become a significant public health issue due to its growth in water distribution systems. In natural water systems L. pneumophila is often found in relatively low concentrations. However, in distribution systems it is able to thrive through the use of biofilms and invasion of larger host organisms such as protozoa. Additionally, the altered microbial ecology of water distribution systems seems to play a role in facilitating its ability to proliferate and persist. L. pneumophila can cause respiratory infections when contaminated water is aerosolized as it exits from distribution or premise plumbing systems and is then inhaled. Research has shown that some tap water organisms can exhibit inhibitory or commensal effects on L. pneumophila. Understanding more about these relationships will allow us to better estimate L. pneumophila concentrations in premise plumbing. A systematic literature review was conducted to gather relevant information regarding the interactions of L. pneumophila with tap water biofilm microbial ecology. From the resulting information a stochastic model has been produced to simulate (1) these interactions within a tap water biofilm and (2) the inhibitory or commensal effects on L. pneumophila concentrations. The model simulates the interactions of L. pneumophila within a tap water biofilm. These interactions are used to calculate the resulting L. pneumophila concentrations in the biofilm and bulk tap water. Theses concentrations are then used in a quantitative microbial risk analysis (QMRA) of a 15-minute showering event and used to determine the exposure hazard to humans and associated risk of L. pneumophila infection based off this novel ecological modeling method. The models that my method develops are a means of improving the precision of estimates for exposure of bacteria after its growth in premise plumbing. From this, we can better understand how communities of microorganisms in biofilms affect (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2019, College of Education and Human Services

Persistence to graduation for adult undergraduate students has been challenging for decades. Many adult learners enroll into the university with numerous sociodemographic characteristics that can hinder their success. Adult students must manage multiple roles and balance their personal, professional and student roles in order to succeed. Twenty-eight percent of first year undergraduate students will not return to college in their second year (American College Testing, 2012). The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between self-efficacy, academic success and persistence for undergraduate students through the lens of Donaldson & Graham's (1999) model of college outcomes for adult learners. The sample for this study represented 310 undergraduate students from two large urban public universities in the United States. This study measured the students' level of self-efficacy and academic persistence in college. The following surveys were employed for this study: the New General Self-Efficacy Scale (Chen, Gully and Eden, 2001) and the Social Integration and Persistence Scale (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980). Because this survey is nearly 40-years old, the researcher employed an exploratory factor analysis on the data which now suggest that there are six factors that measure academic persistence for adult learners in urban universities. These six factors include: (1) intellectual development, (2) peer group interaction, (3) non-classroom faculty interaction, (4) negative faculty interaction, (5) academic aspirations, and (6) university interconnectedness. This study suggests a significant positive correlation between five of the six factors, with exception to the factor: interconnectedness to the university. The findings suggest that there is a significant correlation between self-efficacy and undergraduate credit hours earned, but no significant correlation between self-efficacy and cumulative grade point average. The findings suggest that there is a posi (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2020, Food Science and Technology

Pomegranate juice is a complex mixture of structurally diverse compounds appearing in various concentrations and the composition of final product depends on several factors such as variety, geographical origin and adulteration. It is therefore an excellent system for assessing the potential of an analytical method for rapid, targeted and untargeted analysis. Here we tested the ability of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy techniques for the determination of pomegranate juice constituents and for evaluating the impact of various factors on its composition. The NMR spectra assignment was performed using the novel NOAH sequences and spiking with model compounds. Several metabolites including sugars, organic acids and amino acids were identified and quantified. Several internal standards were tested with potassium hydrogen phthalate and dimethylmalonic acid found to be the most appropriate, while MnCl2 was successfully tested as a relaxation agent for the reduction of the experimental time. Among the pulse sequences that were tested for their quantitative potential, the simple pulse-acquire, the z-stored inverse gated decoupling, the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) and the QEC-HSQC experiments gave the best results. 1D and 2D NMR-based untargeted analysis was able to differentiate between various pomegranate cultivars and geographical origins, as well as detect the adulteration with apple juice. This study provides the proof of concept for 1D and 2D NMR methods in the targeted/untargeted analysis of pomegranate juice and can be extended to other complex matrixes.

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2019, Journalism (Communication)

In the German federal election 2017, the party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) enters the Bundestag as the first right-wing populistic party after Nazi Germany. Combined with the fact that there is research gap on post-election coverage, this poses several questions. Which frames do German print media use to present the AfD election result, which dif-ferences are there between the newspapers and how does the framing develop over time? How negative is the party's portrayal? To answer these research questions, a quantitative content analysis is used to analyze articles focusing mainly on the AfD's result in the week after the election in six German newspapers. A descriptive analysis of frame elements identifies five frames. The ratio of the frames among the papers is almost the same, with the conflict frame being used the most. There is a significant difference between the papers regarding their implicit negativity about the AfD and their election result and a focus on issue framing. Apart from that, differences in the news coverage over the AfD between the papers are small. This study offers a first contribution to the research gap on post-election coverage.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2018, International and Comparative Politics

Separatist polities that have managed to break away from their parent states and meet the basic criteria for statehood seek other states' formal recognition to achieve full statehood and membership of the international society. There is no established pattern to explain external recognition of statehood empirically and theoretically. Kosovo declared independence and attained widespread recognition while Somaliland, despite successful separation from Somalia, has not. What factors explain states' recognition decisions, or the selective conferring of recognition? The existing literature indicates that national interests, domestic politics, systematic level factors, international legal and normative standards, regime type, and identity politics shape recognition decisions. This thesis attempted to enhance the literature by focusing on less-explored factors through a Large-N cross-national quantitative analysis of ten cases. This study argues that when all other potential explanations are constant or absent, susceptibility of states to domestic separatism, regime type, and religious affinities influence states' recognition decisions.