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Title: A framework for combining ancillary information with primary biometric traits
Creator: Ding, Yaohui
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "Biometric systems recognize individuals based on their biological attributes such as faces, fingerprints and iris. However, in several scenarios, additional ancillary information such as the biographic and demographic information of a user (e.g., name, gender, age, ethnicity), or the image quality of the biometric sample, anti-spoofing measurements, etc. may be available. While previous literature has studied the impact of such ancillary information on biometric system performance, there is...
Show more"Biometric systems recognize individuals based on their biological attributes such as faces, fingerprints and iris. However, in several scenarios, additional ancillary information such as the biographic and demographic information of a user (e.g., name, gender, age, ethnicity), or the image quality of the biometric sample, anti-spoofing measurements, etc. may be available. While previous literature has studied the impact of such ancillary information on biometric system performance, there is limited work on systematically incorporating them into the biometric matching framework. In this dissertation, we develop a principled framework to combine ancillary information with biometric match scores. The incorporation of ancillary information raises several challenges. Firstly, ancillary information such as gender, ethnicity and other demographic attributes lack distinctiveness and can be used to distinguish population groups rather than individuals. Secondly, ancillary information such as image quality and anti-spoof measurements may have different numerical ranges and interpretations. Further, most of the ancillary information cannot be automatically extracted without errors. Even the direct collection of ancillary information from subjects may be susceptible to transcription errors (e.g., errors in entering the data). Thirdly, the relationships between ancillary attributes and biometric traits may not be evident. In this regard, this dissertation makes three contributions. The first contribution entails the design of a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to model the relationship between biometric scores and ancillary factors, and exploiting the ensuing structure in a fusion framework. The ancillary information considered by the network includes image quality and anti-spoof measures. Experiments convey the importance of explicitly incorporating such information in a biometric system. The second contribution is the design of a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) that uses spline functions to model the correlation between match scores and ancillary attributes, and then learns a transformation function to normalize the match scores prior to fusion. The resulting framework can also be used to predict in advance if fusing match scores with certain demographic attributes is beneficial in the context of a specific biometric matcher. Experiments indicate that the proposed method can be used to significantly improve the recognition accuracy of state-of-the-art face matchers. The third contribution is the design of an ensemble of One Class Support Vector Machines (OC-SVMs) to combine multiple anti-spoofing measurements in order to mitigate the concerns associated with the issue of "imbalanced training sets" and "insufficient spoof samples" encountered by conventional anti-spoofing algorithms. In the proposed method, the spoof detection problem is formulated as a one-class problem, where the focus is on modeling a real fingerprint using multiple feature sets. The one-class classifiers corresponding to these multiple feature sets are then combined to generate a single classifier for spoof detection. Experimental results convey the importance of this technique in detecting spoofs made of materials that were not included in the training data. In summary, this dissertation seeks to advance our understanding of systematically exploiting ancillary information in designing effective biometric recognition systems by developing and evaluating multiple statistical models."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: Family income, the home environment, sustained attention, genetic susceptibility, and children's reading outcomes : a structural equation modeling analysis
Creator: Westdal, June N.
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Seemingly small reading delays in early childhood have the potential to compound into more considerable reading difficulties later in childhood (Bast & Reitsma, 1998; Foster & Miller, 2007). Children growing up in at-risk households are especially vulnerable to falling behind in reading. The objective of this study was to explore the successive interactions and indirect effects of environmental and within child variables that influence reading outcomes for at-risk children. The work was...
Show moreSeemingly small reading delays in early childhood have the potential to compound into more considerable reading difficulties later in childhood (Bast & Reitsma, 1998; Foster & Miller, 2007). Children growing up in at-risk households are especially vulnerable to falling behind in reading. The objective of this study was to explore the successive interactions and indirect effects of environmental and within child variables that influence reading outcomes for at-risk children. The work was informed by Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), prevailing models of children’s reading development (National Reading Council, 2000), and mediational theories on the effects of poverty (Yeung, Linver, & Brooks-Gunn, 2002). This study examined the associations between income, the early home environment (home literacy and maternal depression), sustained attention, genetic susceptibility, and children's reading outcomes in kindergarten and third-grade. Data were drawn from a nationally representative dataset of at-risk families and children, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). The primary analysis techniques were latent variable structural equation modeling (SEM) that examined the mediated and moderated pathways between environmental and within child variables. The final study sample consisted of approximately 2,062 children and their primary caregivers, mostly mothers. Several direct associations were significant. Results indicated that households with more income had children with better reading scores in kindergarten, but not in third grade. Children’s early sustained attention predicted their kindergarten and third-grade reading scores. Mothers’ endorsements of depression did not predict their children’s reading in kindergarten or third grade. Homes with more home literacy had children with higher reading scores in kindergarten, but the direct effects of the early home literacy environment did not persist until third grade. Analyses only supported the indirect path through the home literacy environment. More specifically, homes with more income had more enriched home literacy environments, and children exposed to better home literacy environments had better reading outcomes in kindergarten and third grade. Moderation analyses did not support the hypothesis that DRD4 long allele would differentiate the associations between income, home literacy environment, and children’s third-grade reading outcomes. Post- hoc analyses were conducted using two group SEM comparison testing. A unique and novel significant moderation effect was identified, where the DRD4 long allele moderated the direct association between the early home literacy environment and children’s kindergarten letter-word reading. The findings provide support for the importance of the home environment during the early developmental period and the genetic susceptibility of children with the DRD4 long allele during kindergarten.
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Title: Towards lignin valorization : pyrolytic and electrochemical upgrading of lignins extracted from pretreated biomass to valuable intermediates
Creator: Garedew, Mahlet
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Hydrocarbons, made from fossil petroleum, currently remain the most practical energy sources for transportation. But with current energy crisis and the implication of burning fossil fuels as one of the major contributors to climate change, the production of fuels from biomass has become a possible alternative to displace fossil-based fuels. Unfortunately, biomass suffers from two flaws: (1) Inefficiency: at best, plants only capture and store about 1% of the sun’s energy in chemical form; and...
Show moreHydrocarbons, made from fossil petroleum, currently remain the most practical energy sources for transportation. But with current energy crisis and the implication of burning fossil fuels as one of the major contributors to climate change, the production of fuels from biomass has become a possible alternative to displace fossil-based fuels. Unfortunately, biomass suffers from two flaws: (1) Inefficiency: at best, plants only capture and store about 1% of the sun’s energy in chemical form; and (2) Energy density: biomass has about one third of the energy that of hydrocarbons. So, deriving value from all components of biomass including lignin, optimizing conversion processes that can harness the chemical energy stored in biomasses efficiently, and converting biomass to fuels that are energy dense is essential. To this end, conventional biomass to ethanol conversion strategies utilize pretreatment methods such as extractive ammonia pretreatment (EA) and alkaline hydrogen peroxide pretreatment (AHP), to improve the rates and extents of subsequent hydrolysis of sugars and maximize biofuel yields. As part of the pretreatment method, EA and AHP also enable the recovery of lignin which is often combusted for heat and power production. Lignin however accounts for 40% of the energy of biomass and is one of the largest natural sources of renewable aromatic compounds so it can be an ideal candidate for the production of higher-value products that would otherwise be derived from petrochemical feedstocks. The challenges in lignin valorization however come from lignin’s complex structure that is naturally designed to be resistant to biological degradation. Thermochemical conversion processes such as fast pyrolysis offer a strategy for lignin depolymerization. During fast pyrolysis the feedstock (biomass, lignin, etc.) is liquefied by heating in an oxygen free environment to form biochar, combustible gas and bio-oil. The biochar co-product has potential for use in soil amendment and carbon sequestration. The combustible gas is often burned for heat and power production. The major product, bio-oil, has the potential to displace liquid hydrocarbon fuels. However, bio-oil’s reactive and corrosive nature along with its low energy content are major barriers for the adaption of this system. Classical catalytic upgrading is usually used to hydrogenate and deoxygenate bio-oil, often at high temperature and very high pressure. These severe conditions can result in barriers, such as catalyst deactivation. To avoid these conditions, electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) can be used to stabilize bio-oil via hydrogenation and deoxygenation of reactive components under mild conditions (25–80 ̊C and 1 atm).As lignin is converted to phenolic monomers, dimers, and oligomers upon pyrolysis, the transformation of lignin model compounds exhibiting similar bonding arrangements indicates the potential for lignin valorization using ECH. In this study, conversion, yield, and faradaic efficiency of ECH of model compounds derived from pyrolysis of lignins extracted from pretreated biomass are examined. ECH of these compounds is carried out using an activated carbon cloth supported ruthenium cathode. Having uncovered surprisingly easy aryl ether cleavages, the outcome of this research will provide understanding to further integrate biomass pretreatment, pyrolysis, and electrocatalysis systems for bio-oil stabilization and lignin valorization.
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Title: Functional data analysis with application to traffic flow data
Creator: Zhang, Yi-Chen
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Functional data has become increasingly popular in the recent statistical literature. Considerable attention has been paid to the development of functional data analysis. This thesis consists of four main chapters to address some important questions that arise from implementing FPCA in practice and to give answer to these questions. In Chapter 2, we investigate the problem of data preprocessing for functional data. We propose and analyzes a nonparametric functional data approach to missing...
Show moreFunctional data has become increasingly popular in the recent statistical literature. Considerable attention has been paid to the development of functional data analysis. This thesis consists of four main chapters to address some important questions that arise from implementing FPCA in practice and to give answer to these questions. In Chapter 2, we investigate the problem of data preprocessing for functional data. We propose and analyzes a nonparametric functional data approach to missing value imputation and outlier detection for functional data. In Chapter 3, a functional naive Bayes classifier has been proposed for functional data which provides a surrogate density estimation for functional random variables that makes a direct extension of density-based classical multivariate classification approaches to functional data classification possible. In Chapter 4, we merge two ideas of functional classification and functional prediction to develop a dynamical prediction for functional data. The proposed functional mixture prediction approach combines functional linear model with functional naive Bayes classifier. In Chapter 5, we suggest a two-step segmentation procedure to estimate both the number and locations of the mean change-points of a functional sequence. Finally, the thesis concludes with a brief discussion of future research directions.
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Title: Perceived Discrimination and Psychological Distress : the Moderating and Mediating Effects of Social Context among Asian Americans
Creator: Bista, Shikha
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study is based on secondary analyses of the National Latino And Asian American Study (NLAAS). Focusing on Asian Americans as an aggregate, and the three largest subgroups represented in the NLAAS (i.e., Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese Americans), this study investigated the extent to which (a) perceived discrimination predicted psychological distress, (b) social context variables (family cohesion, family conflict, neighborhood cohesion, subjective socioeconomic status) moderated the...
Show moreThis study is based on secondary analyses of the National Latino And Asian American Study (NLAAS). Focusing on Asian Americans as an aggregate, and the three largest subgroups represented in the NLAAS (i.e., Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese Americans), this study investigated the extent to which (a) perceived discrimination predicted psychological distress, (b) social context variables (family cohesion, family conflict, neighborhood cohesion, subjective socioeconomic status) moderated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress, and (c) measures of subjective socioeconomic status (SES) mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological distress. By testing these models separately for Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese American groups, results provided a more nuanced assessment of each group’s unique experience. The results indicated that perceived discrimination was significantly related to increased psychological distress in the total Asian American sample, and the three Asian ethnic groups, however, the moderation and mediation model revealed divergent patterns for each Asian ethnic group and for the aggregate sample. Therefore, the results of this study may have implications for understanding within-group variability in the Asian American community.
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Title: Identity management as a goal-oriented response to stigma communication at work : a self-regulation perspective
Creator: Chatterjee, Deepshikha
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In responding to stigma communication at work, people are often under the influence of environmental constraints that may significantly curtail the availability of different identity management strategies. This dissertation highlights that identity management in workplace settings should be seen as a goal-driven and norm-guided response. I present a conceptual model that opens up the black box of why people choose to accept or challenge stigma communication at work by integrating identity...
Show moreIn responding to stigma communication at work, people are often under the influence of environmental constraints that may significantly curtail the availability of different identity management strategies. This dissertation highlights that identity management in workplace settings should be seen as a goal-driven and norm-guided response. I present a conceptual model that opens up the black box of why people choose to accept or challenge stigma communication at work by integrating identity management and stigma literatures with self-regulation literature. Three multi-method studies were crafted. It was found that work environments indeed constrain possible identity management strategies in response to stigma communication. Under the press of self-enhancement goals women were more likely to accept stigma communication, and accepting stigma communication was implicated in higher levels of depletion and strain. Further, women were (a) more likely to choose accepting identity management strategies when stigma was communicated by their supervisors and clients, (b) less likely to challenge when clients communicated stigma, and (c) more likely to use challenge identity management strategies when they had high levels of coping self-efficacy, and also when they were high on promotion focus. Future research questions and practical recommendations are presented to help practitioners harness the value of diversity in organizations.
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Title: Measuring the accessibility of moral intuitions : a validation study of the Moral Foundations-Affect Misattribution Procedure (MF-AMP)
Creator: Prabhu, Sujay
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: It is important to study morality given its varied influences on our lives. Haidt and Joseph (2007) have traced morality to its instinctive roots. They have identified five mental systems (moral intuitions) that guide moral judgment: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity. This dissertation attempted to create and test an implicit instrument, known as Moral Foundations-Affect Misattribution Procedure (MF-AMP), to gauge the accessibility of these moral intuitions. Three studies were...
Show moreIt is important to study morality given its varied influences on our lives. Haidt and Joseph (2007) have traced morality to its instinctive roots. They have identified five mental systems (moral intuitions) that guide moral judgment: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity. This dissertation attempted to create and test an implicit instrument, known as Moral Foundations-Affect Misattribution Procedure (MF-AMP), to gauge the accessibility of these moral intuitions. Three studies were designed in order to validate the MF-AMP as a trait and state measure of moral intuitions. Results show that the MF-AMP can serve as a useful state measure of moral intuitions, and can serve as an accompaniment to the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2011) as a trait measure of moral intuitions.
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Title: Testing exposure to nostalgic messages as an alternative self-affirmation induction to reduce defensive processing and promote message acceptance
Creator: Cheng, Ying (College teacher)
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The study developed a communication-based induction of self-affirmation, and examined how it interacted with argument strength to reduce defensiveness and enhance the persuasiveness of a health message. Unlike traditional self-affirmation inductions that are behavior-based and involve instructing people to engage in a cumbersome task, this alternative induction affirms self-concepts through exposure to a personal nostalgic message. In study 1, this alternative induction was as effective as...
Show moreThe study developed a communication-based induction of self-affirmation, and examined how it interacted with argument strength to reduce defensiveness and enhance the persuasiveness of a health message. Unlike traditional self-affirmation inductions that are behavior-based and involve instructing people to engage in a cumbersome task, this alternative induction affirms self-concepts through exposure to a personal nostalgic message. In study 1, this alternative induction was as effective as the traditional method of ranking values and writing an essay to affirm positive attributes. Study 2 tested whether the alternative induction can offer a broader perspective of the self and generate stronger positive other-directed emotions in the same way as traditional self-affirmation methods used by previous research, and whether these psychological outcomes can interact with argument strength to enhance message acceptance via mitigating defensive processing. A 2 (self-affirmation: personal nostalgic message vs. control) × 2 (argument strength: strong vs. weak) between-group online experiment showed that exposure to a personal nostalgic message (vs. control message) produced broader perspectives of the self and greater other-directed emotions. However, the data were inconsistent with the predicted interaction effects. Rather, there were only main effects of argument strength on reducing defensiveness and promoting attitudes and intentions to adopt the message recommendation. Although the alternative induction did not replicate the persuasive outcome of traditional self-affirmation methods observed in previous research, this study served as a beginning to investigate how communication can play a central role in affirming self-concepts to promote acceptance of a persuasive message. The practical implications of developing a message-based self-affirmation for campaign professionals are discussed. -- Abstract.
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Title: Essays in industrial organization
Creator: Kim, Hyunsoo (Economist)
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The first essay "Tying and Platforms’ R&D Incentives in Two-sided markets" analyzes how the tying arrangements can affect platforms’ R&D incentives in two-sided markets under the possibility of multi-homing. The model shows that when all consumers single-home, the tying distorts platforms’ R&D incentives because the tying acts as a commitment device to invest aggressively in R&D, leading to rival firm being foreclosed in the R&D decision stage even if the tying does not have exclusionary...
Show moreThe first essay "Tying and Platforms’ R&D Incentives in Two-sided markets" analyzes how the tying arrangements can affect platforms’ R&D incentives in two-sided markets under the possibility of multi-homing. The model shows that when all consumers single-home, the tying distorts platforms’ R&D incentives because the tying acts as a commitment device to invest aggressively in R&D, leading to rival firm being foreclosed in the R&D decision stage even if the tying does not have exclusionary effect in the price competition. However, when exclusive contents are offered to each platform so that some of the consumers can engage in multi-homing, the tying raises the rival firm’s R&D incentives as well as the tying firm’s R&D incentives. This is because i) tying induces more consumers to multi-home so that total demand of consumers for both platforms can be increased and ii) the strategic effect in R&D competition disappears in the multi-homing case on the consumer side, implying that the rival firm’s R&D incentives is not affected by more aggressive R&D investment of tying firm. Thus, the anti-competitiveness of tying involved with innovation can vary depending on the possibility of consumer’s multi-homing.The second essay "Information Sharing and R&D Incentives" investigates how sharing of cost information affects firms’ incentives to invest in cost reduction and the role of the observability of rivals’ R&D investment level. I study duopoly price competition with cost reducing R&D in three cases: the complete information case, unobservable investment case and observable investment case. The opponents’ cost information is unknown in both the unobservable investment case and the observable investment case, but the investment level is unobservable and observable, respectively. I find that firms have identical incentives of investment in the complete information and the unobservable investment case, whereas they will tend to underinvest in cost reduction when the investment level is observable because a negative strategic effect makes investment less profitable. Due to this underinvestment, welfare and the consumer surplus decrease in the observable investment case. These results have implications for the analysis of information sharing in markets where cost reduction activities are important.The third essay "The Grandfather of Price Discrimination", coauthored with Brady Vaughan and Aleks Yankelevich, examines firms’ motivations for implementing grandfather clauses that allow certain consumers to continue access to a service at a favorable, but no longer available price. We find that when consumers are fully cognizant of their valuations for available product alternatives, firms are typically better off offering all potential consumers the optimal uniform price. However, if grandfathered consumers are made complacent, failing to reevaluate the service over time, grandfather clauses may permit firms to profitably price discriminate between early adopters and new consumers in exchange for forfeiting the right to optimally set prices for early adopters.
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Title: Control function methods in applied econometrics
Creator: Joshi, Riju
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "This dissertation considers estimation and inference in three econometric models containing issues commonly encountered with observational data. Fundamental issues of self-selection, endogeneity, missing observations are pervasive in observational data. Moreover, often, the observations in a dataset are rarely statistically independent and have complex dependence structures. These issues can have a significant effect on the causal effect analysis and pose serious limitations on the popular...
Show more"This dissertation considers estimation and inference in three econometric models containing issues commonly encountered with observational data. Fundamental issues of self-selection, endogeneity, missing observations are pervasive in observational data. Moreover, often, the observations in a dataset are rarely statistically independent and have complex dependence structures. These issues can have a significant effect on the causal effect analysis and pose serious limitations on the popular methodologies that either maintain restrictive assumptions and/or require complicated and computationally tedious solutions.The dissertation aims to apply control function method as the primary tool to design estimation procedures under relaxed distributional and functional form assumptions. I describe computationally simple solutions to these issues to obtain more precise results. These estimation procedures are obtained under relaxed distributional and functional form assumptions allowing a researcher to incorporate more variability (or heterogeneity)."--from abstract.
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Title: FACTORS AFFECTING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN MICHIGAN
Creator: Feig, Jason
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Graduation rates for high school students across the country have long been a focus for educators and policy makers. More specifically, graduating students with disabilities has consistently been a greater challenge for school districts. School leadership is complex and special education presents school leaders with an even greater challenge in an era of comprehensive school reform. Research suggests that the principal’s role is crucial in the special education process leading to positive...
Show moreGraduation rates for high school students across the country have long been a focus for educators and policy makers. More specifically, graduating students with disabilities has consistently been a greater challenge for school districts. School leadership is complex and special education presents school leaders with an even greater challenge in an era of comprehensive school reform. Research suggests that the principal’s role is crucial in the special education process leading to positive outcomes for students with disabilities. Over the last twenty years, the relationship between school leadership and special education has not received much focus. Until recently, the school principal’s job was narrowly defined as a manager and school disciplinarian. With increased attention to school performance, the school principal is being asked to pay attention and impact the instructional outcomes within their schools. Effective leaders committed to success of all students could engage other members of the school team and could advance outcomes for all students, particularly students with disabilities. Skilled school leaders that invest the time necessary to create policies and procedures that are well defined and understood throughout the building help to facilitate greater opportunities among students. In sum, principals that can foster both clear communication and collaboration help to ensure that the school team is well equipped to handle the many challenges associated with graduating students with disabilities on time.
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Title: The role of salient cultural discourses and socialization experiences in South Asian women's agency in intimate and sexual relationships
Creator: Sankar, Sudha
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Evidence suggests that South Asian adolescents delay premarital sexual debut and engage in lower rates of sexual intercourse in adolescence compared to their Euro-American, African-American and Hispanic-American counterparts. Due to this belief, they are seen as a low risk population and therefore understudied. However, sexual coercion by intimate partners in the form of threat of exposure of premarital sexual activities, forced sexual activities and threat of separation and abandonment from...
Show moreEvidence suggests that South Asian adolescents delay premarital sexual debut and engage in lower rates of sexual intercourse in adolescence compared to their Euro-American, African-American and Hispanic-American counterparts. Due to this belief, they are seen as a low risk population and therefore understudied. However, sexual coercion by intimate partners in the form of threat of exposure of premarital sexual activities, forced sexual activities and threat of separation and abandonment from both marital and dating partners upon refusal of sex, has been documented in prior research with this population. In this critical ethnography, a sample of 20 South Asian women (22-34 years) participated in in-depth individual interviews. Inquiries include questions about manifestations of beliefs and behaviors embodying agency in relation to partnering and sexuality. Analysis of this qualitative data revealed the intricate links between young women's demonstrated agency in the context of partnering and sexuality and their perceptions of cultural discourses and socialization processes within their families. Participants' mothers' interactions and socialization practices emerged as central to their narratives of agency and mothers interacted with their daughters in culturally specific ways. This study has implications for the development of sexual assault prevention programs for South Asian families and potential applications to task-shifting models of public health programming.
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Title: Neural differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells is dependent on the neuron restrictive silencer factor
Creator: Thompson, Ryan D.
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) exist as an adult stem cell in major reservoirs primarily in the bone marrow and adipose tissue. Under normal physiologic conditions, MSCs serve mainly as the progenitor cell for adipocytes, chondrocytes, and osteocytes. The plasticity of MSCs has led researchers to investigate differentiation beyond their canonical lineages and since, in vitro studies have shown that MSCs can be induced to differentiate into renal cells, beta/islet cells, hepatocytes,...
Show moreMesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) exist as an adult stem cell in major reservoirs primarily in the bone marrow and adipose tissue. Under normal physiologic conditions, MSCs serve mainly as the progenitor cell for adipocytes, chondrocytes, and osteocytes. The plasticity of MSCs has led researchers to investigate differentiation beyond their canonical lineages and since, in vitro studies have shown that MSCs can be induced to differentiate into renal cells, beta/islet cells, hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes, and even neurons. Differentiated MSCs exhibit changes in gene marker expression, morphology, and even gain functional characteristics. Previously, our lab has shown that neural-like characteristics can be induced in MSCs by exposure to the cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) elevating compounds, forskolin and isobutylmethylxanthine (IBMX). In addition to short-term neural-like morphology changes, MSCs gain expression of neural markers as well as sensitivity to dopamine. However, a molecular mechanism to explain why cAMP elevating compounds would have a proneural effect in MSCs is lacking. Differentiation of stem cells into a mature phenotype is strongly driven by transcription factors within a cell. Some transcription factors control regulation of so many genes required for the mature differentiated cell type that they are termed master transcriptional regulators. For example, during osteogenesis, the master transcriptional regulator Runx2 is essential for differentiation of MSCs to osteocytes. Yang et al. demonstrated that silencing the master transcriptional regulator, NRSF, in MSCs could induce several neural characteristics. Therefore, I hypothesized and went on to show that forskolin and IBMX could be driving neural-like differentiation of MSCs by regulating NRSF. Neural differentiation of MSCs has also been studied from a tissue engineering perspective. In particular, it has been demonstrated in several types of stem cells that culture on very soft substrates can promote neural differentiation. This phenomenon shows that stem cell differentiation can also be influenced by physical characteristics in its environment. However, the molecular mechanisms explaining how cells can sense and respond to soft surfaces to affect differentiation are still vaguely characterized. We hypothesized that since soft surfaces induce neural-like differentiation in stem cells that maybe soft surfaces were somehow affecting NRSF. We go on to show that soft PDMS somehow affects NRSF within MSCs and that this is the main driver of neural-like differentiation from soft surfaces. The aims of both projects show that neural differentiation in MSCs can be induced by both small molecules and the physical environment. Seemingly disparate stimuli are connected due to their ability to downregulate expression of NRSF. These studies highlight the role of transcription factors in determining stem cell fate and show that their modulation can even transdifferentiate cells across their germ line barriers.
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Title: “THE CHINESE ARE COMING” : A HISTORY OF CHINESE MIGRANTS IN NIGERIA
Creator: Liu, Shaonan
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: My dissertation examines the historical and contemporary migration of Chinese people to Nigeria as well as their interaction with the Nigerian state, workers, and consumers in late colonial and post-independence Nigeria. Beginning in the 2000s, Chinese migrants, together with Chinese products, have indeed greatly influenced the economy of Africa, and particularly Nigeria; but the significant Chinese presence in Nigeria is not a particularly recent phenomenon. As early as the 1960s, an...
Show moreMy dissertation examines the historical and contemporary migration of Chinese people to Nigeria as well as their interaction with the Nigerian state, workers, and consumers in late colonial and post-independence Nigeria. Beginning in the 2000s, Chinese migrants, together with Chinese products, have indeed greatly influenced the economy of Africa, and particularly Nigeria; but the significant Chinese presence in Nigeria is not a particularly recent phenomenon. As early as the 1960s, an influential yet understudied group of Chinese migrants began to dominate key manufacturing industries in Nigeria, including textiles, footwear, and enamelware, controlling more than 50 percent of the Nigerian and even the West African market in these three product types. These early Chinese immigrants had a profound influence not only on the economy, but also on the daily lives of ordinary Nigerians. What factors have pulled and pushed Chinese migrants to Nigeria? How have early and recent waves of Chinese migration influenced the local economy and people’s daily lives? How have the meanings of Chinese products to different groups of Nigerians changed over time, and how have these groups made cultural as well as economic sense of these products? How have Chinese transnational networks of information, capital, and goods interacted with African networks, institutions, communities, and individuals?Combining archival records, oral history interviews, and participant observation, I will examine the long-term and recent influence of Chinese activities on Nigerian societies and economies. I argue that the Chinese presence in Nigeria was a historical and evolving concept that changed over time, varied with place, and differed by targeted groups. Hong Kong Chinese industrialists who built factories, employed Nigerian workers, and manufactured products locally in the 1960s had a different influence from the mainland Chinese traders who imported made-in-China products and undermined local manufacturing industries from the 1990s onward. Therefore, by focusing on Chinese migrants in Nigeria and placing them in a wider historical context of Nigerian industrialization from the era of decolonization to the present, my dissertation challenges the Eurocentric narrative of Chinese migrants’ role as laborers and reveals how different groups of Chinese migrants—entrepreneurs, traders, and workers—were shaped by, and in turn shaped, the history of both Nigeria and China. However, this transnational influence was not unidirectional. I also argue that it was the changing policy of Nigerian governments, the evolving preference of Nigerian consumers, and decisions of Nigerian traders that attracted both the early wave of Chinese industrialists and the later wave of Chinese traders and products to come. It was also the broader historical context of Nigeria— decolonization, industrialization, civil war, and economic crisis—that determined the destiny of Chinese migrants in the country.
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Title: Cost Prediction and Life Cycle Assessment of Woody Biomass Supply-Chain in Michigan
Creator: Lin, Yingqian
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: As a state with rich forest resources and a good transportation system, Michigan is in a position to promote the use of woody biomass for bioenergy production. To achieve sustainable development in Michigan’s woody biomass supply chain, the goals this research were to: 1) to develop a cost prediction model in Excel using Visual Basic for Application (VBA) programming language; 2) to perform cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to account for the GHG emissions, energy return on...
Show moreAs a state with rich forest resources and a good transportation system, Michigan is in a position to promote the use of woody biomass for bioenergy production. To achieve sustainable development in Michigan’s woody biomass supply chain, the goals this research were to: 1) to develop a cost prediction model in Excel using Visual Basic for Application (VBA) programming language; 2) to perform cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to account for the GHG emissions, energy return on investment, and nutrient removal; and 3) to design an eco-efficient (Define) woody biomass supply chain with minimal logistic cost and GHG emissions in Michigan. Five woody biomass production systems were monitored to develop predictive regression equations for different harvesting machines and to predict the total production cost of woody biomass in Michigan. Based on the predictive machine productivity equations and machine hourly cost obtained from each studied system, a spreadsheet model was developed in Excel 2016 using VBA programming language. In order to better understand field storage of woody biomass, 5 studies were conducted to monitor the biomass quality (biomass Higher Heating Value (HHV) and biomass moisture content) change under different storage forms (wood logging residues piles and wood chips piles). The results indicated that storing woody biomass in logging residue pile could effectively reduce the biomass moisture content and maintain the HHV at a stable level. On the contrary, increases in moisture content were observed in all wood chips piles. Based on the above findings, an improved operations system structured with linear programming was developed for minimizing the total cost of woody biomass preprocessing, storage, and transportation. The operation details suggested by the improved operations system can be used as a guideline of real operations to achieve the lowest possible operations cost. To evaluate the total GHG emissions, energy return on investment and nutrient removal in each studied biomass production system, five cradle-to-grave LCAs were performed. Results suggested that over 90% of GHG emissions were from the combustion stage, which can be effectively reduced by increasing biomass HHV and decreasing biomass moisture content. Including soil carbon sequestration in LCA can largely offset the total global warming effect caused by woody biomass production and utilization. However, a better approach is needed to estimate soil carbon sequestration to avoid uncertainties caused by vegetation types, considered soil depth, and time duration. A multi-criteria optimization framework was developed to design a woody biomass supply chain with minimal GHG emissions and production cost in Michigan. The trade-off between rising cost and reducing GHG emissions was that by increasing the cost by 1.46 ¢/kWh, the total GHG emissions could be reduced by 0.66 kg CO2-eq/kWh. The sensitivity analysis indicated that biomass HHV and biomass moisture content had a larger impact on the optimized solutions and the trade-offs, as compared to the transportation distance. This again, confirmed that in order to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the woody biomass supply chain, future research efforts should be spent on improving the HHV and decreasing the moisture content of woody biomass.
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Title: "Type-C" : empowerment, blame, and gender in the creation of a carcinogenic personality
Creator: Pratt, Carolyn Maria
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The belief that mind-set and emotional well-being can improve cancer survival time has become something of a truism in the United States. Despite claims that this is a commonsense and consistent belief which stretches back to Galen, mind-body approaches to cancer have varied radically in response to changing social and cultural contexts. This dissertation tracks shifting meanings of this claim and the varying institutional acceptance of it from the rise of psychosomatic medicine in the 1930s...
Show more"The belief that mind-set and emotional well-being can improve cancer survival time has become something of a truism in the United States. Despite claims that this is a commonsense and consistent belief which stretches back to Galen, mind-body approaches to cancer have varied radically in response to changing social and cultural contexts. This dissertation tracks shifting meanings of this claim and the varying institutional acceptance of it from the rise of psychosomatic medicine in the 1930s and 40s to the embrace of Contemporary and Alternative Therapies (CAM) in the 1990s. Through the 1950s and 60s, claims of a connection between mind, carcinogenesis, and survival were shaped by psychoanalytic theory and case narratives which reinforced a restrictive view of femininity. However, by the 1970s, mind-body medicine reflected newer gender roles and more eclectic beliefs about psychology. Of the cancer patients depicted in these later case narratives, women were often seen as over-reliant on family for personal fulfillment and lacking in opportunities for personal growth. Men with cancer were often depicted as caught within pathological versions of masculinity. Fixed gender roles came to be seen as potentially carcinogenic. Despite the increasingly feminist tone of these case narratives, there were growing disagreements about whether or not mind-body approaches were empowering or blame-ridden which stretched from feminist collectives to medical journals. In order to show these shifts, I analyze debates within medical journals, the shifting claims in popular self-help books, news reports, the notes and drafts of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, the papers of the Office of Technology Assessment, tobacco industry documents, and Norman Cousins' papers. In these sources, it is possible to see the diverse motivations that encouraged people to advocate for mind-body cancer care. Many doctors were motivated by their insecurities about the growing interest in alternative medicine. Feminists adapted these ideas in ways that more closely matched their beliefs and goals. The tobacco industry had a clear financial incentive to find explanations for cancer that did not point to the carcinogens in cigarettes. Mind-body cancer literature is also an exceptionally useful lens for understanding changing ideas about emotional well-being, particularly as they tie to gender. Case narratives distill key beliefs about what it means to be healthy and well-adjusted, making it possible to see how gender roles change over time and what people believe the consequences might be for failing to conform. This literature also helps to show changing assumptions about the responsibility of the individual patient for healing, and changing beliefs about whether or not the natural world is inherently fair, just, or good."--Abstract.
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Title: Financial vulnerability : how exposure to the world economy influences debt sustainability and respect for human rights
Creator: Hansen, Daniel Scott
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: A defining feature of the post-World War II global order has been the continued integration of national economies, and much scholarship has investigated the general impact which this integration has had on national outcomes ranging from development (both economic and political) to security (whether it impacts the likelihood of war). In this dissertation, I examine not simply integration itself but the manner of integration which has an important influence on world affairs. Specifically, I...
Show moreA defining feature of the post-World War II global order has been the continued integration of national economies, and much scholarship has investigated the general impact which this integration has had on national outcomes ranging from development (both economic and political) to security (whether it impacts the likelihood of war). In this dissertation, I examine not simply integration itself but the manner of integration which has an important influence on world affairs. Specifically, I investigate what conditions render a country vulnerable to international financial markets, and what impact this financial vulnerability has on important national outcomes. In the first chapter, I examine a long-held theory of financial market discipline which argues that market exposure induces prudent fiscal policies by governments. To date, there has not been a clear and systematic demonstration that markets actually have this effect, and so here I theorize the most likely market conditions which may give rise to fiscal discipline. While I demonstrate that there is little evidence in favor of the market discipline hypothesis, I highlight alternate pathways of political competition which do lead to improvements in fiscal budgeting practices.In the second chapter, I examine another widely held theory, that democratic institutions foster the credibility of debt repayment, the so called “democratic advantage”. Focusing on developing countries, I show that democracies under financial stress – countries with high levels of debt and low levels of foreign exchange reserves – actually have worse sovereign credit ratings than their autocratic counterparts. I argue that this occurs because democratic institutions can inhibit or slow a policy response when there is a pressing need for economic adjustment. Further illustrating the causal mechanism, I show that high debt levels reduce credit ratings, but only in more democratic countries. I therefore show that when debt commitments are most difficult uphold, in the developing world autocracies actually fare better than democracies, offering an important theoretical advance in how we understand democratic institutions relate to economic stability.In the last chapter, I examine an important dilemma in economic statecraft – that the use of human rights sanctions has the perverse effect of worsening a countries’ human rights practices. Drawing on a similar conception of financial vulnerability, I argue that countries with high levels of financial vulnerability will more closely approximate the ability of the ruling elite to suffer financial hardship as a consequence of the sanctions, in ways unexplained simply by economic wealth alone. As a consequence, I show that, contrary to the literature, financially vulnerable countries actually improve their human rights practices when sanctions are imposed. This therefore demonstrates that sanctions can have a positive impact even in difficult cases which aim to coerce national use of repressive strategies. It further highlights the types of sanctions tools which are most like to be efficacious given a countries exposure to the world economy.
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Title: Predictors of help-seeking behaviors of sexually victimized males in the United States : a secondary data analysis utilizing the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey
Creator: Cummings, Cristy Elizabeth
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "This study explores three levels of help-seeking behaviors in male victims of sexual violence through analysis of secondary data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. " -- Abstract.

Title: Transport of diterpenes between the plastid and endoplasmic reticulum
Creator: Johnny, Cassandra
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Plant cells are highly compartmentalized with membranes that delineate organelles and provide physical barriers against movement of proteins and compounds. Many metabolic pathways span subcellular compartments, which necessitates transport of pathway intermediates between compartments. Diterpenes number more than 12,000 structures and whose syntheses are prime examples of membrane-spanning plant metabolic pathways. Plastid-localized diterpene synthases cyclize the universal precursor...
Show morePlant cells are highly compartmentalized with membranes that delineate organelles and provide physical barriers against movement of proteins and compounds. Many metabolic pathways span subcellular compartments, which necessitates transport of pathway intermediates between compartments. Diterpenes number more than 12,000 structures and whose syntheses are prime examples of membrane-spanning plant metabolic pathways. Plastid-localized diterpene synthases cyclize the universal precursor geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGDP) into various diterpene olefins that are then trafficked into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) for further oxidation reactions by ER-resident cytochrome P450s. Fifty-three plastid envelope transporters have been identified and characterized and all but two move polar metabolites and most notably, none have been identified for non-polar diterpene olefins. A previous study showed that plastid-localized tocopherol and carotenoid precursors were accessible in a bidirectional fashion from the ER lumen, suggesting that a novel interface exists between plastids and the ER that could allow access of non-polar compounds between the two organelles independent of transporters. In this dissertation, the accessibility of diterpene olefins between the plastid and ER was studied using two diterpene pathways, the gibberellin (GA) and diterpene resin acid (DRA) pathways. In Chapter 2, the accessibility of ent-kaurene synthesized in the ER lumen by outer envelope membrane-localized kaurene oxidase is tested by retargeting both plastid-localized copalyl diphosphate synthase (CPS) and kaurene synthase (KS) into the ER in Arabidopsis mutant backgrounds lacking both activities. Access to ER-synthesized ent-kaurene was evidenced by complementation of the dwarf mutant phenotypes. Surprisingly, the polar intermediate, ent-copalyl diphosphate (ent-CDP) was also shown to be accessible in a unidirectional fashion from the ER back into the plastid. This was observed by complementation of the dwarf phenotype of the CPS mutant, ga1-6, by ER-targeted CPS. Localization studies of ER-targeted CPS-YFP protein in transgenic lines showed that ER:CPS-YFP was correctly targeted to the ER lumen. Metabolite analysis of various GA intermediates showed levels in the ER:CPS-YFP lines similar to WT. In Chapter 3, the accessibility of conifer-specific diterpene olefins, abietadiene and isopimaradiene by ER-localized CYP720B4 was investigated. These diterpene olefins were produced in stable Arabidopsis transgenic lines by overexpressing plastid-localized abietadiene and isopimaradine synthases. Expression of these conifer-specific bifunctional diterpene synthases however, only resulted in extremely low levels of the corresponding diterpene olefins. The low levels of the bifunctional diterpene synthase proteins produced, coupled to the apparent inability of these proteins to form productive complexes with the existing GGDP-producing machinery in Arabidopsis are the most likely explanations for the low levels of diterpene olefins produced. As a whole, the work in this dissertation provided more insight into the transport of ent-CDP and ent-kaurene in the GA pathway and that the transport processes for the two compounds are most likely mediated by two separate mechanisms.
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Title: Elucidating factors underlying parent-offspring similarity in eating pathology in pre- and early puberty : exploring the possibility of passive gene-environment correlation
Creator: O'Connor, Shannon Marie
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "Objective: Eating pathology has been found to aggregate in families. Typically, familial resemblance has been attributed to parents providing an environment that leads to the development of eating pathology. However, offspring raised by biological parents receive both their environment and genes from their parents, raising the possibility that genetic influences, environmental influences, and/or gene-environment interplay may account for familial resemblance. Past studies have not explored...
Show more"Objective: Eating pathology has been found to aggregate in families. Typically, familial resemblance has been attributed to parents providing an environment that leads to the development of eating pathology. However, offspring raised by biological parents receive both their environment and genes from their parents, raising the possibility that genetic influences, environmental influences, and/or gene-environment interplay may account for familial resemblance. Past studies have not explored the possibility of parents' genes influencing the environment they provide (i.e., passive gene-environment correlations or "passive rGE"). If present, passive rGE is most likely to "hide" in estimates of shared environmental influences in classical twin models. The current study used a nuclear twin family design to explore the possibility of passive rGE during pre-/early puberty when past studies have demonstrated the importance of shared environmental influence. Additionally, the present study explored whether sibling-specific (i.e. influences specific to the twin generation) or family-specific (i.e., "cultural" influences within the home) shared environmental influences accounted for shared environmental influences found in past studies. Methods: Participants included pre-/early pubertal twins and their biological parents from the Minnesota Twin Family Study and the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Disordered eating (i.e., overall disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, weight preoccupation, binge eating) was assessed with self-report measures in the twins and parents. Pubertal status was determined using an established cut-off on a self-report measure. Results: Passive rGE was not indicated in pre-/early puberty. Instead, sibling-specific (not family-specific) shared environmental and nonshared environmental influences were most influential. Conclusions: Future research should explore parental influences that may impact the twin generation only (e.g., parenting style, parents' comments about weight/shape to their offspring, etc.), as this would be represented by sibling-specific environmental influences."--Page ii.
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