cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-658736
title: Mechanical properties of yttria-stabilized zirconia ceramics

description: Superplasticity is a well-known characteristic of Y₂O₃-stabilized tetragonal zirconia (3Y-TZP) ceramic composites at elevated temperatures. The present investigation was originated to evaluate the potential of producing zirconia ceramics suitable for achieving superplasticity. ❧ High purity 3 mol% Y₂O₃-stabilized tetragonal zirconia (3Y-TZP) ceramic composites containing 20 wt% alumina were successfully consolidated by application of Cold Isostatic Pressing (CIP) followed by a subsequent sintering process. Constant-stress tensile creep experiments at elevated temperatures were conducted in order to examine plastic deformation behavior of the material. In addition to mechanical testing data, the microstructure observations confirmed superplastic properties of the ceramic composite. ❧ It is also known that in order to attain High Strain Rate Superplasticity (HSRS) in zirconia ceramics, it is essential to retain a stable fine-grained microstructure at high temperatures. Experiments have confirmed that adding a second soft phase such as spinel can facilitate to reach high strain-rate superplasticity in zirconia ceramics by suppressing grain growth during sintering process and enhancing cation diffusion. ❧ In the present investigation, homogenous 3Y-TZP ceramic composite powders containing 30 vol% MgAl₂O₄ spinel were successfully prepared through both physical-based and chemical-based methods. An electric current-activated method known as Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) was employed for powder consolidation process. This is a very rapid electric current-activated sintering technique having a heating rate of 300 K/min.  The powder preparation and consolidation steps were carried out over a wide range of conditions to ensure a homogenous nanocomposite. The experiments showed that fully-dense zirconia ceramics with an average initial grain size of the order of ~100 nm can be sintered at the relatively low processing temperature of 1373 K in 10 min. ❧ In order to study the superplastic behavior of the nanocomposite, creep tensile tests were performed in a temperature range of 1623—1723 K under different stress levels. Deformation mechanisms were investigated by detailed microstructure observations and quantitative evaluation of crystallite orientations using scanning electron microscopy and synchrotron radiation techniques.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-664781
title: Creating and maintaining a student-centered culture at an international branch campus: a case study examining the roles of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Singapore campus

description: In August 2006 the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), through its internationally recognized program in Hospitality Administration, opened its first international branch campus in Singapore and graduated its first undergraduate cohort of 34 students in 2009.  UNLV Singapore quickly expanded its scope of service; in the first three years undergraduate enrollment increased by 40 percent.  In March 2010, UNLV Singapore partnered with the Singapore Institute of Technology to increase access for undergraduate Singaporean students and in August 2010, UNLV Singapore welcomed its largest cohort to date, 280 first-year students.  UNLV Singapore purports to accomplish its student and researched-focused mission by creating and sustaining a student-centered learning environment.  A single case study was conducted to determine how this Singapore campus differs from traditional brick and mortar home institutions in seeking to create and maintain a student-centered campus environment for UNLV's undergraduate program.  Specifically, this case study addressed the formal and informal roles of faculty, staff, and students at the Singapore location and how they contributed to the creation and maintenance of the institutional culture. ❧ The principal finding from the analysis of interviews, participant observation, and written materials is that UNLV created a student-centered environment at its first international branch campus in Singapore by supporting holistic student development through elements found in the curriculum, co-curriculum, community, and culture.  The results of student, faculty, and staff interviews demonstrate that the founding dean was the catalyst for creating an environment oriented to educating and producing student leaders that would become leaders in the hospitality industry.  Students were given a variety of opportunities to assume informal and formal roles through the co-curriculum that allowed for the culture to grow and develop from student cohort to student cohort.  Faculty and staff supported this process by engaging students both in and out of the classroom and promoting collaborative assignments and activities.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-122928
title: A study to explore the relationship between therapist behavior and clients' experience of the psychotherapeutic session
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-139067
title: Job-loss and the worker: Attitudes and perceptions of former employees of an automated company in a rapidly expanding urban area
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-315407
title: Steel stories: remembering steel guitar players from Los Angeles' country music history

description: This thesis centers around local musicians who play the pedal steel guitar. Understanding their stories required looking into the history of country music in Southern California as well as the development of the instrument itself. I spoke with an older generation of musicians about their careers. My main lines of inquiry included the future of the pedal steel guitar, stylistic and technological innovations of playing it, the emotions tied to being a backup musician, what happens to endangered instruments and what are the conditions for its revival.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-326279
title: Structural and biochemical studies of a molecular machine SV40 large T antigen

description: Simian Virus 40 Large Tumor Antigen (LT) is an essential enzyme that plays a vital role in viral DNA replication. As a replicative helicase and initiator, LT assembles as a double-hexamer at the SV40 origin to initiate genomic replication. LT then converts the chemical energy derived from the hydrolysis of ATP into the mechanical work required for unwinding replication forks. It has been demonstrated that even though LT primarily utilizes ATP to unwind DNA, other NTPs and dNTPs can also partially satisfy the nucleotide requirement for its DNA helicase activity. Despite studies on specific LT residues involved in ATP coordination and hydrolysis, no systematic study has been done to elucidate the residues participating in the selective usage of different nucleotides by LT. In this study, we performed a systematic mutational analysis around the nucleotide pocket and identified residues regulating the specificity for ATP, TTP and UTP in LT DNA unwinding. ❧ DNA replication is a fundamental biological process. The initial step in eukaryotic DNA replication is the assembly of the pre-initiation complex, including the formation of two head-to-head hexameric helicases around the replication origin. How these hexameric helicases interact with its origin dsDNA remains unknown. Here, we report the co-crystal structure of the SV40 Large-T Antigen (LT) hexameric helicase bound to its origin dsDNA. The structure shows that the six subunits form a near planar ring to interact with the origin, resulting in each subunit making unique contacts with DNA. The origin dsDNA inside the narrower AAA+ domain channel shows partial melting due to the compression of the two phosphate backbones, forcing Watson-Crick base-pairs within the duplex to flip outward. This structure provides the first snapshot of a hexameric helicase binding to origin dsDNA and suggests a possible mechanism of origin melting by LT for SV40 replication in eukaryotic cells.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-327881
title: The impact of networks and mentorships to champion women as superintendents in southern California

description: The purpose of this study was to understand and analyze the degree to which southern California women superintendents utilized networks and mentorships and the impact it had in their career advancement. More specifically, this study set out to determine: 1) what barriers do women perceive hinder their access to the superintendent position, 2) what professional supports are vailable to women as new superintendents, 3) what networking opportunities assist women in their pursuit of the superintendency, and 4) what are the best networking methods used by women to ascend to the role of superintendent. This study utilized a mixed-method methodology. For the qualitative data, electronic surveys were distributed to 45 superintendents for a return rate of 42%. Three interviews were conducted for the quantitative perspective. Participants represented a diverse background and diverse school districts. The lens of feminist standpoint theory and social capital theory informed the analysis. Through the process of triangulation, the study’s findings indicate the participants utilized networks and mentorships to different degrees and with mixed results. An in-depth analysis of the impact networks and mentorships have on women’s career trajectory provided recommendations for networks and mentors to challenge gendered professional norms, increased access to influential people in women’s networks, and defined career pathways to the superintendency in terms of demonstrated leadership experiences over male-dominated leadership positions held. Overall, this study finds hope for women aspiring to become superintendents. Women should participate in multiple networks and develop relationships with several mentors who are willing to share the access to the superintendency.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-361882
title: Culturally relevant interscholastic athletics involvement: the impacts on student engagement and identification with school

description: Native Hawaiians, once one of the most literate groups of people in the world, experienced a nearly one-hundred year removal of Hawaiian language and culture in schools. Such removal created school environments that lacked cultural relevancy to Native Hawaiians, which in many cases still exist today. Currently, Native Hawaiian academic achievement and attainment is less than adequate. Overall, the purpose of the study was to explore the connection between participation in culturally relevant interscholastic athletics and student engagement and identification with school, research an understudied topic, and improve school identification and engagement of Native Hawaiian students. ❧ The literature review for the study covered the following themes: student involvement, student identification with schools, student engagement, Native Hawaiian academic achievement, culturally relevant education, benefits of interscholastic athletic participation, and the cultural history of surfing in Hawaii. The study at hand is qualitative. Data was collected through interviews with eleven participants, all of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Nine of the eleven participants were former interscholastic varsity outrigger canoe paddlers and three of the eleven participants are current varsity outrigger canoe paddling coaches. ❧ The major findings of the study revolved around the themes of student involvement, academic success, and identification with school. Participants involved in paddling demonstrated development of critical life skills such as: focus, work ethic, teamwork, and leadership. Overall, participants in the study were highly involved in high school and showed high levels of engagement and identification with school. ❧ The study produced several implications and recommendations for further research. Such implications are for school to: integrate cultural relevancy within schools, add sanctioned varsity interscholastic surf teams across the state, and make ocean sports more accessible to students. The study recommends a quantitative study as well as additional qualitative studies to explore the impacts of culturally relevant athletics and identifies the competitiveness of athletic teams as an additional variable to measure. Limitations of the study were the setting, sample size, a lack of teacher perceptions, and researcher questions may have impacted participant responses.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-634737
title: Two stochastic control problems in finance: American options and illiquid investments

description: Stochastic control problems are ubiquitous in modern finance. However, explicit solutions and policies of such problems faced by investors receive disproportionately little attention. This dissertation focuses on characterizing and solving the policies for two stochastic control problems that buy-side investors face in the market, exercising American options and optimal redemption of illiquid investments such as hedge funds. ❧ The return an investor realizes from his investment in an American or Bermudan style derivative is highly dependent on the exercise policy he employs. Despite the fact that the exercise policy is as crucial to the option buyer as the price, constructing these policies has not received as much attention vis-à-vis the pricing problem. The existing research on the optimal exercise policies is complex, unpractical and conducted to the extent it is utilized to reach accurate prices. Here we present a simple and practical new heuristic to develop exercise policies for American and Bermudan style derivatives, which are immensely valuable to buy-side entities in the market. Our heuristic relies on a simple look-ahead algorithm, which yields comparatively good exercise policies for Bermudan options with few exercise opportunities. We resort to policy improvement to construct more accurate exercise frontiers for American options with frequent exercise opportunities. This exercise frontier is in turn used to estimate the price of the derivative via simulation. Numerical examples yield prices comparable to the existing sophisticated simulation methods in terms of accuracy. Chapter 1 introduces the problem and lays out the valuation framework, Chapter 2 defines and describes our heuristic approach, chapter 3 provides algorithms for implementation with numerical examples provided in Chapter 4. ❧ Optimal redemption policies for illiquid investments are studied in Chapter 5, where we consider a risk-averse investor whose investable assets are held in a perfectly liquid asset (a portfolio of cash and liquid assets or a mutual fund) and another investment that has liquidity restrictions. The illiquidity could be due to restrictions on the investments (such as hedge funds) or due to nature of the asset held (such as real estate). The investor’s objective is to maximize the utility he derives from his terminal wealth at a future end date of his investment horizon. Furthermore the investor wants to hold his liquid wealth above a certain subsistence level, below which he incurs hefty borrowing costs or shortfall penalty. We consider the optimal conditions under which the investor must liquidate his illiquid assets. The redemption notification problem for hedge fund investors has certain affinity with the optimal control methods used in widely-studied inventory management problems. The optimal policy has a monotone structure similar in nature to inventory management problems. ❧ Chapter 6 concludes the study and suggests possible extensions.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-637329
title: Lessons in social media fundraising: applying global tactics at a local level

description: Social Media is playing an increasing role in non-profit fundraising. This paper examines how lessons learned after the Haitian earthquake can be applied at a local level.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-646828
title: Re-engagement into mental health care: a longitudinal analysis of mechanisms to service use for persons with psychological distress

description: Objective: The study examines elements of service system and patient level factors individually and their interactions on service use to manage mental health needs for individuals with recurrent episodes of depression. Method: Using data form the 12- month and 57-month follow-up study of the Partners in Care Project (PIC), the study examines direct and moderating effects of reported 12-months social support and treatment satisfaction with the PIC trial on service use for mental health needs at 57- months for an adult sample, minorities and non-Hispanic Whites (n=991). Results: Direct effects were supported for sociocultural and enabling variables. In review of moderation effects, satisfaction and social support at 12-months significantly moderated the relationship between health impairment and service use at 57-months. When accounting for individuals with high health need, satisfaction negatively moderated the relationship with service use, while social support positively moderated the relationship with service use. In the post hoc analysis on individuals with high health need, both moderating effects were maintained but minorities also had significant increased odds of service use when social support was high. Conclusion: Findings inform and extend the understanding of the role of social support and treatment satisfaction on decisions to manage depression over time. Profiling risk factors for under use such as low support for minority populations and those with high health needs assists practitioners in improving screening and outreach to those least likely to seek mental health care independently as episodes reoccur over the life span.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-647215
title: Evaluation of chromium remediation in groundwater: investigations using microbial fuel cells and electrokinetic systems

description: Hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), is a common metallic carcinogen heavily used in industrial applications such as electroplating and leather tanning. Improper handling and disposal, along with the high solubility of Cr(VI), have led to widespread contamination of soil and water systems. Several remediation methods have been proposed, including biologically based techniques. ❧ Bioremediation of Cr(VI) is a promising approach due, in part, to the ability of the technique to rapidly lower Cr(VI) concentrations. The research presented here focuses on the development of a Cr(VI) remediation approach based on microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology. MFC technology has been proposed as a source of renewable energy and as a remediation tool. While much work has been done on developing the technology as a renewable energy source, relatively little work has been performed to assess its capabilities as a remediation tool. ❧ To address this shortcoming, the research presented here will showcase several aspects of using an MFC as a remediation tool. These include (i) a predictive modeling approach for biological Cr(VI) remediation, (ii) an evaluation of Shewanella bacteria as biocatalysts, (iii) the selection and analysis of mixed communities in a Cr(VI)-reducting MFC, and (iv) the integration of a Cr(VI)-reducing MFC with an electrokinetic system. ❧ These findings show that Cr(VI) removal to low parts-per-billion concentration levels is possible with MFC systems and that integration with existing technologies is a valuable application to consider when designing remediation strategies.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-655833
title: An investigation of the factors associated with electronic aggression among college students

description: Although research on electronic aggression (EA) among adolescents is burgeoning, little is known about these behaviors among college students. The present study employed quantitative and qualitative methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of the nature and risk correlates of electronic victimization and perpetration in college peer and romantic relationships. We proposed an association between risky family environments and EA victimization and perpetration, but that peer support and emotion regulation would moderate these relations. We also qualitatively examined the immediate context of EA, namely motivations and substance use. Two hundred twenty six university students completed an on-line battery of questionnaires. There were no overall sex differences in EA rates, though different patterns of involvement emerged for males and females. Overall, peer support and emotion regulation attenuated the connection between family risk and EA involvement. Qualitative analyses indicated that although many electronically aggressive acts were driven by jealousy, insecurity, or negative motivations, others were done out of humor. Substance use may also play a role. Findings suggest the need to examine EA within the context of off-line relationships, as well as question assumptions that these behaviors are always thought to be malicious to those involved.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c127-663553
title: The long waltz: temporal horizons and strategic decisions in US-China relations

description: This project adds a new dimension to the study of foreign policy decision-making by means of a nuanced method of considering an actor’s perspective on the future. In the process of weighing alternative actions in the area of foreign policy, one of the most important factors influencing a policy choice is the decision maker’s view of time, in particular the way that perception informs the future.  I argue that the distance into the future a leader considers has a significant impact on how options are weighed, and outcomes valued. ❧ Many studies in Political Science and International Relations have looked at the role of time, particularly the role of the past through the use of analogy and historical awareness. Other works in a number of disciplines, namely Prospect Theory and Construal Theory, have considered how the future is viewed, and what psychological filters have an impact on considering that future.  This dissertation builds upon that work by looking at the future as a series of specific horizons, ranging from the immediate to the extremely long term.  By contrasting the different perspectives that can be found in the thoughts and words of policy makers, significant differences emerge that greatly add to our understanding of the decision making process. ❧ This ‘time horizon’ approach is applied to two of the most defining incidents in contemporary US-China relations.  The Taiwan Straits Missile Crises of 1995-6 and China’s admission into the World Trade Organization over the course of the late 1990s are both cases of particular significance in a specific facet of ‘hard power’; the Straits Crisis has defined the military issues between the two powers, while the entrance into the WTO was primarily in the economic realm.  Each situation is a fairly high-tension point of interaction between the US and the PRC, with consequences stretching into the future.  Because these moments of interaction had immediate implications as well as a variety of longer term aspects, they are conducive to our methodological approach.  The study has shown some compelling results that indicate that the choice of time horizon can play a significant role in policy outcomes.  In addition, the time horizon method can offer increased depth and sensitivity to a wide variety of methodological approaches.
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-116002
title: Study of transracial foster care homes
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-129473
title: The Psychiatric Patient in the Community; A Follow-Up Study of Referrals at the LAC-USC Medical Center Psychiatric Hospital
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-131032
title: Clinical social workers' attitudes towards human sexuality
DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-161023
title: A survey of recent USC School of Social Work graduates in administrative positions: Implications for curriculum reform