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Differential predictive validity in assessing academic performance in institutions of higher education has been assessed for a number of years. Historically, this body of research focused on gender and ethnicity. This study extends that research to geographic region (e.g., rural and non-rural populations). Specifically, this study predicted relationships between preadmission variables of incoming grade point average (GPA) and medical college admissions test (MCAT) and output variables of medical school GPA and comprehensive osteopathic medical licensing exam (COMLEX). Results indicate incoming GPA and MCAT are good variables to use to predict academic performance in medical school and score on the licensing board exam. Further, rural populations presented similar scores on preadmission variables and, thus, are not at a disadvantage in the admission process. A second goal of this study was to explore differential prediction of medical school GPA and COMLEX Level 1 score for the MCAT for rural and non-rural populations. Results provide some evidence of differential prediction of COMLEX score for the physical and biological sciences MCAT sub-tests such that rural populations' performance on the COMLEX Level 1 exam was underpredicted. Hence, when rural and non-rural populations present the same physical sciences and biological sciences MCAT sub-test score, the rural sub-group is predicted to obtain a lower COMLEX score and non-rural sub-group is predicted to obtain a higher COMLEX score. Further, when the two sub-groups present different MCAT scores for the physical and biological sciences sub-test, they are likely to obtain similar scores on the COMLEX. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

Disertacija skirta išanalizuoti veiksnius, įtakojančius krūvio pernašą ir pagavimą šiuolaikinėse organinėse medžiagose skirtose optoelektronikai, bei ištirti DNR bio-molekulių įtaką elektrinėms bei optinėms medžiagų savybėms. Eksperimentiškai nustatyta, kad polimerinės medžiagos turinčios aktyviojo sluoksnio struktūrą: donoras/pernašos grandis/akceptorius ir chemiškai sujungtos su polinėmis molekulėmis, pasižymi išorinio kvantinio našumo padidėjimu, susijusiu su judrio išaugimu ir sumažėjusiu potencialo barjeru krūvininkų injekcijai ar ekstrakcijai iš elektrodų. Panaudojant keletą skirtingų, bet papildančių eksperimentinių metodų, parodyta pagavimo būsenų ir jų energetinio bei erdvinio pasiskirstymo įtaka krūvininkų pernašos savybėms organiniuose puslaidininkiuose. Pademonstruota, kad krūvininkų pagavimas efektyviai lemia krūvio pernašos reiškinius ir priklauso nuo žadinančios šviesos spektro pločio bei pridėto elektrinio lauko. Nustatyta DNR komplekso, sudaryto iš dažo ir silikagelio matricos, įtaka optinėms medžiagos savybėms. Taip pat pademonstruoti nauji katijoniniai surfaktantai su efektyviomis trečios eilės netiesinės optikos savybėmis, kurie išplečia tirpiklių pasirinkimą gaminant DNR kompleksus. / The main goals of the thesis are advanced characterization by complementary optical and electrical methods of organic semiconductors and the complexes of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) designed with purposefully controllable properties for opto-, photo- and electrical applications in modern device engineering. It was demonstrated that the polymer photovoltaic device having an active layer with donor/transmitter/acceptor structure bearing polar molecules exhibits the improvement of the external quantum efficiency associated with the growth of the mobility and reduced potential barrier for charge injection or extraction from the electrodes. The impact of the trapping states and their energetical and spatial distribution on the charge transport properties of organic semiconductors was revealed by several different complementary methods. It was demonstrated that carrier trapping is effectively involved in the charge transport phenomena, depending on the exciting light spectral range and applied electrical field. The influence of the hybrid DNA, dyes and silica material complexes on the optical properties of bio-organic materials was proven. Later the new cationic surfactant with a high efficiency third order nonlinear optical properties was demonstrated, which extended the range of available solvents for DNA complex.

Over the last twenty years, as biological, technological, and social net- works have risen in prominence and importance, the study of complex networks has attracted researchers from a wide range of fields. As a result, there is a large and diverse body of literature concerning the properties and development of models for complex networks. However, many of the models that have been previously developed, although quite successful at capturing many observed properties of complex networks, have failed to capture the fundamental semantics of the networks. In this thesis, we propose a robust and general model for complex networks that incorporates at a fundamental level semantic information. We show that for a large range of average degrees and with a suitable choice of parameters, this model exhibits the three hallmark properties of complex networks: small diameter, clustering, and skewed degree distribution. Additionally, we provide a structural interpretation of assortativity and apply this strucutral assortativity to the random dot product graph model. We also extend the results of Chung, Lu, and Vu on the spectral gap of the expected degree sequence model to a general class of random graph models with independent edges. We apply this result to the recently developed Stochastic Kronecker graph model of Leskovec, Chakrabarti, Kleinberg, and Faloutsos.