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Self-Organization Of Scroll Waves In Excitable Media : Parallel Simulations On A 64-Opteron Linux Cluster, Igor Kaplun

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Spiral waves have been observed and studied in a variety of biological, physical and chemical systems, known as excitable media. The most famous examples of excitable media include cardiac tissue, the Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction, and aggregation of starving slime mold amoeba.

It had been shown previously that spiral waves could self-organize into multi- armed spirals. A 3D analog of a 2D spiral wave is called a scroll wave. It rotates around a 1D imaginary tube known as a filament. A later study based on the so-called Puschino model has reported formation of multi-armed scroll waves in 3D. But a question …

Go Left, Young Folk : Meridel Le Sueur’S Radical Children’S Stories Invoke The Spirit Of The Red, White, And True, William J. Valladares

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

It is no secret to scholars of American literary Communism that left-wing authors blacklisted by adult and textbook publishers that caved in to government pressure during the Communist witch- hunts of the McCarthy era, often survived by writing children’s books. However, by accepting this overly simplified explanation, we risk ignoring a vital genre in recovering a link in American literary and cultural history that a right-of-center government attempted to erase.

In my thesis I will explore how left-wing writer Meridel Le Sueur, in her children’s books, Little Brother of the Wilderness: The Story of Johnny Appleseed, Nancy Hanks of Wilderness …

Brideshead Exposed : Evelyn Waugh, The Newspaper, And The Modern Age, Curtis Zimmermann

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores representations of newspapers and journalists in Evelyn Waugh’s novels, focusing specifically on Vile Bodies, Scoop and Brides head Revisited. The central argument of the thesis is that Waugh’s depiction of the newspaper industry is highly similar to his portrayals of modernity. In Waugh’s novels, newspapers, like modernity, cause tremendous problems for his characters. Even with these flaws, however, newspapers retain some overall value for society. In addition to providing insight into Waugh’s views of journalism, this thesis places Waugh’s novels in a historical context with a thorough examination of British journalism history.

The thesis is divided into …

Fluorescent Photoinduced Electron Transfer (Pet) Proton Sensors, Risper Nyabeta

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Two new fluorescent photoinduced electron transfer (PET) proton sensors based on anthracene and pyrazoline chromophores have been prepared. The anthracene sensor was prepared through alkylation of 2-pyridylcarbinol with 9-chloromethylanthracene and the pyrazoline sensor was prepared through an aldol condensation of 4- carboxybenzaldehyde and acetylpyridine followed by reaction with phenylhydrazine. The fluorescence of these sensors is modulated by the initiation or quenching of a PET process between the chromophore and a receptor due to protonation. The synthesis, characterization and proton binding studies of the new sensors are reported in this thesis.

Mending The Moor On The Early Modern English Stage : The Rise Of Shakespeare's Black Tragic Hero, Marcos S. Vargas

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Shakespeare’s two inverse representations dealing with the black male Moor— Aaron (Titus Andronicus) and Othello (Othello)—can figure prominently in a reading of his stage treatment of those notions of racial differences in the early modem era. By retracing early modem histories which affected the early formation of race and by emphasizing the popular representations of race on the early modem English stage, this study seeks to answer whether Shakespeare’s own treatment of race was typical or, in fact, anomalous for his time. Using re-conceptualized vocabularies of race laid out by recent early modem race scholars, this study applies that groundwork …

Ghostly Writing : Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers And Issues Of Visibility, Erin Barclay Nemiroff

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis examines three nineteenth-century female authors’ use of the ghost story to articulate and illustrate the anxiety and restriction they suffered under the ideals of True Womanhood. It discusses how Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, and Mary Wilkins Freeman were compelled to use this unorthodox method of expression because its innate characteristics granted them the creative liberty necessary for authentic female expression and an evolution into New Womanhood and tum-of-the-century feminism. It reveals how the ghost story allowed them to be taken seriously by their male counterparts, yet still provided them with the degree of camouflage necessary to prevent …

The Effects Of Testosterone On The Induction Of Experimental Autoimmune Thyroiditis In Sprague-Dawley Rats, Travis William Reed

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Experimental Autoimmune Thyroiditis (EAT) could not be induced in young, immature Sprague-Dawley rats (150-200g). EAT was successfully induced in the same group of animals when they weighed 400g. The animals developed the disease every time. Sexual immaturity or immaturity of the immune system may be responsible for these results (Fernandez, 2006). It has been proven that pharmacologic doses of testosterone have shown immunosuppressive effects on the severity of EAT in the PVG/c strain of rats (Ahmed et al, 1982). In this current thesis research, it appears that normal physiologic levels of testosterone have no effect on the development and severity …

A Population Genetic Study Of The Zostera Marina (Eelgrass) Ecotypes Of Barnegat Bay, New Jersey And Implications For Grass Bed Restoration, Stephanie Marie Smith

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Zostera marina is a species of seagrass widely found in the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific Oceans. It is primarily a cold-water adapted plant that is capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction. Zostera marina serves many ecological roles, including stabilizing sediments, reducing current velocity, preventing erosion and providing food and shelter to many organisms. Eelgrass populations have suffered numerous large-scale declines due to both natural as well as human-induced causes. Specifically within Bamegat Bay, New Jersey, the Z. marina populations have declined by over 62% within the past 20 years. Restoration efforts have had diverse growth and survival rates, …

Death O F A Hero : Iconography Of The Emotional Transformation Of Achilles On South Italian Vases Of C. Fourth Century Bce, Selma Amzi

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Use Of Logic Game To Improve High School Students' Logical Reasoning Skills : Results Of A Teaching Experiment, Frank Forte

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

High school students often struggle with the concept of logical reasoning. A study conducted with 37 ninth grade geometry students involved a teaching experiment. This study documented whether instruction on a logic game called the Color of the Board Game helped students’ logical reasoning skills, and if those skills could be reflected in a “‘pencil and paper” test. Each student in a control and treatment group received a pre-test with 25 multiple-choice logic questions and an open-ended question. Multiple-choice questions were based on geometry and contextual logic. The treatment group received the Color of the Board Instructional Unit between the …

Class Indifference - A Divided Nation : Finding Common Ground Through American Pragmatism And Democratic Principles In The Composition Classroom, Stacey L. Morrison

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Social class plays a significant but often silent part in American politics, lives, and education. As the events of Hurricane Katrina clearly illustrate, the poor and working class often suffer discrimination that leaves them completely powerless. Their position in life shapes not only how they are seen and treated, but also how they see their world. Their cultures differ markedly from middle and upper class cultures, further alienating them from possible greater personal achievement in a system that champions middle-class values. Education, being a microcosm of our society, mirrors our class conflicts, often failing to teach working-class students in an …

Improving Corporate Governance : Character Education As A Supplement To Corporate Ethics Training, Richard L. Muney

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis explores the hypothesis that ethics training for corporate personnel will significantly increase ethical behavior and thereby significantly reduce the incidence of corporate malfeasance.

For over 100 years the federal government has been trying to curb malfeasance by managers of public corporations and their boards of directors. This thesis examines the history of that legislation and those regulatory efforts, concluding that these legislative and regulatory attempts have met with varying degrees of success, but, on balance, that success has been transitory at best. It also comes to the conclusion that corporate training programs in ethics, in the absence of …

Collectionner Et Narrer : Deux Exemples Littéraires Chez Marguerite De Navarre Et Françoise De Graffigny, Diane E. Peyser

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This project analyzes how the act of storytelling, which is comparable to collecting, bears upon the structure of narrative. The connection between the narrative voice of women, their points of view, and how they obtain the power of their voices will be explored in this thesis on the basis of L ’Heptaméron by Marguerite de Navarre and Lettres d ’une Péruvienne by Françoise de Graffigny.

Chapter 1 introduces a theory that the act of collecting is also a way of telling stories. This analysis will introduce how Marguerite de Navarre and Françoise de Graffigny utilize this method to tell their …

A Record Of The Struggle : Chinua Achebe’S Anthills Of The Savannah, Fruita Louise Diaz-Jenkins

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

In Anthills of the Savannah Chinua Achebe presents the struggle of a formerly colonized African nation, Kangan, a substitute for Nigeria, to become a post-colonial nation. Achebe’s three main characters, members of the elite, who are personally and politically involved with the nation’s ruler, narrate their version of events. Their separate but intertwined journeys from the center of power to the margins where the majority of the country’s population resides illuminate the elements necessary for an inclusive postcolonial nation to rise from the neocolonial ruins of a traditional society.

Achebe uses narrative strategies that illuminate the collapse of the neocolonial …

The Effects Of Using The Geometer’S Sketchpad On Student Learning Of Transformations In The Coordinate Plane, Leeann Elizabeth Gennett

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how grade nine honors geometry students and grade ten regular geometry students learn and retain information about three basic rigid geometric transformations with the support of the software package The Geometer’s Sketchpad in comparison to the traditional, non-software supported method of instruction.

The study was conducted in a high school with two tenth grade regular geometry classes and two ninth grade honors geometry classes. The researcher and another teacher each conducted a one-week instructional unit on the three basic, isometric transformations. Thirty-four students agreed to participate in the study. Nineteen students …

“These Would Have Been All My Friends” : Families Of Birth, Families Of Choice, And Personal Autonomy In Mansfield Park, Emma, And Persuasion, Tavya Jackson

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The six completed novels of Jane Austen all fall into the category of courtship novels, which focus on the heroines’ experiences as she meets, becomes acquainted with, and eventually marries the “right” man. Yet in Austen’s three later novels, Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Persuasion (1818), the three heroines engage in more than a quest for the most suitable husband. In each of these novels, the female characters appear to be employed in a search for a suitable family, which can only be obtained through marriage.

The quest for family that manifests itself in these novels is closely related …

Corticospinal Excitability During A Perspective-Taking Task : Implications For Self Vs. Other Processing, Elizabeth M. Murray

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Only by understanding the uniquely human ability to take a first- second- and third-person perspective, can we begin to elucidate the neural processes responsible for one’s inimitable conscious experience. The current study examined differences in hemispheric laterality during a first-person perspective (1PP) and third-person perspective (3PP) taking task, using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Subjects were asked to take either the 1PP or 3PP in identifying the number of spheres in a virtual scene. During this task, single- pulse TMS was delivered to the motor cortex of both the left and right hemispheres of 10 healthy volunteers. Measures of TMS-induced motor-evoked …

Byron's Manfred And Shelley's Alastor : Narcissism And The Search For An Ideal, Charles Markham Townsend

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Musical Mystique : How Today’S Pop Music Can Be Interpreted By Young Audiences, Amy Melissa Young

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Music is everywhere and so is its influence. Like all media, music can help us express ourselves, but it also can impact our lives. The following study investigates pop music by female artists and how this genre impacts the lives of young audiences. The research asks what images of women and relational scripts are offered through this genre, but this study also asks what audiences are doing with it.

Media studies have taken us from “The Magic Bullet” to “Uses and Gratifications” and almost everywhere in between. Somewhere in the middle of all of these theories lies Hall’s view of …

“You May Explore Yourself Freely" : Gender And The Fantastic In Jeanette Winterson And Angela Carter, Elissa Cording

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson’s novels contain magical moments in which reality is questioned and a reader suspends disbelief in the fantastic. While we know that a living heart cannot be kept in ajar and a woman cannot be born with wings, we are meant to accept these moments as possible. The use of fantastical elements in The Passion, Sexing the Cherry and Nights at the Circus supports Winterson and Carter’s unique portrayals of gender. The blending of fantasy and reality allows for the exploration of non-traditional gender roles because as these authors rewrite genre they are also rethinking gender. …

Parallel Nonnegative Matrix Factorization Algorithms For Hyperspectral Images, Lukasz Grzegorz Maciak

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Hyperspectral imaging is a branch of remote sensing which deals with creating and processing aerial or satellite pictures that capture wide range of wavelengths, most of which are invisible to the naked eye. Hyperspectral images are composed of many bands, each corresponding to certain light frequencies. Because of their complex nature, image processing tasks such as feature extraction can be resource and time consuming. There are many unsupervised extraction methods available. A recently investigated one is Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF), a method that given positive linear matrix of positive sources, attempts to recover them. In this thesis we designed, implemented …

From One To Many-Sided : Negotiating An Ethics Of Liberalism In Daniel Deronda, Anne Cecilia De Marzio

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Following recent attempts in Victorian Studies to retrieve the broad critical rubric of liberalism, this essay aims to identify the substance under cultivation in the character of Gwendolen Harleth as many-sidedness. Gwendolen’s bildung has as its telos a disposition attaining to a regulative ideal of liberal agency; that is, she grows into a woman who aspires to sympathize with other vantage points. The ascesis which Eliot’s supreme egoist finally practices evidences not a being divested of her animating spirit and characterized by lack as other critics have argued, but one who has learned from Daniel to aspire to Goethe’s “lofty …

Steeltown Roots : Duality, Detachment, And The Search For Identity In Postwar Pittsburgh Literature, Genna Elizabeth Knight

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

While the city is a common topic in American literature, if you were to Google “Pittsburgh literature,” chances are, rather than finding a list of stories about the Steel City, you would be linked to the Carnegie Library or the University of Pittsburgh. Inspired by its lack of attention, I have directed my efforts toward making a case for Pittsburgh’s modest yet significant role in American literature, particularly during its “postwar” period. The “postwar” sequence of events that occur between the city’s industrial prime following World War II and its transformation into an academic and cultural center for medicine and …

There’S No Place Like Home : The Changing Definition Of Exile In Salman Rushdie’S Midnight’S Children And Shame, Patricia J. Soliman

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The concept for this thesis was bom out of my interest in identity construction and contemporary viewpoints on migrancy and exile. I first discovered Salman Rushdie's fiction upon reading the novel Shame, and was immediately struck by his intention, not only to discuss the issues surrounding migrancy, but also to make the reader feel a sense of migrant alienation through his narrative technique. I began to explore the unique ways in which Rushdie uses language, characters and plot to redefine exile as a liberating and positive experience, rather than simply a devastating loss.

However, during my research, I also began …

An Analysis Of Enzymatic Activity In Truncated And Wild-Type Auxin Conjugate Hydrolases In Medicago Trunculata (Barrel Clover) And Implications In Structural Modeling, Scott Sigethy

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Auxins are plant phytohormones that play an important part in plant growth and development. The level of active auxins in plants is regulated by enzymes known as hydrolases that release inactive bound forms of auxins, known as conjugates, as the active free form. We have previously isolated and enzymatically characterized the auxin conjugate hydrolase family from the model legume Medicago truncatula (barrel clover). In the process of cloning the cDNA for the genes MtIAR31, -32, -33, -34, and -36, we also cloned a truncated version of MtIAR33 (AMtIAR33) that apparently expresses an alternative hydrolase protein from a secondary, internal AUG …

Adapting The Phylogenetic Program Fitch For Distributed Processing, Robert A. Dubin

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The ability to reconstruct optimal phylogenies (evolutionary trees) based on objective criteria impacts directly on our understanding the relationships among organisms, including human evolution, as well as the spread of infectious disease. Numerous tree construction methods have been implemented for execution on single processors, however inferring large phylogenies using computationally intense algorithms can be beyond the practical capacity of a single processor. Distributed and parallel processing provides a means for overcoming this hurdle. FITCH is a freely available, single-processor implementation of a distance-based, tree-building algorithm commonly used by the biological community. Through an alternating least squares approach to branch length …

How Do Voluntary Sojourners Adapt To New Cultures? : Common Challenges That Teachers And Students Face, Aycan Sayakci

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Numerous people move from country to country and change homes each year by crossing cultural boundaries for various reasons and cultural adaptation is becoming a common experience for many, especially for students and teachers. In terms of theory, the present study employed Kim’s (2001) stress-adaptation-growth dynamic. Also, the study was grounded in the interpretive paradigm and the particular methods used were interviewing and textual analysis. The focus of this study was to investigate the central descriptors that students and teachers used to define themselves, the common challenges and opportunities that professors and students face when they are adapting to new …

Nick Hornby And The Plight Of Generation X, Michael Berkowitz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

No abstract provided.

Encouraging Healthy Eating : An Application Of A Dissonance Paradigm, Mariel Lorenz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The purpose of this study was to evaluate participants' food choices after completing a dissonance task disguised as a healthy eating campaign. The study sought to determine whether participants would make healthy food choices after completing tasks designed to measure healthy eating behaviors. A total of 100 students from Montclair State University were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions and then completed an intention scale designed to measure intended eating behaviors using the Theory of Planned Behavior (Azjen, 1991). Analysis showed that treatment condition had no affect on participants' food choices and did not influence participants' intentions to make healthy …

Self-Enhancement : A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Tms) Study, Cleo R. Shelby

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Self-enhancement consists of an overly positive self-perception that takes on two, somewhat independent, forms: social comparison and self-insight. Social comparison self-enhancement consists of a person having an overly positive view of themselves compared to how they view others. Self-insight self-enhancement consists of an overly positive view of the self compared to how the person is viewed by others. Social comparison self-enhancement appears to be adaptive while self-insight self-enhancement appears to be maladaptive. Due to the adaptive and maladaptive implications, selfenhancement is of considerable importance to the mental health of people all around the world. A better understanding of the neurological …