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Articles 1 - 30 of 465
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Microaggressions In A Women's College. Understanding Language, Race, Class And Gender In Teaching Spanish: A Testimonio, Thelma Belmonte-Alcantara
Microaggressions In A Women's College. Understanding Language, Race, Class And Gender In Teaching Spanish: A Testimonio, Thelma Belmonte-Alcantara
Doctoral Dissertations
With a microethnographic approach that foregrounds the particular uses of language and connects them with larger processes of social activity, this study examines moment-to-moment interactions between an instructor and a group of learners who participated in a particular lesson that was part of a language course where Spanish was used, learned and taught as a foreign language at a women’s college. Through the analysis of these interactions, I present my understandings of language, race, class and gender and how these social categories can be interrelated in the form of subtle attacks or microaggressions. In the context of a private small …
Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility: The Roles Of Organizational Identity And Social Creativity, Pamala J. Dillon
Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility: The Roles Of Organizational Identity And Social Creativity, Pamala J. Dillon
Doctoral Dissertations
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become entrenched in organization studies, but with much confusion as to what it actually means. There are many different definitions of the term in the literature, representing multiple perspectives of the phenomenon being studied, be it ethical, instrumental, institutional, or process-oriented. The commonality tying the CSR literature together is the focus on the role of organizations in society, whether that role is understood from an ethical standpoint or an economic one, at the institutional or individual level, or from a psychological or process perspective. In this qualitative inductive study, I explore how organizational identity and …
Applications Of Sampling And Estimation On Networks, Fabricio Murai Ferreira
Applications Of Sampling And Estimation On Networks, Fabricio Murai Ferreira
Doctoral Dissertations
Networks or graphs are fundamental abstractions that allow us to study many important real systems, such as the Web, social networks and scientific collaboration. It is impossible to completely understand these systems and answer fundamental questions related to them without considering the way their components are connected, i.e., their topology. However, topology is not the only relevant aspect of networks. Nodes often have information associated with them, which can be regarded as node attributes or labels. An important problem is then how to characterize a network w.r.t. topology and node label distributions. Another important problem is how to design efficient …
Subscore Reliability And Classification Consistency: A Comparison Of Five Methods, Fen Fan
Subscore Reliability And Classification Consistency: A Comparison Of Five Methods, Fen Fan
Doctoral Dissertations
Previous studies focused on reporting subscores themselves; however, most proficiency tests are criterion-referenced, reporting classification consistency and accuracy of student placement into performance categories within each subdomain are thus more suitable. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study was to investigate the decision consistency (DC) and decision accuracy (DA) of student placement into performance categories within each of the subdomains measured by the test of interest. A second purpose of this study was to compare the performance of five subscoring methods under some realistic conditions in terms of subscore reliability and classification. To do so, a simulation study was designed …
Three Essays On Sustainable Development In China: Social, Economic And Environmental Aspects, Ying Chen
Three Essays On Sustainable Development In China: Social, Economic And Environmental Aspects, Ying Chen
Doctoral Dissertations
The first essay focuses on the role of the hukou (i.e. Household Registration System) with full awareness of the economic system it operates under, and the development model it assists. I find that hukou’s main role in the planned economy was to assist socialist industrialization while averting the Lewis development model, a development strategy based on unlimited supply of labors from the rural sector, largely adopted in developing countries. In the market reform period, hukou performed exactly the opposite function, which is to assist the Lewis model based on the unlimited supply of rural surplus labor “released” from the …
Fallibility And Normativity, Joshua Dipaolo
Fallibility And Normativity, Joshua Dipaolo
Doctoral Dissertations
We are fallible, and knowledge of our fallibility has normative implications. But these normative implications appear to conflict with other compelling epistemic norms. We therefore appear to face a choice: reject fallibility-based norms or reject these other epistemic norms. I argue that there is a plausible third option: reconcile these two sets of norms. Once we properly understand the nature of each of these norms, we aren’t forced to reject either.
Nanoscience At Interfaces And Surfaces: From Jamming To Electrode Texturing, Mengmeng Cui
Nanoscience At Interfaces And Surfaces: From Jamming To Electrode Texturing, Mengmeng Cui
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation focuses on the nanoparticle self-assembly on the liquid/liquid interface and the nanomaterial modification on surface. The self-assembly of nanoparticles at the liquid/liquid interface was utilized to trap non-equilibrium morphology when the nanoparticles reach jamming state. The dynamics of jammed systems were further studied by X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy. For the surface part, the nanomaterials were modified on the electrodes to improve the performance of microbial electrosynthesis. Also, a novel and simple method was developed to prepare nanomaterials including nanoparticle surfactants and carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Investigating The Relationship Between Implicit Theories About Intelligence And Teacher-Student Relationship Quality, Woodbury B. Clift
Investigating The Relationship Between Implicit Theories About Intelligence And Teacher-Student Relationship Quality, Woodbury B. Clift
Doctoral Dissertations
This study investigates the influence of teacher held implicit theories about intelligence on the quality of their relationships with students within the context of a school co-located in a secure juvenile justice setting serving adjudicated adolescent boys. In Massachusetts, adjudicated youth attending schools co-located in juvenile justice residential settings have significant gaps in their formal schooling, are culturally diverse, come from impoverished communities, and have high rates of learning disabilities. Their teachers, on the other hand, are mostly middle class, white, and well educated. As such, an immense social and cultural relational divide inherently exists between the teachers and their …
Improving Conservation Efforts Through A Better Understanding Of Forest Elephant Ecology, The Impacts Of Threats On Elephants And Freshwater Fisheries In Northern Congo, Roger Patrick Boundja
Improving Conservation Efforts Through A Better Understanding Of Forest Elephant Ecology, The Impacts Of Threats On Elephants And Freshwater Fisheries In Northern Congo, Roger Patrick Boundja
Doctoral Dissertations
IMPROVING CONSERVATION EFFORTS THROUGH A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF FOREST ELEPHANT ECOLOGY, THE IMPACTS OF THREATS ON ELEPHANTS AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES IN NORTHERN SEPTEMBER 2016 ROGER PATRICK BOUNDJA, B.Sc. FORESTRY, MARIEN NGOUABI UNIVERSITY, BRAZZAVILLE MSc. UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN PhD. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Curtice R. Griffin Catch data, including fish numbers, length-weight were collected during a multi-mesh Gillnet fisheries-independent survey in 2007-2008, and fisheries-dependent mixed gear surveys in 2009-2010 and 2015 across 400km stretch of the Sangha River located in the Sangha Tri-National. Overall, very high species richness (Chao 2 mean=250, SD=16.15) and diversity index (Simpson Inverse …
Multimodal Assessment In Action: What We Really Value In New Media Texts, Kathleen M. Baldwin
Multimodal Assessment In Action: What We Really Value In New Media Texts, Kathleen M. Baldwin
Doctoral Dissertations
As the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing illustrates, writing teachers at all educational levels can no longer ignore multimodality and the challenges that come with incorporating multimodal writing—texts composed using a combination of sound, images, video, etc.—into the classroom (NCTE, Framework). A chief struggle most writing teachers face is how to evaluate the multimodal texts their students produce, texts that are inherently diverse. In answer to the calls of scholars such as Yancey, Herrington, and Moran for research exploring multimodal assessment in situated classroom practice, my dissertation examines what K-16 writing teachers are and should be valuing in …
Retail Analytics And Optimization For Store-Wide Shelf-Space Management, Tulay Flamand
Retail Analytics And Optimization For Store-Wide Shelf-Space Management, Tulay Flamand
Doctoral Dissertations
A major constituent of modern-time economies, retailing is a vibrant business sector that is marked by high competition, tight profit margins, novel business strategies in online and in-store environments, and demanding consumers. Driven by massive volumes of point-of-sale data, retail analytics has become instrumental for unveiling better managerial practices. Our research falls under the umbrella of retail shelf space management. In self-service outlets, shelf space constitutes a scarce resource and its management is central to ensuring an attractive shopping experience and a profitable business. We investigate how, under a given store layout, the allocation of product categories can be optimized …
Chemopreventive Effects Of Cranberry In Association With The Alteration Of Gut Microbiota, Xiaokun Cai
Chemopreventive Effects Of Cranberry In Association With The Alteration Of Gut Microbiota, Xiaokun Cai
Doctoral Dissertations
Accumulating evidence showed that microbiota play important roles in colonic inflammation and inflammation-associated colon carcinogenesis. Fruits and vegetable are known to have protective effects against colon carcinogenesis. Cranberry fruit contains large amount of flavonoids, phenolic acids and dietary fiber, which has been studied for their potential chemopreventive effect from in vitro model. To better understand the effect, we studied the protective effects of whole cranberry powder against colitis in mice treated with dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and inflammation-associated colon carcinogenesis in mic treated with azoxymethane (AOM) and DSS, and its impact on gut microbiota. In DSS-induced colitis mice model, 1.5% …
Sperm Capacitation Associated Increase In Tyrosine Phosphorylation: Kinetic Of The Increase And Novel Members Involved In The Process., Antonio Alvau
Sperm Capacitation Associated Increase In Tyrosine Phosphorylation: Kinetic Of The Increase And Novel Members Involved In The Process., Antonio Alvau
Doctoral Dissertations
Sperm capacitation is a post-ejaculatory maturational event required for successful fertilization. Specific molecular events are induced during capacitation: a cAMP-dependent activation of protein kinase A (PKA) leading downstream to the increase of tyrosine phosphorylation. Activation of PKA and tyrosine phosphorylation was shown to occur on different time scale. Here we showed that phosphorylation events during capacitation are tightly regulated over time, with fast activation of PKA and a late and continuous increase in the level of tyrosine phosphorylation to guarantee a pool of capacitated sperm at the right time/site of fertilization. Despite several studies on tyrosine phosphorylation, the identity of …
When Mom Goes To School: Maternal Education And Intergenerational Mobility, Maura E. Devlin
When Mom Goes To School: Maternal Education And Intergenerational Mobility, Maura E. Devlin
Doctoral Dissertations
This study examined the relationship between the timing of maternal education and children’s educational attainment and the extent to which this relationship differs by gender. I used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the Child and Youth Survey to determine the timing of mothers’ education relative to the birth of their children, with additional predictors associated with children’s educational attainment included in quantitative analyses. ANOVA analyses identified statistically significant differences in educational attainment among the children grouped by mother-category, based on the timing of their mothers’ education, and between genders. Regression analyses found no statistical difference …
Structuring Thought: Concepts, Computational Syntax, And Cognitive Explanation, Matthew B. Gifford
Structuring Thought: Concepts, Computational Syntax, And Cognitive Explanation, Matthew B. Gifford
Doctoral Dissertations
The topic of this dissertation is what thought must be like in order for the laws and generalizations of psychology to be true. I address a number of contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind concerning the nature and structure of concepts and the ontological status of mental content. Drawing on empirical work in psychology, I develop a number of new conceptual tools for theorizing about concepts, including a counterpart model of concepts' role in linguistic communication, and a deflationary theory of concepts' formal features. I also suggest some new answers to old problems, arguing, for example, that content realism …
Detecting Anomalously Similar Entities In Unlabeled Data, Lisa D. Friedland
Detecting Anomalously Similar Entities In Unlabeled Data, Lisa D. Friedland
Doctoral Dissertations
In this work, the goal is to detect closely-linked entities within a data set. The entities of interest have a tie causing them to be similar, such as a shared origin or a channel of influence. Given a collection of people or other entities with their attributes or behavior, we identify unusually similar pairs, and we pose the question: Are these two people linked, or can their similarity be explained by chance? Computing similarities is a core operation in many domains, but two constraints differentiate our version of the problem. First, the score assigned to a pair should account for …
Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos
Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos
Doctoral Dissertations
This project uses discursive, visual, and ethnographic approaches situated in a critical feminist methodology to understand how ways of knowing about youth sexuality and reproduction influence community health work. I understand the “problem” in this inquiry as the discursive contexts that limit critical ways of knowing about young people’s sexual subjectivities and practices and about the design of policies and programs. Although race, class, gender, and sexuality are understood in the public health literature as important social determinants of health, there is a lack of research that applies a critical, feminist lens to these constructs. I draw on three years …
Expansion Of And Reclassification Within The Family Lachnospiraceae, Kelly N. Haas
Expansion Of And Reclassification Within The Family Lachnospiraceae, Kelly N. Haas
Doctoral Dissertations
Many of the taxa in the family Lachnospiraceae are currently misclassified as Clostridium spp. Here attempt to rectify many of these issues, beginning with an in-depth genomic and physiologic analysis of Clostridium methoxybenzovorans, culminating in the assertion that is a heterotype of Clostridium indolis, followed by reclassification of the broader group in which this organism resides. We propose two novel genera, Lacriformis and Enterocloster, to reclassify this clade, this includes reclassification of Clostridium sphenoides, Clostridium indolis, Clostridium saccharolyticum, Clostridium celerecrescens, Clostridium xylanolyticum, Clostridium algidixylanolyticum, Clostridium aerotolerans, Clostridium amygdalinum, and …
The Consequences Of Speed: Studies Of Cavitation During The Mantis Shrimp Strike And The Control Of Rapid Deceleration During Toad Landing, Suzanne M. Cox
The Consequences Of Speed: Studies Of Cavitation During The Mantis Shrimp Strike And The Control Of Rapid Deceleration During Toad Landing, Suzanne M. Cox
Doctoral Dissertations
There are consequences of moving quickly in this world. Here we investigate how two very different species, mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) and cane toads (Bufo marinus), negotiate forces that result from moving rapidly in different environments. To study the mechanical principles and fluid dynamics of ultrafast power-amplified systems, we built Ninjabot, a physical model of the extremely fast mantis shrimp. While mantis shrimp produce damaging cavitation upon impact with their prey, they do not cavitate during the forward portion of their strike despite extreme speeds. In order to study cavitation onset in non-linear flows common during …
Service Improvement And Cost Reduction For Airlines: Optimal Policies For Managing Arrival And Departure Operations Under Uncertainty, Heng Chen
Doctoral Dissertations
Annual U.S. air travel demand has been growing steadily by 4-5% over the last decade, and it is estimated that the demand will nearly double in the next twenty years. It has also been estimated by the International Civil Aviation Organization that global demand for commercial aircraft will increase at an average annual rate of 4.1% by 2034 (IATA, 2014). However, airport expansions and aviation infrastructure upgrades have not kept pace with the increase in air traffic demand, as only 3% of all the new airport projects around the world are planned in the U.S. (CAPA, 2015). Thus, the operation …
Distribution And Population Dynamics Of Ungulates In The Mongolian Gobi, Buuveibaatar Bayarbaatar
Distribution And Population Dynamics Of Ungulates In The Mongolian Gobi, Buuveibaatar Bayarbaatar
Doctoral Dissertations
The Mongolian Gobi is one of the most spectacular and important regions in Central Asia, comprising the largest area of intact grassland in the world. In recent years, a growing human population, expanding exploitation of natural resources, and the development of infrastructure in the region place increasing pressure on these species and their habitats. This dissertation has focused on three species of ungulates such as Mongolian saiga (Saiga tatarica mongolica) in western Mongolia, and Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus), and goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in Southern Gobi. The study on endangered saiga antelope in …
The Effect Of Unique Labels On Face Perception In Infancy, Hillary R. Hadley
The Effect Of Unique Labels On Face Perception In Infancy, Hillary R. Hadley
Doctoral Dissertations
Faces are universally important for a variety of reasons, ranging from identifying individuals to conveying social information. During the first year of life, infants’ experience with commonly encountered face groups shapes how infants perceive familiar and unfamiliar faces. Between 6 and 9 months of age, infants become worse at differentiating among individual faces from unfamiliar face groups (e.g., other-species faces), a process known as “perceptual narrowing”. Labeling faces from a previously unfamiliar face group has been found to promote individual-level differentiation, as well as expert neural processing for the face group. However, it is currently unclear what influences individual-level labels …
Protest Lyrics At Work: Labor Resistance Poetry Of Depression-Era Autoworkers, Rebecca S. Griffin
Protest Lyrics At Work: Labor Resistance Poetry Of Depression-Era Autoworkers, Rebecca S. Griffin
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation argues that scholarly inquiry into American poetry of the Great Depression is incomplete without a critical understanding of poems produced within the labor movement. Through archival research and methodologies drawn from American studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and labor history, this dissertation demonstrates that autoworkers from 1935-1941 developed a rich poetic discourse that championed their cause. Autoworker poets—including autoworker song lyricists—used humor and borrowed extensively from popular, religious, and “folk” cultures to craft their own poetic styles and trope sets. They wrote about a diverse range of topics from their hopes for the unionization movement, to scab conversions, …
Chasing New Physics: From Electroweak Baryogenesis To Dark Matter, Huaike Guo
Chasing New Physics: From Electroweak Baryogenesis To Dark Matter, Huaike Guo
Doctoral Dissertations
The origin of the baryon asymmetry in the universe and the nature of the dark matter remain mysteries and addressing these cosmological puzzles requires physics beyond the standard model. Electroweak baryogenesis remains a highly testable framework for explaining the baryon asymmetry and is employed in this work to study the capability of baryon generation for beyond standard model physics models and to explore new physics discovery potential in high energy and precision frontier. Weakly interacting massive particles as cold dark matter are also studied in this work featuring loop induced direct detection signals and novel nuclear responses within the recently …
Application-Aware Resource Management For Cloud Platforms, Xin He
Application-Aware Resource Management For Cloud Platforms, Xin He
Doctoral Dissertations
Cloud computing has become increasingly popular in recent years. The benefits of cloud platforms include ease of application deployment, a pay-as-you-go model, and the ability to scale resources up or down based on an application's workload. Today's cloud platforms are being used to host increasingly complex distributed and parallel applications. The main premise of this thesis is that application-aware resource management techniques are better suited for distributed cloud applications over a systems-level one-size-fits-all approach. In this thesis, I study the cloud-based resource management techniques with a particular emphasis on how application-aware approaches can be used to improve system resource utilization …
Contemplative Practices And Learning: A Holistic Approach To Education In Bhutan, Yang Gyeltshen
Contemplative Practices And Learning: A Holistic Approach To Education In Bhutan, Yang Gyeltshen
Doctoral Dissertations
This study examines the comments, behavior, and products of young student monks, who are exposed to an integrated curriculum of contemplative practices and secular lessons, about whether and how they bring their social-emotional learning from the contemplative practices to bear when learning secular functional skills and knowledge. At the beginning of my self-study, I hypothesized that an integrated curriculum of secular learning combined with contemplative practices would result in deeper learning, based on the research and literature on the connection between affective and cognitive learning. My findings support and do not negate previous research that an integrated curriculum, integrating contemplative …
The Neural Correlates Of Emotion Reactivity And Regulation In Young Children With Adhd, Claudia I. Lugo-Candelas
The Neural Correlates Of Emotion Reactivity And Regulation In Young Children With Adhd, Claudia I. Lugo-Candelas
Doctoral Dissertations
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most frequently occurring pediatric neurobehavioral disorder. Although emotion reactivity and regulation are frequently impaired in ADHD, few studies have examined these factors in preschool aged children with ADHD, and none have explored the neural correlates of emotion reactivity and regulation in this group though event-related potentials (ERPs). Children aged 4 to 7 with (n = 24) and without (n = 30) ADHD symptoms completed an attention task composed of four blocks: baseline, frustration, suppression, and recovery. In the frustration and suppression blocks, negative affect was induced by false negative feedback. During the …
Understanding Stem Learning Outcomes Using A Phenomenographic Approach, Cheryl L. Brooks
Understanding Stem Learning Outcomes Using A Phenomenographic Approach, Cheryl L. Brooks
Doctoral Dissertations
Today’s STEM professionals are called upon to meet the nation’s technical challenges with innovative technologies that push the boundaries of our current understanding and practices. While the total number of STEM graduates may be sufficient for the number of STEM jobs, many lack the specific competencies needed for practice, suggesting that science and engineering graduates may not be adequately prepared for careers in the STEM fields (U.S. Joint Economic Committee, 2012). Using a phenomenographical approach, the researcher interviewed 18 STEM professionals to understand the qualitatively different ways in which they gained the technical and professional competencies needed to be successful …
Study Of Charge Transport Mechanism In Microbial Nanowires, Ramesh Adhikari
Study Of Charge Transport Mechanism In Microbial Nanowires, Ramesh Adhikari
Doctoral Dissertations
Conductivity of an individual proteinaceous filaments, called pili or microbial nanowires, produced by wild type Geobacter sulfurreducens was measured using a low-noise electrical transport technique. It was shown that the conductivity is diminished if aromatic amino acid residues are removed from the pili. It was demonstrated that the conductivity of G. sulfurreducens pili is similar to that of synthetic organic polymers and is related to the respiration rate of the bacteria. Conductivity measurements were performed on microbial nanowires produced by other species of Geobacter with a different aromatic amino acid distribution along the wire. Also, measurements on a mutated pili …
Elite Capture, Free Riding, And Project Design: A Case Study Of A Community-Driven Development Project In Ceará, Brazil, Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth
Elite Capture, Free Riding, And Project Design: A Case Study Of A Community-Driven Development Project In Ceará, Brazil, Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation explores the successes and failures of a community-driven development project, São José Agrário (SJA), conducted in Northeastern Brazil. The project was co-funded by the World Bank and the State of Ceará and co-directed by a social movement (the Landless Workers Movement, MST) and the State of Ceará. The dissertation employs a mixed methods approach based on eight case studies, a census survey of six communities, and interviews with a wide variety of actors connected to the project. I address the problem of elite capture, either by non-targeted communities or by an elite within the targeted communities disproportionately benefiting …