Digital Commons Network^™

Linking Multivariate Observations Of The Land Surface To Vegetation Properties And Ecosystem Processes, Stephen C. Hagen

Doctoral Dissertations

Remotely sensed images from satellites and aircrafts, as well as regional networks and monitoring stations such as eddy flux towers, are collecting large volumes of multivariate data that contain information about the land surface and ecosystem processes. To derive from these systems information and knowledge relevant to how the Earth system functions and how it is changing, we need tools that to filter and mine the large data streams currently being acquired at different spatial and temporal scales. A challenge for Earth System Science lies in accurately identifying and portraying the relationships between the measurements at the sensor and quantity …

When The Workplace Is On Campus: Learning To Write For A University Speech Language Clinic, Michelle Cox

Doctoral Dissertations

Much of the literature on academic and workplace writing focuses on the differences between these two writing arenas, leading Dias et al. to describe writing for school and work as "worlds apart." Using insights from activity system theory and rhetorical genre theory, this dissertation project investigates the possibility of middle spaces between academic and workplace writing. Set in a Communication Science and Disorders (CSD) master's program, this qualitative study follows five graduate students as they learn workplace writing in a space that physically bridges academia and the workplace, an on-campus speech-language clinic.

Findings indicate that the genres used in the …

Serotonergic Involvement In The Behavioral Depression Produced By Intermittent Swim Stress, John Paul Christianson

Doctoral Dissertations

Exposure to uncontrollable stress produces a behavioral syndrome that is often described as "behavioral depression" in the rat. Current paradigms for inducing behavioral depression utilize continuous swimming or intermittent electric shock stress. Brown et al., developed a novel strategy that combined these stressors to produce the intermittent swim stress (ISS) protocol. The purpose of this thesis was to define the behavioral outcomes of ISS that resemble behavioral depression and to begin neurochemical characterization of the phenomenon.

Two hallmark features of behavioral depression are immobility, as determined in a Forced Swim Test (FST) and escape learning deficits, as determined by operant …

The Economics Of Childbearing: Three Essays, Andrea Kutinova

Doctoral Dissertations

Expenditure programs, business cycles, and government interventions can affect many decisions surrounding the birth of a child. For example, public insurance programs such as Medicaid have the potential to increase the utilization of prenatal care. This, in turn, may lead to better infant and maternal health outcomes. Given the high and increasing number of pregnant women covered by Medicaid, the effectiveness of the program in promoting prenatal care use and improving health needs to be evaluated. Also, the impacts of business cycles on childbearing are of interest to policymakers. For example, does unemployment substantially affect the decision to conceive a …

Good Press, Bad Press: A 25-Year Comparison Of Arguments And Trends In American News Coverage Of Climate Change And The Ozone Hole, David Howland

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uses an original content analysis categorical system to seek out and compare the substance of arguments in a quarter century of American news coverage about the ozone hole and climate change. Findings from an examination of more than 1,000 news articles written by The Associated Press, United Press International and The New York Times are combined with interviews with members of key stakeholder groups in both cases including scientists, politicians, industry officials, environmentalists and news reporters. The analysis illuminates the social and political processes at work---that is, those captured by the press---in the evolution of the Montreal ozone …

Assessing The Accuracy Of The Modis Lai 1-Km Product In Southeastern United States Loblolly Pine Plantations: Accounting For Measurement Variance From Ground To Satellite, John Shepherd Iiames Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

Leaf area index (LAI), defined here as one-half of the total leaf area per unit ground surface area (Chen, 1996), has been estimated at a global scale from spectral data processed from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard two NASA EOS-AM spacecraft, Terra (launched in 1999) and Aqua (launched in 2002). The MOD15A2 LAI product is a 1 km global data product composited over an 8-day period and is derived from a three-dimensional radiative transfer model driven by an atmosphere corrected surface reflectance product (MOD09), a land cover product (MOD12) and ancillary information on surface characteristics. The United …

Measurement Of The Partial Cross-Sections Sigmatt, Sigmalt And Sigmat + Epsilon-Sigmal Of The P(E,E'Pion+)N Reaction At The Delta(1232) Resonance, John M. Kirkpatrick

Doctoral Dissertations

The partial cross-sections sigmaLT, sigmaTT, and sigmaT+&egr;sigmaL have been measured for the H(e, e'pi+)n reaction, at Q 2 = 0.127 (GeV/c)2, W = 1232 MeV and theta piq = 44.45°, in a recent experiment at the MIT/Bates Linear Accelerator Center. The experiment was done with the Bates Out Of Plane Spectrometer system (OOPS) using a high duty factor (>50%) 950 MeV unpolarized electron beam. The One Hundred Inch Proton Spectrometer (OHIPS) detected electrons, and three OOPS modules provided out of plane hadron detection in two sequential sets of simultaneous measurements. The sigmaLT partial cross section is sensitive to the …

Gonadal Histology And Reproductive Steroidogenesis Of Anurans Exposed To Potential Endocrine Disrupting Contaminants, Emily May La Fiandra

Doctoral Dissertations

The prevalence of malformed amphibians and the association of high incidences of malformation with the presence of environmental contaminants have raised questions about the effects of environmental contaminants on the development of larval amphibians. The potential endocrine disrupting effects of pesticides suggest that the reproductive and developmental abnormalities observed in larval anurans may be due at least in part to impacts on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. The present studies investigate the effects of exposure to environmental contaminants including DDT and atrazine on the development, gonadal histology and reproductive steroidogenesis of larval anurans.

As previous monitoring at Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge …

Paleoenvironmental And Tectonic Reconstruction Of The Lower Eocene Ghazij Formation And Related Units, Balochistan, Pakistan: Implication For India -Asia Collision, Intizar Hussain Khan

Doctoral Dissertations

Formation and related units exposed along the transpressional suture zone of the western margin of the Indian plate preserve the oldest syntectonic deposits of initial India-Asia collision. Analysis of lithofacies, paleoflow directions, and sandstone petrography indicate that the process of deformation and uplift of the carbonate shelf along the western margin of the Indian continent was started as early as late Paleocene. This tectonic uplift and deformation is documented by several independent lines of evidence: (1) the overall shallowing upward synorogenic sequence of the Ghazij Formation and related units, (2) proximal conglomerate facies (consisting mainly of limestone clasts) dominate in …

Structural Analysis Of Cytokine Signaling Modulators, Cristina Ileana Silvescu

Doctoral Dissertations

The N-linked glycans attached to cytokine receptors modulate signal transduction by interacting with galectin-3 and generating a cell surface lattice. This opposes constitutive endocytosis and reduces the thresholds for cytokine signaling. The preferred ligands for galectin-3 are the poly-N-acetyl lactosaminylated tetra-antennary glycans which are synthesized by Mgat 5 and are present at high levels in tumor cells. A null mutation in Mgat 5 inhibits lattice formation and cancer progression in cells with an oncogenic background. GlcNAc feeding reestablishes lattice formation, cytokine signaling and tumorigenesis.

A MALDI-TOF analysis was employed to identify the N-glycans involved in modulating signal transduction in wild …

Rumor, Gender, And Authority In English Renaissance Drama, Keith M. Botelho

Doctoral Dissertations

The dramatic works of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson register a certain type of male character who is capable of discerning listening, an action that becomes an agent of specific masculine authority and identity. However, rumor's inherent ambiguity and indeterminacy poses the greatest threat to discerning listening. The paradox that emerges is that while the drama posits men as superior authors of information, it is men---and not women---who are responsible for the circulation of unauthorized information and rumor on the stage. Early modern literary and cultural discourses repeatedly pointed to the dangers of loose tongues and transgressive speech, …

Investigation Of Copper(Ii) Complexes: I Copper(Ii) Complexes Of Tryptophan And Its Analogues As Postcolumn Interaction Components For Indirect Fluorescence Detection Of Amino-Containing Analytes Ii High-Performance Liquid Chromatographic Separation Of Copper(Ii) Azamacrocyclic Complexes, Xiaoxuan Shen

Doctoral Dissertations

The initial phase of this project investigates the use of copper(II) complexes of tryptophan and its analogues for indirect fluorescence detection in high-performance liquid chromatography. First, indirect photometric and fluorometric detection in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is reviewed, giving the functional definition of indirect detection employed for this project, distinguishing different approaches to indirect photometric and fluorometric detection in HPLC, and explaining the basis of indirect fluorescence detection using copper(II) complexes of tryptophan and its analogues as postcolumn interaction components. Subsequent studies were conducted to develop and apply indirect HPLC detection for detecting specific mono-amino sugars, glucosamine, galactosamine, and …

Non-Linear Aspects Of Financial Integration: An Analysis Of The Real Interest Rate Parity For Southeast Asian Economies, Fabricio Linhares

Doctoral Dissertations

This study assesses the extent to which selected economies in Southeast Asia are financially integrated among themselves and internationally, and investigates whether financial integration in the region increased following the deregulation of their markets over the 1980's and early 1990's. The analysis is carried out by examining the relationship between ex post real interest rates over 1970-2005. Following the work of Meese and Rogoff (1988), countries are considered financially integrated based on the stationarity property of their real interest rate differentials. Conclusions are drawn from a confirmatory analysis, which contrasts results from unit root tests, with and without structural breaks, …

Proton Form Factor Ratio Measurement With Blast, Adrian Tiberiu Sindile

Doctoral Dissertations

The proton electric to magnetic form factor ratio ( GPE/GPM ) is related to the underlying electromagnetic structure of the proton. GPE/GPM is studied through elastic scattering using a longitudinally polarized electron beam with 0.85 GeV energy, a polarized internal hydrogen gas target and the BLAST detector at the MIT Bates Lab. Beam-target spin asymmetries are measured in several bins of Q2 for both left and right sector of BLAST, the super-ratio of these left/right asymmetries is formed and GPE/GPM is extracted.

Genetics And Physiology Of Motility By Photorhabdus Spp, Brandye A. Michaels

Doctoral Dissertations

Photorhabdus is a bacterial symbiont of soil nematodes and a lethal pathogen of insects. Many pathogenic or symbiotic bacteria utilize various methods of motility to reach favorable conditions, colonize a host, or have motility genes that also regulate virulence expression. It is not known how motility is regulated, or how it may confer an advantage, in the complex life cycle of Photorhabdus..

We characterized motility in Photorhabdus and found that the bacterium was motile both by swimming (movement in liquid) and swarming (movement on surfaces) under appropriate conditions. Both types of motility utilized the same peritrichous flagella and shared genetic …

Toward Eco -Citizenship: A Praxis For Empowerment, Penelope S. Morrow

Doctoral Dissertations

My teaching practice and research is about holistic education which assumes that, at some fundamental level, everything is connected. Holistic education is a philosophy, a worldview, that challenges the fragmented, reductionist, mechanistic and nationalistic assumptions of mainstream culture and education. The ultimate goal is to transform the way people look at themselves and their relationships in/to the world from a fragmented to an integrative perspective. This emerging paradigm can also be called ecological, evolutionary, spiritual and global. There is a growing belief that such education is fundamentally spiritual, in its search for wholeness.

Western civilization has been dominated from its …

Cichlids As A Model For The Evolution Of Visual Sensitivity, Tyrone Clifford Spady

Doctoral Dissertations

The cichlid fishes of East Africa are the most ecologically diverse radiation of recent vertebrates. These highly visual fish live in habitats ranging from turbid rivers to clear lakes. They have evolved to exploit an astounding array of foraging strategies. The combination of phenotypic diversity and varied environmental conditions makes the cichlid system ideal for the examination of the relationship between ecology and the evolution of visual sensitivity. In this dissertation, I explore several aspects of this relationship. In Chapter 1, I compare the opsin gene sequences from 17 African cichlid species that have evolved in either clear or turbid …

Physiological Bases Of Parental Care In The Burying Beetles, Nicrophorus Orbicollis, Stefania Carmen Panaitof

Doctoral Dissertations

Burying beetles, Nicrophorus orbicollis, have extended biparental care. They bury and prepare small vertebrate carcasses as food for their young. While females provide the most care, single males show a remarkable behavioral compensation after a mate loss. Here, I integrate behavioral and physiological analyses of parental behavior in burying beetles by exploring how hormonal and social factors may interact to mediate brood care.

In Chapter I, I establish Juvenile Hormone (JH) profiles during a breeding bout and show that after larvae hatch, JH titers of single males and paired females are similar. JH titers of single males also respond to …

Characterization Of Single-Sided Cadmium Zinc Telluride Strip Detectors For High Energy Astrophysics Applications, Burcin Donmez

Doctoral Dissertations

Cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe or CZT) was introduced as a new room temperature semiconductor detector due to its good energy resolution, high atomic number, high density and good stopping power in the early 1990s. UNH has focused on developing CZT strip detector designs for astrophysical measurement applications in the 0.05 to 1 MeV photon energy range. This thesis presents characterization efforts of two types of single-sided CZT strip detector: non-charge sharing orthogonal coplanar strip detectors and charge-sharing strip detectors. The characterization includes spectroscopy, imaging, uniformity and efficiency measurements. Measured energy resolutions with both detector designs are better than those obtainable …

Mentoring In The Learning Community: Problematic Practices And Outcomes Of Initial Implementation Of Formal Mentoring Programs In Two New Hampshire Public School Districts, Pamela Ann Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study uses a grounded theory methodology to examine how seven teacher mentors in two formalized New Hampshire public school mentoring programs conceptualize their roles and what happens to that conceptualization as they go through their first year of mentoring. The findings suggest that mentors, who have a history of engagement in buddy support, have difficulty shifting their conceptualization of supporting new teachers from the directive practices characteristic of buddy support to the relational practices that characterize "learning-focused" mentoring. Simply having a formal mentoring structure does not ensure such a shift. In fact, a number of major drawbacks to …

Improving Estimation Of Gross Primary Productivity Of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Qingyuan Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

The MOderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provides an unprecedented opportunity to monitor and quantify seasonal changes of vegetation and phenology. MODIS has the potential to improve the estimation, which is based on the algorithms for the NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), of biophysical/biochemical variables of vegetation. My doctoral study improves estimation of gross primary productivity (GPP) through two aspects: first, my study improved the detection of vegetation phenology by distinguishing MODIS contaminated observations and contamination-free observations, and secondly, I inverted the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) by chlorophyll using radiative transfer models and daily MODIS data. …

Planar Algebras: A Category Theoretic Point Of View, Shamindra Kumar Ghosh

Doctoral Dissertations

We define Jones's planar algebra as a map of multicategories and construct a planar algebra starting from a 1-cell in a pivotal strict 2-category. We introduce the concept of affine representations of a planar algebra and prove some finiteness results for the affine representations of finite depth planar algebras. We also show that the radius of convergence of the dimension of an affine representation of the planar algebra associated to a finite depth subfactor is at least as big as the inverse-square of the modulus.

Red Ink: Native Americans Picking Up The Pen In The Colonial Period, Drew Lopenzina

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation looks at the ways that Native Americans appropriated alphabetic literacy for their own purposes in the colonial period. Studies of Native writing tend to begin with the Mohegan preacher Samson Occom whose A Sermon Preached by Samson Occom (1772) is the first known publication by a Native author on the North American continent. This work, however, locates Occom near the end of a series of earlier Native contacts with the written word, the fragments of which are scattered throughout the archive of the colonizer. While scholars have become largely familiarized with the representational modes in American literature that …

Psychopathological Symptoms And Their Relation To Paranormal Belief And Illusory Judgment, Michael P. Cofrin

Doctoral Dissertations

The relationship between psychopathological symptoms and paranormal belief and abilities was explored in four studies. Study 1 investigated the relationship between depressive symptoms and paranormal belief. Study 2 shifted the investigation into the laboratory by testing participants' illusory judgments on a paranormal task and assessing the relationship between their judgments and depressive symptoms. Study 3 combined scale and lab tasks testing for additional psychopathological symptoms and illusory judgment on four paranormal tasks. Study 4 incorporated techniques to increase illusion of control induction and minimize context effects and fatigue. Psychosis proneness and mood symptoms were positively related to general paranormal belief …

Responses To Terrorism Scenarios: Event Features, Individual Characteristics, And Subjective Evaluations, Clinton Michael Jenkin

Doctoral Dissertations

The extensive research into responses to terrorism has focused on the effects of individual characteristics on reactions to past terrorism events. This literature has largely omitted two issues: the impact of terrorism event features, and reactions to possible future terrorism events. The first purpose of this dissertation was to account for the effects of event features as well as subjective evaluations on responses to terrorism events. The second purpose of this dissertation was to compare reactions to past and future terrorism scenarios.

A series of actual and hypothetical written scenarios were presented to undergraduate psychology students, and various responses measured. …

Recent Extreme Events In A Tropical Stalagmite: Multi-Proxy Records And Analysis Of Ecosystem Delta Carbon-13 Value Sensitivity To Weak Climate Forcing, Amy E Benoit Frappier

Doctoral Dissertations

Speleothems are emerging as important and detailed chronological records of environmental change. Integrating exploration of modern speleothem records of environmental variability, related forcing factors, and understanding and suggests new potential proxies. This dissertation demonstrates the potential for developing novel proxy records of past regional environmental extremes, such as tropical cyclones, explosive volcanism, and enhanced seasonal contrasts from speleothems that are sensitive to transient infiltration events through very high-resolution, multi-parameter analysis of a rapidly growing, fracture-fed tropical stalagmite. A series of sample screening steps were developed prior to stalagmite collection in the field in order to increase the likelihood of collecting …

An Investigation Of Pre-Service Teachers' And Professional Mathematicians' Perceptions Of Mathematical Proof At The Secondary School Level, David M. Gray

Doctoral Dissertations

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM] states that by the time students graduate high school, they should learn to present "arguments consisting of logically rigorous deductions of conclusions from hypotheses" (NCTM, 2000, p. 56) in "written forms that would be acceptable to professional mathematicians" (NCTM, 2000, p. 58). Research studies indicate, however, that students and teachers have difficulty with many aspects of mathematical proof, including its nature and meaning. In addition, there appears to be a disconnect between school teachers' and university mathematicians' expectations for their respective students regarding mathematical proof. This study examined the perceptions of thirteen …

Functional Analysis Of The Caf1 Protein, Takbum Ohn

Doctoral Dissertations

The CAF1 protein is a component of the CCR4-NOT deadenylase complex. While yeast CAF1 displays deadenylase activity, this activity is not required for its function in vivo, and CCR4 is the primary deadenylase in the complex. In order to identify CAF1-specific functional regions required for deadenylation in vivo, we targeted for mutagenesis six regions of CAF1 that are specifically conserved among CAF1 orthologs. Defects in three regions of the CAF1 protein (residues 173-175, residues 255-257 and residues 340-342, alleles caf1-1, caf1-3 and caf1-6, respectively) were found to dramatically reduce the rate of deadenylation in vivo and to result in typical …

Patterns And Process During The Diversification Of The Cichlid Fishes In Lake Malawi, Africa, Michael R. Kidd

Doctoral Dissertations

The 500-1000 cichlid species endemic to Lake Malawi constitute one of the most rapid and extensive radiations of vertebrates ever discovered. The objective of this dissertation was to test the assumptions and predictions of several recently published models of cichlid speciation. First, a novel assay of female choice was used to evaluate the role of visual cues during conspecific recognition. The results of this experiment demonstrate that females are able to identify conspecific mates using only visual cues. Second, the assumptions of a recent model of speciation via intrasexual selection were tested by comparing aggressive behavior during territorial contests among …

Regulation Of Rod Photoreceptor Phosphodiesterase (Pde6) By The Glutamic Acid -Rich Protein 2 (Garp2), Dana C. Pentia

Doctoral Dissertations

Rod photoreceptor phosphodiesterase (PDE6), the central enzyme of visual transduction in vertebrate photoreceptors, associates with the disk membranes of the rod outer segment (ROS) of the photoreceptor cell. This association insures the high efficiency of activation by the G-protein, transducin, and the precise control of its inactivation. In addition to binding to transducin during visual excitation, PDE6 is hypothesized to be regulated by other interacting proteins.

The first aim of this research was to isolate and identify the proteins that interact with PDE6 during various stages of the visual signaling pathway. We evaluated methods for solubilizing PDE6 and its binding …