Digital Commons Network^™

Ecological Database Development And Analyses Of Soil Variability In Northern New England, Michael Anayo Okoye

Doctoral Dissertations

The 1983 Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data of the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont (the study area) contain large amounts of field-measurements of many ecologically important variables. Despite the vast potential usefulness of the FIA data for scientific research, the data were until now, literally unused except for a few administrative purposes, because of problems in the way the data were organized, summarized, and coded for storage. The primary objective of this research was to solve the problems that had thus precluded these FIA data from use in scientific applications, and present the data in a form …

The Use Of An Artificial Light System To Assess The Influence Of Relative Light Change On Diel Activity Cycles Of Nymphs Of The Mayfly, Stenonema Modestum, In The Presence And Absence Of Predators, Annette L. Schloss

Doctoral Dissertations

A mechanism by which light controls diel changes in locomotor activity and surface location of mayfly nymphs (Stenonema modestum Banks), named the Stimulus-based Timing and Activity-Rate (STAR) Model, was tested. Nymph movements were video-recorded in time-lapse from underneath unglazed artificial substrates in a laboratory stream. Light/dark cycles were simulated using computer-controlled halogen lamps. Light increases and decreases were generated to maintain constant rates of relative light change throughout simulated twilight periods. Nymph locomotor activity and position on the substrate were measured in response to rate of light change. Experiments tested whether adaptation light intensity (10$\sp{-4}$ or 10$\sp{-6}$ W cm$\sp{-2}$), time …

Foraging Strategies Of Two Sympatric Lagomorphs: Implications Of Habitat Fragmentation, Douglas Foxall Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

I studied the effects of variation in food patch quality and predation risk on the foraging patterns and measures of foraging behavior of New England (S. transitionalis) and eastern (S. floridanus) cottontails, and their survivorship and weight change during these experiments. I then superimposed the results of these experiments onto real habitat patches to determine the amount of habitat each species could occupy and maintain similar survivorship. Finally, I measured an adaptation (eye size), and predator detection of both species in an effort to explain the difference in survival between S. floridanus and S. transitionalis.

In outdoor enclosures (5.7 x …

A Place In Town: Women Producing Cultural Stratification, Carrie Lynn Yodanis

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines how women in a working class, fishing community select and present cultural orientations to distinguish themselves from other women and create stratification. Based on data gathered through eight months of participant observation and 44 in-depth interviews, the research shows that local women choose and then reinforce social identities that reflect the norms, values, lifestyles of either the working class town, the wealthy summer colony, or people from outside the community. They present their cultural orientations through their work ethics, leisure activities, consumption practices, and family values and expectations. By producing these identities, women create and establish a …

Preparing The Way Of The Lord: Three Case Studies Of Ministerial Preconditioning In Congregations Before The Great Awakening, 1675-1750, Douglas Kevin Fidler

Doctoral Dissertations

This study demonstrates that ministerial predecessors in three northern New England communities actually preconditioned community reactions to the Great Awakening during the years preceding the revival itself. "Preconditioning" is not the ordinary "influence" of pastors within their churches and professional circles suggested in other works. This kind of influence might cause parishioners to consider various behavioral alternatives when confronted by spiritual circumstances. Preconditioned congregations would already have established paradigms for responding to spiritual stimulus. While individual parishioners might act in ways consistent with their own personalities, psychological needs, and spiritual sensitivities, congregations as a whole would apply a predetermined set …

Mothers' Helpers: The Resources Of Female-Headed Families In A Working Class Community, Margaret Walsh

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines why women form single parent households and how they maintain them in a rural community. In 1995 and 1996 I conducted in-depth interviews with 50 divorced, separated, and never-married mothers, and 10 interviews with people working in community service programs. My findings show how one group of women benefited from early financial investments from their own steadily employed parents who owned their home and raised a large family. These "strong" families are headed by women who finished high school and had work experience before getting pregnant. Although many of them gave birth out of wedlock, they had …

Composition As A Mode Of Being: Politics, Ethics, And History In The Writing Classrooms Of Postmodernity, Lance Michael Svehla

Doctoral Dissertations

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. once commented that while he did not "deny the importance, on the level of theory, of the (postmodern) project," such a project did not help him when he was "trying to get a taxi on the corner of 125th and Lenox Avenue" (Loose Canons 37-38). The postmodern project lacked what Gates calls "practical performative force." The purpose of this dissertation is to establish postmodernity's practical performative force for the composition classroom. It addresses four central questions: What is postmodernity? What is its relationship to composition? Why should composition teachers and students care about this relationship? How …