Digital Commons Network^™

Gender And Personality In The Stress Process, Daniel David Cervi

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of gender and several personality characteristics in the stress process using a cross-sectional study of 443 university students from a mid-size public New England university, a New England Catholic college, and a mid-size private Florida university. Three models are tested to consider the direct, mediating, and moderating effects of gender and personality on the stress outcomes of drug/alcohol use; non-substance deviant behavior; and depressive symptomatology.

Model 1 tests the antecedent effects of gender and personality to determine their influence on stress outcomes. The main effect of gender explained the largest portion of variance for drug/alcohol …

Influences On Teachers' Curricular Choices In Project-Based Science Classrooms, Karen Anne Laba

Doctoral Dissertations

This descriptive research will present two case studies of experienced science teachers using project-based curricula in all or part of their secondary life science/biology courses. The purpose of this study is to reveal the underlying relationships between teachers' conceptions of the nature of science, their understanding of their role as science teachers and their expectations for appropriate and worthwhile student learning, and to describe the influence of these factors on their curricular choices within the project-based framework. Using a modification of Hewson, Kerby and Cook's (1995) Conceptions of Teaching Science protocol as a model, teachers' beliefs and intentions are classified …

A Very High Level Logic Synthesis, Norbert Ange Valverde

Doctoral Dissertations

The evolution of Computer Aided Design (CAD) calls for the incorporation of design specifications into a microelectronics system development cycle. This expansion requires the establishment of a new generation of CAD procedures, defined as Very High Level Logic Synthesis (VHLLS). The fundamental characteristics of open-ended VHLLS are: (1) front-end graphical interface; (2) time encapsulation; and (3) automatic translation into a behavioral description. Consequently, the VHLLS paradigm represents an advanced category of CAD-based microelectronics system design, built on a deep usage of expert systems and intelligent methods. Artificial Intelligence (AI) formalisms such as Knowledge Representation System (KRS) are necessary to model …

Physical And Chemical Climate In The Nepal Himalaya, Arun Bhakta Shrestha

Doctoral Dissertations

The physical climate of the Himalaya is governed by monsoon circulation, a primary source of moisture to the region. To date, little research has focused on the physical and chemical climate in the Himalaya, while not much is known about the chemical climate there. This dissertation is a first attempt to investigate both the physical and chemical aspects of climate in the Nepal Himalaya with the objective of documenting current conditions and past trends as well as laying the foundation for investigations of their inter-relationship in the future.

Temperature and precipitation records from a network of meteorological station in Nepal …

Literacies Without Judgment: Composing A (Con)Text For Cultural Healing In Northeast Brazil, Francisco Silva Cavalcante Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study the researcher describes and interprets the experiences with Projeto (Con)texto, a research group created in Northeast Brazil composed of eleven people with different levels of formal schooling, social classes and ages varying from 14 to 50 years old. The researcher explores the dynamics of the Brazilian relational universe and its impact on people's lives, the multiple forms of letramento (literacies) used by people in a certain cultural context to construe and convey meaning, and the process of strengthening of one's self to deal with cultural conflicts through cultural healing.

The researcher gathered descriptive data during one year …

Perceptions Of New Hampshire Teachers And Supervisors Regarding Teacher Supervision, Pamela L. Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the perceptions of New Hampshire teachers and supervisors regarding teacher present and ideal systems for teacher supervision. Teacher supervision was defined as being inclusive of district practices which promote teacher growth and development and those which are used to make evaluative judgments about teachers' performance. The study sample included 73 supervisors and 305 teachers randomly selected from 45 school districts. The sample districts were selected using a stratified random sampling process in which the stratification variables were district wealth as reflected in the district's equalized valuation per pupil and geographic region.

Data were collected through the use …

Reproductive Ecology Of Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum Canadense Desf), Michael Todd Ganger

Doctoral Dissertations

Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense var. canadense Desf.), a rhizomatous perennial herb, was the subject of field experiments investigating the role of several factors on the sexual reproduction of ramets. Mayflower ramets may be either flowering (with 2-3 leaves and a terminal inflorescence consisting of 4-35 perfect flowers) or vegetative (1 leaf).

Pollen addition increased the number of seeds matured by ramets in three out of four years in which pollen level was experimentally manipulated. The lack of compatible pollen is thought to be a major factor limiting seed maturation by ramets.

The act of severing the rhizomes, such that ramets …

Transactional Bond In The Novels Of Charles Brockden Brown, Gretchen Elspeth Digeronimo

Doctoral Dissertations

The six novels and various other fiction pieces Charles Brockden Brown wrote between 1799 and 1801 coherently demonstrate the operation and effect of literary and artistic representation in early Republican America.

In original close readings of Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntly, Ormond, and several other works, this dissertation identifies transactional bond and describes how Brown charted the establishment of the public and private individual self through transactional bond in three specific arenas: relationships between the developing self and written, visual, or reported representation; relationships between master/mentors and apprentices; relationships among women.

Bonds that begin, operate, and dissolve between male characters are …

In The Name Of The Father: The Continuity And Paradox Of Puritan Theology And Pastoral Authority, Patricia J. Hill-Zeigler

Doctoral Dissertations

American scholars have long been interested in the intellectual and social impact of the eighteenth-century religious revival, the Great Awakening. This dissertation uses a colonial family as a case study of the significance of this major colonial event. It traces and compares the intellectual and theological development of Michael Wigglesworth, and his two sons, Samuel and Edward. The Wigglesworth family represents both the foundation of Puritan thought in the seventeenth century and the transformation of that thought in the eighteenth century. Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705), a tutor and Fellow at Harvard College and pastor of the church in Malden, Massachusetts, was …

Stability And Weight Smoothing In Cmac Neural Networks, David Paul Campagna

Doctoral Dissertations

Although the CMAC (Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller) neural network has been successfully used in control systems for many years, its property of local generalization, the availability of trained information for network responses at adjacent untrained locations, although responsible for the networks rapid learning and efficient implementation, results in network responses that is, when trained with sparse or widely spaced training data, spiky in nature even when the underlying function being learned is quite smooth. Since the derivative of such a network response can vary widely, the CMAC's usefulness for solving optimization problems as well as for certain other control system …

Measuring And Modeling Northeastern Forest Ecosystem Response To Environmental Stresses, Jennifer Caroline Jenkins

Doctoral Dissertations

Because forest responses to CO$\sb2$ fertilization and associated climate change are likely to be extremely complex, numerical models representing forest response to an integrated set of future conditions can be useful predictive tools. I compared predictions of forest net primary productivity (NPP) made by two ecosystem process models (PnET-II and TEM 4.0) using different climate scenarios, spatial resolutions, and methods of representing land cover and soils. Decreasing spatial resolution did not appreciably change NPP estimates. Input datasets, particularly climate, land cover, and soil water holding capacity, were important sources of variability in NPP estimates. These datasets interacted with model structures …

New Synthetic Routes To Strained Cumulenes And Reactive Carbenes, Susana Hernandez

Doctoral Dissertations

I. The synthesis, trapping, and strain energy estimates for cyclic butatrienes are described. Four fundamental questions have been investigated: kinetic stability limitations, molecular strain, structural limitations, and the development of a general synthetic route applicable to different ring sizes.

1,2,3-Cyclooctatriene (9) has been generated by magnesium induced 1,2-elimination on 2-bromo-3-chloro-1,3-cyclooctadiene (4). Synthesis of the eight-membered ring completes the C$\sb6$-C$\sb{10}$ series of cyclic butatrienes. This substance shows moderate kinetic stability, but is readily trapped in a ($\rm\sb\pi2\sb{s}{+}\sb\pi4\sb{s}\rbrack$ cycloaddition with diphenylisobenzofuran or 2,5-dimethylfuran. The total strain energy and the strain in the butatriene moiety in cumulene 9 have been assessed by ab …

Energy Flow And Non-Guiding Center Effects In The Earth's Magnetotail, Ioannis Dimitrios Kontodinas

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate energy transfer processes in the Earth's magnetotail. An equilibrium, two-dimensional magnetic field model is used to simulate the mid-tail region. Groups of particles are traced in the model magnetic field and the groups are combined to generate a self-consistent two-dimensional current sheet. Two thin current sheets are generated with thicknesses characteristic of a substorm growth phase. One current sheet contains Speiser-type particles only and the other one contains mostly Speiser-type and some trapped particles. It is found that the two current sheets show differences in energy flow processes and pressure anisotropies due …

Alternative Removal Methodologies For Environmental Waters, Shannon Patrick Hogan

Doctoral Dissertations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to establish criteria for the reduction of pathogens in environmental waters used for drinking water. The EPA also states criteria on the amount of chlorine by-products allowed in drinking water. Alternative removal methods that are used in conjunction with chlorine are needed to assure safe drinking water.

The Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR) states that a 99.99% reduction of viruses and a 99.9% reduction in Giardia lamblia cysts needs to be achieved by a treatment facility that uses surface water for the production of drinking water. The SWTR also states Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) …

Issues Of Engendered Entitlement: Who Owns The Classroom? Who Owns Knowledge?, Dorothy Radius Kasik

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ways in which first year female college students have been prepared by educational systems in our culture to handle knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge during the first year of college experience. It is the contention of the author that women are not actively encouraged in our culture to take ownership of educational concepts in the same way as men. This happens for two reasons, first that because women's methods of interaction in the classroom might differ from men's those methods might not be perceived as acceptable or taken seriously; and second that a woman's discomfort …

Fluid-Structure Interaction In Taylor-Couette Flow, Martin Horst Willi Kempf

Doctoral Dissertations

The linear stability of a viscous fluid between two concentric, rotating cylinders is considered. The inner cylinder is a rigid boundary and the outer cylinder has an elastic layer exposed to the fluid. The subject is motivated by flow between two adjoining rollers in a printing press. The governing equations of the fluid layer are the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and the governing equations of the elastic layer are Navier's equations. A narrow gap, neutral stability, and axisymmetric disturbances are assumed. The solution involves a novel technique for treating two layer stability problems, where an exact solution in the elastic layer …

Silent Partners: The Economic Life Of Women On The Frontier Of Colonial New York, Aileen Button Agnew

Doctoral Dissertations

The Hudson-Mohawk frontier of eighteenth-century New York made both a boundary and a meeting place for several cultures. The shops and retail spaces of this borderland provided a common space for the convergence of women and their work with the more visible male-dominated economy. As recorded in local account books, black, white, and Indian women took part in many aspects of local commerce. As retailers, as producers, and as consumers, women participated in the world of business and accounts.

Settled in the seventeenth-century by the Dutch, this part of New York had long been occupied by Iroquoian tribes. Trade between …

"The Tawnee Family": The Life Course Of Indian Value Adaptation For Eleazar Wheelock's Indian Scholars, Stacy Lynn S Hogsett

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of value adaptation by the southern New England Indians who attended Moor's Charity School, in Lebanon, Connecticut, between 1743 and 1770. These Indians were part of New Light Minister Eleazar Wheelock's extended household, dubbed by one student, the "tawnee family." This designation distinguished these Indian scholars as surrogate members of the Wheelock family. I analyzed how the Indian students adapted to, resisted and reformed the values taught at Moor's as they grew to adulthood.

I drew my analysis from letters collected in the Eleazar Wheelock Papers housed at Dartmouth College. My arguments are drawn principally …

Non-Major Histocompatibility (B) Complex Effects On Rous Sarcomas And V-Src-Induced Tumors, Keith Thomas Lepage

Doctoral Dissertations

Rous sarcoma virus and v-src-induced tumor outcome is controlled by the major histocompatibility (B) complex. While data have suggested non-MHC effects, few studies have focused on systems other than the B complex. Experiment one matings produced $B\sp2B\sp5$ and $B\sp5B\sp5$ progeny which segregated for alleles of 7 additional blood groups (A, C, D, H, I, L, P) and the Rfp-Y system. Experiment one survivors produced Experiment two progeny. The $B\sp5B\sp5$ parents for Experiment three combined different background genes with a tumor progressor B haplotype using the F$\sb2$ generation of a cross between Line SC ($B\sp2B\sp2$) and Line 6.15-5 ($B\sp5B\sp5$).

The Bryan …

Ice Core Glaciochemical Records Of Late Holocene Climatic Variability In West Antarctica, Karl Jacob Kreutz

Doctoral Dissertations

The complex atmospheric and glaciological dynamics of West Antarctica make this region of particular interest in addressing the continent's cause and effect relationship in the global climate system, and for evaluating future global change scenarios. Ice core records from this region provide the resolution necessary to both improve our understanding of modern regional climate variability, and to reconstruct past changes in a number of climate components.

High-resolution (subannual to biannual) snow and ice core samples collected from two regions of West Antarctica, Siple Dome and Marie Byrd Land, were analyzed for water soluble major ion content. Examination of detailed surface …

In Pursuit Of "A Good Healthy Chat": The Roles Of Organization And Rapport-Building In Effective Middle School Literacy Instruction, Douglas Kingsley Kaufman

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study I explore what classroom conditions a master eighth-grade language arts teacher created in order to become a more effective listener. I defined effective listening as a deep receptivity that leads the listener to create responses that satisfy the other's needs. Responses must help students move their ideas and work progressively forward. Conditions that promote effective listening, then, serve two purposes: they (1) enhance teacher receptivity and (2) help students better articulate their interests, knowledge, and needs.

During the 1996-1997 school year I conducted a qualitative study that drew heavily upon ethnographic methodologies. As a participant-observer I took …

Ground State Of (16)O, Bogdan Mihaila

Doctoral Dissertations

We use the coupled cluster expansion (exp(S) method) to solve the many-body Schrodinger equation in configuration space in a configuration space of 35 $\hbar\omega.$ The Hamiltonian includes a nonrelativistic one-body kinetic energy, a realistic two-nucleon potential and a phenomenological three-nucleon potential. Using this formalism we generate the complete ground state correlations due the underlying interactions between nucleons. The resulting ground state wave function is used to calculate the binding energy, the one- and two-body densities for the ground state of $\sp{16}$O. The problem of center-of-mass corrections in calculating observables has been worked out by expanding the center-of-mass correction as many-body …

The Structural Optimization Of Atomic And Molecular Microclusters Using A Genetic Algorithm In Real-Valued Space-Fixed Coordinates, John Arthur Niesse

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation documents the development and application of the space-fixed modified genetic algorithm, SFMGA. The SFMGA is shown to be both portable and fast for the structural optimization of Lennard-Jones, silicon, water, benzene, naphthalene, and anthracene microclusters.

We introduce the SFMGA and apply it to LJ atomic clusters. CPU times needed to obtain the global minimum are compared with similar methods. We then investigate a complicated potential representing silicon atoms. The results show that SFMGA is applicable to non-pairwise additive potentials.

We demonstrate the use of SFMGA for clusters where the monomers are molecules. Water clusters are optimized and the …

Dynamics Of Dissolved Organic Carbon During Weathering And Soil Formation, Kimberly Linnea Mccracken

Doctoral Dissertations

Interactions between dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and mineral soils were examined in field and laboratory experiments. Specific emphasis was given to factors influencing DOC mobility and element release during mineral weathering and soil formation. Soil chemical and physical properties controlling equilibrium concentrations of DOC (DOC$\rm\sb{np})$ in coarse-textured forest soils were investigated using laboratory batch reactors and the initial mass isotherm approach. The influence of DOC concentration on release of metals and silica was investigated in four soil parent materials. One of four acid treatments (0.001 N HNO$\sb3$ and three concentrations of forest floor leachate) or distilled water were added to …

Differentiation And Composition On The Hardy And Bergman Spaces, Neil Portnoy

Doctoral Dissertations

Banach spaces of analytic functions are defined by norming a collection of these functions defined on a set X. Among the most studied are the Hardy and Bergman spaces of analytic functions on the unit disc in the complex plane. This is likely due to the richness of these spaces.

An analytic self-map of the unit disc induces a composition operator on these spaces in the natural way. Beginning with independent papers by E. Nordgren and J. V. Ryff in the 1960's, much work has been done to relate the properties of the composition operator to the characteristics of the …

Population Structure And Phylogenetic History Of The Lake Malawi Cichlid Species Flock, Jeffrey Alan Markert

Doctoral Dissertations

The cichlid species "flocks" which are endemic to the East African Rift Valley are characterized by frequent lineage splitting events which have led to the rapid evolution of high levels of taxonomic diversity. Changes in water level cause these habitat patches to be chronically unstable, hypothetically speeding the process of genetic differentiation through the combined effects of genetic drift and selection. Allele frequencies at four simple sequence repeat loci indicate low levels of gene flow in two rock dwelling fish species, Melanochromis auratus and Labeotropheus fuelleborni, collected from the Nankumba Peninsula in southern Lake Malawi. Small interruptions in habitat cause …

Timber Price Trends, Jack Lutz

Doctoral Dissertations

Timber price forecasts are important components of timberland investment analysis. Econometric models used in forecasting timber prices can be complex because demand for timber is derived through demand for other products such as paper and housing. In contrast to econometric methods, time series analysis or autoregressive techniques allow price forecasts to be made from the timber price series themselves.

A necessary condition for using time series techniques is that the timber price series be stationary or mean-reverting. The primary hypothesis in this study was that timber prices would not be stationary and time series techniques could not be applied to …

Factors That Influence The Decision Regarding Hormone Replacement Therapy In Postmenopausal Women, Ruth A Rogers Reilly

Doctoral Dissertations

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States today. Prior to menopause women have lower rates of heart disease than men; however, after menopause a woman's risk for heart disease rises dramatically. This is thought to be due the ovaries' decreased production of estradiol, but the mechanisms for this effect have not been fully elucidated. The need exists to investigate the impact of healthy lifestyles on attenuating the risk of cardiovascular disease in women as they age.

The majority of research on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has focused on the biomedical model suggesting that …

Music And The General Classroom: Literacy In A New Key, F Dan Seger

Doctoral Dissertations

After a personal description of the traditional role of music education and its relationship to the overall curriculum of an American elementary school, this dissertation asks: What do grade 4/5 students do when their classroom and music teachers integrate music more deliberately into classroom life? Set in a classroom in a small New England town, the dissertation describes how a collaboration between a classroom teacher and a music teacher brought the music curriculum into the daily lives of students in a school where scheduled music class occurred only once per week.

Viewing music as a valid means to represent thought …

Spin-Exchange Polarized (3)He Using Optically Pumped Alkali Atoms For Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Neutron Spin-Filters, Vance Reid Pomeroy

Doctoral Dissertations

The past several years have witnessed an increase in applications of polarized noble gases. In particular, the development of high power lasers has enabled the realization of dense, highly polarized samples of $\sp3$He. We report here the development of a system to produce high density, highly polarized samples of $\sp3$He gas. We developed a liquid helium system to cryogenically increase the density of $\sp3$He gas to pressures exceeding 10 atmospheres. We developed a system based on adiabatic fast passage nuclear magnetic resonance to measure and monitor the $\sp3$He nuclear polarization. Polarizations as high as 64% were measured and cells with …