Digital Commons Network^™

A Model Leadership Curriculum For Managers Of An Eden Alternative Nursing Home, Jennifer A. Horton

Master's Theses and Capstones

A nursing home is a difficult environment for staff as well as residents. As a result, some nursing homes are moving toward a more holistic, person-centered approach to care. The Eden Alternative is one of those organizations. Empowerment of direct caregivers and the flattening of the hierarchical structure of the traditional nursing home are two important components of the culture change process known as the Eden Alternative. As a result, management within an Eden environment requires skills different from those in the traditional top-down organizational structure. A model curriculum is outlined to help managers of an Eden Alternative nursing home …

Interstellar Helium Pickup Ion Flux Variations Observed With Soho/Celias, Lukas A. Saul

Doctoral Dissertations

Interstellar pickup ions are formed when neutral atoms freely enter the heliosphere and are subsequently ionized. Once these particles are charged they become a component of the interplanetary plasma and are transported outward with the solar wind (SW). Measurements of these particles give information about the local interstellar gas in which our sun resides. However, fluxes of pickup ions in the solar wind are observed to vary substantially in both magnitude and energy spectrum.

Hypothesized is that the main causes of these variations are transport phenomenon in the solar wind, determined by the solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field. …

Evaluating The Middle School Mathematics Teacher Preparation Program At Riyadh Teachers' College, Maher M. Alghanem

Doctoral Dissertations

Continuous evaluation and feedback are essential to improving the quality of teacher preparation programs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of various aspects of the preparation of preservice middle school mathematics teachers at Riyadh Teachers' College, Saudi Arabia, from the perspective of both preservice middle school mathematics teachers and mathematics department faculty members. The focus of this study was on the mathematics department's theoretical framework, its governance and resources, faculty qualifications and performance, courses and field experiences, approaches of teaching, and assessment forms. Two research questionnaires were developed for the purpose of collecting research data: one …

College Students' Development Of Social Support And Its Relationship To Pre -Orientation Experiences, Brent J. Bell

Doctoral Dissertations

The work of any life transition involves specific tasks, often including the re-establishment of social support in a variety of forms (Weiss, 1974). College students are particularly affected by transition, often disrupting established support systems while transitioning into adulthood. To assist with this transition, campuses offer a number of services (e.g., admissions/alumni programs, campus visits, pre-orientation programs, first-year orientation, first-year seminars). Such services are defined in this study as Comprehensive Transitional Programs (CTP). Little is known about how CTP impact social support. This study focused on adapting the Campus Focused Social Provisions Scale (CF-SPS), as an instrument to measure social …

Ecological Influences On The Developmental Status Of Parents Of Adolescents, Elise N. Cantor

Doctoral Dissertations

This study takes an ecological approach to the examination of developmental status of adults in middle adulthood, with a focus on parents of adolescents, investigating adults' developmental statuses with respect to their children's development. Hypotheses predicted ecological variables would related with middle adult development, defined in terms of generativity, identity certainty, and identity concern. Children's development, social support, stress, personality, well-being, and background variables were investigated in analyses. It was further hypothesized that social support and stress would mediate the relation between child and adult development.

The sample for the present study was composed of 126 parents-child pairs. Parents were …

Factors Affecting The Activation Of Predictive Inferences, Mary E. Harmon

Doctoral Dissertations

Past research has demonstrated that predictive inferences are difficult to detect when distracting material is present (Klin, Guzaman, & Levine, 1999b). The experiments in this dissertation were designed to explore both how and why distracting material influences the availability of predictive inferences.

Participants were presented with passages containing either a neutral introduction or a distractor introduction followed by an inference-evoking sentence or a control sentence. In Experiment 1, activation of predictive inferences was detected with a naming task, but not in the presence of distracting information. In Experiments 2 and 3, there was no evidence of activation of a "distractor" …

Spatial Distribution Of The Common Loon (Gavia Immer) In New Hampshire, Mark W. Brennan

Doctoral Dissertations

The Common Loon (Gavia immer) is located in many portions of North America. By the early 1970's the Common Loon population in New Hampshire had experienced a dramatic decline in historic numbers. In 1975, the Audubon Society of New Hampshire recognized this problem and established the Loon Preservation Committee (LPC). The intent was to collect information regarding the presence or absence of loons and loon productivity, and, educate the public regarding loon ecology and preservation. This dissertation represents the work completed to fulfill the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Natural Resources Management at the University of New …

School Governance In New Hampshire: Revisiting A Study Of School Board -Superintendent Relations In Small Rural School Districts, Betsey Stebbins Cox-Buteau

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to replicate the dissertation of Dr. Phillip McCormack of 1988 and to compare the results of that study to the results of this study of 2004, fifteen years later. Dr. McCormack's original research questions were used but modified to include the comparison of data fifteen years apart.

A descriptive research design was used. It was based upon the design used by Dr. McCormack. The study used both a quantitative component and a qualitative component. Information was gathered, as it had been in 1988, through (1) questionnaires given to school board members and superintendents and …

Burnside Factors, Amenability Defects And Transitive Families Of Projections In Factors Of Type Ii(1), Jon P. Bannon

Doctoral Dissertations

We introduce a notion of transitive family of projections in a type II1 factor and prove that there exists (i) a 5 element transitive family in the hyperfinite II1 and (ii) a 12 element free transitive family. We then prove that the group von Neumann algebras of the known infinite free Burnside groups are all type II1 factors. Our investigation of weak-amenability properties of Burnside groups leads us to consider the Connes theory of correspondences. From this investigation we are able to define a new Folner invariant for type II1 factors. We prove a monotonicity result and find a positive …

Third Graders Speak: Experiences And Perspectives Of Reading And Writing In Urban Public Schools, Kimberly A. Boothroyd

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences and perspectives of reading and writing among third grade students attending urban public schools. The study took place in a large urban district in the Northeastern United States and included two elementary schools, four classrooms, and 24 students. The study was designed and conducted as qualitative research. 24 students were interviewed at two different times in the school year using (1) a picture protocol for the first interview and (2) a semi-structured interview protocol for the second interview. Analysis of the 48 interviews yielded findings in three areas: (1) The …

Gender Differences In Coping: Implications For Depression And Crime, Amanda Howerton

Doctoral Dissertations

It is a common cultural belief that women employ emotion and passive focused coping methods more frequently than men. Likewise, most empirical evidence supports the idea that women are more likely to cope by modifying their emotional responses to stress, whereas males most often use and are more proficient with the problem solving approach (Billings and Moos 1984; Endler and Parker 1990; Milkie and Thoits 1993; Pearlin and Schooler 1978; Stone and Neale 1984). Despite considerable theoretical and empirical attention to these issues, there are still several gaps that remain in our understanding of the ways in which gender and …

An Evaluation Of Supplemental Methionine Sources For Lactating Dairy Cows, Ryan S. Ordway

Doctoral Dissertations

The most effective method for increasing supplies of MP-Met to dairy cows to increase milk protein production is to feed rumen-protected Met ( RP-Met) products; however, not all RP-Met products are absorbed by the dairy cow in the same manner. Universally acceptable methods must be developed to determine the efficacy of different RP-Met products.

The first study was designed to compare the feeding of two sources of supplementary Met beginning 21 d prepartum and continuing for 140 d postpartum. The results indicated that feeding both sources of RPMet to periparturient dairy cows is effective in increasing milk protein production; however, …

Chemical Sensors Based On Swelling Polymer Microspheres And Uncrosslinked Fluorescently-Labelled Molecularly Imprinted Polymers, George K. Mwangi

Doctoral Dissertations

Polymer swelling can be achieved by derivatizing a functional group onto the polymer that selectively binds a particular analyte. For example, at low pH, the particles in a hydrogel membrane swell in response to the increased hydrogen ion concentration and the membrane reflects less light. When the refractive index of the membrane is less than that of the particles, swelling decreases the refractive index of the particles. This brings it closer to the refractive index of the membrane, and decreases the scattering of light making the membrane more transparent.

On the other hand if the refractive index of the membrane …

Exploring Table Talk: Does Dialogue Or Debate Correspond To Success And Satisfaction In Teacher Collective Bargaining?, Michael R. Jette

Doctoral Dissertations

The purposes of this study were: (1) to see if there is a difference in the way representatives from labor and management report the use of dialogue and debate while sitting together around the teacher contract bargaining table, and (2) to determine if individuals who approach the table and engage in dialogue have a greater satisfaction with bargaining than those who engage in debate. The research survey collected background information about the negotiators, the outcome of their bargaining, and their perceptions of success. It also contained 19 diametrically opposed statements related to dialogue or debate, and respondents used a Likert-type …

Long -Term Episodic Memory In Children With Attention -Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder, Jeffrey S. Skowronek

Doctoral Dissertations

Research on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has indicated that diagnosed children show considerable memory deficits. The majority of tasks that have supported such deficits have focused on working memory and school/semantic-related abilities. Although there is a small body of literature related to long-term memory in children with ADHD, no studies appear to focus on long-term episodic memory, including personal-event memory. This is the case despite clinical and anecdotal evidence suggesting that children with ADHD might show enhanced long-term episodic memory abilities in comparison to those without.

Twenty-one children with ADHD (5 females and 16 males) and 31 children without ADHD (14 …

Visualizing The Invisible: The Role Of Race And White Racial Identity In The Teaching And Pedagogy Of New Esol Teachers, Tonda Liggett

Doctoral Dissertations

The nature of my dissertation inquiry and my overall argument explore the role that white racial identity has in the teaching and pedagogy of new ESOL teachers. Throughout this dissertation I argue for better understandings of race to raise awareness of how knowledge systems are socially constructed to support a level of inequality that disadvantages ESOL students of color. As ESOL teachers begin their work, I question how their white racial identity and cultural positionality influence their perceptions of diverse groups of English language learners and how these perceptions influence their teaching.

I focus on the social construction of knowledge …

Innovation And Institutions: Examining The Black Box, Edinaldo Tebaldi

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to the literature by investigating the links between institutions and innovation from both a theoretical and an empirical standpoint. Specifically, this dissertation (i) develops a theoretical growth model that explicitly accounts for the influences of institutions on technical innovation and output production; (ii) specifies an empirical model suitable to examine the affect of institutions on technical innovation based on a theoretical model; and (iii) tests if different measures of institutions (i.e., Control of Corruption, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Expropriation Risk) have differentiated impacts on innovation.

A major prediction of the theoretical model is that better …

Choran Community: The Aesthetics Of Encounter In Literary And Photographic Modernism, Emily M. Hinnov

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines novels, photographs, and phototexts by British and American artists published between the world wars in order to argue that these works re-envision community through a narrative aesthetic, which I term the choran moment, that communicates the possibility of genuinely empathetic understanding between self and other. My study of literary and photographic modernism is based upon these modern artists' awareness of an ever-present, organic community allied in common knowledge of the interconnection among humanity offered through convergence with and respect for difference. These choran moments of correlation are key to the aesthetics and therefore the politics of modernist …

The Controls Of Watershed Nutrient Export, Wilfred M. Wollheim

Doctoral Dissertations

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) loading has increased considerably in recent times, yet only a small proportion is generally exported to the coast from most watersheds. This dissertation addresses some of the factors controlling N export from watersheds. The focus is on (1) how N export and N retention change with increased urbanization, and (2) how river networks modify N that is loaded to them.

Urbanization is a major perturbation of the land surface. Chapter 1 uses a budget approach to assess how N retention changes with increased urbanization in small headwater catchments in northeastern Massachusetts, USA. Water runoff, N loading, and …

Stable Invariant Subspaces, Reflexivity, And Bmo, Hassan Yousefi

Doctoral Dissertations

In the first part of the thesis we obtain some new results in Hadwin's general version of reflexivity and apply them in the classical cases. We prove that the image of any C*-algebra under any bounded unital homomorphism into B(W) is approximately reflexive, where W is a Banach space. We also introduce two new versions of reflexivity, approximate algebraic reflexivity and asymptotic reflexivity, and study their properties.

In the second part of the thesis we construct a general setting in which functions of bounded mean oscillation (BMO) and vanishing mean oscillation (VMO) can be studied. In this setting we prove …

On The Role Of High Frequency Waves In Ocean Altimetry, Douglas C. Vandemark

Doctoral Dissertations

This work mines a coastal and open ocean air-sea interaction field experiment data set where the goals are to refine satellite retrieval of wind, wind stress, and sea level using a microwave radar altimeter. The data were collected from a low-flying aircraft using a sensor suite designed to measure the surface waves, radar backscatter, the atmospheric flow, and turbulent fluxes within the marine boundary layer. This uncommon ensemble provides the means to address several specific altimeter-related topics. First, we examine and document the impact that non wind-driven gravity wave variability, e.g. swell, has upon the commonly-invoked direct relationship between altimeter …

The Taxonomic And Systematic Relationships Of Several Salt Marsh Fucus Taxa (Heterokontophyta, Phaeophyceae) Within The Gulf Of Maine And Ireland Examined Using Microsatellite Markers, Aaron L. Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations

The present thesis utilizes microsatellite markers to examine genetic affinities between several salt marsh Fucus ecads in order to ascertain their relationships with attached parental species. Chapter I provides an introduction to the genus Fucus and discusses morphological plasticity, systematic difficulties, and studies of hybridization between different Fucus species.

Chapter II describes my development of microsatellite markers for Fucus. Four polymorphic microsatellite loci were used to determine the origin of a dwarf muscoides-like Fucus from the Brave Boat Harbor (ME) salt marsh. Similar forms were originally described in Europe, and appear to be derived from F. vesiculosus L. However, my …

"Woke Up This Morning With My Mind On Freedom": Women And The Struggle For Black Equality In Louisiana, Shannon L. Frystak

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of female civil rights activists in the black struggle for equality in Louisiana. Drawing on the fields of history, sociology, political science, and gender studies, this project demonstrates that women were indispensable figures in the freedom struggle in Louisiana throughout the twentieth century, and highlights their roles as organizers, participants, and leaders.

The project focuses on the entire state of Louisiana, but more specifically in areas where civil rights organizations concentrated their efforts. While many historical studies of the movement begin with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, this …

The Ecological Christ: Discerning An Ecological Consciousness In The Sermon On The Mount, Nancy J. Miaoulis

Doctoral Dissertations

Ecology is the science that studies the function of communities of life within ecosystems. These systems are bound by an affirmation of relationship. Such relationships are very complex and every part of them is dependent on every other part if they are to maintain the integrity of nature that allows us all to survive.

The adoption of the four principles of ecology: everything is connected to everything else; everything has to go somewhere; nature knows best; and there is no such thing as a free lunch---have been suggested to ensure the survival of all species. However, knowledge of scientific findings …

Does Religion Matter? A Test Of Classical Theories Of Deviance On Two Different Religious Types, Jill Hume Harrison

Doctoral Dissertations

This study uniquely examines two religious types and a control group of nonreligious respondents in relation to two classical theories of crime and deviant behavior. The first objective of this research is to determine whether a conventional religion, Methodism, deters crime and deviant behavior better than an unconventional religious type, Shambhala Buddhism, and a control group of nonreligious respondents. The second objective of this research is to examine the predictive capacities of measures for Hirschi's (1969) social control theory and Sutherland's (1947) differential association theory. Constructs for these theories are used to determine the magnitude of mediating and moderating effects …

Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 Production And Applications, Iulian C. Ruset

Doctoral Dissertations

Hyperpolarized 3He and 129Xe were initially developed and used in the nuclear physics community. Lately they are primarily used in Medical Resonance Imaging (MRI). Although first MRI polarized gas images were acquired using 129Xe, the research community has focused mostly on 3He, due to the well-known polarizing methods and higher polarization numbers achieved.

The main purpose of this thesis is to present a novel design of a large-scale SEOP polarizer for producing large quantities of highly polarized 129Xe. High Rb-Xe spin-exchange rates through long-lived van de Waals molecules at low total pressure, implemented in a novel counterflow polarizer design, resulted …

The Nature Of Dissection: Exploring Student Conceptions, Katharine York

Doctoral Dissertations

The model of conceptual change in science describes the process of learning as a complete restructuring of knowledge, when learners discover or are shown more plausible, intelligent alternatives to existing conceptions. Emotions have been acknowledged as part of a learner's conceptual ecology, but the effects of emotions on learning have yet to be described. This research was conducted to examine the role that emotions have on learning for thirteen high school students, as they dissected cats in a Human Anatomy and Physiology class. The project also investigated whether a student's emotional reactions may be used to develop a sense of …

Creativity Or Creativities: A Study Of Domain Generality And Specificity, Zorana Ivcevic

Doctoral Dissertations

A series of studies investigated domain generality and specificity in creativity. Preliminary studies developed behavior report measures based on act-frequency and life-space approaches. The main studies examined two aspects of generality and specificity in creativity. A first group of studies analyzed the structure of creative behavior and the second group of studies concerned personality correlates of creativity. Dimensions of creative behavior were identified in a factor analysis of behavior reports and referred to creative life-style, arts, and intellectual achievement. Moreover, these dimensions were replicated in college students and professional adults. Groups of individuals with similar patterns of behavior were identified …

Bridging The Gap Between Asynchronous And Traditional Learning Environments: Technology For Adult Learners, Jayne E. Pelletier

Doctoral Dissertations

The growth of new technologies has caused renewed interest in distance learning and has impacted the instructional delivery of courses. This interest ranges from nontraditional learners to businesses using distance education to meet the needs of employees working in multiple geographic sites. A review of the literature suggests that interaction is an important factor in learning and that improving interaction improves transformational learning and constructivism. Since asynchronous delivery tools can potentially marginalize social and cultural skills prevalent in a classroom setting, new technology may resolve these issues.

This study examines a web-based, VoIP platform (Interwise) as a means for instructional …

Multi-Agent Opportunism, James H. Lawton

Doctoral Dissertations

The real world is a complex place, rife with uncertainty; and prone to rapid change. Agents operating in a real-world domain need to be capable of dealing with the unexpected events that will occur as they carry out their tasks. While unexpected events are often related to failures in an agent's plan, or inaccurate knowledge in an agent's memory, they can also be opportunities for the agent. For example, an unexpected event may present the opportunity to achieve a goal that was previously unattainable. Similarly, real-world multi-agent systems (MASs) can benefit from the ability to exploit opportunities. These benefits include …