Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Investigating Variation Among Arikara Crania Using Geometric Morphometry, Ashley H. Mckeown

Doctoral Dissertations

Geometric morphometry has seen minimal application in studies of biological variability among subpopulations of humans. However, as landmark coordinates are highly effective for capturing information regarding size and shape variation, the tools of geometric morphometry are appropriate for investigating such questions. This research utilizes landmark coordinate data to quantify morphological variation among Arikara crania to evaluate the biological relationships between skeletal samples from late prehistoric, protohistoric and historic sites. These samples are derived from well documented archaeological contexts, and the presence of biological variability among them has been reported in previous studies. These factors make these samples appropriate for assessing …

An Examination Of Upland South Farmsteads Using An Evolutionary Ecology Methodology, Todd Michael Ahlman

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of historic farmsteads in the Upland South has generally taken a normative approach that compared archaeologically recorded farmsteads to an idealized Upland South farmstead. This approach tends to avoid the issue of variation that is inherent among farmsteads within the region. To address this variation, a Darwinian evolutionary theoretical perspective is proposed. Of the different evolutionary perspectives in archaeology today, including selectionism, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary ecology, it is proposed that an evolutionary ecological theoretical perspective is the best for examining and explaining the variation among Upland South farmsteads.

In employing an evolutionary ecology theoretical perspective, a resource …

Secretory Immunoglobulin A And Heart Rate Reactions To Mental Arithmetic And Hypnotic Suggestions, Grant Benham

Doctoral Dissertations

The current study replicates and extends previous research on the effects of both specific hypnotic suggestions and a mental arithmetic task on secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA). Participants (14 males, 16 females) were shown a short video on immune functioning and then sat quietly for 8 minutes in order to obtain an initial baseline measure of sIgA. Participants were then administered an 8-min mental arithmetic (stress) task and a 16-min hypnosis task in a counterbalanced order and separated by a second 8-min baseline period. During the hypnosis condition, participants received a taped hypnotic induction followed by specific suggestions for increasing immune …

Psychometric Analysis Of The Self-Test; A Newly Developed Brief Screening Test For Detection Of Mild Cognitive Impairments In Early Alzheimer's Disease, Mateja De Leonni Stanonik

Doctoral Dissertations

Dementia is a major public health challenge, which is becoming more common as the aged population grows. Adequate care of dementia patients requires that they be recognized as having memory impairment, identified as having dementia syndrome, and evaluated for the specific cause of the dementia. Dementia is one of the first symptoms in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, the most common psychological instrument used in early evaluation of dementia and other cognitive problems in Alzheimer’s disease is the Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE, Folstein & Folstein, 1974). The MMSE evaluates different aspects of a patient’s memory, visuospatial functions, …

Social And Biological Structures In The Mound C Cemetery, Wickliffe Mound Group (15ba4), Hugh Bryson Matternes

Doctoral Dissertations

Cemeteries are archaeological phenomena that accumulate over time. When formed in socially unstable cultural environments, the messages communicated by mortuary-based material symbols may change over the course of grave accumulation. This dissertation explores whether Mississippian Period mortuary deposits in Mound C, of the Wickliffe Mound Group (15BA4) changed over time.

Cemeteries are places where the dead's social qualities are defined. They help reemphasize important community values and provide a biologically safe repository for the dead. Symbolized mortuary features convey seven general types of social information. This relationship is sensitive to temporal change.

Several analyses placed the cemetery into socio-biological contexts. …

Bear/People Conflicts In Gatlinburg, Tennessee: An Analysis Of The Social, Political, And Ecological Elements, Kate Mitchell Newton

Masters Theses

Nuisance black bears cause property damage, threaten public safety, and heighten wildlife use conflicts among people across the United States. Wildlife managers have solutions to control nuisance black bear behavior and the accompanying conflicts that occur. The solutions are to require bear-proof garbage disposal, to prohibit intentional feeding, and to educate the public about black bear behavior. However, these solutions are either slow to be adopted or are ignored by local legislative bodies.

In 1999, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, adopted a local ordinance mandating bear-proof garbage containers. This thesis will explain why the city of Gatlinburg adopted the ordinance by documenting the …

Coming Clean: The Health Revolution Of 1890-1920 And Its Impact On Infant Mortality, April D.J. Garwin

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to document the change in attitudes and behaviors pertaining to public and personal hygiene habits at the turn of the nineteenth century. Public utilities, such as municipal water supplies, sanitary sewage systems, and refuse disposal reduced the incidence of communicable diseases. Access to potable water and sewage disposal encouraged a Health Revolution in the United States and the United Kingdom during the era 1890-1920.

Advertisers began (in 1890 and continuing into the 1920s) to employ the fear of contagious diseases, as well as the virtue of beauty, to target consumers and to promote the …

White-Tailed Deer Utility Indices: Development And Application Of An Analytical Method, Jodi A. Jacobson

Masters Theses

Full and partial carcass utility indices have been determined for many animals. The most widely utilized animal in eastern prehistoric North America is the white-tailed deer. However, whole carcass utility indices for this animal have not been investigated. In this thesis meat, marrow, and general utility indices are developed for Odocoileus virginianus. These indices are inspected for variation due to sex, age, and season. In addition, marrow fat percentages which may affect the accuracy of marrow utility indices, are investigated. Five deer have been collected from the ridge and valley region of East Tennessee. Four deer were acquired between …

Computerized Content Analysis: A Comparison Of The Verbal Productions Of High Hypnotizable, Low Hypnotizable And Simulating Subjects, Edeltraud Elter-Nodvin

Doctoral Dissertations

This research was designed to investigate the domain of hypnosis and to explore how the “state” of hypnosis, along with the susceptibility to hypnosis relate to lexical choice in verbal productions as well as to primary/secondary process mentation. The hypothesis that hypnosis facilitates primary process mentation has held a central place in numerous psychoanalytically oriented theories of hypnosis (Gill & Brenman, 1959; Fromm, 1992; Nash, 1991).

College students were screened for level of hypnotic susceptibility employing the following two hypnotic susceptibility scales: The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS: A; Shor & Orne, 1962) [Appendix D] and …

Joint Surface Area Proportions And Articular Curvature In Al 288-1: A Functional Interpretation, Adam David Sylvester

Masters Theses

Body size has been recognized by several authors as one of the most important parameters affecting the biology of an organism. It has been argued that body size plays roles in metabolic cost, mobility, thermoregulation, and foraging strategy. For extinct species body masses can only be estimated using fossil remains and extant reference samples. To accurately estimate body mass the reference sample must have the same relationship between body mass and skeletal elements. Establishing a reference sample with similar body proportions as the fossil species is imperative.

The purpose of this study is to investigate forelimb to hindlimb joint surface …

On The Hallowed Hill: An Analysis Of The Historic Cemeteries Within The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Jacqueline Lott

Masters Theses

Though a number of authors have stressed the importance of using cemetery data to study culture change through time, most of the available studies in this regard have been general in nature and completed without statistical analysis. Few studies have concentrated specifically on small, rural cemeteries, and fewer still have concentrated on regions outside of New England. The southern Appalachian Mountains are but one of the many regions that has yet to be studied in-depth. This thesis is an attempt to bridge some of the aforementioned gaps. Historic cemetery data collected in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be …

Marketing Gullah: Identity, Cultural Politics, And Tourism, Melissa D. Hargrove

Masters Theses

This thesis represents an ethnographic study of the current situation of the South Carolina Gullah. Research was conducted during the summer of 1998 and 1999, in the Sea Island communities of Mt. Pleasant and St. Helena Island, to determine the ways in which local grassroots organizations are combating increased tourism, resort and retirement development, and the commoditization of their cultural heritage as a boost to state revenue. The sweetgrass basket weavers of Mt. Pleasant are situated within this struggle as the living legacy to their Gullah ancestry. Their insight is particularly enlightening concerning the current predicament of native Sea Islanders …

Family Caregiving Experiences With Alzheimer's Disease: A Collective Case Study, Annabel Lee Agee

Doctoral Dissertations

This collective case study was designed to explore the perspectives of families who are involved in caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease and the cognitive impairment it entails. The collective design (i.e., extension of the study to multiple cases) facilitated understanding and interpretation of these phenomena associated with family caregiving experiences with Alzheimer's disease through not only within-case but also cross-case analyses. Advances in health care and medical technology have resulted in increased life expectancy, which means more people are expected to live longer. Parallel to these predictions for increases in the aging population over the next 50 years, the …

Pigs, Philistines, And The Ancient Animal Economy Of Ekron From The Late Bronze Age To The Iron Age Ii, Justin Samuel Elan Lev-Tov

Doctoral Dissertations

The assemblage of animal bones recovered from the excavation area of Field I at the site of Tel Miqne-Ekron, located in Israel, is the subject of this dissertation. This site has been identified as the ancient city of Ekron, one of the Philistine cities. The faunal remains from Ekron can be divided into three main parts, bones recovered from the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age I, or Iron Age II strata of the site. Research questions relevant to these three time periods were formulated for each corpus of animal bones. The theme which ties these subdivisions together is world systems …

African-American Conservatism: A Longitudinal And Comparative Study, Angela K. Lewis

Doctoral Dissertations

The proposed research addresses the following questions: “Have African-Americans become more conservative over the last 25 years?” While numerous commentators have noted the existence of a Black conservative group, heretofore, none have attempted to document this phenomenon empirically. In fact, the question of whether conservatism has substantial support in the Black community remains unanswered (Welch & Combs, 85; Welch & Foster, 87; Randolph, 95). The purpose of this dissertation is to systematically address the preceding question through the use of the National Black Election Study (1984, 1988, & 1996) and the National Election Study.

Debunking The Spontaneous Human Combustion Myth: Experiments In The Combustibility Of The Human Body, Angi M. Christensen

Masters Theses

Human combustion has been described as "the nearly complete combustion of living human beings in the apparent absence of sufficient external fuel" and it has been inferred from this that either the "human body is unexpectedly combustible of itself or, more controversially, some unrecognized external energy source is acting on the body" (Corliss 1993). Advocates of the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion, or SHC, have hypothesized everything from potables to poltergeists to pyrotrons to account for the unusual circumstances surrounding these deaths.

Mainstream science, however, contends that although strange, a scientific explanation for the phenomenon does exist. Several studies have …