Digital Commons Network^™

From The Unspoken To The Verbalized: Different Ways Of Communication And Their Relationship To Culture In A Traditional Lakota Narrative "Ikto Na Wičhá Ha Kiŋ”, Or “Ikto And The Racoon Skin”, Liliana R. Boladz-Nekipelov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This master’s thesis is a discourse analysis of a traditional Lakota story, " Iktó na wičhá ha kiŋ”, or “Ikto and the Racoon Skin”, one of the 64 stories included in the “Dakota Texts”, which were collected by Ella Deloria at three Lakota reservations in 1930s as a part of Franz Boas’ language documentation project. The thesis is also an attempt to examine different communicative strategies employed within the narrative and their relationship to culture, as well as the relationship between form and the transfer of meaning and culture and meaning. The analysis is conducted using Dell Hymes’ ethnographic approach …

Acting Objects: Staging New Materialism, Posthumanism And The Ecocritical Crisis In Contemporary Performance, Sarah Lucie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigate the material relationship between human and nonhuman objects in performance, asking what their shifting relations reveal about our contemporary condition. Through analysis of contemporary theatre and performance and theories of new materialism, I aim to uncover the dramaturgical models that shift focus towards the agency of objects, thereby exposing alternate models of relationality. Grounded in sensual interactions generated through the performance event, these relations are equipped to develop an expanded sensibility and responsivity in the human. Additionally, I examine how these events enable experiences of the body where the body is both actor and acted upon. Furthermore, I …

Descriptive Inhumanism: Description And Decolonial Aesthetics, Marcos Gonsalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation research examines, how can the act of describing, as a mode of writing, documenting, and representing minoritized bodies, be geared towards an anti-racist, multi-species, and decolonial aesthetic praxis? Paying close attention to modes of writing categorized under the rubric of description, such as ekphrasis, reportage in documentary film, travel writing, and ethnographic description, as this dissertation contends, are integral to understanding how we perceive and apprehend racialized people living out the legacies of coloniality. Through an analysis of 20th century Anglophone literature on the Americas and contemporary queer Latina/o literature, film, and art, this research looks closely at …

Probing The Limits Of Singular Gene Expression Through The Activity Of High Representation Odorant Receptor Transgenes, Eugene Lempert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Singular gene expression is a common phenomenon in biology, making its appearance in immunoglobulin selection, protocadherin expression, X chromosome-inactivation, random monoallelic expression, and olfactory receptor choice. Singularity involves an activation and a feedback step. The mechanisms of singular gene choice have some capacity to integrate additional member genes while still maintaining singularity, but will activate an additional member if an earlier choice was incapable of triggering the feedback step. Odorant Receptor (OR) genes are substantially divergent from each other in terms of coding sequence, promoter structure, and genomic locus, all of which plays a role in how many Olfactory Sensory …

Social Contract Theory And Transitional Justice: A Philosophical Approach To A Problem Of Global Importance, Brendan Moriarty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I seek to bring together two areas of scholarly work to see how each can inform the other: social contract theory and transitional justice. The social contract, as it exists and as it was theorized about by Rousseau, was born from the world-historic forces that spread capitalism across the globe, stirring up nationalism everywhere it went. In its wake, there was vast inequality and new legal regimes which protected the hoarded wealth of the capitalist class by enshrining the right of private property along with life and liberty. To examine the intricacies of transitional justice and its …

Hebrew As A Gendered Language And An Oppressive Mechanism Against Women In The Israeli Society, Rotem Itzhaky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Wherever you look, whether reading a textbook, scrolling through wanted ads, looking at job requirements, or just watching the news on the television – the effects of the gendered nature of Hebrew are noticeable everywhere. For many years I have been fascinated by the fact that Hebrew is a gendered language in a way that promotes patriarchy by using the unmarked masculine form of words as a default. Some claim that the language as we know it today is neutral, and not discriminatory, while others, including women which interviews you can find in this paper, do not experience it as …

British Romanticism And The Paradoxes Of Natural Education, Catherine S. Engh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“British Romanticism and the Paradoxes of Natural Education” offers a distinct perspective on Romantic-era ideas on “natural” education and human development. Though the Romantic retreat into nature has long been understood as a break from the Enlightenment’s programmatic commitment to the progress of reason, I contend that the ideas on natural development of four canonical Romantic authors—Mary Wollstonecraft, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mary Shelley—actually originate in the ideas of one of the foremost figures of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Natural education is doomed to failure in Rousseau’s thought because “nature” is paradoxically a social construct. I argue that …

Dictyostelium Discoideum Protein Kinase C-Orthologue Pkca Regulates The Actin Cytoskeleton Through Interaction With Phospholipase D And P21-Activated Kinase, Sean Singh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Proper regulation of the actin cytoskeleton is crucial to many cellular processes. Many of these processes are regulated by extracellular signaling cues, which direct changes in the actin cytoskeleton, resulting in changes to cellular morphology, and directed motility. The social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum, is used as a simple model system to study the translation of extracellular signals to the actin cytoskeleton. When starved, these unicellular amoebae undergo a multicellular developmental process characterized by a tightly regulated sequence of signaling events. This results in chemotaxis and formation of a multicellular aggregate, and ultimately cell differentiation and the formation of a fruiting …

'Odd Secrets Of The Line': Emily Dickinson And The Uses Of Folk, Wendy Tronrud

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Emily Dickinson and her poetry have famously been used as a defining example of American lyric poetry. The traditional scholarly perspective maintains that the lyric poem and its speaker exist in isolation and at a remove from social and political contexts. Recent scholarship on American poetry of the long nineteenth century, however, has taken a more historical and cultural turn, reconsidering how poetic and vernacular forms and genres circulated both privately and publicly. “Odd Secrets of the Line”: Emily Dickinson and the Uses of Folk joins this conversation by theorizing how Dickinson’s poetry, written during the 1859-1865 period, registers the …

Did The Muslim Ban Cause Islamophobia? Institutional Versus Individual Prejudice, Emma Handte

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Muslim ban is part of a storied American history of Islamophobia, and as such acts as more of a reflection of members of the population’s individually held beliefs about Muslims rather than a catalyst for such beliefs. Surveys of Americans on their opinions of Muslims seem to support this view: a “thermometer” reading of respondents’ views towards Muslims shows that from 2014 to 2017 to 2019, “cold” or negative opinions of Muslims actually decreased. This corresponds to a theory of individually directed Islamophobia that is not significantly impacted by institutional policy changes, such as the Muslim ban. But at …

Structural Studies Of Peptide Toxins And Their Binding Properties Towards The Voltage Sensing Domain Of Nav1.7, Ryan Schroder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Voltage gated sodium channels (VGSCs) are essential to the propagation of nerve cell impulses and thus communication in the nervous system. VGSCs are comprised of four repeating units of six transmembrane helices. Of the six transmembrane helices, the first four (called S1-S4) comprise the voltage sensing domain (VSD) and the last two (S5-S6) comprise the pore domain (PD)¹. The Human voltage-gated sodium channel Na_V1.7 has been shown to play a vital role in the nerve pathways that induce pain response². Many of the currently available pain therapeutic drugs are opiates, derivative molecules of opium. …

Evaluating Satellite-Based Sea Surface Temperatures, In Situ Observations, And Coral Symbioses In Southwestern Puerto Rico, Andrea Michelle Gomez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I examined the effects of in situ and satellite-based sea surface temperatures (SST) on the seasonal coral-algae symbiotic relationship in La Parguera, Puerto Rico. Climate change-driven rising sea temperatures are endangering most of the world’s reefs, which are currently in decline. Satellite remote sensing datasets support global-scale characterization and monitoring of risks to reefs associated with increasing temperatures. Corals’ unique symbiotic relationship with unicellular algae in the family Symbiodiniaceae is largely responsible for helping corals cope with increasing ocean temperatures, and some corals are able to adjust their symbiont species in response to temperature disturbances. My research had two components …

Creating Content For A Healthy New Life, Valeria C. Borja Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Creating Content for a Healthy New Life is a project consisting of the development of a web page to connect holistic practitioners to people. This page will also allow for the promotion and sale of Ayurvedic Skincare products and services. For the capstone project, I developed a business model for the enterprise. This model offers an educational component by educating our customers to understand the importance of using holistic approaches rather than traditional ones. For this, two videos were developed to educate customers about Ayurveda and the science behind the proposed products and services. I am an experienced Holistic Practitioner, …

Corporeal Analysis: The Performing Body As Analytic Site, Laura Cocks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A framework of corporeal analysis posits that the physicality of the performer can be construed as a primary analytical parameter in a work. This dissertation seeks to set up such a method of analysis largely through anecdata and autoethnography with the aim of eliciting a deeper space for additional performer-driven analyses that prioritize the bodily knowledge of performers and their physical understandings of a work. Centering around David Bird’s 2013 work for solo piccolo and “no-less-than twenty-nine spatialized piccolos,” Atolls, three main aspects of corporeal analysis will be explored. These are: performance physicality as expressive connective tissue between flutist …

Desexualizing Queer Identities: Methods To Validating Non-Sexual Romantic Attraction And Relationships, Unnati Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is an increase in the negative views of queer and LGBT+ people in America, and I argue that it is, in part, due to the sexualized connotations of, and sexual association with, queer and LGBT+ identities. Innocuous acts by queer or LGBT+ people, such as being an out school teacher or holding hands in a public space, is enough for non-LGBT+ people to become uncomfortable to varying degrees and, sometimes, even cause verbal abuse or violence. When we look at queer or LGBT+ representation through the possibility of queerness, and by reading representations of queer and LGBT+ romantic attraction …

Inclinaciones Del Yo: Aproximaciones Desde El Afecto Y La Vulnerabilidad A La Literatura Y El Cine Autobiográficos De La España En Crisis (2008–2019), Salvador Gómez Barranco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the autobiographical literature and cinema produced in the context of a Spain in Crisis (between 2008 and 2019), using recent theories on affect (Brian Massumi, Sarah Ahmed ...) and vulnerability (Judith Butler, Adriana Cavarero…). Through comprehensive close reading, it examines three novels (Clavícula by Marta Sanz, Ordesaby Manuel Vilas and El amor del revés by Luisgé Martín) and three films (Mapa by Elías León Siminiani, True Love by Ion de Sosa, both representative of the Other Spanish Cinema, and Dolor y gloria by Pedro Almodóvar) in order to identify the “inclinations of the …

'Once Famous In An Odd Way': Curiosity And Queerness In Late 19th-Century American Male Impersonation, S.C. Lucier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis depicts the emergence of one particular iteration of the popular female actor within 19^th century performance, the male impersonator, and identifies the ways in which this theatrical expression was related to and affected by similar amusements of the period. Public amusements of this period include a diversity of experiential entertainment that was primarily geared toward working and lower-middle class males. Included in these types of illegitimate theater is the variety hall. Male impersonators were the height of theatrical fashion not only in New York City, which is the focused landscape of this paper, but this type of …

Elucidating The Role Of Apl-1, The C. Elegans Ortholog Of The Human Amyloid Precursor Protein, Adanna G. Alexander

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, impacting approximately 6 million Americans. AD is the leading cause of dementia amongst the aged population. Post mortem analysis of the brains of AD patients shows high quantities of extracellular Aβ peptide deposits, which are derived from cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP). Mutations in APP and proteins responsible for APP cleavage, PSENs, greatly increase the incidence of developing AD at an early age. Despite its strong correlation to the progression of AD, the role of APP remains unclear.

Here we investigate the role of the Caenorhabditis elegans ortholog, APL-1. We …

Spatial And Collective Memories Of Jewish Heritage Sites: A Comparative Study, Bryanna Caraballo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper is the first component of my capstone on the comparative study of the ghetto of Rome and Łódź ghetto in Poland. This project hopes to examine the importance of collective and spatial memory, and how these factors play a crucial role in our connection and understanding of identity, locations, and memory formation. The following paper will display the similarities between the occupation of the ghetto of Roman from 1555 to the unification of Italy in 1870, and the Łódź ghetto operation during World War II (1939-1945). The paper will also touch upon the differences between today’s Roman Jewish …

How To Break An Addiction: A Case For Planetary Post-Capitalist Recovery, Ann Marie (Annie) Spencer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents an evidence-based, geographically informed theory of so-called addiction in the capitalist mode of production. Taking the present-day opioid epidemic as its point of departure, it argues that ‘addiction,’ rather than an anomalous, individuated pathology, is an organizing principle of capitalist social formations. Neither moral nor medical, ‘addiction’ is a structural and pervasive expression of life lived under the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism, society structured in pursuit of profit, produces human subjects with deleterious dependencies on addictive commodity substances by design and in mass. The methodology of the project is consciousness expansion through pattern recognition, stitching together …

Returning To Imaginative Literary Texts In The Composition Classroom: A Case Study Of Greek Literature And Their Potential In First-Year Writing, Esther M. Gabay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The basis for the argument—a return to literature in first-year college composition—stems from a composition debate that emerged in the 90s that suggested instructors of composition refrain from using literature in their writing courses. The thesis proposes that literature, specifically Greek literature, be re-purposed and integrated back into first-year writing college courses. Chapter one contextualizes the historical debate and proposes imaginative literary texts return to first-year writing. The second chapter presents cross-disciplinary advantages, looking closely at the value of teaching literature in composition classes as a tool for building prior knowledge, developing cross-disciplinary insights and access into other disciplinary conversations, …

Maximum Sound Output Levels Of Pediatric Marketed Headphones: The Development Of Healthy Listening Habits In Children, Adrienne L. Ammirati

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: In recent years there has been a growing concern regarding the etiology of pediatric hearing loss. Based on cross-sectional studies of data produced by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, the incidence of hearing loss in US adolescents (age 12-19 years) has increased from 14.9 to 19.5% from 1988-2006 (Shargorodsky, Curhan, & Eavey, 2010) (Brooks & Chan, 2017). Many individuals suspect the leading contributor of this to be frequent exposure to unsafe listening conditions (Muchnik, Amir, Shabtai, & Kaplan-Neeman, 2012) (Brookhouser, Wothington, & Kelley, 1992).

Presently there are no government issued regulations on the maximum sound output …

The Functional Role Of The Anterior Insular Cortex In Cognitive Control, Yu Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cognitive control, a higher level psychological construct, refers to efficient coordination of thoughts and actions for the accomplishment of goal-directed behaviors. Cognitive control is supported by a commonly activated cognitive control network, and the anterior insular cortex (AIC) serves as one of its key structures. However, the functional role of the AIC in cognitive control has not been fully understood. A human lesion study was conducted to examine the necessary function of the AIC in cognitive control. A mouse optogenetic study with fiber photometry recording further examinedwhether the bilateral AIC was important for cognitive control and how the AIC played …

Diversity Rhetoric And Practice: A Critical Examination Of “Diversity” In Graduate Education, Tellisia M. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to investigate the built environment, educational policy, place making, and personalized lived experiences of doctoral students of color in “diverse” academic spaces. I critically examine the linkages and gaps in institutional policies of diversity and inclusion in relation to the narratives of doctoral students of color enrolled at the Urban Public University (pseudonym). I use qualitative methodology of Environmental Autobiography to capture the narratives. My dissertation demonstrates the importance of Critical Race Theory (CRT) by prioritizing the embodied knowledge making and experiences of people of color. This work challenges dominant ideologies of diversity and …

Hermeneutics Of Residue: Archival Slime And Queer Literacy, Patrick C. James

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hermeneutics of Residue: Archival Slime and Queer Literacy spans the fields of composition and rhetoric, literacy studies, archival studies, and queer theory. Deploying unconventional archival texts such as public graffiti, self-published zines, and underground manuals, this project explores the notion of the queer archive and its complicated entanglements with historiography, sexual and cultural literacy, and epistemology. In order to pursue to this line of inquiry, the dissertation takes José Esteban Muñoz’s observation of a “vexed relationship” between queerness and evidence as an opportunity to broaden the definition of archive, and practice what Muñoz calls a “hermeneutics of residue.” Consequently, …

Age-Related Effects On Gait Parameters In Healthy Normal Aging Adults, Jamie C. Park

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The process of aging brings a set of changes that are widespread in nature. Two of the domains in which age-related effects can be prominently seen are cognition and motor/mobility. Until more recently, gait was viewed as more of a simple and automatic motor process, but increasing evidence suggests the involvement of higher cognitive functioning and attention. The association of age-related gait changes and cognitive decline has been reported in numerous studies, and there is much potential value in examining the cognitively normal aging population to facilitate the establishment of the normal parameters in these areas that are anticipated with …

Clear-Sighted Statistics: Module 2: Types Of Data (Slides), Edward Volchok

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Clear-Sighted Statistics: Module 8: Discrete Probability Distributions (Slides), Edward Volchok

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Juchitán: Witnessing An Indigenous Mexico Within The Latin American Archive, Michelle G. De La Cruz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout archives of photographic collections, as one discovers the focused, artistic selective process of images that become part of a photographer’s collection, one must venture further and ask: will these choices be decisively remembered by an individual or collective audience or actively be dismissed, misunderstood, and denied presence? For my master’s thesis, I will be analyzing Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide’s photobook, Juchitán de las Mujeres, a photo-collection of the women-empowered indigenous society in Oaxaca, Mexico which erupted during Latin American photography’s prime in the 20th century, turning away from a deeply exoticized past and towards a celebration of Hispanism as …

Overcoming Adversity In The Stem Classroom: Examining Learned Helplessness In First-Year Community College Students Using Salivary Cortisol, Surveys And Interviews, Diane M. Price Banks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to determine whether a relationship between STEM attrition and Learned Helplessness exist in a group of first year STEM majors studied at an urban community college. STEM attrition rates have shown that 69% of the 20% of incoming STEM freshmen in associate degree programs, drop out or switch their majors to non-STEM curriculum within their first year of college (NCES, 2013). Learned helplessness is a behavioral phenomenon where some may become helpless as the conditions surrounding their success become adverse. Classic signs expressed with learned helplessness include: lack of motivation, depression, poor social skills, absence of control …