Digital Commons Network^™

“They Turn To Violence”: Active Shootings And The Convergence Of Hegemonic Masculinity, Race, And Perceived Injustice, Linda M. Fogg

Doctoral Dissertations

Public rampage shootings like Parkland, FL, the Las Vegas concert shooting, and Sandy Hook are a type of crime that captures national attention. As media covers these incidents and the perpetrators of them, they seek to explain why someone would commit such violence. Using active shooter data for incidents that occurred between 2000 and 2019, I examine shooter identity with particular focus on the shooter’s race, an often-unreported statistic. Finding 55.4% of active shooters are white men, interviews with 20 white men and 10 white women are analyzed for explanations for white men’s violence. These men and women describe active …

Seismic Soil-Structure Interaction And Foundation Rocking In Unsaturated Ground, Matthew Michael Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

Strong earthquake motions often cause severe damage to buildings and foundation systems, during which the interaction between the soil, foundation, and structure may dominate the seismic response. Most shallow foundations are located on, or embedded in, unsaturated and partially saturated soil deposits. Unsaturated soil layers are particularly common in zones above the water table where water can rise through different mechanisms like capillary action. Additionally, the degree of saturation throughout a soil deposit can vary both seasonally and yearly due to groundwater table fluctuation related to infiltration and evaporation. Properties of soil layers below foundations impact the seismic response of …

Influence Of O+ On Onset And Energy Release In The Earth’S Magnetotail, Akhtar Shojaei Ardakani

Doctoral Dissertations

Although the magnetotail plasma sheet predominantly consists of protons and electrons, singly charged oxygen ions, of ionospheric origin, are the third most abundant species in the plasma sheet. During disturbed times, the amount of oxygen ions in the plasma sheet and the inner magnetosphere can be comparable to the levels of the H+ ions and because of its larger mass, such a population of O+ in the near Earth magnetotail has the potential to modify the plasma sheet dynamics. It can affect the current sheet stability enhancing the growth rate of the ion tearing instability (ion scales) or alter overall …

Influences Of Students’ Use Of Calculus 1 Signs/Symbols On Students’ Assessment Scores, Phuong Wilk

Doctoral Dissertations

Mathematical notations not only contribute to but also confound the development of the understanding of mathematical concepts (Leinhardt, Zaslavsky & Stein,1990). Inaccurate use of calculus notations is likely to have a significant influence on student conceptual understanding and student assessment scores in the Calculus 1 course. This dissertation study aimed to examine whether or not the relationship between student’s ability to correctly write signs/symbols, interpret signs/symbols and interpret concepts using signs/symbols (students’ use of signs/symbols) and student assessment scores is statistically significant. The relationship between students’ use of sign/symbol and students’ grade performance was also examined under the effects of …

A Mixed Methods Approach To Social License To Operate For Aquaculture: Understanding How Broad Public Perceptions And Local Company Actions Influence Community Acceptance, Emily H. Whitmore

Doctoral Dissertations

With aquaculture development becoming increasingly important in meeting global food needs, understanding social dynamics of development is essential. Social license to operate (SLO), a concept that describes community acceptance and approval of incoming industry, offers a lens into these dynamics and possible strategies for successful development. Using a mixed-methods approach, this project aimed to investigate how broad public perceptions and local company actions influence social license to operate in aquaculture. First, a systematic literature review of SLO studies identified perceptions that would likely condition a community’s willingness to issue social license, independent of company actions. These predictors included environmental values, …

Examining Empathy During An Initial Nutrition Counseling Session Through Video-Cued Narrative Reflection, Kevin Joseph Pietro

Doctoral Dissertations

Empathy is considered critical to client-centered care within the broader nutrition profession. Through empathy, practitioners are said to recognize the individual experience better, support client/patient autonomy, and encourage collaboration in decision-making regarding treatment. However, the literature on empathy is fraught with conceptual disagreement and methodological misalignment, which has resulted in a limited understanding of the role and presence of empathy within a nutrition counseling session. Additionally, research conducted on nutrition undergraduate students using self-reported questionnaires may offer insight into students’ perceived/believed tendencies related to empathy but fail to provide evidence of empathy during a patient/client interaction. Given the current landscape, …

Characterizing New Hampshire Salt Marshes Using Geospatial Technologies, Michael R. Routhier

Doctoral Dissertations

Salt marshes are coastal wetlands flooded regularly by saltwater tides and terrestrial runoff. They are highly productive and dynamic ecosystems that provide many benefits to the environment and humans. These benefits are at risk by many natural and anthropogenic drivers that are affecting the distribution of their vegetation species. Previous research shows that salt marsh vegetation around New England has been shifting from less flood-tolerant species to more flood-tolerant species in recent decades. Monitoring these ecosystems can be helpful in providing policymakers with the information they need to promote mitigation and restoration efforts for these environments. Remote sensing is one …

Deep Learning Based Predictive Models For Performance Enhancement In Bio Medical Applications, Sajila Dimagi Wickramaratne

Doctoral Dissertations

The medical field produces large quantities of multidimensional, complex, and often unstructured data. The timely interpretation of medical data is crucial for medical diagnostics. Machine learning applications are increasingly becoming popular with the ever-increasing computational ability and data availability. Machine learning methods can potentially find complicated relationships that may not be apparent in traditional clinical decision rule systems used in medical applications. Models deployed in medical applications need to be reliable, time efficient, and easy to interpret, thus making working with biosignals challenging in some cases.

The first part of the dissertation focuses on building predictive systems using existing data …

Modernism On The Edge Of The Anthropocene: The Ecological Imagination Of Forster, West, Warner, Woolf, And Eliot, Leanna Jean Lostoski-Ho

Doctoral Dissertations

By reading modernist literature on the edge of the Anthropocene, I argue in this dissertation that modernist authors, through the experimental aesthetics of their works, are able to articulate the beginnings of anthropogenic climate change in the early-twentieth century. The early-twentieth century, and particularly the interwar period, in which British modernist authors such as E. M. Forster, Rebecca West, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot were writing coincides with the early-twentieth-century ramp up period of human activity rising to the level of a geological force before the beginning of the Anthropocene. While this dissertation does not argue …

A Comparison Of The Spectroscopically Determined Complex Refractive Indices Across Uv/Vis Wavelengths For Vanillic Acid From Two Aerosol Generation Methods, Vahid Hosseinpour Hashemi

Doctoral Dissertations

Aerosols are important because of their direct and indirect impact on the energy budget of Earth. Characterizing and understanding the physical, chemical, and optical properties of aerosols is beneficial to decrease uncertainties on the Earth’s energy budget estimations and improve climate models. Field studies characterize the real conditions and cases; however, controlling all variables, including the weather, is impossible, so only a snapshot can be obtained. Laboratory work can be a great support for field studies because controlling experimental conditions on a smaller scale is easier and targets can be achieved. Laboratory optical property studies of aerosol, even single chemical …

Type 3 Adenylyl Cyclase, Neuronal Primary Cilia, And Hippocampus-Dependent Memory Formation, Yuxin Zhou

Doctoral Dissertations

Primary cilia are microtubule-based cellular antennae present in most vertebrate cells including neurons. Neuronal primary cilia have abundant expression of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and downstream cAMP signaling components such as type 3 adenylyl cyclase (AC3). The deflects of neuronal cilia is associated with many memory-related disorders, such as intellectual disability. Thus far, little is known about how neuronal primary cilia regulate neuronal activity and affect hippocampal memory formation. Episodic memory is thought to be encoded by sparsely distributed memory-eligible neurons in the hippocampus and neocortex. However, it is not clear how memory-eligible neurons interact with one another to form …

Interferometric Imaging Of Lightning Initiation Through Lofar: Uncovering The Spontaneous And Not-So-Spontaneous Nature Of Lightning Initiation In 3d, Christopher Sterpka

Doctoral Dissertations

With recent advances in instrumentation and the continued development and refinement of analytical methods, the hindrances that previously existed in uncovering the physical processes governing the behavior of lightning are diminishing. The focus of this dissertation research, interferometric imaging of lightning initiation through beamforming via the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), will describe in detail how both the instrumentation and methods cooperate to enable the detection of lightning processes in which are below the level of the galactic and thermal very high frequency (VHF) background on individual antennas within the array. These conditions have proven to be integral in uncovering of …

Cyclodextrin Impedimetric Biosensors For The Detection Of Hydrophobic Metabolites, Zahra Panahi

Doctoral Dissertations

Sepsis is a complicated medical emergency and critically ill patients suffering from infectious diseases are at a high risk for developing and dying from sepsis. According to a recent (2019) cohort study from six United States hospitals, suboptimal care (e.g., delay in antibiotics, inappropriate antibiotic therapy) is responsible for 22.7 % of in-hospital sepsis-associated deaths. In September 2020, the World Health Organization called on the scientific community to develop rapid, effective, and affordable tools to improve diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment of sepsis. Our long-term goal throughout this project is to develop a cyclodextrin (CD) impedimetric tongue that can provide early …

Gli3 Is Required For M2 Macrophage Polarization And M2-Mediated Waldenström Macroglobulinemia Growth And Survival, Ava J. Boutilier

Master's Theses and Capstones

The macrophage polarization paradigm has become at the forefront of cancer research in recent years; however, the effects of this phenomenon have yet to be investigated in Waldenström Macroglobulinemia (WM). WM is an indolent, B-cell lymphoma, characterized by increased IgM production and infiltration of the bone marrow niche by malignant cells. Macrophages may polarize to one of 2 phenotypes: M1, which is inflammatory or M2, which is inhibitory. While macrophage polarization is typically investigated as a singular point in time, it is important to understand that M2-type macrophages can switch to an M1 phenotype, or vice versa, based on environmental …

Unions As Gendered Institutions: The Effects Of Union Membership And Occupational Gender Composition On Parental Leave Access, Meghan Cormier-O'Leary

Master's Theses and Capstones

In the absence of a national universal paid parental leave policy, access to parental leave is stratified in the United States. While several states have implemented paid family leave policies, workers typically rely on their employers to provide such a benefit. Previous qualitative research demonstrates that the share of women in labor unions may influence the provision offamily-friendly benefits. I utilize two nationally-representative datasets—the 2017-18 American Time Use Survey and the 2013-2017 American Community Survey—to analyze the relationship between union membership, occupational gender composition, and their interaction on access to paid and unpaid parental leave. Using weighted logistic regressions, I …

Dynamic Analysis Of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines Under Extreme Operational Conditions, Ailish Bozzo

Master's Theses and Capstones

Non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels have been the primary source of power generation around the world for decades. With these non-renewable energy sources rapidly depleting, the focus has switched to renewable, more environmentally friendly sources of energy, including wind energy. According to the Offshore Wind Market Report 2022, the U.S. has approximately 42 MW of offshore wind energy in operation, with 932 MW under construction and 18,581 MW in the permitting phase (Musial et al., 2022). Much of this potential comes from floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) in waters greater than 60m of depth, where the winds are …

Using Imagery Collected By An Unmanned Aerial System To Monitor Cyanobacteria In New Hampshire, Usa, Lakes, Christine Bunyon

Master's Theses and Capstones

With the increasing occurrence and growing public health concern that cyanobacteria blooms pose, it is crucial that we continue to explore ways to improve our ability to accurately, efficiently, and safely monitor water quality in impacted lakes. Also known as blue-green algae, cyanobacteria are naturally occurring in many waters globally. Cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms (CHABs) release various toxins which can cause skin irritations and dog fatalities while the effects of long-term exposure to the neurotoxins for humans has stirred additional studies. Although possibly harmful if CHABs are present, monitoring this biological component is nonetheless an integral factor when studying freshwater …

Sub-Canopy Path Planning For Snow Depth Remote Sensing Using Autonomous Multi-Uavs, Debarpan Bhowmick

Master's Theses and Capstones

NASA studies indicate that 68% of the Earth’s fresh water exists in the form of snow andice. As such, analyzing global snow fall patterns is a useful tool with which scientists can extract the quantity of fresh water present in both the atmosphere and on the ground at any given time. The goal of this research is to leverage autonomous Unpiloted Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to measure snow depth on the forest floor via sub-canopy flight. To enable such remote sensing missions, overhead Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) scans are used to aid in pre-determined UAV flight path planning. This results …

An Analysis Of River Channel Change Over Time In New England Rivers, Trevor Fenoff

Master's Theses and Capstones

Analyzing river channel change can be important for the development and protection of infrastructure located within floodplains and on the riverbanks. Historical aerial images were delineated and evaluated to estimate river channel change in the Ammonoosuc River in New Hampshire and the Dog River in Vermont. Previous field assessments were connected to the change estimates to determine factors correlated to river channel change. Flood frequency was also assessed for the rivers to determine if flooding impacts river channel change, with a specific focus on flooding caused by Hurricane Irene. The river channel change resulting from Hurricane Irene was significantly higher …

Access To Nature In New Hampshire: Equity And Quality Of Life, Cody Garrott Crytzer

Master's Theses and Capstones

The primary objectives of this research were to understand what access to nature means for people engaged in the nature economy, economic development, recreation, conservation, and community development sectors of New Hampshire, to identify benefits, barriers and opportunities of access to nature with a focus on underserved communities, and to contribute data and knowledge to inform local, regional, and state efforts to advance equity in environmental protection, justice efforts, and future policy considerations impacting New Hampshire. This research involved qualitative analysis of interviews with statewide policy leaders and stakeholders that work with individuals and organizations closely related to nature economy …

Right Neural Substrates Of Language And Music Processing Left Out: Activation Likelihood Estimation (Ale) And Meta-Analytic Connectivity Modelling (Macm), Lauren C. Keith

Master's Theses and Capstones

Introduction: Language and music processing have been investigated in neuro-based research for over a century. However, consensus of independent and shared neural substrates among the domains remains elusive due to varying neuroimaging methodologies. Identifying functional connectivity in language and music processing via neuroimaging meta-analytic methods provides neuroscientific knowledge of higher cognitive domains and normative models may guide treatment development in communication disorders based on principles of neural plasticity.

Methods: Using BrainMap software and tools, the present coordinate-based meta-analysis analyzed 65 fMRI studies investigating language and music processing in healthy adult subjects. We conducted activation likelihood estimates (ALE) in language processing, …

Quantifying And Modeling The Effects Of Internal Waves On Synthetic Aperture Sonar, Nicholas Anthony La Manna

Master's Theses and Capstones

Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) is based on synthetic aperture radar, with a number of key factors increasing the complexity of data collection. One of the assumptions made with respect to SAS image reconstruction is the presence of a constant sound speed. As a nearfield imaging system, SAS is sensitive to the breaking of this assumption. The sound speed in the ocean varies with depth. Variations in sound speed can come in the form of internal waves. Internal waves propagating up the slope of the continental shelf are subject to breaking mechanisms that result in the propagation of boluses shoreward. Internal …

Automatic Bankfull Width Extraction Of New Hampshire And Vermont Rivers, Desmond Kager

Master's Theses and Capstones

Understanding a river's morphology can help scientists measure erosion, improve understanding of flood hazards and better estimate riparian habitat. While there have been many developments in the field of fluvial geomorphology, there are still many challenges that exist in efficiently and accurately quantifying various important river metrics, such as the location of channel banks. Conducting field surveys of riverbanks is expensive and time consuming, leading many scientists to shift towards remote sensing techniques to measure river morphological features. This project aims to extract bankfull width measurements automatically from high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of rivers located in New Hampshire and …

Changing Winters And The Vernal Window In Northwestern Wyoming, Julia Olson

Master's Theses and Capstones

The timing of snowmelt and the onset of spring is changing in the Mountain West of the United States. The period between snow disappearance and vegetation green-up, known as the vernal window, is also changing, with implications for ecohydrology, the regional water supply, and the economy. Here, I present the first detailed analysis of the vernal window in the Mountain West at the ecosystem scale, focusing specifically on northwestern Wyoming in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA). I used in-situ and satellite data to address four objectives: 1) to understand how winter intensity and duration are changing, 2) to understand when …

The Effects Of Hatchery Stressors On Growth, Aggression, And Cannibalism Of Juvenile Lumpfish, Shelby Perry

Master's Theses and Capstones

Due to the high demand for cleanerfish in salmonid ocean farming operations, increasing lumpfish hatchery production and rearing efficiency are of great importance. Juvenile lumpfish are cannibalistic which is controlled, to some extent, through frequent size grading of the fish, however, cannibalism still occurs. Understanding and mitigating factors that exacerbate aggressive behaviors in juvenile lumpfish, which can lead to cannibalism, would help achieve the goal of increasing juvenile production in the hatchery. We hypothesize that lumpfish cannibalism is linked to a specific ontogenetic period related to fish size rather than age and can be exacerbated by various stressors such as …

Legacy Effects Of Land Cover And Land Use On Painted Turtle (Chrysemys Picta) Populations Over A 20-Year Period In Southeastern New Hampshire, Benjamin Phillips

Master's Theses and Capstones

More than half of all freshwater turtles and tortoises are threatened with extinction. Human land use practices and land cover conversion often decrease adult turtle survivorship and dampen the reproductive potential of turtle populations. The ability to make informed conservation and management decisions depends on understanding the relative impacts of different landscape contexts on turtle populations, and the spatial extent over which they have an impact. We surveyed painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) populations along an urbanization gradient in southeastern New Hampshire, USA to assess the relative impact of land cover, land use, and chemical contaminants on population density and sex …

Cultivating Commitment: How Cultural Ecosystem Services Affect Visitor Loyalty In Parks And Protected Areas, Thomas James Robinson

Master's Theses and Capstones

Parks and protected areas (PPAs) provide essential ecosystem services to society, including both the material and non-material benefits obtained from healthy ecosystems. While research on this topic has mainly focused on material-based ecosystem services, limited attention has been given to the benefits of non-material cultural ecosystem services (CES) such as recreation, history, and culture. Visitor loyalty refers to an individual’s commitment and willingness to return to a PPA in perpetuity and is influenced by various factors, including the quality of the recreation experience and the ecological integrity of a natural resource. CES may significantly influence visitor loyalty in PPAs, as …

Machine Vision Based Speed Control And Its Application In Autonomous Uav Snow Depth Remote Sensing, Jacob Matthew Shaker

Master's Theses and Capstones

Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) sensors are an effective way to unobtrusively measure snow depth using Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). LiDAR snow depth estimation performs poorly when scanning obstructed areas due to a reduction in LiDAR ground returns. When using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) to measure snow depth in forests, trees obstruct LiDAR laser pulses from penetrating to the forest floor, thus, reducing the number of returns. Decreasing UAV flight speed increases the total number of returns which, in turn, can improve snow depth estimates but reduces the sampling extent. In this work, it is shown that Machine Vision (MV) …

Investigation Of Motor Programming In Childhood Apraxia Of Speech, Madison Smith

Master's Theses and Capstones

The underlying nature of the motor programming disorder in stroke-related apraxia of speech (AOS) has received extensive investigation. This is not the case for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). CAS and AOS present with many of the same perceptual characteristics (increased intersegment and segment duration ((i.e., segmentation)), equal lexical stress, and speech sound distortions), however, little work has been done to investigate whether the disorders have the same mechanism of action (McNeil, Robin, & Schmidt, 2009). Previous studies investigating motor programming in AOS have utilized a two-stage model developed by Klapp (2003). This model breaks down the motor programming process …

The Impact Of Thiamin (B1) And Its Precursors On Microzooplankton-Phytoplankton Interactions, Sara Smith

Master's Theses and Capstones

Phytoplankton, marine microalgae that are the base of the oceanic food web, significantly influence the flow of essential nutrients throughout marine ecosystems. In particular, phytoplankton have been implicated in the cycling of the vitamin thiamin (B1) and its components 4-methyl-5-thiazoleethanol (HET) and 4-amino-5-hydroxymethyl-2-methylpyrimidine (HMP). These compounds are essential to many marine microbes but are found in relatively small concentrations (<500 pM) throughout the earth’s oceans. Despite the importance of these vitamins in fueling marine microbial growth, very little is understood regarding their sources and sinks. To better understand the impacts of vitamins on phytoplankton growth and interactions with microzooplankton grazers, 20 dilution experiments spiked with additions of B1, HET, or HMP were conducted. These were performed across seasons, and examined changes not only in bulk chlorophyll concentration, but also in size-specific growth and grazing rates. No clear patterns in rate changes in response to additions of B1 or precursors were observed. Additionally, often vitamin addition resulted in compound-dependent significant changes in growth and loss rates. No significant changes in rates were found to correlate with starting phytoplankton abundance, suggesting that the composition of the starting phytoplankton community played a large role in mediating the response to vitamin addition relative to total abundance. Overall, these findings highlight the complexity and importance of understanding the sources and sinks of B1 and its components in the marine environment.