Digital Commons Network^™

The Developmental Trajectory Of Contour Integration In Autism Spectrum Disorders, Ted S. Altschuler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sensory input is inherently ambiguous and complex, so perception is believed to be achieved by combining incoming sensory information with prior knowledge. One model envisions the grouping of sensory features (the local dimensions of stimuli) to be the outcome of a predictive process relying on prior experience (the global dimension of stimuli) to disambiguate possible configurations those elements could take. Contour integration, the linking of aligned but separate visual elements, is one example of perceptual grouping. Kanizsa-type illusory contour (IC) stimuli have been widely used to explore contour integration processing. Consisting of two conditions which differ only in the alignment …

Backward C Inside A Circle: Free Culture In Zines, Alycia Sellie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although zines made today utilize many forms of antiquated technologies such as the typewriter and the photocopier in their construction, they are a part of contemporary tinkering with intellectual property. This thesis examines free culture as it has been expressed in self-published zines made in the last thirty-five years. It looks at the licenses found in zines as conversations between a zine maker and a zine reader. Beyond just the legal implications, the cultural and ethical effects of licensing a zine are explored.

The internet is not the only place where people have played with intellectual property and toyed with …

Strategies For Discriminating And Comparing Unknown Unitary Transformations, Guy F. Okoko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How to discriminate or compare two unitary transformations that are completely unknown?

We first examine the unambiguous discrimination of two unknown unitary transformations; we show that the results are the same as those found for the programmable discrimination of two unknown quantum states.

Next we consider the minimum-error comparison of two unknown unitary transformations; the results are obtained in the general case where the prior probabilities are different.

Last we study the unambiguous discrimination of two unknown unitary transformations in the case where multiple copies of data are available.

Nickel-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions Involving Secondary And Tertiary Alkyl Nucleophiles, Amruta Ajit Joshi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first chapter, introduction of transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions has been given. These transition metal-catalyzed C-C bond forming reactions have been used extensively in organic synthesis. Among them, C(sp2)-C(sp2) bond forming reactions have been widely studied over decades. More recently, some reports have demonstrated the use of C(sp3) nucleophiles and electrophiles in cross-coupling reactions. However, use of secondary and tertiary alkyl nucleophiles has remained a challenge due to competitive β-hydride elimination and slow transmetallation of bulky secondary and tertiary alkyl organometallic nucleophiles.

In the second chapter, the first general nickel-catalyzed Negishi reaction for the cross-coupling of unactivated, acyclic secondary …

For Love And For Justice: Narratives Of Lesbian Activism, Kelly Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the role of lesbians in the U.S. second wave feminist movement, arguing that the history of women's liberation is more diverse, more intersectional, and more radical than previously documented. The body of this work is five oral histories conducted with lifelong activists and public intellectuals for the Voices of Feminism project at the Sophia Smith Collection: Katherine Acey, former Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; Dorothy Allison, author and sex radical; Suzanne Pharr, southern anti-racist organizer and author; Achebe Powell, activist and diversity trainer; and Carmen Vázquez, LGBT activist and founding director of the …

Historical Relationships Between Land Elevation And Socioeconomic Status In New York City: A Mixed Methods Gis Approach, Jennifer Brisbane

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The role that topography has played in the development of New York City is essential to understanding its present urban form and foreseeing its changes. Geographers and economists have generally agreed that for cities in the United States, socioeconomic status increases with land elevation. This seemingly simple relationship between elevation and class, however, is complicated by factors such as technological innovations, economic shifts, politics, cultural perceptions, and the idiosyncrasies of cities and the neighborhoods within them. The lack of comprehensive research in this area coupled with conflicting findings warranted further exploration into the complex and changing relationships between elevation and …

The Effect Of Morphological Awareness On Reading Comprehension: A Study With Adolescent Spanish-English Emergent Bilinguals, Rebecca Curinga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present research examines the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension of high school emergent bilinguals. As an increasing number of research studies contribute to our understanding of morphological awareness, i.e. the ability to reflect on and manipulate morphologically complex derived words, we are better able to appreciate some essential components of reading that may have been overlooked in past decades. Previous research suggests that morphological awareness contributes to academic reading vocabulary and higher-level text comprehension, both crucial to the success of secondary school students in the United States (U.S.).

The population in the present study is newcomer Spanish-speaking …

A Comparison Of Vocabulary Learning From Joint Reading Of Narrative And Informational Books With Dual Language Learner Children, Deborah Bergman Deitcher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A Comparison of Vocabulary Learning From Joint Reading of

Narrative and Informational Books With Dual Language Learner Children

By: Deborah Bergman Deitcher

Advisor: Professor Helen L. Johnson

This study examined joint reading of narrative and informational texts in the home setting, between parents and their English-Hebrew dual language learning preschool children. Parent-child dyads were video-recorded while reading two sets of books; each set contained one narrative and one informational text on the same theme. Children's target word learning of 48 target words (12 words per book) of varying difficulty levels was measured from pretest to posttest. Results showed that children …

Inter-Religious Relationships And Anxiety In The Regulation Of Automatic Inter-Religious Prejudice, Karla J. Felix

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shared reality theory predicts and evidence suggests that inter-religious relationships are motivated to maintain or regulate interpersonal interactions with others. However, this motivation has been given little attention within the automatic attitude literature. This research is centered on the idea that automatic prejudice is moderated by two fundamental themes, shared reality and anxiety. These themes are reviewed to determine the degree to which participants socially tune to ingroup versus outgroup religious experimenters. In Experiment 1, automatic inter-religious attitudes toward Christian and Jewish experimenters were assessed via a subliminal prime procedure. Religious orientation (extrinsic, intrinsic) and regulation of inter-religious relationships were …

Phylogenetic Trees And Their Analysis, Eric Ford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Determining the best possible evolutionary history, the lowest-cost phylogenetic tree, to fit a given set of taxa and character sequences using maximum parsimony is an active area of research due to its underlying importance in understanding biological processes. As several steps in this process are NP-Hard when using popular, biologically-motivated optimality criteria, significant amounts of resources are dedicated to both both heuristics and to making exact methods more computationally tractable. We examine both phylogenetic data and the structure of the search space in order to suggest methods to reduce the number of possible trees that must be examined to find …

2d & 3d Nanomaterial Fabrication With Biological Molecular Frameworks, Kristina Ivana Fabijanic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recently, there has been a heightened amount of work done in the field of biomineralization. By taking inspiration from natures' phenomenonal individualities as a means to develop new and interesting nanostructures of varying sizes and dimensions, there is a newly developed design, namely Biomimetic Crystallization Nanolithography (BCN). With this method, the simultaneous nano-patterning and crystallization has been achieved using urease as the nucleation point and the hydrolysis of urea to obtain patterns of oxide semiconductor material, namely zinc oxide, at room temperature and aqueous solvent. The new and interesting characteristic of BCN involves the construction of amorphous inks of ZnO …

Mechanism Of Phospho-Alpha-Tubulin-Driven Motility In Human Breast Epithelial Cells, Shatarupa De

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Protein kinase C (PKC), an enzyme important in signaling pathways that give rise to various cell phenotypes, has been closely associated with metastatic phenotypes of breast cancer. Tissues from patients of varying degrees of tumorgenicity have shown an elevated expression of the PKCα isoform as well as other diacylglycerol (DAG)-sensitive isoforms. Moreover, independent studies with highly invasive breast cell lines, such as MDA-MB-231 cells, have also shown an elevated level of PKCα. Therefore, PKCα has long been a therapeutic target for breast cancer. Among its known substrates (recently identified by our laboratory), α6-tubulin will, upon phosphorylation by PKC, enhance migration …

Suburban Heat Islands: The Influence Of Residential Minimum Lot Size Zoning On Surface Heat Islands In Somerset County, New Jersey, Jennifer Renee Cox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The process of suburbanization blurs regional bounds, forms mega-regions and fosters the expansion of multifaceted environmental problems, such as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Defined by differences in air- and surface- temperature between rural and urban areas, UHI is the result of the characteristics of urbanization which modify the land surface condition, urban geometry, thermal properties of construction materials, anthropogenic heat and air pollution, which increase storage and re-radiation of heat to the atmosphere. Climate change is predicted to worsen the UHI effect. Hence, the objective of this research to characterize the UHI effect as it pertains to suburban …

Battles With Words: Literate And Linguistic Resistance In Multi-Ethnic U.S. Literature And Everyday Life, Melissa A. Dennihy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Battles with Words analyzes the role of multi-ethnic U.S. literature as an alternative form of cultural production which critiques and challenges U.S. linguistic and literate hegemony and homogeneity. The texts comprising this field continually emphasize the ways in which words, through language and literacy, become tools of power and action used by the ethnically marginalized to negotiate everyday advantages for themselves and challenge the linguistic and cultural domination of Anglo America. Through their critiques of the culture of English-only monolingualism that has continued to dominate the national landscape of the U.S. throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these authors indicate …

Migration Plasticity As An Adaptation To Climate Change: The Spatial Distribution And Abundance Of A Subset Of Neotropical Migrant Landbirds Wintering In The Northeastern United States, Juliette Goulet

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a need for accurate predictions of the effects of climate change on wildlife populations. Bioclimatic relationships however are potentially complicated by various environmental factors operating at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, in order to test the hypothesis that climate constraints of winter bird distributions are modified by species-specific responses to weather and climate, I relied on Christmas Bird Count data (CBC). With nearly 100 years of data, the CBC is a valuable source of information on historic and recent changes in the status and distribution of birds during the early winter period in the United States and …

Testing Assumptions Of Coevolution In An Egg-Rejecting Brood Parasite Host: Uncovering Sensory, Cognitive, And Evolutionary Drivers Of Responses To Parasitism In American Robins (Turdus Migratorius), Rebecca Croston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hosts of brood parasitic birds face fitness costs associated with rearing unrelated offspring. In response, the recognition and rejection of parasitic eggs is a common host defense. Brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) challenge coevolutionary theory, because although they exploit over 200 host species, they lay non-mimetic eggs, and most hosts do not combat cowbird parasitism with egg rejection. American robins (Turdus migratorius) are one of a handful of cowbird hosts known to recognize and remove cowbird eggs from the nest. I addressed the mechanistic and evolutionary drivers of egg rejection in this host species, by disentangling the roles of spectral tuning …

Fabrication And Assembly Of Patchy Particles With Uniform Patches, Zhenping He

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Patchy colloidal particles have been widely studied as the self-assembly building blocks to illustrate their potential for forming complex structures. The parameters affecting the final assembly structures include (i) patch size, shape, and number per particle, (ii) their relative positions, and (iii) the surface properties of the patch material. Recent computational studies have highlighted the impact of patch shape on assembly structure; however, there are only a limited number of methods that can provide control over patch shape and size. In this thesis, a template is introduced to the Glancing Angle Vapor Deposition method (GLAD) to create surface anisotropy on …

Optical Properties Of Solar Cells Based On Zinc(Hydr)Oxide And Its Composite With Graphite Oxide Sensitized By Quantum Dots, S. M. Zakirul Islam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis research focuses on developing a hybrid form of solar cell based on zinc(hydr)oxide and its composites with graphite oxide, TiO2, quantum dot, electrolyte and . This work expands upon the Gratzel solar cell with a dye in TiO2.

Due to various structural and optical characteristics, zinc(hydr)oxide (Zn(OH)2) and its porous composites with 2% and 5% graphite oxide(GO) can be used for various applications including the manufacture of various , protective elements in electric and electronic appliances, as gas-sensors, catalysts, in cosmetics a UV light absorber, and solar cells.

In this research, both TiO2 and zinc(hydr)oxide (refer as Zn(OH)2 …

Planar Waveguide Structures For Post-Edfa Broadband Near Infrared Optical Amplifiers, Islam Hoxha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis reports on optical gain of up to 5.7 dB from a planar waveguide with core made of tetravalent chromium-doped calcium germanate single crystal.

Development Of Mesoporous Silicas, Responsive Polymer Microgels, And Related Nanocomposites, Yingyu Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation covers research on polymer-templated nanoporous materials and functional soft materials, and it consists of four major parts. The first part is on introduction. The next part (Chapters 2-3) describes the research work on the synthesis of silicas with spherical mesopores. Chapter 2 is focused on the synthesis of large-pore FDU-12 silicas at room temperature by using surfactants with large hydrophilic blocks and relatively small hydrophobic blocks (such as Pluronic F108 (EO132PO50EO132)) as the template. Chapter 3 discusses an interesting mesopore structure, which is the hollow silica nanosphere (HSN). The single-micelle-templating strategy provides a general approach for the synthesis …

Psychological Contracts In Information Exchanges, Stanislav Mamonov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Information assets continue to grow in importance of contribution to economic activity. Many emergent businesses, including Google, Amazon and Facebook, leverage crowd-sourced information assets as essential pillars supporting their business models. The appropriation of rights to information assets is commonly done through legal contracts. In practice this approach often fails to prevent conflicts between the information contributors and the companies claiming information rights. In research presented here I attempt to understand when and why the conflicts arise. I draw on psychological contract theory and I develop the framework of psychological contracts in information exchanges. I propose that intellectual property and …

Iron Regulates Mrna Translation Initiation Through Rna Iron Responsive Element (Ire), Jia Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The non-coding IRE-RNA structure, a 30 nt stem loop structure, regulates synthesis of proteins in iron trafficking, cell cycling, and nervous system function. IRE-RNA binding with iron regulatory protein (IRP) proteins inhibits ribosome accessing mRNA. Increasing iron concentration decreases IRP binding with IRE-RNA. Previous models of IRE-mRNA translation regulation concentrate on Fe-S binding to IRP and IRP degradation after release from IRE-RNA. These models lack information on the details of decreasing IRE-RNA/IRP protein binding with iron concentration elevation. This research shows 1. Eukaryotic initiation factor 4F (eIF4F) binds to IRE-RNA with high affinity and works as a positive control element …

Dollar Democracy: The Politics Of Dollarization In Latin America, Cori Madrid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The state's right to print money and control monetary policy is among its most powerful abilities: it allows the state to manage the economy, raise revenue, and reward political allies. Since the establishment of the Westphalian state system, the state's monopoly of money within its borders has been a source of wealth and within the last century, influence over the macroeconomy and local actors. Nevertheless, in the year 2000, Ecuador and El Salvador surprised the world by announcing that they would officially dollarize their economies, replacing their national currencies with the dollar. What can explain why countries, such as Ecuador …

Rotational Form And Sonata-Type Hybridity In The First Movement Of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, Charity Lofthouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines Dmitri Shostakovich's sonata-form movements--often framed as "sonata arch" or "reverse recapitulation" structures, wherein the primary- and secondary-zone themes return in reverse order after the development--through the lens of rotation. Using methodology from Hepokoski and Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory (2006), I explore concepts of rotation in Symphony No. 4's opening movement and its interaction with a larger effect of boundary blurring and typological hybridity, manifest as a blending of double- and triple-rotational sonata-form types. This blurring effect is heightened by use of nontonal boundary sonorities at moments of expected tonal closure.

I begin by outlining double- and …

"When I Heard About The March": Testimonies And Participatory Archiving In Peacebuilding, Carolina Muñoz Proto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the Memoscopio archive and its collection of testimonies about the 2009 World March for Peace and Nonviolence (the March). This collection came into existence during 2009 and 2010 through a participatory archiving project carried out by a team of peace advocates and researchers in collaboration with March participants. The March was a transnational and decentralized campaign that promoted peace, nonviolence, and justice through activities in 600 cities, social media, and a three-month march around the world. Through the case of Memoscopio and the March, this dissertation explores the personal and cultural meanings of transnational peace marchers in …

A Psychoanalytic Exploration Into The Memory And Aesthetics Of Everyday Life: Photographs, Recollections, And Encounters With Loss, Dimitrios Mellos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The project at hand explores some of the psychological functions of photography as both an everyday and an artistic cultural practice from a psychoanalytic perspective. It is proposed that, contrary to commonsensical opinion, photographs are not accurate depositories of memory, but rather function as a functional equivalent of screen memories, thus channeling the subject's memory in ways that are objectively distorted and distorting, but psychologically meaningful and important; moreover, they are a special kind of screen memory in that they are often created pre-emptively and are physically instantiated.

Additionally, it is suggested that, by dint of their materiality, photographs achieve …

The Characterization Of Pb2+ Toxicity In Rat Neural Development: An Assessment Of Pb2+ Effects On The Gaba Shift In Neural Networks And Implications For Learning And Memory Disruption, Lorenz Simon Neuwirth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The toxic effects of Pb2+ on the developing rat nervous system has been investigated to assess early developmental GABAergic disruption and its implications with altering inhibitory learning and memory. This goal was achieved using a multi-systems approach: blood lead levels (clinical physiology), qRT-PCR (molecular genetics), brain and primary neuronal culture immunology (immunohistochemical and cellular approaches), physiological cellular components (synaptosomes and protein expression) and finally through learning and memory assessment with GABA mimetic drug manipulations in the intact animal (behavioral pharmacology). The influence of a 956ppm Pb2+ gestational diet (i.e. from birth to sacrifice) resulted in pup mean blood lead levels …

Changing Attention To Emotion: A Biobehavioral Study Of Attention Bias Modification Using Event-Related Potentials, Laura O'Toole

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anxiety is characterized by an attentional bias toward threat; that is, anxious individuals will preferentially attend to threatening versus non-threatening information. Recent research has demonstrated that reducing this bias, through attention bias modification (ABMT), leads to reductions in anxious symptoms and stress reactivity. Although these effects are promising for the development of an alternative intervention for anxiety, little is known about the attentional processes underlying ABMT effects. The present research used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neurocognitive attentional processes altered by ABMT over the course of three studies. In Study 1, non-anxious participants were trained towards and away from …

A Structural Approach To The Analysis Of Rock Music, Drew F. Nobile

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation situates itself in the middle of an ongoing debate about the applicability of Schenkerian analytical techniques to the analysis of pop and rock music. In particular, it investigates ways in which the standard conceptions of voice leading, harmonic function, and counterpoint may be updated to better apply to this new repertoire. A central claim is that voice-leading structure is intimately related to formal structure such that the two domains are mutually informing.

Part I of the dissertation focuses on harmonic and melodic theory. Chapter 2, "Harmonic Syntax," advocates for a conception of harmonic function based on syntax and …

The Sex Of The Cell Dictates Its Response, Carlos Ganesh Penaloza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Male and female differences in frequency of occurrence in disease have perplexed scientists for some time. This in part derives from limitations in the systems in which one can evaluate sex differences. At the organismal level, differences can be hidden by a myriad of extensive and complex factors. Additional limitations exist since most biomedical studies are performed almost exclusively on male subjects, as the female hormonal milieu is intrinsically more variable and too troublesome for routine inclusion in research protocols. Research documenting sex differences continues to grow, and while most researchers suggests that sex hormones are at the core of …