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Free From Jazz: The Jazz And Improvised Music Scene In Vienna After Ossiach (1971-2011), Thomas Albert Zlabinger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Focusing on a diverse and eclectic scene that is under-documented, this dissertation investigates the historical, social, and cultural aspects of jazz and improvised music in Vienna over the last four decades. Through fieldwork, I have observed various characteristics and trends regarding the jazz and improvised music scene in Vienna and have subsequently organized the musicians and their recordings into seven fluid "fields": Traditional-U.S. Performance, Post-Tradition, DJ/Hip-Hop, Volk/Ethnic, Cabaret, Unclassified, and Abroad. One of the most striking aspects of the entire scene is the near-absence of a racialized discourse among musicians and critics and of stereotypical markers of "blackness" in performance. …

Deflationism About Truth And Meaning, Onyoung Oh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of my thesis is to defend a deflationary view of truth and meaning. I characterize the view as a doctrine holding that truth is a purely logical notion, and truth-theoretic notions don't play a serious explanatory role in an account of meaning and content. We use truth-terms (e.g. `true') everywhere, from the discourse of ordinary conversation to those of the hard science and morality. The ubiquity of truth-terms gives rise to the impression that truth is a profound notion playing substantive explanatory roles. This impression, say deflationists, is unduly inflated--the ubiquity of truth-terms is not a sign of …

Metaphysical Dependence And Set Theory, John Wigglesworth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I articulate and defend a counterfactual analysis of metaphysical dependence. It is natural to think that one thing x depends on another thing y if had y not existed, then x wouldn't have existed either. But counterfactual analyses of metaphysical dependence are often rejected in the current literature. They are rejected because straightforward counterfactual analyses fail to accurately capture dependence relations between objects that exist necessarily, like mathematical objects. For example, it is taken as given that sets metaphysically depend on their members, while members do not metaphysically depend on the sets they belong to. The set …

The Lived Experiences Of Transition To Adult Healthcare In Young Adults With Cerebral Palsy, Ellen Mclaughlin Carroll

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Health Care Transition (HCT) describes the purposeful, planned movement of adolescents from child to adult-orientated care. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to uncover the meaning of transition to adult centered care as experienced by Young Adults with Cerebral Palsy (YA-CP) through the research question: What are the lived experiences of young adults with cerebral palsy transitioning from pediatric to adult healthcare?

Method: 6 females and 3 males, aged 19 -25 years of age, who identified as carrying the diagnosis of cerebral palsy without cognitive impairment were interviewed. Giorgi's (1985) method for analysis of phenomenology was the framework …

Children And Elephants: A Study Of Mentalization, Empathy, And Attitudes Towards Conservation In Participants Of An Elephant-Based Environmental Intervention In West Africa, Erica C. Rogers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent research suggests that children's identification with animals and propensity to learn from animal experiences might make animal-focused interventions ideal for social and emotional development. A child's ability to understand their own and others' feeling states has been linked to emotional resilience and has been identified as a protective factor against the development of pathology later in life (Allen & Fonagy, 2006). This study examined the impact of an ongoing conservation-based intervention in Burkina Faso on conservation attitudes, mentalization and empathy. Participants were 106 Burkinabe students, 56 male and 50 female, ages 9-15. Participants were split into four groups, a …

Pathways Of Activity: Lessons From Dominican College Students, Monika L. Son

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

High attrition rates among Latino students have long been identified as a major problem in college. Few attempts have been made to understand the normative developmental experiences among this population. This study, based on a study of lives, a narrative approach, examines the experiences of urban Dominican-American college students. Their strategies for effectively navigating a wide variety of contexts (e.g., school, work, family, and neighborhood) are analyzed, and implications for their educational efforts are examined within a developmental framework. Gender disparities and immigrant processes are also explored.

Two part interviews were completed with eleven participants. The first interview was semi-structured …

Ladakhi Traditional Songs: A Cultural, Musical, And Literary Study, Noe Dinnerstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the place of traditional songs in the Tibetan Buddhist culture of the former Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. I look at how Buddhism and pre-Buddhist religion informed the texts and performance contexts of traditional songs, and how Ladakhi songs represent cultural self-images through associated musical, textual, and visual tropes. Many songs of the past, both from the old royal house and the rural Buddhist populations, reflect the socio-political structure of Ladakhi society. Some songs reflect a pan-Tibetan identity, connecting the former Namgyal dynasty to both the legendary King Gesar and Nyatri Tsangpo, the historical founder of the Tibetan …

Unexpected Work Intrusions Into Employees' Personal Lives: Investigation, Measure Development, And Exploration Of Causes And Consequences, Angela R. Grotto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present research explored unplanned work performed during employees' nonwork hours in response to unexpected work intrusions. Three studies were conducted to achieve four goals: 1) better understand the nature of switching from nonwork roles to the work role in response to work intrusions during nonwork hours, 2) help distinguish unplanned role switching from planned role transitions (e.g., bringing work home), 3) develop and validate new episodic measures of work intrusions and three aspects of unplanned nonwork-to-work role switching (frequency, mental difficulty, and physical effort), and 4) begin developing a nomological net of antecedent and outcomes variables surrounding the construct. …

Are Black Girls The New Number Runners? An Analysis Of Black Girls And High School Mathematics, Carolyn Denise King

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), one out of every 100 employed scientists and engineers in the United States is a Black female. This statistic prompts the examination of Black females and mathematics. How do individual-level (educational aspirations), familial-level (support), and school-level (school characteristics) variables impact Black female students' proficiency in high school mathematics as well as predict their enrollment in postsecondary math courses?

Employing four waves from the National Education Longitudinal Study (1988, 1990, 1992, & 1994), this study seeks to add to the discourse on achievement in mathematics by examining factors which impact outcomes in mathematics for …

Becoming Someone Different: A Grounded Theory Study Of How Nurses Integrate Pregnancy And Full Time Employment, Paul Gregory Quinn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, 40% of the contemporary nursing workforce is comprised of women of childbearing age, 65% of whom are employed full-time. Hence, the likelihood of pregnancy occurring for this population at some point in their employment is high. A holistic exploration of how nurses integrate pregnancy and full-time employment has been lacking. The purpose of this research was to explore how primiparous nurses managed pregnancy and full-time employment. Using a grounded theory approach, nurses who were pregnant and delivered their first baby, while employed full-time on 12-hour work shifts, provided a firsthand account of how they incorporated pregnancy …

Theoretical Methods For Blur-Correction In Electron And Soft X-Ray Microscopy, Joanna Klukowska

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The process of object reconstruction from projections is widely used in many fields. One of the applications is the reconstruction of biological specimens from two-dimensional projections in transmission electron microscopy and transmission x-ray microscopy. Various methods have been developed for correcting the blurring that occurs when the projections are obtained by a real instrument. As the attainable resolution increases, new issues become apparent and need to be taken into account in the imaging model. In this dissertation we concentrate on the point spread function and its impact on the quality and usefulness of the reconstructions from images obtained according to …

Triadic Music In Twentieth-Century Russia, Christopher Mark Segall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Twentieth-century Russian music exhibits a diversity of approaches to triadic composition. Triads appear in harmonic contexts that range from tonal to atonal, as well as in referential contexts where triadic music evokes historical styles. Theorists in Russia have approached this repertoire from perspectives that differ from those of their English-speaking counterparts, but because little Russian theory has been reliably translated into English, the work remains largely unknown. This dissertation explores three case studies dealing with the treatment of triads in contrapuntal, functionally harmonic, and atonal contexts respectively, drawing on untranslated (or in one case, poorly translated) writings from twentieth-century Russian …

The Expression Of The Transcription Factor Broad And Rna-Binding Factors In The Midgut Of The Mosquito Aedes Aegypti During Metamorphosis, Kathryn Ray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Transcription factors, microRNAs and RNA binding factors frequently interact to coordinate gene expression during development. The transcription factor BROAD (BR) is a global regulator of insect gene transcription and governs the timing of the commitment to pupate. I determined BR expression in the Ae. aegypti midgut by qPCR, and correlated its expression with that of nine miRNAs and three RNA-binding factors. During midgut metamorphosis the expression of these factors was dynamic and reproducible.

To better understand the changes in expression patterns, I evaluated the effects of hormone analogs on expression. Using this approach I uncovered concurrent up-regulation of BR, miR-34 …

Energy Of The Quasi-Free Electron In Repulsive Atomic And Molecular Fluids, Yevgeniy Lushtak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ability to predict accurately the energy V₀(ρ) of the quasi-free electron along the entire density (ρ) range of a supercritical fluid has applications in determining the ideal thermodynamic conditions for chemical reactions involving charged species. The previously established field ionization method of extracting V₀(ρ) from the fluid density dependent shift Δ(ρ) in the ionization energy of a dopant molecule has led to the discovery of a novel effect on V₀(ρ) occurring near the critical isotherm of the fluid. Unfortunately this method has limitations in determining V₀(ρ) in fluids with low critical …

Health Habits, Wellness, And Behavior Of Male Student Athletes Participating In High School Sports, Michelle D. Lividini

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Muscle Dysmorphia (MD) is a pathological preoccupation with muscularity, more common in men than in women. MD is estimated to affect several hundreds of thousands of individuals. There has been little research related to MD in the male adolescent population and the prevalence is unknown. The mean age of onset of MD is estimated to be 19 years, and sports participation increases the risk for developing MD as well as other psychological difficulties. The pilot study revealed a potential relationship between MD symptoms and athletic and academic performance, low levels of self-esteem, high levels of perfectionist qualities, and use of …

Twelve-Tone Cartography: Space, Chains, And Intimations Of "Tonal" Form In Anton Webern’S Twelve-Tone Music, Brian Christopher Moseley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes a theory and methodology for creating musical spaces, or maps, to model form in Webern's twelve-tone compositions. These spaces are intended to function as "musical grammars," in the sense proposed by Robert Morris. And therefore, significant time is spent discussing the primary syntactic component of Webern's music, the transformation chain, and its interaction with a variety of associational features, including segmental invariance and pitch(-class) symmetry. Throughout the dissertation, these spaces function as an analytical tools in an exploration of this music's deep engagement with classical formal concepts and designs. This study includes analytical discussions of the Piano …

(In)Justice On The Streets: The Long Housing Crisis In Hungary From Above And Below, Éva Tessza Udvarhelyi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hungary today is the only country in the world that has encoded in its constitution the possibility of penalizing homelessness in public spaces. The intensity of criminalization of homelessness in recent years has given rise to a tug-of-war between the ruling party and grassroots activists. This dissertation explores the politics of homelessness in Budapest from three interlocking perspectives, drawing on primary historical sources, social science literature in English and Hungarian, the secondary analysis of a participatory action research project as well as the author’s experiences as a housing rights activist. It will first examine how the state has addressed homelessness …

Dipolar Interactions, Long Range Order And Random Fields In A Single Molecule Magnet, Mn12-Acetate, Bo Wen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I will present an experimental study of two single molecule magnets, Mn₁₂-ac and Mn₁₂-ac-MeOH. I will show that in both systems, the temperature dependence of the inverse susceptibility yields a positive intercept on the temperature axis (a positive Weiss temperature), implying the existence of a ferromagnetic phase at low temperature.

Applying a magnetic field in the transverse direction moves the Weiss temperature downward towards zero. This implies that the transverse field triggers mechanisms in the system that compete with the dipolar interaction and suppress the long-range ordering.

I will then show that the …

Script Fading For Children With Autism: Generalization Of Social Initiation Skills From School To Home, Alison Marie Wichnick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A critical component of teaching social skills to people with autism is the generalization of behavior change across a variety of untrained situations during which social skills are appropriate. The script-fading procedure is an effective technology for teaching social skills to people with autism, but few researchers have established cues in the natural environment as the discriminative stimuli for social initiations. The purpose of this study was to use a script-fading procedure to teach young children with autism to initiate to one another across various activities in the school setting, and to program for generalization across untrained stimuli in the …

Who Governs The Internet? The Emerging Policies, Institutions, And Governance Of Cyberspace, Robert J. Domanski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is "ungovernable". However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous "architectures of control" have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? Our contentions are that the Internet is, in fact, being governed; that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors; and that an argument can be made as to how …

Claiming Space, Redefining Politics: Urban Protest And Grassroots Power In Bolivia, Carwil Bjork-James

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the role of space-claiming protests by primarily left grassroots social movements in Bolivia's current political transformation. Space claiming includes mass protests that physically control or symbolically claim urban space through occupations of plazas and roads, sit-ins, blockades, and other measures. As a theoretical construct, space claiming brings together tactics of collective action and meanings of public spaces, and looks at the consequences of their interaction. This dissertation is based on ethnographic engagement and oral interviews with protest participants and their state interlocutors during twelve months of fieldwork and archival research. By using detailed ethnographic evidence--of social life …

Reduction Of Observable Robbery And Larceny-Theft In The Twelve Largest Cities In The United States From 1980 To 2009, Andrew J. Costello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The reduction in crime rates that occurred in large cities across the United States (US) over the course of the past two decades has been the subject of much speculation and research. However, there have been no definitive empirical studies that conclusively determine the causes for this phenomenon. The goal of this study is to identify the impact of certain factors to the reduction of crime in large US cities that occurred over the past two decades by examining data over a thirty-year period (1980-2009). The identification of contributing factors may allow government officials, both on a local and national …

Eating Soviet: Food And Culture In The Ussr, 1917–1991, Anton Masterovoy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that the best way to understand the nature of Soviet history is through the prism of food. Soviet citizens were encouraged to see the availability of food as the main measure of success for the construction of a new, Soviet civilization. The disappointment with the inability of the Soviet government to provide the quantity, quality and variety of food that the Soviet consumers expected was one of the major causes for the collapse of the USSR. The first chapter addresses the reasons why and how so unlikely a food as sausage became and remains the primary Russian …

Writing The Visual In "Baroni: Un Viaje" And Other Recent Work By Sergio Chejfec, Margaret Carson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation has three parts. First, I explore the ways in which word intersects with image in several recent texts by the contemporary Argentine writer Sergio Chejfec, whose oeuvre is replete with verbal descriptions of visual artifacts. Second, as a complement to the critical essay, I present my English translation of Chejfec's Baroni: un viaje (2007), a novel featuring the Venezuelan artist Rafaela Baroni, whose extraordinary wood carvings of Virgins, saints and other figures are described in key passages. Third, as a bridge between these two parts, I reflect on the related critical discourses of ekphrasis and translation and on …

Neurophysiological Indices Of The Effect Of Cognates On Vowel Perception In Late Spanish-English Bilinguals, Carol A. Tessel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of research in bilingualism and second language (L2) acquisition has yielded overwhelming evidence that acquiring a second language later in life will result in less accurate production and perception of consonants and vowels in the second language. These effects, in part, are a result of interference from the already formed phonetic categories shaped by early exposure to the L1 (Iverson, 2007). Phonetic categories from the L2 will, at least initially, be mapped onto phonetic categories from the L1 (Flege, 1995). Shared storage of similar lexical items from L1 and L2 may also take place resulting in differences in …

Twentieth-Century Catalogs: The Poetics Of Listing, Enumeration, And Copiousness In Joyce, Schuyler, Mccourt, Pynchon, And Perec, Timothy Krause

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the occurrence of catalogs and lists in the literary works of several twentieth-century authors, including James Joyce, poet James Schuyler, novelist and cultural historian James McCourt, the postmodern fabulist Thomas Pynchon, and the French experimental prose author Georges Perec. The dissertation seeks to trace how each author makes use of catalogs in his work, how catalogs form a central part of his style and subject matter, and how his use of catalogs can be read against the biographical, historical, and social contexts surrounding his life and work. A theoretical introduction situates my work among theorists of epistemology, …

Keeping Count Of All And Losing Count Of A Few: The Construction Of The High School Dropout Rate, Shana Elizabeth Henry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The quality of the construction of the high school dropout rate is the policy issue investigated in this dissertation. This qualitative dissertation explores the constructs necessary to create a high school dropout rate and seeks to unearth complexities in the construction of the high school dropout rate. Every single year, approximately 1.2 million students do not earn a high school diploma.

Dropout rates are one method of assessing the magnitude of the problem and helps to shed light on the health of the public school system. A number of researchers have questioned the accuracy of data reported by schools for …

The Museum Of Modern Art's "What Is Modern?" Series, 1938-1969, Jennifer Tobias

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1938 and 1969, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) poses the question of What Is Modern? (WIM) in a series of books, traveling exhibitions, and a symposium. This dissertation argues for the WIM project as a sustained if minimally effective effort to influence popular American perceptions of modern art, architecture, and design, at the same time embodying tensions inherent to the museum and its notions of that modernism.

MoMA is an unquestionable influence on modern art history. WIM is a significant component of this influence, yet scholarship on the series is minimal. Hiding in plain sight, the series offers …

The Work Of The Urban Commons: Limited-Equity Cooperatives In Washington, D.C., Amanda Huron

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research theorizes the work of the urban commons through close examination of a group of ten limited-equity housing cooperatives in Washington, D.C. Limited-equity co-ops, or LECs, are a noncommodified resource that is collectively owned and maintained by their members. I argue that LECs are a manifestation of the commons, and that they represent a specific form of the commons - the urban commons. In this research, I ask: how does the urban commons - as manifested in this case by limited-equity housing cooperatives - function? The commons, as I theorize it, is a space that both provides a basis …

Geometric Graph Theory And Wireless Sensor Networks, Deniz Sarioz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this work, we apply geometric and combinatorial methods to explore a variety of problems motivated by wireless sensor networks. Imagine sensors capable of communicating along straight lines except through obstacles like buildings or barriers, such that the communication network topology of the sensors is their visibility graph. Using a standard distributed algorithm, the sensors can build common knowledge of their network topology.

We first study the following inverse visibility problem: What positions of sensors and obstacles define the computed visibility graph, with fewest obstacles? This is the problem of finding a minimum obstacle representation of a graph. This minimum …