Digital Commons Network^™

Wordsworth, Ruins, And The Dialectics Of Melancholia, Colin Dekeersgieter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The concept of melancholia as it pertains to Romantic poets is often relegated to its simpler meaning of gloomy or depressed. This work provides an analysis of the motifs of melancholia in the work William Wordsworth as an allegory of the artist's relationship to their art. I am interested in melancholia as the tension between the melancholic's acute awareness of his temporal actuality and the grave desire for transcendence as a poet. Operating within this dialectic fractures Wordsworth's interiority as he struggles to ground himself in both realms. This dialectic is most often reconciled when the poet finds a …

Sharps, Squares, And Scalpers: Gambling In The Urban Underground, Annemarie Cesario

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study was conducted to examine the role of bookmakers in urban communities. Although bookmaking dates to 1780 in London, there has been little academic research on the bookmaker, or "bookie," and his role in neighborhood life. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research across three U.S. cities, I sought to answer two questions: 1. What is the relationship between the bookie and the neighborhood he serves, and how is his deviant identity managed in the larger community; and 2. How is trust established and maintained among actors in illegal gambling transactions? Once established, does this strengthen social networks and …

Divine Omnipotence In Descartes' Philosophy, Alfredo Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present thesis explores various aspects of Rene Descartes' doctrine of divine omnipotence within the context of his overall philosophy and with reference to his medieval heritage. This thesis shows that, contrary to his multiple and explicit statements that God's power cannot be limited in any way, Descartes took a more nuanced position on divine omnipotence that incorporated aspects of the widely accepted medieval position that God's goodness is a constraint on his power. Furthermore, Descartes used the medieval concept of universals as he experimented with the use of modes to explain how a thing's actual existence is possible by …

(De)Voiced: Human Rights Now. (An Environmental Community-Based Participatory Action Research Project), Lauren J. Tenney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

(de)VOICED is qualitative Survivor Research grounded in an Environmental Community–Based Participatory Action Research project that utilized video as a research tool. This design emerged via planning processes with thirty–six Advisors. Fourteen people who have both substantial expertise in psychiatric systems change and have psychiatric histories, from varying locations in the U.S., took on the role of Environmental Workographers for this study. In videotaped open–ended dialogues with me about their work, I asked them to share: what environments inspired their work; what issues their work focused on; and environments that were helpful or unhelpful in achieving their goals. This process produced …

A Chant Of Dilation: Walt Whitman, Phrenology, And The Language Of The Mind, Anton Borst

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A Chant of Dilation analyzes Walt Whitman's poetic engagement with two very modern ideas: the materiality of the mind and the discursive nature of science. During the antebellum period these ideas found expression in the popular science of phrenology, the theory that the mind was divided into various faculties physically located in different parts of the brain. This theory would find a ready audience in Whitman, a poet preoccupied with the body, the soul, and their connection. The writings and publications of premier American phrenologists Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, surveyed in this project, rhetorically mediated emerging conceptions of the brain-embodied …

Conceptual Roles And Conceptual Explanation: How Internalism Can Provide Everything We Need From A Theory Of Concepts, And Why Externalism Can't, Cressida Gaukroger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation attacks externalism about concepts. It argues that attributions of mental state content that posit externally individuated concepts lack explanatory power. Only the intrinsic or local properties of mental states are relevant to causal explanations of behaviour - relational or non-local properties of mental states do not have causal power. This dissertation focuses on expanding upon this argument, and showing that it has significant consequences for those who assert the externalist position.

I begin by setting out the primary criticisms levelled at internalist theories of concepts. These include the claims that a theory that individuates concepts purely internally will …

Working Women: Contemporary Cinematic Costumes In "Desk Set" And "Working Girl", Karen Hummel Kinsley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary cinematic costume designer is a visual storyteller. Through the dressing, or undressing of the actor's body, the costume designer narrates the cinematic character's physical and psychological journey from the first frame to the final credits. The costume designer creates the character's image by selecting specific garments and accessories that will inform the audience about the character's relationship with his cinematic environment.

The focus of this thesis is to examine how the contemporary cinematic costume designer unifies contemporary clothing with the actor's body to narrate a cinematic character's story. In order to understand how the costume designer creates a …

Origins Of The Movement And The Development Of Protest: The Birmingham Campaign, 1963, James Munro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social movement theory in the late twentieth century has offered competing explanations for the origins and development of protest. In an attempt to explain the American Civil Rights Movement, scholars from the resource mobilization (RM) and political process theory (PPT) schools have provided somewhat mechanistic and formulaic explanations for how the black protest developed in the southern states. This study takes the emergence and development of protest in Birmingham, Alabama, culminating in the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, as a case study to examine the claims of RM and PPT. An evaluation of the Birmingham Campaign suggests the emergence of protest …

The Silent Guerrillas: Under Slavery, In Peasant Politics, And Throughout The Industrial And Social Factories, Kevin Van Meter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the work that follows, I will examine what political theorist James C. Scott calls "the hidden transcripts" of social struggle, which are written between the lines of the political record through the quotidian and clandestine practices of resistance and mutual aid that are the first and last recourse of subjugated populations. By engaging with literature on contemporary and historical social movements, I will explore the emergence and brief legibility of these practices among chattel slaves in the American South, the peasantry in various settings, and in a number of other industrial and social settings in an attempt to determine …

Partir Marron: Un Parcours Sémantique À Travers Les Trous De La Mémoire Collective Haïtienne, Lucie Carmel Paul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The word "marron " represents both a totality, and a specificity. Totalizing, the term refers to the slave who fled from the plantation, against the colonial order, that is, the fugitive slave. Specific, in the Haitian lexicography, it stands for a shifty and cunning individual, particularily a " Woule m debò "1. One has to recognize that there is a double meaning associated with the word, and at the same time, the syntagmatic locution "partir marron " reflects the individual's dependency on phenomenology. The moment of crisis is one of an explosion, through which one can only be …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

"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 …

Development Of A Model Of Participation Of Community-Based, Discretionary Activities By People Who Use Wheelchairs, Anita Perr

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This cross-sectional research analyzed an existing data set of 302 wheelchair users to identify the psychosocial predictors of participation in community-based, discretionary activities. Two defining elements of participation were studied: the extent of participation and satisfaction with participation. Descriptive analyses of the participants' demographic information and portions of four assessments were completed first. Regression analyses were then used to systematically eliminate potential covariates until the significant psychosocial covariates of the extent of and satisfaction with participation were identified. Perceived control over one's life and perceived reintegration to social function were found to predict the extent of participation. Perceived control also …

Quantitative Evaluation Of Microglial Activation And Vascularization In Suicide, Tatiana Pavlovna Schnieder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Accumulated evidence points to immunological factors in psychiatric disorders. In a variety of chronic neurological disorders, exacerbation is associated with inflammation and a loss of integrity of the blood-brain barrier. Microglia, the principal brain immunological cells in the healthy state, respond to changes in the internal environment of the brain through a sequence of activated states. This study compared microglial phenotypes in the white matter of autopsy brains from 11 suicide victims and 25 subjects who died involuntarily. Both groups included cases with and without major psychiatric disorders, which were determined by PA interviews. Cases were matched for sex, age, …

Existence: An Unholy Trinity. An Account Of Indeterminate Existence, Salas Sanchez-Bennasar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What is it for something to exist? This dissertation provides an answer to this question by giving a philosophical theory of existence in which the concept of existence in understood as a complex tri-partite notion. The account of existence defended here is arrived at by taking into consideration past philosophical theories of existence, the everyday and scientific uses of the notion, and also philosophical considerations about the nature of reality.

There are three conditions that are central to existence: spatiotemporality, mind-independence, and being a member of the quantificational domain of a true and complete scientific description about the world. To …

Automated Learner Classification Through Interface Event Stream And Summary Statistics Analysis, Edgar E. Troudt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reading comprehension is predominately measured through multiple choice examinations. Yet, as we will discuss in this thesis, such exams are often criticized for their inaccuracies. With the advent of "big data" and the rise of ITS (Intelligent Tutoring Systems), increasing focus will be placed on finding dynamic, automated ways of measuring students' aptitude and progress.

This work takes the first step towards automated learner classification based on the application of graphic organizers. We address the following specific problem experimentally: How effectively can we measure task comprehension via human translation of written text into a visual representation on a computer? Can …

Space & Distance As I Require: The Journals And Prose Fragments Of Philip Whalen 1950-1966, Brian Unger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Space & Distance As I Require: The Journals & Prose Fragments of Philip Whalen 1950 - 1966 presents the early journals, prose fragments, and a few unpublished poems and essays by San Francisco Renaissance and Beat Generation poet Philip Whalen (1923-2002). This work includes a scholarly apparatus with both general literary and textual introductions, a critical bibliography that reflects my literary-historical concerns, brief section introductions, annotations, and an informal concordance with Whalen's poetry utilizing The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen (ed. Rothenberg, 2007) as a reference work.

Philip Whalen was an Irish-American writer with roots in small town Oregon, a …

Affective Language And Attitudes Toward Public Policy, Rachel A. Wolitzky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation project focused on affective and unconscious processes involved in the evaluation of public policy. It follows recent scholarship in political psychology showing how the response to political messages depends greatly on what values and emotions are evoked. Of particular focus has been the notable discrepancy between the conscious way people construe their political judgments and the unconscious operations that more truly account for their views and actions. Motivated by a neuroscientific and psychoanalytic model of the mind and brain that recognizes both the pre-eminence of unconscious (implicit) processing and the primacy of affect in mind (brain) activity, this …

Chemistry Of 6-Monobrominated Indigo, Mbi, Hiroko Ajiki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

6-monobrominated indigo, MBI, is a component of a historically important and the most expensive colorant, Tyrian Purple.

The colorant is remarkably stable under the sun, in the air and after extensive washing with water. The color is still vivid after thousands of years. Even though it has such a high stability, MBI and Tyrian Purple have color changes from purple to blue upon temperature changes. This color change has been known for long to certain people, but the mechanism of the color change was unknown.

Tyrian Purple also has recently attracted interests for applications towards semiconducting material due to its …

The Neurodevelopment Of Basic Sensory Processing And Integration In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Alice Brown Brandwein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis presents three studies that together explore the neurophysiological basis for the sensory processing and integration abnormalities that have been observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) since the disorder was first described over half a century ago. In designing these studies we seek to fill a hole that currently exists in the research community‟s knowledge of the neurodevelopment of basic multisensory integration -- both in children with autism and as well as in those with typical development. The first study applied event related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures of multisensory integration to a large group of healthy participants ranging …

Emotional Expression And Perception In Three Ethnic Groups: Is There An In-Group Advantage?, Ella Björt Teague

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The extent to which emotional recognition is universal or culturally determined has far-ranging implications for the success of cross-cultural communication. Although strong evidence supporting the universality of emotion recognition across differing cultures has accumulated, there is also mounting support for an in-group advantage (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002a), defined as the ease by which individuals recognize emotions displayed by members of their in-group group compared to out-group members. Due to mixed results from studies focusing on ethnic groups residing within the same country, the current study investigated the in-group advantage among Black American (BAm), Chinese American (CAm), and White American (WAm) …

Supraspinal And Spinal Mechanisms Of Morphine-Induced Hyperalgesia, Caroline A. Arout

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morphine is the most prominent pharmacological treatment for moderate to severe pain in both acute and chronic paradigms. However, morphine notoriously elicits a paradoxical state of increased pain sensitivity known as hyperalgesia that complicates its use in clinical application. Research over the past three decades has reported that morphine-induced hyperalgesia is dose- and sex-dependent, and likely involves the synchronous activity of several neural networks beyond the opioid system. Whereas systemic, supraspinal, and spinal administration of morphine all cause hyperalgesia that is differentially reversible by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonists or melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) antagonists, it is unknown as to whether or …

Child Development Theory As A Mediator Of Novice Teachers' Ethnotheories To Increase Learning And Justice In The Classroom, Nancy Michele Cardwell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many urban public schools use teaching methods that isolate and silence children to compel compliance (Schwebel, 2004; Saltman & Gabbard, 2003; Baumrind, 1991). In these contexts, black and brown children are disciplined more often and harshly than white, sent through the court system 70% of the time (Alexander, 2012). Novice teachers, appearing expert without expertise, use unconscious personal theories or ethnotheories to compel compliance, projecting an illusion of expertise without understanding the consequences for children's development and achievement (Elliott, Stemler, Sternberg, Grigorenko & Hoffman, 2010; Skovholt, 2004). An advance in the field would be to learn how ethnotheories interact with …