Digital Commons Network^™

Workplace Creativity And Motivation Among Counselors In A Residential Summer Camp Setting, Myles L. Lynch

Doctoral Dissertations

The following dissertation includes an overarching introduction and three conceptually linked articles described below. First, the introduction describes the educational and programmatic components of summer camp, a non-formal educational setting, based on the foundational writing of educational philosopher John Dewey. The introduction also identifies key definitions, concepts, and theoretical frameworks related to outdoor education, creativity, and motivation. The three articles, briefly described below, are self-contained and include distinct introductions, discussions, and implications for future research. Article 1. Summer camp is often anecdotally described as a context which may support creativity due to its unique programmatic features. For instance, residential summer …

Informal Caregiver Identity: Voluntary Job Fit, Teamwork, And Tools, Erica Spunt Jablonski

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, an informal or family caregiver is “an unpaid individual . . . involved in assisting others with activities of daily living and/or medical tasks.” As informal caregiving in the United States has increased, research on the topic has been published in a myriad of disciplines (e.g., sociology, nursing, social work, and medicine). The literature has defined informal caregivers (ICGs), described their role and its impacts, detailed the costs and benefits of informal caregiving, and evaluated interventions to assist ICGs. Scholars have also investigated more natural, less experimental use of informational and support resources for …

Mules, Fuels, And Fusion: Energy, Entropy, And The Crossing Of The Panamanian Transit Zone, 1848-1990, Jordan T. Coulombe

Doctoral Dissertations

Between 1848 and 1990 Americans attempted to construct numerous infrastructural projects in Panama in hopes of bridging the Isthmus and connecting the seas. These schemes ran the gamut from the creation of the Panama railroad in the early 1850s through attempts to detonate nuclear explosives to create a sea-level canal in the 1960s. While these projects seem quite alien to one another, these two plans, and other attempts to cross the Isthmus, were unified by their shared reliance on energy’s capacity to overcome the entropy of the Panamanian environment. In order to reshape Isthmian landscapes, American engineers, scientists, and policymakers …

Dare To Care? An Exploration Of Student-Teacher Caring Relationships, Te-Hsin Chang

Doctoral Dissertations

Schools often provide students their first and most frequented public environments that require them to learn and exercise important social skills. Teachers, crucial and central people in these environments, play many roles in supporting students although their vital support is often overlooked when the contribution is non-cognitively related. In recent years, there has been more research and focus on social-emotional learning (SEL) but relatively few studies that investigate caring relationships between students and teachers. Yet when students perceive that their teachers care for them, the little research we have suggests that students cognitive and non-cognitive performance in school improves. To …

Ecohydrology Of Aspen And Eucalyptus Plantations: Considerations For Management, Jose Antonio Gutierrez Lopez

Doctoral Dissertations

Forecast scenarios predict an increase in the demand of alternative sources of energy during the coming decades, such as woody biomass crops (WBC). WBC have the potential to become a major challenge for the next generation of researchers, policymakers and land managers. However, the current rationale for promoting plant-based over petroleum-based energy sources emphasizes the benefits of reduced carbon dioxide and other emissions, while giving less attention to potential impacts to water resources.

It is well documented in the scientific literature that trees use large amounts of water for metabolic needs. Water use at the tree and ecosystem level has …

Investigation Into The Flow Physics Of Large Experimental Offshore Wind Farms In A Turbulent Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel, John James Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

Large offshore wind turbine array power plants will soon be appearing along the United States' eastern seaboard. With recent advances in technology, turbines have been growing in diameter and arrays have been growing in scale, but not without technical challenges. There exist knowledge gaps in the fluid dynamics that govern the interaction of the incoming atmospheric boundary layer with the wakes of the turbines and the sequential wake-wake interactions that result in an unavoidable decreased bulk power production compared to predicted capacity from the array.

Wind farm experiments were conducted with scale model wind turbines in a high Reynolds number …

Climate Adaptation For Coastal Road Infrastructure In The Northeast, Jayne Fifield Knott

Doctoral Dissertations

The climate is changing, and these changes are expected to accelerate. In the northeast region of the United States, temperatures and sea levels are projected to rise with climate change. These changes have the potential to impact coastal communities in many ways, but this dissertation focuses on climate-change impacts to pavement life. A well-maintained and fully functional roadway system is essential to maintaining a high quality of life and economic vitality in a region. When pavements fail prematurely, the agency and user costs of full-pavement rehabilitation or reconstruction are much higher than the costs of routine maintenance and pavement over-lays. …

Ring Current Transport And Acceleration In The Inner Magnetosphere, Andrew Menz

Doctoral Dissertations

The transport and acceleration of energetic particles into the magnetosphere during geomag- netic storms energizes and enhances the ring current, the current system in the inner magnetosphere driven by the pressure gradients of charged particles. The enhancement of this current creates a disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field. While there have been extensive measurements of the en- hanced current, how the particles are transported and accelerated into the ring current is still an active question. While methods such as direct injection, particle-wave interactions, and radial diffusion have been proposed to account for the transport and acceleration, enhancement of the convection electric …

Perspectives On Change: The Coeducational Transition Of Saint Anselm College 1969-1979, Benjamin Matthew Horton

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines Saint Anselm College’s transition to a fully coeducational Benedictine Catholic liberal arts college between 1969 and 1979, employing a twofold data sample comprised of archival documents and oral history interviews with early female alumnae, who experienced campus life firsthand during the 1960s and 1970s. The researcher conducted analysis of historical documents available at Saint Anselm College, including: presidential files, minutes of the monastic and Advisory Board of Trustees meetings, college yearbooks, Registrar and Dean’s Office data, college catalogues, Advancement Office data, New Hampshire College and University Council (NHCUC) data, New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) …

Development And Testing Of Positron Identification By Coincident Annihilation Photons (Picap), Dan Lam Tran

Doctoral Dissertations

Moderate energy positrons (~few to 10 MeV) have seldom been observed in the Heliosphere, due largely to the lack of dedicated instruments. Deep-space measurements of these positrons would have implications in the study of Solar energetic particle events and the transport and modulation of Galactic cosmic rays in the Heliosphere. Positron Identification by Coincident Annihilation Photons (PICAP) is a detector scheme to measure these positrons by simultaneously detecting the two 0.511- MeV gamma-ray photons emitted from negatron-positron annihilation of stopping positrons. PICAP is intended for deep-space missions with severe limits on mass, power, and telemetry. This dissertation details the development …

Interdependence Of Flow And Shape Morphological Dynamics For Flow-Induced Erosion Of Bluff Bodies, Michael Paul Allard

Doctoral Dissertations

Flow-induced erosion encompasses all processes in which fluid-solid interactions result in the

removal and transport of material from the solid. The removed material may change its physical

state and/or chemical composition and may be redeposited onto the solid body or advected away

by the fluid and deposited elsewhere. Common to all flow induced erosion processes is that they

involve an eroding surface, and eroding agent, and a fluid flow which delivers the eroding agent to

the eroding surface. Consequently, the study of erosion is difficult as it requires detailed knowledge

of the material, mechanical, and/or thermophysical properties of the eroding …

Spatial Control Of Gold-Silica-Quantum Dot Nanostructures And Single Particle Optical Study Of Plasmon-Exciton Strong Coupling Effect, Yi Luo

Doctoral Dissertations

Metallic nanoparticles can generate collective oscillation of conduction electrons when excited by incident light. This unique light-matter interaction is termed as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and offers the possibility of manipulating light well below the diffraction limit. This extreme concentration of light also greatly influences the absorption and decay processes of the nearby Quantum Dots (QD). When plasmon-exciton interaction enters strong coupling regime, the energy coherently oscillates between the QD and the plasmonic cavity. Optical studies at the single particle level of hybrid Au-QD structures with strong-coupling can help us understand the origin of this phenomena as well as …

Exploring The Role Of Language In Two Systems For Categorization, Kayleigh Ryherd

Doctoral Dissertations

Multiple theories of category learning converge on the idea that there are two systems for categorization, each designed to process different types of category structures. The associative system learns categories that have probabilistic boundaries and multiple overlapping features through iterative association of features and feedback. The hypothesis-testing system learns rule-based categories through explicit testing of hypotheses about category boundaries. Prior research suggests that language resources are necessary for the hypothesis-testing system but not for the associative system. However, other research emphasizes the role of verbal labels in learning the probabilistic similarity-based categories best learned by the associative system. This suggests …

Making Space: Community Writing And Performance Toward The Production Of Location, Sarah Moon

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation considers how the performance of locally-situated writing can contribute to existing community development efforts in towns and cities and how performance-oriented projects in composition courses can build community that, in turn, supports deeper learning and preparation for citizenship. In the community context, this project considers how we make space in place against the forces of colonization that have largely foreclosed the opportunity for what I call ground-motion, the activity of people and groups of people in the places where they live. The ultimate goal of this space-making is the production of locality, a sense of place that …

Identifying Clogging Factors And Thresholds Of Greenhouse Irrigation Pipes, Juan Cabrera Garcia

Doctoral Dissertations

Clogging of irrigation systems affects irrigation uniformity, water use, crop yields, and production costs. The objectives of this research were to: 1) Evaluate if published classification guidelines could predict and identify the causes of clogging in greenhouses; 2) Determine if pipe materials and flow frequency affect biofilm accumulation; 4) Determine if biofilms inside pipes affect plant health; and 5) Determine total suspended solids (TSS) thresholds that affect the performance of pressure–compensated drippers with anti–drain mechanism. The first study revealed that the current classification guidelines serve as an indicator of relative risk of clogging, but not as predictors. The assumptions of …

Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Performance In The Presence Of Carbon Dioxide, Jacob Wrubel

Doctoral Dissertations

Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (AEMFCs) offer some possible advantages over their Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) counterparts due to more facile oxygen reduction reaction kinetics (enabling cheaper catalysts), easier water management & balance of plant, cheaper membrane materials, and improved stability of fuel cell stack materials. However, AEMFCs perform significantly worse when exposed to carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is present in most applications. Furthermore, because CO₂ is so pervasive inside the AEMFC system, its effects are difficult to isolate experimentally. Therefore, a modeling approach was developed which can offer independent control of membrane properties and operating conditions, …

Beam-Spin Asymmetry Of Exclusive Coherent Electroproduction Of The Π0 Off 4he, Frank Thanh Cao

Doctoral Dissertations

To understand the partonic structure of nucleons in nuclei, measuring the beam spin asymmetry (BSA) from exclusive processes is important to get at the so-called Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) that describe the partons’ behavior inside the nucleon. In particular, BSA in Deeply Virtual Meson Production (DVMP) can offer valuable constraints on the transverse GPDs which are not accessible with other exclusive processes. Furthermore, DVMP measurements on bound nucleons can offer insights into structure modification due to the nuclear environment.

The interpretation of this bounded nucleon DVMP on nuclear targets rests on the assumption of factorization and that higher-order effects are …

Improved Pion Correlation Functions Under Lattice Action, Daniel Hoying

Doctoral Dissertations

We present the first calculation of pion-pion ($\pi\pi$) scattering at physical quark mass from lattice QCD. We simulate QCD in a periodic $\sim 5$ fm box at inverse lattice spacing $a^{-1}=1.015,1.3784$ GeV using zM\"obius/M\"obius Domain Wall Fermions and Iwasaki Gauge Action. We form operators composed of localized hydrogen-like wave functions for scalar ($\overline{\psi}\psi$), pseudoscalar ($\overline{\psi}\gamma_5\psi$), and vector bilinears ($\overline{\psi}\gamma_\mu\psi$) We then calculate all-to-all (A2A) meson field propagators for up to three units of individual particle momenta as well as isospin $I=0,1,2$, with up to (in the $I=0,2$) three units of center of mass momentum. This allows us to project the …

Youth Mediators: Hip-Hop, Ngos, And The Politics Of Identity In Colombia And Bolivia, Zareen Thomas

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how empowering institutions instrumentalize aesthetic interventions to shape the social and political participation of young people. Based on twenty months of ethnographic research in Bogotá, Colombia and El Alto-La Paz, Bolivia, I explore how artists and grassroots youth organizations use hip-hop to engage with discourses about human rights and citizenship.

Although hip-hop is frequently conceptualized as a subversive genre, intimately tied to youth resistance, it has also become institutionalized by governmental and non-governmental institutions seeking to empower marginalized young people. By working with grassroots hip-hop organizations, I shed light on institutional governance strategies and the agency of …

Silk Fibroin And Hydroxyapatite Composites For Bioresorbable Bone Fixation Devices, Bryant Heimbach

Doctoral Dissertations

Every year there are approximately 9 million bone fractures in the United States, and 30% of these require an internal fixation device to help heal. Currently, the gold standard for fixation devices relies on the use of metals because of their high mechanical properties and bioinertness. However, metal implants often require a second surgery to remove them because they cause stress shielding and metal ion leaching. Current bioresorbable fixation devices on the market have poor mechanical properties and are limited to use in non-load-bearing applications (i.e. maxillofacial fractures). As such, there remains a gap in the fracture fixation devices on …

Contralto Marian Anderson As Goodwill Ambassador, Jolie Rocke

Doctoral Dissertations

Marian Anderson was an internationally-acclaimed contralto and goodwill ambassador for the United States government. In her role as a political asset, she utilized her talents to evoke a perception of the United States that differed from past assessments involving race relations. To provide an understanding of how she became an icon and asset to the State Department, three theoretical frameworks are applied—performativity, prototype, and social semiotics. In classical theories of performativity, classification separates us into categories and hierarchies, while concepts help us to categorize, understand, and predict the material world. Scholars have defined identity as a series of citational acts …

Uncovering The Mechanisms Of Staphylococcus Aureus Enterotoxin A-Induced Systemic And Pulmonary Inflammation, Julia Ryan

Doctoral Dissertations

Archival abstract submitted

An Investigation Into River Water Distribution, Island Influences, And Embayment Temperatures In Long Island Sound, Steven Deignan-Schmidt

Doctoral Dissertations

The Regional Ocean Modeling System, in conjunction with a watershed model, was applied with conservative passive tracers to identify the distribution, mixing, freshwater residence times, and storm response for all of the river systems influencing Long Island Sound (LIS) during the summer of 2013. The Connecticut River was the largest freshwater source throughout the estuary. The Connecticut River strengthened bulk stratification in eastern LIS the most. The Housatonic River (the second largest freshwater source) and the Hudson River had the strongest influence on stratification in central and western LIS, respectively. Smaller coastal rivers were most influential in strengthening stratification near …

Implementing A Dropout Prevention Program To Improve Student Outcomes In A Title I School, Melissa Berggren

Doctoral Dissertations

Archival abstract submitted

D-Terms In Bosonic And Fermionic Systems, Jonathan Hudson

Doctoral Dissertations

The most fundamental information about a particle is contained in the matrix elements of its energy-momentum tensor (EMT): the mass and spin. But the EMT contains more information than that. Equally important yet far less known is the D-term and with it, the information contained in the spatial components of the EMT. The D-term and the spatial components of the EMT show in detail how the strong forces inside the nucleon balance to form a bound state and provides unique insights on the nucleon structure. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the physics …

Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Narratives Between English-Speaking Indian And Us Children And Adults, Manya Jyotishi

Doctoral Dissertations

Archival abstract submitted

Upkeep: Maintenance In American Representations Of Work, 1945-Present, Brandon Benevento

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates maintenance as an under-theorized component of social criticism in American novels, 1945 to the present. In this, it contributes a literary argument to growing interdisciplinary study of maintenance. “Upkeep” argues that authors of novels use maintenance, often unconsciously, to link representation of characters working in discreet settings to larger systemic and structural critique. At the same time, authors often elide forms of maintenance, for example the upkeep of domestic space. As such attention to representation of maintenance offers a critical reading tool which illuminates a text’s political and cultural commitments and literary agenda.

After establishing a range …

Coercing Magnetism Into Diamagnetic Ceramics: A Case Study In Alumina, Erik Nykwest

Doctoral Dissertations

Ceramics are very diverse class of materials whose properties can vary greatly. It is this diversity that make ceramics so useful in advanced technology. The relatively open crystal structure of ceramics makes it possible to impart functionalities via judicious doping. This work focuses on developing a generalized method for introducing magnetism into normally non-magnetic (diamagnetic) ceramics, using the example case of alumina (Al₂O₃). Here, substitutional doping of Al atoms with 3d transition metal in α- and θ-alumina was studied. Density functional theory was used to predict the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of doped alumina, as …

Characterizing The Role Of Psychological Stress In The Development Of Persistent Pain, Katherine M. Bernier Carney

Doctoral Dissertations

Persistent pain is a complex experience that can be difficult to treat if there is no obvious source. Nurses caring for patients with chronic pain may rely on pain severity to direct care, although this does not address the biopsychosocial factors that influence persistent pain states. Psychological stress is a potentially modifiable factor that has been proposed to influence the experience of pain, but the role of stress in developing persistent pain states remains undefined. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine stress-pain relationships by investigating how stress influences chronic pain trajectories. To address this query, three perspectives are …

Reacting To Self-Selected Young Adult (Ya) Literature: An Exploration Of Students’ Reading Experiences In An Alternative High School, Danielle King-Watkins

Doctoral Dissertations

This research was a 12-week-long study of six participants attending the same alternative high school in a suburban district in the northeast of the United States. Rosenblatt’s Reader Response Theory and interpretative qualitative methodology were used to examine participants’ reactions to reading self-selected young adult (YA) literature during their Readers’ Workshop time in their English class. Data were gathered in a naturalistic ways, and the data gathering methods were informed by the participants and circumstance. Data sources included: participant interviews; participant reading journals; other artifacts completed in response to participants’ reading; and daily participant reading logs. The data sources were …