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Mentoring In Adolescence: A Sociocultural And Cognitive Developmental Study Of Undergraduate Women And Sixth-Grade Girls In A Mentoring Program, Katharina Maria Fachin Lucas

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore the cognitive developmental effects of taking on the role of "mentor" as an undergraduate or the role of "mentee" as a sixth grader in one university-based mentoring program. Second, an ethnographic study was conducted to study the experiences of ten sixth graders and ten undergraduates as they took on the role of "mentor" or "mentee" in a planned mentoring relationship. A sociocultural analysis explored processes occurring on the personal, interpersonal, and community level that shaped the mentoring experiences of the participants.

The participants in this …

Queering/Querying Identities: The Roles Of Integrity And Belonging In Becoming Ourselves, Cari Ann Elizabeth Moorhead

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a picture of the complexities and contradictions in the daily lives of people in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire who identify as, or are identified as, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning and allied people (LGBTQQA). The focus of this study is the "Create Our Destiny" conference, a social change project. Philosophically, I viewed this project through a Postmodern feminist lens, and methodologically I used a grounded theory approach.

This dissertation is divided into three sections. Within section one, I present more detailed descriptions of my philosophical and methodological approaches, a description of the geographical and …

Preparation And Characterization Of Derivatized Microparticles Immobilized In Hydrogel Membranes For Optical Chemical Sensing Based On Polymer Swelling, Eric William Miele

Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrogel membranes containing aminated microparticles have been investigated for reflectance based optical sensing. The membranes were evaluated by UV/Vis spectrophotometry, for potential use in a remote distributive fiber optic chemical sensor. This work describes efforts for improving the signal and decreasing the overall response time of the membranes. The microparticles were prepared by dispersion and seeded emulsion polymerization techniques. The microparticles were derivatized to introduce pH sensitivity. The hydrogel membranes containing swellable microparticles are turbid. Scattering occurs at the microparticle-hydrogel interface and is based on refractive index changes accompanying polymer swelling. The particles swell in response to hydrogen ion concentration, …

The Effects Of Medicaid And Maternal Depression On Prenatal Care And Infant Health, Lisa C. Defelice

Doctoral Dissertations

While in recent years, the infant health production function literature has expanded to incorporate behavioral inputs into the production of infant health current research fails to incorporate the Medicaid-private insurance choice into the mother's decision making process. This dissertation seeks to address this by treating private insurance and Medicaid as endogenous while considering the effects that the Medicaid eligibility rules have on both kinds of coverage. Medicaid and private insurance are entered directly into the health production function so that quality effects may be captured. In addition, a woman's state of mental health is also incorporated into the health production …

The Effects Of Reversible Inactivation By Lidocaine Of Ventral Striatum And Intralaminar Nucleus Of The Thalamus In Match To Sample Tasks With And Without Delays Trained In The Lever Box, Mary Christine Porter

Doctoral Dissertations

Three experiments systematically examined the effects of reversibly inactivating intralaminar nuclei and ventral striatum with infusions of lidocaine. The ventral striatum and the intralaminar nucleus were targeted based on deficits in accuracy and speed of responding in delayed conditional discrimination tasks associated with permanent lesions of these structures (Mair, Burk and Porter, 1998).

The present research showed that a 4.0 mul of 2% lidocaine caused impairments accuracy, but not in response speed, in a match to sample task trained in the lever box without delays when the internal cannula projects 0.5 mm from the guide cannula. One microliter of 2%, …

Domestic Visions And Shifting Identities: The Urban Novel And The Rise Of A Consumer Culture In America, 1852-1925, Nancy Helen Von Rosk

Doctoral Dissertations

Domestic Visions reexamines the tradition of the urban novel in America by reading the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, William Dean Howells, Theodore Dreiser, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edith Wharton, Abraham Cahan and Anzia Yezierska within the historical and cultural contexts of an evolving urban consumer culture. Bringing together not only a wide range of canonical and non-canonical texts, but also an analysis of America's shifting domestic ideals over the last half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this study traces the impact of a new spectacular urban public culture on both the private realm and those who are …

New Methods For Modeling Accelerated Life Test Data, Michelle Hopkins Capozzoli

Doctoral Dissertations

An accelerated life test (ALT) is often used to obtain timely information for highly reliable items. The increased use of ALTs has resulted in nontraditional reliability data which can not be analyzed with standard statistical methodologies. I propose new methods for analyzing ALT data for studies with (1) two independent populations, (2) paired samples and (3) limited failure populations (LFP). Here, the Weibull distribution, which can accommodate a variety of failure rates, is assumed for the models I develop. For case (1), a parametric hypothesis test, a Bayesian analysis and a test using partial likelihood are proposed and discussed. For …

Viability And Spatial Assessment Of Ecological Communities In The Northern Appalachian Ecoregion, Mark Gustav Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

My objective was to design a conservation reserve system that included multiple viable examples of all ecological community types within one specific ecoregion---the Northern Appalachians. I developed and defined the boundaries of the ecoregion, constructed a comprehensive list of the ecological communities and determined their scale of occurrence and distribution patterns. I also assessed the types and distributions of biophysical features within the ecoregion and developed a hierarchical scheme to partition the region into biophysical subregions. Subsequently, I assessed 1500 occurrences of ecological communities in the region compiled from state Natural Heritage databases and an analysis of roadless areas. Each …

Hardware-Software Codesign In A High-Level Synthesis Environment, Tamas L. Visegrady

Doctoral Dissertations

Interfacing hardware-oriented high-level synthesis to software development is a computationally hard problem for which no general solution exists. Under special conditions, the hardware-software codesign (system-level synthesis) problem may be analyzed with traditional tools and efficient heuristics. This dissertation introduces a new alternative to the currently used heuristic methods. The new approach combines the results of top-down hardware development with existing basic hardware units (bottom-up libraries) and compiler generation tools. The optimization goal is to maximize operating frequency or minimize cost with reasonable tradeoffs in other properties.

The dissertation research provides a unified approach to hardware-software codesign. The improvements over previously …

Thinking Through Performance: Children Make Sense Of Characters And Social Relationships Through A Gesture-Based Theatre Convention (Tableau), Georgia Patricia Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

This inquiry considers a gesture-based theatre convention called tableau as used by first and second graders during language arts instruction. I argue that tableau acts as a medium of thinking, used to make sense of literary text and of social relationships. Tableau is largely non-language-based; it augments instructional practices that are primarily language-based. Tableau reveals sophisticated understandings children cannot yet put into language. As such, tableau offers educators a means to cast children as capable analysts of literature.

Qualitatively oriented, this inquiry uses instrumental case study methods of observation and data analysis coupled with a concurrent conceptual study of the …

Motherwork, Artwork: The Mother/Artist In Fiction By Parton, Phelps, Chopin, Woolf, Drabble, And Walker, Nancy Hoyt Lecourt

Doctoral Dissertations

This study asks the question, What happens to a practicing (fictional) mother who also tries to be a practicing artist? How do literary texts represent such people? How do they represent the relationship between material and artistic work? The primary works studied are Sarah Parton's Ruth Hall, (1855), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' The Story of Avis (1877), Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse (1927), and Margaret Drabble's The Millstone (1965). The conclusion focuses on Alice Walker's short story, "Everyday Use."

Mother-artists finds themselves on the "wrong" side of the nature/culture binary, where ideologies about "true womanhood" and …

Atmospheric Transport And Deposition Of Water -Soluble Nitrogen To The Gulf Of Maine, Carolyn Estelle Jordan

Doctoral Dissertations

An intensive sampling program was carried out from May 1994 through November 1997 on the shore of the Gulf of Maine in New Castle, New Hampshire. Daily (24 hour averages) samples of bulk aerosol and gas phase HNO3, precipitation, and 20 aerosol size distributions were obtained. Particulate NH4+ and gas phase HNO3 were the dominant water-soluble nitrogen species in the atmosphere. Nitrate was the dominant inorganic nitrogen ion in precipitation.

These samples were used with 1000 hPa streamlines to classify sampled air masses according to their surface level transport and chemistry. Overall, mixed conditions occurred in 42% of the samples, …

Problem-Based Learning In Athletic Training Education, Kerri-Ann Catlaw

Doctoral Dissertations

The purposes of the study were first to identify the frequency and the degree to which athletic training educators employed Problem Based Learning (PBL), its variants, and traditional methods in their teaching; and second to solicit educators' judgments of the quality of educational outcomes in their coursework. A survey instrument was distributed to a random sample of 101 CAAHEP accredited curriculum athletic training educators. Eighty-three subjects returned the instrument, yielding a response rate of 82%. The survey contained 20 closed-response items and 3 open-response items, and was divided into three sections highlighting demographic information, teaching methods, and educational outcomes. The …

Confronting The War Machine: Draft Resistance During The Vietnam War, Michael Stewart Foley

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation recovers the history of the draft resistance movement in Boston during the Vietnam War. It is a blend of social, political, and cultural history that seeks not merely to assert the importance of draft resistance to our understanding of the antiwar movement and the Vietnam War era, but also to capture the experience of draft resisters and their supporters.

It is an actor-oriented history. The sources used include the personal private manuscript collections of participants, court records, underground newspapers, a 1997 survey administered to 310 former resisters and draft resistance activists (185 responded), and interviews with more than …

Language's "Bliss Of Unfolding" In And Through History, Autobiography And Myth: The Poetry Of Rita Dove, Carol Keyes

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the first five books of poetry published by the American poet Rita Dove: The Yellow House on the Corner (1980), Museum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986; awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987), Grace Notes (1989), and Mother Love (1995). It situates her work within the whole field of American poetic discourse. Dove's relationship to myriad strands of American ars poetica traditions arises out of patterns of amplification and negotiation worked out in Dove's poetry in relation to a wide range of such traditions. Thus, the study's methodology proceeds from the poet T. S. Eliot's dictum that …

A Constraint-Based Framework For Configuration, Daniel Sabin

Doctoral Dissertations

The research presented here aims at providing a comprehensive framework for solving configuration problems, based on the Constraint Satisfaction paradigm. This thesis is addressing the two main issues raised by a configuration task: modeling the problem and solving it efficiently. Our approach subsumes previous approaches, incorporating both Simplification and further extension, offering increased representational power and efficiency.

Modeling. We advance the idea of local, context independent models for the types of objects in the application domain, and show how the model of an artifact can be built as a composition of local models of the constituent parts. Our modeling technique …

The Mut-2 Mutator Of Caenorhabditis Elegans, Kathrine Queta Flint Boese

Doctoral Dissertations

The mut-2 mutator plays multiple regulatory roles in the germ line of C. elegans. In addition to regulating germ line transposition of at least four distinct transposon families (Tc1, Tc3, Tc4 and Tc5) mut-2 is implicated in chromosome segregation. Animals that harbor the mut-2 mutator produce broods with a higher incidence of males phenotype (Him) as a result of an increase in X chromosome non-disjunction during meiosis.

Using the Him phenotype conferred by mut-2(r459), I mapped the gene to the dpy-14 sem-4 interval on LGI. However, efforts to identify a molecular clone of the gene were hampered because the available …

Predicting Ageist And Sexist Attitudes And The Conditions For Their Existence, Heather Frasier Chabot

Doctoral Dissertations

Prejudice and discrimination are pervasive and problematic and affect intergroup relations (Allport, 1954). The purpose of the current research was to expand our understanding of ageist and sexist attitudes. The Pilot Study indicated some of the significant predictors of ageist attitudes among college students. The results of Study I indicated that college students view younger adults as more instrumental than older adults but they do not differentiate between older adults who are 65 to 74 years of age, 75 to 84 years of age, and 85 years or older. Study 2 indicated that intergroup distinctions among younger (17--28 years of …

"The Law Will Make You Smart": Legal Consciousness, Rights Rhetoric, And African American Identity Formation In Massachusetts, 1641-1855, Scott Hancock

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1834, one of the informal leaders of Boston's black community rebuked a black defendant in court, declaring "the law will make you smart." This dissertation uncovers how African Americans in Massachusetts did indeed become 'smart' through an ongoing engagement with the law for over two hundred years. While the law could be oppressive, the accessibility of the legal system in Massachusetts enabled black women and men, slave and free, to learn to use the law in efforts to exercise some control over their daily lives. In the deteriorating racial atmosphere during the first half of the nineteenth century, the …

Using Character Varieties: Presentations, Invariants, Divisibility And Determinants, Jeffrey Allan Hall

Doctoral Dissertations

If G is a finitely generated group, then the set of all characters from G into a linear algebraic group is a useful (but not complete) invariant of G . In this thesis, we present some new methods for computing with the variety of SL2C -characters of a finitely presented group. We review the theory of Fricke characters, and introduce a notion of presentation simplicity which uses these results. With this definition, we give a set of GAP routines which facilitate the simplification of group presentations. We provide an explicit canonical basis for an invariant ring associated with a symmetrically …

The Development Of Rna Probe And Rt-Pcr Assays For The Detection Of Enteroviruses In Sludge, Amy Elisabeth Moore

Doctoral Dissertations

Many wastewater treatment plants generate more sludge than can be disposed of by conventional means. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has encouraged communities to dispose of sludge by land application. Sludge may contain enteric viruses that are known to survive for long periods of time in sludge-amended soil and can travel great distances, potentially contaminating surface and ground water.

Standard cell culture methods for the detection of enteric viruses are costly and results are not obtained for 30 or more days. The development of methods that provide results more quickly and with lower cost are needed.

A 32P …

Displacement-Based Analysis And Design Of Rigid Retaining Walls During Earthquakes, Yingwei Wu

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research focused on the analysis and design of rigid retaining walls subjected to earthquakes and considered nonlinear foundation soil properties. The simultaneous sliding and rocking movements of retaining walls were considered. Seven field conditions, including moist, submerged, perched and saturated backfill with a sloping drain, were specified by design codes. A computer program capable of computing displacement using real time history records or equivalent sinusoidal motions was developed. Finally, a dynamic design procedure was proposed for practicing engineers.

The study revealed that maximum shear modulus in foundation soil, maximum ground acceleration, and soil nonlinearity had significant effect on the …

Machine Tool Accuracy Characterization, Error Modeling And Compensation Using Telescopic Ballbar And Laser Interferometer, Yalcin M. Ertekin

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation presents the results of the research investigation on the machine tool accuracy characterization, error modeling and error compensation using telescopic ballbar and laser interferometer. Increasing demand for both higher machine tool accuracy and machining tolerances has resulted in a great need to measure and characterize the accuracy of NC machine tools and minimize machine tool induced errors on machined components before manufacturing parts, instead of inferring it from parts already machined. Using a telescopic magnetic ballbar, the results of the accuracy assessment of an old Bridgeport Series I CNC 2 1/2 axes vertical machining center are presented in …

Stability Of Paleosinks And Karstic Carbonates In The Southern Fire Clay Mining District Of Missouri, Robert Weiser Dillon

Doctoral Dissertations

"The Southern Fire Clay District of Missouri was intensely mined during the late-1800’s to mid-1900’s for its valuable resource of high refractory clays deposited within Pennsylvanian sinkholes “paleosinks”. Mining operations have produced modifications in the Ozark aquifer, which in effect has possibly increased the instability of this paleokarst terrain and the potential of further environmental impacts to the land. Evidence supporting this hypothesis are: (1) A southerly shift in the regional groundwater divide relative to the topographic divide. This possibly is caused by the distribution of leaking clay pits, which suggests that the bedrock permeability or hydraulic conductivity has been …

Gas-Viscous Liquid Behavior And Its Implications For Pressure-Relief Design, Ahmad H. Alramadneh

Doctoral Dissertations

The two-phase flow system is a multifaceted engineering task with many industrial applications. The accurate prediction of the behavior of such systems is of special importance.

This study is directed toward improving and integrating what is known about the gas-viscous liquid flow behavior during vessel depressurization, specifically, visually characterizing the top venting of saturated-viscous fluids. The experimental results are needed to improve the design methodologies for pressure-relief systems.

Lab-scale vessel depressurization experiments with initially saturated fluids were performed. In particular, a problem arose when sodium tetraborate decahydrate solution (model fluid) saturated with carbon dioxide gas is vented from a 5.3-liter …

Development And Realization Of A Single-Mode Optical Fiber Ferrule Mold Insert With Twelve Channels, Hsiharng William Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

A manufacturing process for an optical fiber ferrule mold insert with twelve channels has been established. This research project presents mask design, mask fabrication, deep X-ray lithography exposure, resist developing, nickel electroforming, as well as surface finishing to attain the final result. Deep X-ray mask fabrication methods are explored, including mechanically machined masks, micro-EDM masks, and E-beam written masks. The exposures to pattern resists and electroforming to fabricate nickel molds up to 500 $\mu$m thickness are reported in this study. Nickel structures for the optical fiber ferrule insert with twelve channels made by electroforming are the final products. A practical …

The Effects Of Consideration And Initiating Structure Exhibited By Principals On Teacher Morale In Selected Louisiana Secondary Schools, Robert Wayne Webber

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to determine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between the leadership styles of principals and teacher morale in the public secondary schools of north Louisiana, as perceived by teachers. The Ohio State studies and Getzels and Guba's Social Systems Model for educational organizations provided the theoretical framework for this study. Selected demographic variables of gender of the teacher, years of teaching experience, and race of the teacher were considered in this study. Information on teacher morale was collected from teachers in 14 randomly selected schools of north Louisiana. Data were obtained concerning teacher morale using the …

The Optimized Electrostatic Motor, Christopher Lee Rambin

Doctoral Dissertations

The most common means of electrically activated actuation is the electromagnetic motor. All electromagnetic motors have a low output to weight ratio and low energy efficiency. The motor's weight is due to the coils and magnets used to generate propulsion. The energy loss is mainly the result of Joule heating that is inherent with any current driven device. An electrostatic motor offers the potential of significantly less weight and higher energy efficiency. This lower weight characteristic is due to the epoxide material used to construct the major components of its propulsion unit. Greater efficiency results from the reduced Joule heating …

Women And The Superintendency: Personal And Professional Demographics And The Perceptions Of Barriers And Strategies Held By Women Superintendents, Deanna Mary Anderson

Doctoral Dissertations

The major purposes of this study were to identify the personal and professional characteristics of women superintendents and to identify women superintendents' perception of barriers and successful strategies.

The survey instrument, Questionnaire on Perceptions of Barriers and Strategies Impacting on Women Securing the Superintendency, was sent to 360 women superintendents with a response rate of 60%. Frequency distributions showed that the average respondent was married between the ages of 50 and 59, was white, holds a doctoral degree, works in district with 1,000 to 2,999 students and has been in her current position for 1 to 4 years.

Frequency distributions …

Fuzzy Logic Applied To System Control To Enhance Commercial Appliance Performance, Glenn Moffett

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to determine the usefulness of fuzzy logic and fuzzy control when applied to a commercial appliance. Fuzzy logic is a structured, model-free estimator that approximates a function through linguistic input/output associations. Fuzzy rule-based systems apply these methods to solve many types of "real-world" problems, especially where a system is difficult to model, is controlled by a human operator or expert, or where ambiguity or vagueness is common.

This dissertation presents fuzzy sets, fuzzy systems, and fuzzy control, with an example conveying the use of fuzzy control of a consumer product and an overview of …