Digital Commons Network^™

A Quantitative Analysis Of The Effects Of Chess Instruction On The Mathematics Achievement Of Southern, Rural, Black Secondary Students, James Paul Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the effects of chess instruction on the mathematics achievement of a group of southern, rural, black, secondary students. Instruments used included the mathematics section of the CAT (Level 20), Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), Matrix Analogies Test-Short Form (MAT-SF), Guilford-Zimmerman Spatial Visualization Test (SV), and Guilford Zimmerman Spatial Orientation Test (SO). The treatment group, which received 18 weeks of chess instruction, consisted of 11 females and 8 males. The control group was comprised of 10 females and 10 males. All participants were high school juniors or seniors. Analysis of variance of the pre-tests found no significant differences …

Analyses Of Acceptable Use Policies Regarding The Internet In Selected K-12 Schools In The United States, Beverly Flowers

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence, origins, contents and purposes of Internet Acceptable Use Policies being used to address issues and concerns surrounding the Internet in 100 selected K-12 schools in the United States. The implementation practices of educators utilizing AUPs and the attitudes of educators toward the Internet were also examined. The study also investigated the number and location of Internet connections in the selected K-12 schools. A researcher-developed online survey was used to collect descriptive data in conjunction with qualitative data collected from a content analysis of 24 selected AUPs to address the purpose …

A Study Of Calculator Usage On The Mathematics Achievement Of Seventh- And Eighth-Grade Students And On Attitudes Of Students And Teachers, Tracie Bidwell Ellerman

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of calculator usage on the mathematics achievement of seventh and eighth grade students as measured by the Mathematics Concepts and Applications sections of the California Achievement Test. The study also investigated the attitudes of students and teachers toward calculator usage. Student attitudes were measured through responses to the Student Calculator Survey. Teacher attitudes were measured through responses to the Attitude Instrument for Mathematics and Applied Technology-Version II.

Intact classes from two north central Louisiana school systems were assigned randomly to treatment and control groups. The sample consisted of 1070 students …

Literacies Without Judgment: Composing A (Con)Text For Cultural Healing In Northeast Brazil, Francisco Silva Cavalcante Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study the researcher describes and interprets the experiences with Projeto (Con)texto, a research group created in Northeast Brazil composed of eleven people with different levels of formal schooling, social classes and ages varying from 14 to 50 years old. The researcher explores the dynamics of the Brazilian relational universe and its impact on people's lives, the multiple forms of letramento (literacies) used by people in a certain cultural context to construe and convey meaning, and the process of strengthening of one's self to deal with cultural conflicts through cultural healing.

The researcher gathered descriptive data during one year …

Transactional Bond In The Novels Of Charles Brockden Brown, Gretchen Elspeth Digeronimo

Doctoral Dissertations

The six novels and various other fiction pieces Charles Brockden Brown wrote between 1799 and 1801 coherently demonstrate the operation and effect of literary and artistic representation in early Republican America.

In original close readings of Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntly, Ormond, and several other works, this dissertation identifies transactional bond and describes how Brown charted the establishment of the public and private individual self through transactional bond in three specific arenas: relationships between the developing self and written, visual, or reported representation; relationships between master/mentors and apprentices; relationships among women.

Bonds that begin, operate, and dissolve between male characters are …

Fluid-Structure Interaction In Taylor-Couette Flow, Martin Horst Willi Kempf

Doctoral Dissertations

The linear stability of a viscous fluid between two concentric, rotating cylinders is considered. The inner cylinder is a rigid boundary and the outer cylinder has an elastic layer exposed to the fluid. The subject is motivated by flow between two adjoining rollers in a printing press. The governing equations of the fluid layer are the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and the governing equations of the elastic layer are Navier's equations. A narrow gap, neutral stability, and axisymmetric disturbances are assumed. The solution involves a novel technique for treating two layer stability problems, where an exact solution in the elastic layer …

Alternative Removal Methodologies For Environmental Waters, Shannon Patrick Hogan

Doctoral Dissertations

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to establish criteria for the reduction of pathogens in environmental waters used for drinking water. The EPA also states criteria on the amount of chlorine by-products allowed in drinking water. Alternative removal methods that are used in conjunction with chlorine are needed to assure safe drinking water.

The Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR) states that a 99.99% reduction of viruses and a 99.9% reduction in Giardia lamblia cysts needs to be achieved by a treatment facility that uses surface water for the production of drinking water. The SWTR also states Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) …

Population Structure And Phylogenetic History Of The Lake Malawi Cichlid Species Flock, Jeffrey Alan Markert

Doctoral Dissertations

The cichlid species "flocks" which are endemic to the East African Rift Valley are characterized by frequent lineage splitting events which have led to the rapid evolution of high levels of taxonomic diversity. Changes in water level cause these habitat patches to be chronically unstable, hypothetically speeding the process of genetic differentiation through the combined effects of genetic drift and selection. Allele frequencies at four simple sequence repeat loci indicate low levels of gene flow in two rock dwelling fish species, Melanochromis auratus and Labeotropheus fuelleborni, collected from the Nankumba Peninsula in southern Lake Malawi. Small interruptions in habitat cause …

"The Tawnee Family": The Life Course Of Indian Value Adaptation For Eleazar Wheelock's Indian Scholars, Stacy Lynn S Hogsett

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of value adaptation by the southern New England Indians who attended Moor's Charity School, in Lebanon, Connecticut, between 1743 and 1770. These Indians were part of New Light Minister Eleazar Wheelock's extended household, dubbed by one student, the "tawnee family." This designation distinguished these Indian scholars as surrogate members of the Wheelock family. I analyzed how the Indian students adapted to, resisted and reformed the values taught at Moor's as they grew to adulthood.

I drew my analysis from letters collected in the Eleazar Wheelock Papers housed at Dartmouth College. My arguments are drawn principally …

Ground State Of (16)O, Bogdan Mihaila

Doctoral Dissertations

We use the coupled cluster expansion (exp(S) method) to solve the many-body Schrodinger equation in configuration space in a configuration space of 35 $\hbar\omega.$ The Hamiltonian includes a nonrelativistic one-body kinetic energy, a realistic two-nucleon potential and a phenomenological three-nucleon potential. Using this formalism we generate the complete ground state correlations due the underlying interactions between nucleons. The resulting ground state wave function is used to calculate the binding energy, the one- and two-body densities for the ground state of $\sp{16}$O. The problem of center-of-mass corrections in calculating observables has been worked out by expanding the center-of-mass correction as many-body …

The Structural Optimization Of Atomic And Molecular Microclusters Using A Genetic Algorithm In Real-Valued Space-Fixed Coordinates, John Arthur Niesse

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation documents the development and application of the space-fixed modified genetic algorithm, SFMGA. The SFMGA is shown to be both portable and fast for the structural optimization of Lennard-Jones, silicon, water, benzene, naphthalene, and anthracene microclusters.

We introduce the SFMGA and apply it to LJ atomic clusters. CPU times needed to obtain the global minimum are compared with similar methods. We then investigate a complicated potential representing silicon atoms. The results show that SFMGA is applicable to non-pairwise additive potentials.

We demonstrate the use of SFMGA for clusters where the monomers are molecules. Water clusters are optimized and the …

Influences On Teachers' Curricular Choices In Project-Based Science Classrooms, Karen Anne Laba

Doctoral Dissertations

This descriptive research will present two case studies of experienced science teachers using project-based curricula in all or part of their secondary life science/biology courses. The purpose of this study is to reveal the underlying relationships between teachers' conceptions of the nature of science, their understanding of their role as science teachers and their expectations for appropriate and worthwhile student learning, and to describe the influence of these factors on their curricular choices within the project-based framework. Using a modification of Hewson, Kerby and Cook's (1995) Conceptions of Teaching Science protocol as a model, teachers' beliefs and intentions are classified …

In Pursuit Of "A Good Healthy Chat": The Roles Of Organization And Rapport-Building In Effective Middle School Literacy Instruction, Douglas Kingsley Kaufman

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study I explore what classroom conditions a master eighth-grade language arts teacher created in order to become a more effective listener. I defined effective listening as a deep receptivity that leads the listener to create responses that satisfy the other's needs. Responses must help students move their ideas and work progressively forward. Conditions that promote effective listening, then, serve two purposes: they (1) enhance teacher receptivity and (2) help students better articulate their interests, knowledge, and needs.

During the 1996-1997 school year I conducted a qualitative study that drew heavily upon ethnographic methodologies. As a participant-observer I took …

Music And The General Classroom: Literacy In A New Key, F Dan Seger

Doctoral Dissertations

After a personal description of the traditional role of music education and its relationship to the overall curriculum of an American elementary school, this dissertation asks: What do grade 4/5 students do when their classroom and music teachers integrate music more deliberately into classroom life? Set in a classroom in a small New England town, the dissertation describes how a collaboration between a classroom teacher and a music teacher brought the music curriculum into the daily lives of students in a school where scheduled music class occurred only once per week.

Viewing music as a valid means to represent thought …

In The Name Of The Father: The Continuity And Paradox Of Puritan Theology And Pastoral Authority, Patricia J. Hill-Zeigler

Doctoral Dissertations

American scholars have long been interested in the intellectual and social impact of the eighteenth-century religious revival, the Great Awakening. This dissertation uses a colonial family as a case study of the significance of this major colonial event. It traces and compares the intellectual and theological development of Michael Wigglesworth, and his two sons, Samuel and Edward. The Wigglesworth family represents both the foundation of Puritan thought in the seventeenth century and the transformation of that thought in the eighteenth century. Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705), a tutor and Fellow at Harvard College and pastor of the church in Malden, Massachusetts, was …

Factors That Influence The Decision Regarding Hormone Replacement Therapy In Postmenopausal Women, Ruth A Rogers Reilly

Doctoral Dissertations

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States today. Prior to menopause women have lower rates of heart disease than men; however, after menopause a woman's risk for heart disease rises dramatically. This is thought to be due the ovaries' decreased production of estradiol, but the mechanisms for this effect have not been fully elucidated. The need exists to investigate the impact of healthy lifestyles on attenuating the risk of cardiovascular disease in women as they age.

The majority of research on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has focused on the biomedical model suggesting that …

Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Preservice Teacher Education: A Pedagogy Of Collaborative Inquiry, Mary Jane Moran

Doctoral Dissertations

This study describes changes in thinking and practice among 24 early childhood preservice teachers as they move away from a reliance on traditional interpretations of child-centered curricula and developmentally appropriate practices toward one of collaborative inquiry. Participants enrolled in a 15 week undergraduate teaching methods course were assigned to teaching teams to implement collaborative projects with the same group of three to five year-old children.

Traditionally, early childhood teacher education has been influenced by developmental theory which emphasizes processes of children's learning. And yet, teachers typically learn to teach from a transmission orientation with perspectives provided by experts rather than …

Energy Flow And Non-Guiding Center Effects In The Earth's Magnetotail, Ioannis Dimitrios Kontodinas

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate energy transfer processes in the Earth's magnetotail. An equilibrium, two-dimensional magnetic field model is used to simulate the mid-tail region. Groups of particles are traced in the model magnetic field and the groups are combined to generate a self-consistent two-dimensional current sheet. Two thin current sheets are generated with thicknesses characteristic of a substorm growth phase. One current sheet contains Speiser-type particles only and the other one contains mostly Speiser-type and some trapped particles. It is found that the two current sheets show differences in energy flow processes and pressure anisotropies due …

Perceptions Of New Hampshire Teachers And Supervisors Regarding Teacher Supervision, Pamela L. Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the perceptions of New Hampshire teachers and supervisors regarding teacher present and ideal systems for teacher supervision. Teacher supervision was defined as being inclusive of district practices which promote teacher growth and development and those which are used to make evaluative judgments about teachers' performance. The study sample included 73 supervisors and 305 teachers randomly selected from 45 school districts. The sample districts were selected using a stratified random sampling process in which the stratification variables were district wealth as reflected in the district's equalized valuation per pupil and geographic region.

Data were collected through the use …

Bioavailability Of Nutrients And Metals Following Land Application Of Organic Wastes, Jianqiang Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

Field, greenhouse and laboratory studies were conducted to investigate the effects of soil-incorporated organic wastes on nitrogen release patterns, groundwater nitrate-nitrogen levels, nutrient/metal uptake, and plant yield.

Three field studies with corn (Zea mays L.) were conducted during 1993 to 1997 at three locations in New Hampshire using a randomized complete block design with three or four replications, two or three waste materials as main plots, and various application rates as subplots. Compared to dairy manure, Concord biosolids showed a slower release rate measured as soil NO$\sb3$-N concentrations in early season but higher post-harvest levels of soil NO$\sb3$-N.

Groundwater NO$\sb3$-N …

Issues Of Engendered Entitlement: Who Owns The Classroom? Who Owns Knowledge?, Dorothy Radius Kasik

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the ways in which first year female college students have been prepared by educational systems in our culture to handle knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge during the first year of college experience. It is the contention of the author that women are not actively encouraged in our culture to take ownership of educational concepts in the same way as men. This happens for two reasons, first that because women's methods of interaction in the classroom might differ from men's those methods might not be perceived as acceptable or taken seriously; and second that a woman's discomfort …

Spin-Exchange Polarized (3)He Using Optically Pumped Alkali Atoms For Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Neutron Spin-Filters, Vance Reid Pomeroy

Doctoral Dissertations

The past several years have witnessed an increase in applications of polarized noble gases. In particular, the development of high power lasers has enabled the realization of dense, highly polarized samples of $\sp3$He. We report here the development of a system to produce high density, highly polarized samples of $\sp3$He gas. We developed a liquid helium system to cryogenically increase the density of $\sp3$He gas to pressures exceeding 10 atmospheres. We developed a system based on adiabatic fast passage nuclear magnetic resonance to measure and monitor the $\sp3$He nuclear polarization. Polarizations as high as 64% were measured and cells with …

Ice Core Glaciochemical Records Of Late Holocene Climatic Variability In West Antarctica, Karl Jacob Kreutz

Doctoral Dissertations

The complex atmospheric and glaciological dynamics of West Antarctica make this region of particular interest in addressing the continent's cause and effect relationship in the global climate system, and for evaluating future global change scenarios. Ice core records from this region provide the resolution necessary to both improve our understanding of modern regional climate variability, and to reconstruct past changes in a number of climate components.

High-resolution (subannual to biannual) snow and ice core samples collected from two regions of West Antarctica, Siple Dome and Marie Byrd Land, were analyzed for water soluble major ion content. Examination of detailed surface …

Examining Student Conceptions Of The Nature Of Science From Two Project-Based Classrooms, David M. Moss

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop descriptive accounts of precollege students' conceptions of the nature of science from two project-based classrooms, and track those conceptions over the course of an academic year. A model of the nature of science was developed and served as the criterion by which students' beliefs were evaluated. The model distinguishes between two major categories of science, the nature of the scientific enterprise and the nature of scientific knowledge. Five students were selected from each class and interviewed individually for 30-45 minutes each, six times over the year. Data from semi-structured, formal interviewing consisted …

Measurement Of The Cosmic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Spectrum From 800 Kev To 30 Mev, Srinivas Cheenu Kappadath

Doctoral Dissertations

The Cosmic Diffuse Gamma-Ray (CDG) spectrum between 800 keV and 30 MeV has been measured with the Imaging Compton telescope COMPTEL, aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. COMPTEL is well suited to measure the CDG flux because of its large detection area, wide field-of-view ($\sim$1.5 sr), low background and long exposure times. The major difficulty in measuring the CDG radiation at MeV energies is the intense instrumental background. The instrumental background in COMPTEL is created mainly in the surrounding material. The striking feature of the pre-COMPTEL CDG spectrum was an apparent flattening between 1 and 10 MeV. A simple power …

Source And Acceleration Of Energetic He(+) Ions At The Earth's Bow Shock, Kemei Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis have presented the first detailed study of the sources and the acceleration of energetic He$\sp+$ ions in front of the Earth's bow shock, using data from AMPTE/IRM and AMPTE/CCE.

Based on observations of energetic He$\sp+$ ions during an event when the bow shock was an almost perfect perpendicular shock, we compared the results of a simulation to the observed event. The model provides a good quantitative description of the phase space distribution of the gyrating ions. A large portion (approximately 63%) of the incident pickup ions are reflected and gain energy in the interaction. It is also consistent …

Character Prominence And Perspective In Narrative Comprehension, Jennifer G. Halleran

Doctoral Dissertations

Current theories of narrative comprehension assume that readers attend to information about the protagonist, including his/her goals, location, and emotions. However, such a Limited view of narrative comprehension does not adequately address the complexity of text. Typically, the reader is exposed to an array of important secondary characters and their relations to the protagonist(s) in narratives. Also included in this story dynamic may be the beliefs or opinions of the secondary character(s) regarding the protagonist.

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of character prominence and perspective on reading comprehension for narratives. The prominence distinction between two characters, a …

Dynamics Of Dissolved Organic Carbon During Weathering And Soil Formation, Kimberly Linnea Mccracken

Doctoral Dissertations

Interactions between dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and mineral soils were examined in field and laboratory experiments. Specific emphasis was given to factors influencing DOC mobility and element release during mineral weathering and soil formation. Soil chemical and physical properties controlling equilibrium concentrations of DOC (DOC$\rm\sb{np})$ in coarse-textured forest soils were investigated using laboratory batch reactors and the initial mass isotherm approach. The influence of DOC concentration on release of metals and silica was investigated in four soil parent materials. One of four acid treatments (0.001 N HNO$\sb3$ and three concentrations of forest floor leachate) or distilled water were added to …

Measuring And Modeling Northeastern Forest Ecosystem Response To Environmental Stresses, Jennifer Caroline Jenkins

Doctoral Dissertations

Because forest responses to CO$\sb2$ fertilization and associated climate change are likely to be extremely complex, numerical models representing forest response to an integrated set of future conditions can be useful predictive tools. I compared predictions of forest net primary productivity (NPP) made by two ecosystem process models (PnET-II and TEM 4.0) using different climate scenarios, spatial resolutions, and methods of representing land cover and soils. Decreasing spatial resolution did not appreciably change NPP estimates. Input datasets, particularly climate, land cover, and soil water holding capacity, were important sources of variability in NPP estimates. These datasets interacted with model structures …

Attachment Of Listeria Monocytogenes To Murine And Human Phagocytic Cells, Srinivas Maganti

Doctoral Dissertations

Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative intracellular pathogen responsible for meningoencephalitis, septicemia, and abortion in susceptible and immunocompromised individuals. Subsequent to colonization and penetration of the gut epithelium, the organism attaches to resident macrophages and replicates intracellularly, thus evading the humoral immune system of the infected host. The mechanism surrounding the precise interactions between L. monocytogenes and macrophages employs bacterial ligands and macrophage receptors which are highly complex and not well understood. The focus of the present study was to investigate the attachment of the organism to murine and human macrophages under opsonin-dependent and opsonin-independent conditions to better understand the pathobiology …