Digital Commons Network^™

Understanding Lists: Umberto Eco's Rhetoric Of Communication And Signification, Susan Mancino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project, Understanding Lists: Umberto Eco’s Rhetoric of Communication and Signification, begins and ends with an observation and warning suggested throughout Eco’s work: lists are the origin of culture and the Internet as the Mother of All Lists threatens to end culture. To understand this warning, I turn to Eco’s work on lists, contextualized within a 2009 exhibition at the Musée du Louvre and in an illustrated collection, The Infinity of Lists. This project offers an analysis of Eco’s understanding of lists concurrent to his commentary on the social and cultural implications of the algorithmic-obsessed Internet age. To understand …

Characterizing The Virulence Factor Yape In Yersinia Pestis., Tiva Templeton Vancleave

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Yersinia pestis is the causative agent of bubonic plague and is primarily transmitted by fleas. Upon infection, the bacteria rapidly travel to the regional lymph nodes causing inflammation and cellulitis in these tissues (referred to as buboes). Two outer membrane proteins, YapE and Pla, have been implicated to have roles in dissemination to the lymph nodes. Their adhesive properties have shown that they are able to interact with host macrophages thereby increasing their ability to disseminate to regional lymph nodes. More recently, we have shown that YapE is cleaved by another virulence factor important for lymph node colonization, Pla, to …

Simulation-Based Analysis And Optimization Of The United States Army Performance Appraisal System., Lee A. Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a discrete event simulation framework is considered to replicate the dynamics, structure, and regulatory constraints placed on the officers in the U.S. Army. Using performance appraisal data provided by the United States Army Human Resources Command, we create a multi-objective response function that quantifies the human behavior associated with evaluating subordinates. Utilizing simulation-optimization techniques for model validation enables estimating unknown input parameters, such as human behavior, based on historical data. Furthermore, the model allows users to analyze the effects of current constraints on the evaluation system and the effects of proposed personnel policy changes.The effectiveness of the …

Gender Boundary Negotiation Within The U.S. Immigrant/Refugee Resettlement : How Transnational Bridge-Building Matters., Telesphore Kagaba

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For the past several decades, social research about U.S. immigrant and refugee resettlement has focused on some of the ways federal and non-governmental organizations help immigrants and refugees integrate into mainstream society. Little research, if any, has explored how giving voice to immigrants and refugees is done in bridging transnational gaps and strengths in the process of their adjustment to the host country. This dissertation is grounded within transnational theory (Avenarius 2012, Levitt 2011, Peteet 1997) that argues that immigrants and refugees bring their experiences and cultures from their home countries, time in refugee camps, and other often traumatic experiences …

Breaking With Tradition(?) : Female Representations Of Heroism In Old English Poetry., Kathryn A. Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For the Anglo-Saxons, strength, bravery, and the willingness to put oneself in harm’s way for king and kingdom were not only part of contemporary society but recurring themes in Old English literature. Poems like Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon reinforce the important bond between lord and retainer and the heroic ethos key to that relationship. Women were not historically part of this relationship and, therefore, not subject to the heroic code in the same way; consequently, they are rarely seen as anything more than conventional mothers, queens, wives, sisters, daughters, and virgins, all identified by their relationships to men, …

Discourses Of Deception: (Re)Examining America's War On Drugs, Benjamin Steven Boyce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

America's war on drugs is a failed experiment that has caused more damage than it will ever prevent. From its original design to its contemporary manifestations, the war on drugs is a conflict that remains firmly rooted in white supremacy. In contemporary Western societies, the rhetoric of both political leaders and mass-mediated narratives becomes the raw material of subjective reality. Since the war on drugs began nearly a century ago, the spectacle of mass media has been consistently utilized by white political elites as a vehicle of misinformation - as a well-oiled machine for spreading the false social narrative that …

Tragic Creation: Hope For The Future—Moltmann's Creative (Mis)Reading Of Hegel's Philosophy, John Michael Bechtold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christian theology, in its many and varied forms, and to the detriment of both the church and the world, is often built upon a shaky epistemological foundation. In this dissertation, I describe this shaky foundation by the term 'insular universalism'. The oxymoronic nature of the term is both intentional and telling. A theology which strives for, or unwittingly arrives at, a position which is here being called 'insular universalism' achieves neither while rejecting or misunderstanding the complexity of both. When considered theologically, insular universalism could be simplistically described as the idea that "one cultural expression of the religion is exclusive …

National Interests And Security Policies In The Arctic Region Among Arctic States, Hilde-Gunn Bye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States, Canada, Russia, and Norway are all Arctic states; however, they prioritize the region to different degrees in terms of investments of security assets and military presence. What explains why some Arctic countries prioritize the Arctic more than others? This thesis explores this question through using an issue-based approach, which looks at the salience of issues as having implications for foreign policy tools and measures. This thesis finds that having interests and stakes in the region of high overall salience contribute to an explanation of why some countries prioritize the region more, while low overall salience is linked …

Academic Resilience In Newcomers, Jacquelyn M. Carrillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States continues to transform demographically, economically, culturally, and linguistically, as it has for several generations. At the forefront of this change are the educators, struggling to make sense of how to teach students who are culturally and linguistically diverse.

The main research question guiding this study was: What factors support or constrain the academic resiliency of Newcomers? The purpose of this study was to examine the academic resilience of Newcomers at an urban high school in Colorado. This qualitative study utilized case study methods of data collection. This study took place in four stages. The first stage encompassed …

Customizable Phased Array Antenna Using Reconfigurable Antenna Elements, Mahmoud Shirazi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A shared-aperture reconfigurable slot-ring antenna array switching between different frequency bands and polarizations is presented for phased array applications. PIN diode switches are incorporated into the slots of the antenna to change the state of the reconfigurable slot-ring antenna array. Each frequency band has its own feeding lines which allows for the use of high-performance narrow-band transmit/receive (T/R) modules instead of ultra wideband (UWB) T/R modules. Furthermore, the spacing between the elements in each frequency band is less than half free-space wavelength (λ0) over the frequency band of operation which enables grating-lobe-free beam scanning. This is the first shared-aperture reconfigurable …

The First Florida Cavalry (Us): Union Enlistment In The Civil War's Southern Periphery, Tyler Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1863, along the southern periphery of the American Civil War, a Union Brigadier General began recruiting Southern white men into a Union cavalry regiment known as the First Florida Cavalry (US). This study investigates the regiment and those who enlisted in it to show the fluidity of Southern loyalty during the Civil War and the conditions of the Deep South Homefront that existed on the periphery of Union occupation and continue to exist on the periphery of Civil War historiography. While scholars have recently addressed many aspects of Southern dissent in the Civil War, significantly less attention has been …

To The Memory Of Brave Men: The Imperial War Graves Commission And India's Missing Soldiers Of The First World War, Roger Sims

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the commemoration of Indian soldiers who died during the First World War by the Imperial War Graves Commission, Britain's official government body overseeing all imperial commemoration efforts. For the soldiers of the Indian Army their war experience was split between the Western Front in Europe and Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. They were also far more ethnically, religiously, and lingually diverse than their British and Dominion counterparts. In order to examine how geography, religion, and the imperial relationship affected Britain's commemoration of India's war dead, this study uses the Commission's own records to recreate how the IWGC created …

Development Of A High Performance Liquid Chromatography Method For The Analysis Of Next-Generation Cyanide Antidote, 3-Mercaptopyruvate, In Plasma, Elaf Alzhrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although the current FDA approved cyanide antidotes (i.e., sodium nitrite, sodium thiosulfate, and hydoxocoboalamine) are effective for treating cyanide poisoning, each individual antidote has major limitations, including large effective dosage, delayed onset of action, or dependence on enzymes generally confined to specific organs. To overcome these current limitations, next-generation cyanide antidotes are being investigated, including 3-mercaptopyruvate (3-MP). Analytical methods capable of detecting 3-MP from plasma are essential for the development of 3-MP as a nextgeneration cyanide antidote. Although 3-MP has been analyzed by LC-MS-MS, this instrument is not widely available. Therefore, a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with fluorescence …

Analysis Of Prehistoric Ceramics From A Fourteenth-Century Native American House, Carter Robinson Site (44le10), Lee County, Virginia, Emily J. Warner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chiefdoms located on the frontier of the Mississippian world have not been examined in great detail, yet they have the potential to provide evidence for the emergence of hierarchy and the interaction of hierarchical and egalitarian societies. Frontiers can help identify the emergence and maintenance of power in southeastern chiefdoms. Carter Robinson (44le10) is a frontier site that can help understand the degree of interaction between hierarchical and non-hierarchical groups nearby. This thesis will analyze the ceramics at structure 6 based on the 2015 excavation at Carter Robinson located in Lee County, Virginia. The use of attribute and morphological analyses …

Energy Efficient And Secure Wireless Sensor Networks Design, Afraa Attiah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are emerging technologies that have the ability to sense, process, communicate, and transmit information to a destination, and they are expected to have significant impact on the efficiency of many applications in various fields. The resource constraint such as limited battery power, is the greatest challenge in WSNs design as it affects the lifetime and performance of the network. An energy efficient, secure, and trustworthy system is vital when a WSN involves highly sensitive information. Thus, it is critical to design mechanisms that are energy efficient and secure while at the same time maintaining the desired …

A Methodology On Weapon Combat Effectiveness Analytics Using Big Data And Live, Virtual, Or/And Constructive Simulations, Won Jung Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Weapon Combat Effectiveness (WCE) analytics is very expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous in the real world because we have to create data from the real operations with a lot of people and weapons in the actual environment. The Modeling and Simulation (M&S) of many techniques is used for overcoming these limitations. Although the era of big data has emerged and achieved a great deal of success in a variety of fields, most WCE research using the Defense Modeling and Simulation (DM&S) techniques were studied without the help of big data technologies and techniques. The existing research has not considered various …

Searching Through Debris: A Mass Analysis From The Carter Robinson Mound Site In Lee County, Virginia, Robert Capps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Mississippian period is one of the most widely studied periods in the prehistoric Southeast, but there are areas such as the Mississippian frontier that have not been explored in great detail. Carter Robinson is a Mississippian chiefdom located on the frontier in southwest Virginia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To better understand the people living at this site a mass analysis was conducted to examine the lithic debris left behind by the people living there. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the degree of tool production at Carter Robinson and to identify areas of tool production, …

A Church Adrift: Virginia's Church Of England, 1607-1677, Katherine Gray Blank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Church of England in the Virginia colony is an institution which has been much overlooked in historiography. Traditionally, historians have focused upon the weakness of the church, with its lack of a complete hierarchy and dearth of ministers. These weaknesses, combined with some of the more unsavory attitudes and actions of early colonists, have led many scholars to postulate that religion did not play much of a role in the Virginia colony. While the early colonists did struggle, and the church was weak, historians have overlooked the fact that most Virginians were seventeenth-century Englishmen, and inhabited a world that …

Investigating The Effectiveness Of Using Part-Task Or Whole-Task Training Methods To Facilitate Mindful Abstraction In Uncertain Tasks, John Killilea

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the global landscape changes and powers rise and fall, the Contested, Degraded, and Operationally Limited (CDO) environment is likely to be the new normal going forward. Uncertainty variables, such as missing, false, or extra information characterize the CDO environment. A key focus of this dissertation is optimizing training for recognizing these uncertainty variables when training time is limited. This was investigated by either exposing participants to multiple uncertainty variables at a time with low doses of each (whole-task training), by exposing singular variables at a time with high doses (part-task training) or using no variables throughout training (control). A …

Development Of An Mrm Federation System Using Cots Simulations, Jaeho Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to build an experimental environment for the Simulation Interoperability Laboratory (SIL) of the University of Central Florida (UCF). The Simulation Interoperability Laboratory (SIL) is researching about multi-resolution modeling(MRM), with a focus on military field uses. This thesis proposes steps to develop an MRM federation system and build two different MRM systems using COTS simulations (SIMBox, VR-Forces, and MASA Sword). This report is written to provide the basis for a time-based MRM federation study in the Simulation Interoperability Laboratory. The report describes many definitions and notions related to Multi-Resolution Modeling(MRM) and discusses examples to make …

Altruistic Punishment Theory And Inter-Group Violence, Clayton Besaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role of altruistic punishment, the act of punishing outsiders perceived to harm members of one's group at a personal cost, in explaining individual motivations to participate in inter-group violence. It first develops a social theory of this type punishment. This theory argues that an egalitarian social logic may be key to understanding motivations of parochial altruism, and that one's social environment may influence thresholds of anger needed to induce punishment behavior. Empirically, it conducts two survey-experimental studies. The first experiment utilizes subject partisan identity in the context of American politics and hypothetical acts of violence to …

The Tragic City: Black Rebellion And The Struggle For Freedom In Miami, 1945-1990, Porsha Dossie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the creation of South Florida's tri-ethnic racial hierarchy during the postwar period, from 1945-1990. This racial hierarchy, coupled with discriminatory housing practices and police violence, created the necessary conditions for Dade County's first deadly uprising in 1968. Following the acquittal of several officers charged in the killing of an unarmed black businessman, a second uprising in 1980 culminated in three days and three nights of violent street warfare between law enforcement and black residents in Miami's northwest Liberty City neighborhood. The presence of state sanctioned violence at the hands of police in Liberty City set the stage …

A Qualitative Analysis Of Key Concepts In Islam From The Perspective Of Imams, Chandler Dobiyanski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The continuous occurrence of terrorist attacks in the name of Islam has shown this ideology and its tenets are at least somewhat connected to jihadists committing attacks in its name. This ideology in terms of 13 themes was investigated by the researcher in 58 sermons outlined in the tables in the appendix. These themes include: brotherhood, death, freedom, human rights, justice and equality, love, oppression, peace and treaty, self-defense, sin, submission, terrorism and truth vs. lies. The researcher used a sample of 10 sermons from U.S.- born imams and 10 sermons from foreign-born imams as the basis for the analysis …

Violence, Religion And Politics: The Late Republic And Augustan Age, Matthew Tuggle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Religion in the Late Republic was fused to politics. This study considers the relationship between violence, religion, and politics in the Late Republic and Augustan Age. It contends that Roman religion could encourage or discourage violence based upon the circumstances. The strain of Roman expansion on its political and religious institutions contributed to the civil discord that characterized the Late Republic, which created circumstances that were flexible enough for perspectives on each side to see the violence as justified. The ambition of a tribune, a sacrosanct office, could lead to circumvention of the traditional practices of the Senate, causing a …

Three Studies Examining The Potential For Relational Reasoning To Enhance Expertise In Complex Audit Domains, Matthew Holt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three studies that explore the potential for relational reasoning to advance research on the facilitation of expertise in complex audit domains. Study One seeks to explicate the potential that theory and methods from relational reasoning and associated research have to advance the audit expertise research stream. The implications for future research on facilitating auditing expertise are discussed in synchrony with future research questions, including whether or not such strategies will be effective in domains with more than minor relational complexity. Studies Two and Three experimentally examine the use of metacognitive skills intended to enhance relational knowledge, …

James Franklin Bell : Hard War In The Philippines., Daniel Michael

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis surveys the military history of the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. In particular, this thesis looks at that war through the lens of hard war as a way of war. It begins with an introduction to hard war as a concept and a historiography of the Philippine-American War and continues with an overview of the events leading up to the war. The first two chapters deal with the wider role of the U.S. Army during the war, while the third chapter examines the role of James Franklin Bell, and American officer, and his command of the Third Separate Brigade …

A Risky Business : Examining The Prevalence And Correlates Of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptomology And Social Support In Kentucky's Adult Correctional Staff., Ashley Terrell French

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and correlates of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology among correctional staff, using a sample of staff who work in an adult facility for the Kentucky Department of Corrections (KY DOC). Participants (N=775) were asked to complete a written survey to indicate not only demographic variables (age, race, education, and gender) but also the amount of violent and traumatic events experienced, the duration of employment within the KY DOC, whether they were assigned to a custodial/security role, and whether they worked in a maximum security facility. Furthermore, their perceived level …

The Pulpit And The People: Mobilizing Evangelical Identity, Tim Moser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using ten sermons from five prominent and politically active evangelical megachurch pastors taken from the 2016 presidential campaign season, this case study utilizes frame analysis to understand the political relevance of modern evangelical sermonizing. An inductive frame analysis allows the concept of a collective action frame to be observed as a process and for patterns to emerge from the source text. Within these sermons, ministers offer self-identifying evangelicals a vocabulary with which to understand and describe their own identity. In this context, the Bible is a powerful cultural symbol that represents an allegiance to traditions that are framed as the …

The Application Of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition To Numerically Modeled And Measured Ocean Surface Wave Fields Remotely Sensed By Radar, Andrew Joseph Kammerer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Phase-resolved ocean surface wave elevation maps provide important information for many scientific research areas (e.g., rogue waves, wave-current interactions, and wave evolution/growth) as well as for commercial and defense applications (e.g., naval and shipping operations). To produce these maps, measurements in both time and space are necessary. While conventional wave sensing techniques are limited spatially, marine radar has proven to be a complex yet promising remote sensing tool capable of providing both temporal and spatial wave measurements. The radar return from the sea surface is complex because it contains contributions from many sources only part of which provide information about …

New Perspectives On The History Of The Ohio Valley Frontier, 1750-1838 : Connecting Recent Scholarship With Public Interpretation., Ellen Rich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to interpret for the public both the native and white perspectives of the conquest and colonization of the Ohio Valley frontier by Anglo-Americans in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Its focus is a planned museum exhibition, “Conquering the First American West: The Ohio Valley Frontier, 1750-1838,” which explores interactions between American Indians and Anglo-Americans on the Ohio Valley frontier and their consequences. The introduction justifies the need for the exhibition and outlines its major arguments. The second section examines the historiography of the conquest of the Ohio Valley and shows why stronger public interpretation is needed. …