Digital Commons Network^™

Picturing A Nation Divided: Art, American Identity And The Crisis Over Slavery, Louise Michelle Hancox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1859, Arkansas artist Edward Payson Washbourne produced a lithograph entitled the Arkansas Traveler. Based upon a popular folktale originating twenty years earlier, Washbourne used the image to convey his understanding of the crisis over slavery in the western territories. Artists in north and south responded to the slavery debate with differing visions of the western landscape; one characterized by free labor, the other slave. Westward expansion also highlighted debate about Indians, long relegated to the role of the savage other by the myth of the frontier. Yet, on the southern frontier, the conversation was different, as slaveholding Cherokees claimed …

Black Islamic Evangelization In The American South, Chester Warren Cornell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Broadly speaking, my research focus is on African American religion, with particular interest in the various manifestations of black Islam in the United States. I am particularly interested in the question “Has religion served as an opiate or stimulant for black political protest?” And my research attempts to answer it by chronicling the experiences of black Muslims in southern prisons. My dissertation builds on Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010). Alexander argues that African Americans were not over-represented in America’s prisons in the 1970s, but with President Reagan’s War on …

From Policy To Practice: Exploring Principals’ Experiences In Facilitating The Implementation Of Cross Curricular Literacy Standards To Early Adolescents, Sherri Betton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that early adolescents continue to need literacy development in middle school. Furthermore, states that adopted the current comprehensive school reform policy must implement literacy instruction across content areas in grades six through twelve. This study will explore principals’ experiences as they facilitate the implementation of cross-curricular literacy standards. Qualitative case study methodology will be used to examine the perceptions of seven middle school principals as they act as change agents in the implementation process.

The Effects Of Super-Dosing Phytase On Nursery And Grower Pigs, Joshua Paul Knapp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To determine the effects of super-dosing on pigs fed phosphorous and calcium adequate or deficient diets (Experiment 1); the optimum level of corn express phytase (CEP, Experiment 2); and the effects of xylanase/phytase on growth performance (Experiment 3) in pigs fed reduce nutrient diets, weaned pigs were blocked with initial body weight (BW) and allotted to dietary treatments. Treatments were: Positive control (PC), P/Ca adequate diets (NRC 2012); Negative Control (NC), low P (-0.15%) and Ca (-0.12%), +0, 1000, and 4000 FTU/kg of CEP in both PC and NC (Experiment 1); PC, P/Ca adequate diets; NC, decreased P (0.15%) and …

Disordered Eating Risk And Body Image Dissatisfaction Of Division I Male And Female Cheerleaders, Christopher Blaszka

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The sport of cheerleading is growing both in the high school and college setting, however there is little research on cheerleaders specifically, both sideline and competitive. It is clear that while this sport does not benefit from being affiliated with the NCAA, the athletes are still at large risk for disordered eating and eating disorders, and are in need of more accurate screening and prevention methods. With the lack of cheerleading studies in general, there is an even larger scarcity of studies that focus on males in cheerleading. The current study aims to fill the gap in the research regarding …

Moulins: Down The Arctic Drain, Jonathon Nugent Carlson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This observation-style nonfiction documentary film follows a National Science Foundation expedition to the Greenland ice sheet. The bivouac lasted for 25 continuous days. University of Arkansas Professor of Geosciences Matt Covington, Ph.D. teamed up with University of South Florida Professor Jason Gulley, Ph.D. to plan, propose, and ultimately accomplish the research goals of the expedition with the assistance of Ph.D. student Celia Trunz, M.S., and experienced expeditionary team member Vickie Siegel. As an observational-style documentary film, all scientific background information imparted herein is taken directly from interviews conducted with Professor Covington, to minimize opining.

The film begins in mid-flight, as …

How College Campuses Are Using Social Media During Severe Weather Events, Emmale Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores how college campuses are using social media during severe weather events. This topic surfaced after a tornado devastated Moore, Oklahoma in May 2013 and those displaced flocked to the University of Oklahoma campus after a post made on Twitter went viral prior to an official message being sent out by the university. In order to further explore this topic, a qualitative phenomenological case study was conducted at the following sites: University of Alabama, Missouri Southern State University, University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University. This study included observations of social media posts on Facebook and Twitter on …

The Effect Of An Adult Esl Project-Based Literacy Training On Teacher Practice, Rachel Lynn Gerner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This case study evaluates the effectiveness of a project-based learning professional development training conducted at a literacy center for nine ESL teachers who are working in a workforce literacy environment. The researcher investigated principles of andragogy in the training and examined whether participants implemented the content of the training in their teaching environments via observation, self-reported answers on a questionnaire, individual interviews, and a focus group. There was no direct follow-up after six weeks of the training. The findings of the study indicate that none of the teachers implemented project-based learning in their teaching environment directly following the professional development …

Asynchronous Circuit Stacking For Simplified Power Management, Andrew Lloyd Suchanek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As digital integrated circuits (ICs) continue to increase in complexity, new challenges arise for designers. Complex ICs are often designed by incorporating multiple power domains therefore requiring multiple voltage converters to produce the corresponding supply voltages. These converters not only take substantial on-chip layout area and/or off-chip space, but also aggregate the power loss during the voltage conversions that must occur fast enough to maintain the necessary power supplies. This dissertation work presents an asynchronous Multi-Threshold NULL Convention Logic (MTNCL) “stacked” circuit architecture that alleviates this problem by reducing the number of voltage converters needed to supply the voltage the …

Decisions Set In Stone: Spatial Analyses Of Ozark Rock Art Sites, Elements, And Motifs With Gis, Jordan Lee Schaefer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to spatially analyze rock art distributions in the Salem Plateau section of the Arkansas Ozarks. Statistical tests, such as chi-square and t-testing, are applied to provide an objective view of rock art patterning in relation to the overall landscape. The data collected from these methods allow one to discern the locational preferences for rock art, which potentially reveal cultural details about the people involved with its creation. Multiple analytical perspectives are applied throughout, initially focusing on comparisons with expected values and random points. Later statistical tests use bluff shelter distributions as reference data …

Crisis Management And Student Conduct On College Campuses: The Role Of Adminstrative Discretion, Aisha Sherea Kenner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crisis Management is a very important part of higher education on college campuses across the nation. Violent events that have occurred in recent years have caused universities to examine how they respond to critical incidents that have negatively affected students, faculty and staff. Because these incidents have resulted in death, injury and other negative consequences, more consideration is given to various aspects of critical incident management such as administrative discretion. This study concentrated on examining the intersection between crisis management and administrative discretion at institutions of higher education (IHE).

Mental health status, laws with relation to information sharing and disability …

Counselors' Self-Discrepancy And Its Impact On Their Burnout And Wellness, Donghun Lee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationships between counselors’ professional, personal, and reflected selves as well as between counselors’ self-discrepancies and their burnout and wellness. Moreover, an investigation on the impacts of counselors’ self-discrepancies on their burnout and wellness as a professional was conducted. The use of self has been emphasized in order for counselors to elicit meaningful outcome with clients. To demonstrate the use of self as an instrument of the counseling process, integrating professional, personal, and reflected selves is necessary for counselors. One hundred ninety five (N = 195) professional counselors in Mid-South States, who currently practice, supervise, educate, or …

A Home Security System Based On Smartphone Sensors, Michael Mahler

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Several new smartphones are released every year. Many people upgrade to new phones, and their old phones are not put to any further use. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of using such retired smartphones and their on-board sensors to build a home security system. We observe that door-related events such as opening and closing have unique vibration signatures when compared to many types of environmental vibrational noise. These events can be captured by the accelerometer of a smartphone when the phone is mounted on a wall near a door. The rotation of a door can also be captured …

The Impact Of Upc Placement On The Biomechanical Injury Risk Factors Associated With Cashier Work, Marcus Payne

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of UPC placement on upper-body kinematics and muscle activity associated with cashier work. Seventeen female participants who had worked at least 1000 hours as a cashier and did not meet any exclusion criteria were recruited. Multi-sided UPC items, which included extra and/or larger barcodes, were compared to items with a traditional UPC placement. Two mock carts of eighteen items were scanned for each UPC type. Electromyography was applied bilaterally to the biceps brachii, middle deltoid, flexor digitorum superficialis, and upper trapezius muscles. Cumulative and peak muscle activity were calculated for …

Development Of A Digital Rain-Sensing Irrigation Pump Controller And An Android Enabled Bluetooth Paddlewheel Flowmeter, Jayendra Mishra

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For better irrigation efficiency, it is recommended that farmers track their water consumption to avoid over-irrigating. However, it is difficult to implement this as it is labor intensive to supervise pumps manually and available technologies require high investment. Therefore, a rain sensing pump controller for 3-phase electric irrigation pumps and a stand-alone portable Android enabled paddlewheel flowmeter has been developed to test their feasibility.

The pump timer is a retrofit device for irrigation pump panels. The controller allows an irrigator to start and stop the pump with less supervision. An infrared rain sensor is integrated with the controller to measure …

A Laboratory-Based Experimental Test Of Reasons For Living: Effects On Behavioral Approach Toward A Suicide-Related Stimulus, Sasha Micaella Rojas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are few laboratory-based experiments that examine the effects of suicide-related risk or protective factors on suicide-related outcomes. Consistent with extant evidence-based theoretical models and treatments for suicidal behavior, it appears that increasing awareness of reasons for living may reduce risk for suicidal behavior. Thus, the current study represents an initial effort to experimentally examine the impact of bringing awareness to one’s most important reason for living on behavioral approach towards a suicide-related stimulus. Random assignment was used to assign an unselected undergraduate sample of 78 participants to complete either a script-driven imagery procedure specific to the most important reason …

Exploring Energy, Comfort, And Building Health Impacts Of Deep Setback And Normal Occupancy Smart Thermostat Implementation, Zachary Ethan Alderman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As smart thermostat adoption rates continue to increase, it becomes worthwhile to explore what unanticipated outcomes may result in their use. Specific attention was paid to smart thermostat impacts to deep setback and normal occupancy states in a variety of conditions while complying with the ventilation and temperature requirements of ASHRAE 90.2-2013. Custom weather models and occupancy schedules were generated to efficiently explore a combination of weather conditions, building constructions, and occupancy states. The custom modeling approach was combined with previous experimental data within the Openstudio graphics interface to the EnergyPlus building modeling engine. Results indicate smart thermostats add the …

Offside, Maryamsadat Amirvaghefi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

OFFSIDE highlights the parallels between artists and athletes, as well as the professional communities in which both operate. Through the use of sports related imagery, the artwork explores notions of ethnicity, gender, and politics. While much of the work is autobiographical, OFFSIDE is able to consider the political and personal views surrounding a young Muslim woman while lives with constant uncertainty in the United States and trying to start a career in one of the most competitive cultural fields.

Seeing Prehistory Through New Lenses: Using Geophysical And Statistical Analysis To Identify Fresh Perspectives Of A 15th Century Mandan Occupation, Amber Marie Mitchum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Great Plains prehistoric research has evolved over the course of a century, with many sites like Huff Village (32MO11) in North Dakota recently coming back to the forefront of discussion through new technological applications. Through a majority of its studies and excavations, Huff Village appeared to endure as the final stage in the Middle Missouri tradition. Long thought to reflect only systematically placed long-rectangular structure types of its Middle Missouri predecessors, recent magnetic gradiometry and topographic mapping data revealed circular structure types that deviated from long-held traditions, highlighting new associations with Coalescent groups. A compact system for food capacity was …

Animal Welfare Frames: How Social Media Messages Bridge The Gap Between The Protein Industry And Consumers, Olivia Norton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two articles in this thesis used content analysis to analyze and compare animal welfare related website and Twitter content of the top five animal protein producing companies in the United States. In the first article, the animal welfare website content of Cargill, Tyson Foods Inc., Smithfield, JBS® and Sysco were analyzed for persuasive frames, common topics, and key terminology to describe their corporate positions on animal welfare. Sysco’s main page devoted to animal welfare dominated the word count with 1,045 words, while JBS®’s main animal welfare page used only 265 words to communicate the company’s views. The most commonly …

The Postmodern Novel In Saudi Arabia And America, Mohammed Lafi Alshammari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the early twenty-first century, Saudi Arabia is a global economic power that stands as an equal among the other members of the most powerful economic organizations, including as the Group of Twenty and The World Trade Organization. As a result of this economic status and of Saudi Arabia never having been colonized, recent Saudi novels (especially those published after 2001) can usefully be read postmodern, rather than as postcolonial—the usual paradigm in readings of contemporary Arab novels. To establish a reference point, a comparative approach that engages Saudi and American postmodern novels is applied in this dissertation through the …

New Technologies For Evaluating Putting Green Surface Characteristics, Daniel Patrick O'Brien

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Golf course putting greens require a high level of inputs predicated on timely, well informed decisions. Putting green quality is ultimately defined by performance of the turfgrass, and this performance encompasses both (i) the health and vitality of the turfgrass plants, and (ii) the ability of the turfgrass to exist as a playing surface, as it interacts with the golf ball. For golf course superintendents, accurately and efficiently assessing moisture levels and nutrient status are critical for guiding maintenance practices. This research sought to examine new ways for measuring each of these parameters, and compared them to ground-truth data and/or …

Shallow Aggregate Ebb-And-Flow System For Greenhouse Lettuce Production, Joseph Chidiac

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel soilless technique for the production of lettuce was developed and evaluated for its viability for ornamental greenhouse growers adapting their ebb-and-flood irrigation benching systems to diversify into growing lettuce, without having to purchase the conventional nutrient film technique (NFT) or deep flow technique (DFT) hydroponic systems. The experimental design was a three by four factorial, with three treatments for aggregate depth (19, 38, and 57 mm) and four treatments for irrigation frequency (once every 1, 2, 4, or 8 hours), for a total of twelve treatment combinations. Each treatment was replicated three times in a randomized complete block …

Understanding Intracellular Redox Regulation In Methanogens: Characterization Of The Components And Targets Of The Nadph-Dependent Thioredoxin System From Methanosarcina Acetivorans, Addison Clark Mccarver

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

All cells have a reduced intracellular environment. In the presence of oxygen, the non-specific oxidation of intracellular components leads to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within cells leading to oxidative stress. During oxidative stress labile cofactors (e.g. Fe-S clusters) are lost and deleterious disulfide bonds are formed within proteins. Intracellular redox maintenance systems are used to direct reducing equivalents towards the repair of oxidatively-damaged proteins. The thioredoxin system is the ubiquitous intracellular redox system, found in virtually all species. The canonical thioredoxin system is comprised of a NADPH-dependent thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) that functions to reduced thioredoxin (Trx). Although …

Promoting Biliteracy And Biculturalism In Bilingual-Maintenance Secondary Classes: A Key Measure In The Creation Of A Gateway To Post-Secondary Education For First And 1.5 Generation Latino Students In Northwest Arkansas Public Schools, Jeanette A. Arnhart

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the context of the Northwest Arkansas (NWA) regional setting, this study examines the effects of the Spanish for Heritage and Native Speakers (SHNS) model from multiple vantage points. Educational capital and biculturation approaches are employed to help theoretically frame post-secondary educational success and ethnic identity, respectively.

Study methods are briefly described and paired with a description of the NWA region as an ideal southern Latino emerging community in which to conduct research on educational outcomes. The manuscript then turns to an ethnographic examination of how and the extent to which curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular aspects of a Spanish for …

Implementation Fidelity And Outcomes Of School Discipline Policy: Three Studies From Arkansas, Kaitlin Anderson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, exclusionary discipline, including out-of-school suspension (OSS) and expulsion, is disproportionately administered to students of color and special education students. Exclusionary discipline is associated with lower academic achievement and higher risk of dropout, grade retention, and involvement in the juvenile justice system, but there is little causal evidence on this topic.

This dissertation reports on three analyses on school discipline, using administrative data from Arkansas public schools. The first study estimates racial disproportionalities in the use of exclusionary discipline. Controlling for reported behavior and student characteristics, my co-author and I find that Black students are 2.4 times …

Modelling The Impact Of National Development Strategies For The East African Rice Sector, Florence Muthee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 2008 food crisis prompted many food importing nations to reconsider the need to be self-sufficient especially in their staple food needs. This awakening led to the launch of the Coalition for Africa Rice Development (CARD) initiative with a goal to double rice production in Africa. Under the CARD umbrella member countries drafted individual National Rice Development Strategies (NRDS). This study is a quantitative assessment of four East African countries’ NRDS: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda within dynamic global rice economy models. The NRDS targets and strategies are not realistic and included under estimation of rice consumption for Kenya, an …

Experimental Simulation Of A Cross-Flow Rice Dryer, Sangeeta Mukhopadhyay

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After harvest, rough rice is dried, then dehulled and typically milled before consumption. A broad objective of the “rice drying process”, which comprises drying and tempering, is to maximize the yield of “whole, intact milled kernels”, quantified by the “head rice yield” (HRY). Since rough rice is commonly dried using cross-flow (CF) dryers in the United States of America, the aim of this research was to assess the effect of drying and tempering treatments on milling yields when rice was dried in an experimentally-simulated CF drying column. First, because airflow rate was found to be the least-studied “drying variable”, its …

Structural And Elastic Properties Of Degenerate Sno Monolayers At Finite Temperature, Afsana Sharmin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chalcogen-based layered superconductors with a litharge structure such as FeS and FeSe mono-layers undergo structural and superconducting phase transitions that are tunable by doping. Representing another material platform with a litharge structure but without valence d-electrons, SnO monolayers also display a structural ground state with a degenerate rectangular unit cell at zero temperature and a charge-tunable energy barrier that leads to a thermally-controllable structural phase change. Doped SnO monolayers with rectangular degenerate unit cells give rise to two-dimensional multiferroicity. Their two-dimensional elastic energy landscape adopts a basic analytic expression that is employed to discuss this structural transition. The results contained …

Behavioral Intervention Teams: An Exploration Of Team Member Perceptions At Oklahoma Regional Universities, Sheila J. Self

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to examine Behavioral Intervention Teams from the perspective of twelve team members at four regional universities in Oklahoma. This study strengthened the knowledge base regarding team-member perceptions of Behavioral Intervention Team effectiveness, functioning, resources, needs, state factors, and campus impacts, and added qualitative data to the existing body of literature. Behavioral Intervention Teams were designed to be a tool for preventing campus violence and addressing behaviors of concern through information gathering, analysis, and intervention. While it may never be known how many acts of violence, suicides, or other student issues have been prevented or …