Digital Commons Network^™

Leni Riefenstahl: Laid To Rest, Jacob Destree

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Word Use In Disclosure Of Traumatic Events And Subjective Well-Being, Jessica Loesch

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Factorization Of Polynomials And Real Analytic Function, Radoslaw L. Stefanski

Honors Theses

In this project, we address the question: When can a polynomial p(x, y) of two variables be factored as p(x, y) = f(x)g(y), where f and g are polynomials of one variable. We answer this question, using linear algebra, and create a Mathematica program which carries out this factorization. For example,

3+3x-5x^3+y+xy-5/3x^3y+y^2+xy^2-5/3x^3y^2 = (1+x-5/3x^3)(3+y+y^2)

We then generalize this concept and ask: When can p(x,y) can be written as

p(x,y) = f1(x)g2(y)+f2(x)g2(y)+...+fr(x)gr(y)

where fj,gj are polynomials. This can certainly be done (for large enough r). Which is the minimum such r? Again, we have a Mathematica program which carries out this …

Discovering The Potential For Advancements In Intrusion Detection Systems, Kenneth J. Buonforte

Honors Theses

An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a collection of monitors strategically placed on a network or individual host in order to detect anomalous behavior. Since James Anderson introduced one of the first frameworks for an intrusion detection system in [1]. researchers have extended the capabilities of these systems. IDSs take many forms, from systems as basic as command line audit logs to those that emulate the defense mechanisms of the human immune system. However, as intrusion detection has evolved, scientists and administrators alike are beginning to question the need for this technology due to its lack of quantifiable performance and …

Brothers And Sisters In Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury And Absalom, Absalom!, Stephanie M. Kellogg

Honors Theses

In first reading The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!, I soon came to realize how important it is to study the two novels in conjunction with one another. Although I read The Sound and the Fury first, after finishing Absalom, Absalom!, the books became inextricably linked. I also came to discover that Faulkner creates an unusual situation for his audience: while The Sound and the Fury (1929) certainly stands on its own, readers reach a much fuller understanding after reading Absalom, Absalom! (1936), so that, in brief, to interpret The Sound and the Fury, readers …

Aiding At-Risk Students, Jeremy Baldwin

Honors Theses

Kalamazoo's Loy Norrix High School was the location of a study in conjunction with the institution's school-wide achievement process to aid at-risk students. Characterized by poor attendance, behavioral problems and/or failing two or more subjects, at-risk students are monitored more closely through school-wide efforts. According to the Michigan Department of Education, the effort to hep struggling students implicates the use of supplemental services before or after school to help students in the core subjects: math, science, social studies, and English. Norrix has successfully begun its own efforts to improve the overall academic success of the student body by employing the …

The Effect Of Female Server's Attractiveness On Restaurant Tipping, Anne M. Wisneski

Honors Theses

This paper presents the results of a field experiment designed to test the hypothesis that restaurant patrons (particularly men) would leave larger tips for an attractive versus unattractive female server. The author manipulated server attractiveness by varying her appearance before shirts as a food server at a popular restaurant. Contrary to the hypothesis, patrons (both men and women) left comparable sized tips in the attractive and unattractive server conditions. Explanations for this null effect are discussed in the contest of research on the effect of server attractiveness on tipping and perceived tipping norms.

The Honors Portfolio Project: Communicating Value In Honors, Aimee J. Jachym

Honors Theses

The Honors portfolio is presented as a tool that honors students can use to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. An honors portfolio conceptualizes and communicates the value in obtaining a well-founded honors education. It contains documents and evidence that support the student's holistic development through a diverse range of honors experience. The paper begins by discussing the background for the project by describing what the unique qualities of an honors education are, then explores the Haworth College of Business portfolio project and the problem of conceptualizing an honors education in this fashion. Next, the paper details a project completed for …

The Effects Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs) On Nerve Growth Factor (Ngf) In The Developing Frog, Xenopus Laevis, Cari Delong

Honors Theses

Polychlorinated biphenyls are ubiquitous, persistent environmental contaminants that cause a variety of adverse health effects wildlife and humans. PCBs are the major contaminant in the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site, in which the Environmental Institute is funded to study. Projects at the Environmental Institute are focused on developing molecular biotechnology tools that will improve environmental risk assessment. Previous acute studies involved the exposure of developing tadpoles, Xenopus laevis to PCBs through aquarium water in order to measure gene expression. Nerve growth factor (NGF) gene expression showed changes in these previous studies. NGF is a neurotrophic factor that regulates the growth and …

Securing Distributed Computations : In Search Of Reliable Large-Scale Compute Power And Refreshed Redundancy, Edward P. Kenney

Honors Theses

The Internet may be the single largest technological advance or significant societal change in the last century. Not only does it allow access to more information than any human could ever hope to digest, but it produces the potential of having millions of computers combining their computational forces for the betterment of a single cause .. Tl is is the fundamental goal of distributed computing. A distributed system is defined to be a network of machines with some degree of centralized direction. In a distributed computational system each machine will accept computational tasks from a supervisor in a master-slave relationship. …

Mom Or Manager?: How Social Factors And Personal Choice Affect The Work/Family Balance In The United States, Japan And Germany, Christine E. Mueller

Honors Theses

This report investigates the work/family balance based on two factors: social influence and personal choice. The first factor is significant because society dictates and enforces the prescribed roles for women. The degree of career progression a woman can achieve is partly bound by restrictions of society. The other factor, personal choice, is the factor that only each woman can determine for herself. A woman can only progress as far as her personal goals determine. In addition to the relationship between society and personal choice, this report examines the barriers to pursuit of a management career inherent in these factors.

Technology And The 'Self', Ryan Rinn

Honors Theses

This project examines the relationship between technology and the self. Based largely on Gergen's (1991, 2000) descriptions of technological immersion and the saturated self, I discuss the ways that modem technologies have come to be a part of self-construction. Survey and focus group data from 63 university students are used to examine types of technological use, talk about technological experience, and self-construction. This paper describes the contradictory ways participants talk about technology, and defines nine themes of self emergence in participant discussion: 1) connection, 2) over-connection, 3) ease/laziness, 4) multitasking, 5) profile stalking, 6) loss of physical presence, 7) empowerment, …

London Coffee Houses : The First Hundred Years, Heather Lynn Mcqueen

Honors Theses

This paper examines how early London coffee houses catered to the intellectual, political, religious and business communities in London, as well as put forward some information regarding what it was about coffee houses that made them "new meeting places" for Londoners. Coffee houses offered places for political debate and progressively modem forms of such debate, "penny university" lessons on all matter of science and the arts, simplicity and sobriety in which independent religious groups could meet, as well as the early development of a private office space.

Narrating The Middle Ground : B The Examination Of Objects In The Modern Genre Of Immigrant Fiction, Meagna A. Patinella

Honors Theses

Dislocated objects tell stories about the places they come from, their migration, and their new surroundings. More importantly, they disclose the narratives of people that possess or interact with them. In this paper I examine objects present in novels ofimmigration and transnational movement, for objects in such fictions are most noticeably dislodged from their original or expected context. Their relocation allows me to interpret them and their narratives, which in turn, allows me to think about the genre of immigrant fiction in a new light.

Illuminating A Space For Women And Rhetoric, Lindsey M. Fox

Honors Theses

My overarching concerns are for the place and power of women in rhetoric and democracy. This concern developed during my study of classical rhetoric, when I noticed an obvious absence of women in rhetoric. For example, John Poulakos and Takis Poulakos state that any "ordinary person" could play a role on the political stage in Athens (34). This reference to "ordinary people" is proof that women were made invisible because, as George A. Kennedy explains, in classical Athens, democracy was only for "an assembly of all adult male citizens" (16). Male citizens, then, were actually rather extra-ordinary. Because democracy …

A Case Study Of Events And Examples : History In Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things, Michell C. Smith

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

"Their Shoes Yet New" : The Immigrant Image In The Baltimore Riots Of 1812 And The Disagreement Over Nationality, John K. Dunn Jr

Honors Theses

This paper examines the ways in which immigrants were characterized in Baltimore immediately following that city's Riots in 1812. It finds that the "native" majority used the immigrant image in an attempt to determine the criteria of nationality. That image was not settled, however, and rather constituted a discussion between interested groups about the relative importance of ethnicity in the years before Jacksonian democracy. It also concludes that the peculiar conditions and social divisions of Baltimore directly contributed to the Baltimore Riots and that the riots provided an opportunity for prevalent stereotypes to surface.

Only In Story A World : Atheistic Metanarrative In Leguin, Pullman And Wolfe, Samuel N. Keyes

Honors Theses

Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Pullman, and Gene Wolfe, despite their apparent ideological as well as stylistic differences, all profoundly question the way modernity has divided knowledge, posing serious challenges to contemporary distinctions between religion, science and magic. Moreover, they share a common concern for the power of narrative to accomplish this critique.

In each of their multivolume fantasies, the differences between the categories of science and religion become meaningless. After such a deconstruction, the possibility of nihilism looms unless a new system of meaning surfaces. The move away from discrete areas of science and religion, therefore, in these works …

A Cost Benefit Analysis Of The State Of Tennessee's Child Support Guidelines : How Can The Orders Be Better Encouraged And Enforced?, Jennifer B. Vanzant

Honors Theses

Due to a growing number of The State of Tennessee's parents who should be receiving child support instead receiving welfare, the State is reexamining the makeup of the guidelines. Tennessee's existing child support regulations are written in a language that most individuals can interpret, but issues of compensation for additional dependents, low and very low income families, and shared parenting are three key circumstances producing inequalities that need to be improved within the guidelines. Judicial review has already made several advances in the way child support is awarded. New law has recently developed from child support case decisions regarding moneys …

Surveillance Of The Balto-Finnic Speakers: A Geolinguistic Inquiry, Lindsay E. Gwyther

Honors Theses

The Balto-Finnic languages of northeast Europe are part of the larger Uralic language family. Today, there are seven Balto-Finnic speaking nations, two of which govern their own independent sovereignties (Finland and Estonia). The other five nations lie precariously within the territorial borders of Russia and Latvia for the most part. This paper examines the geographic expanse and status of these languages over time and through space and develops a series of maps to better illustrate these patterns. Historical research demonstrates that their distribution has decreased in area, but strengthened and centralized in certain regions, enabling their presence in a predominantly …

Suspend Your Disbelief, Graham Kurtz

Honors Theses

In an ideal world, every theatre patron would recognize the important concept referred to as "suspension of disbelief." It is a proverbial contract "signed" by the audience member in which he or she agrees to subscribe to the ideas, characters, and circumstances portrayed by the actors they are about to watch. In many cases, these aspects of the production are highly out of the ordinary and require the audience to play along, otherwise any message or theme being communicated will be lost on the theatre-goers. The title of this cabaret performance is a demand that the audience allow the performers …

Potential Components Of Time Personality: A Literature Review, Jane Ackerson

Honors Theses

What is time? The simple yet puzzling question has been posed on numerous occasions generating various responses. Time can be described as quantifiable, structured, even having monetary value. Time can be viewed in a subjective or objective manner and can be influenced by internal and external factors. Time can create pressure, anxiety, or boredom. Time is what we perceive it to be. This perception is a potentially vital component involved in the makeup of time personality. Theoretically, time personality is shaped by many factors affecting the relationship an individual has with time. The objectives of the research were to identify …

Cancer Pain: An Allopathic Or Alternative Approach?, Amanda Keating Walker

Honors Theses

The American Cancer Society estimates that 1,334,100 new cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2003 and that 17 million new cancer cases have been diagnosed since 1990. They have also determined that in the U.S., men have a slightly less than 1 in 2 lifetime risk of developing cancer and women have a 1 in 3 chance of being diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. These statistics show that cancer will touch the life of at least one person you know; unfortunately that person may be someone very close to you. It's extremely difficult to watch someone you love endure …

Creating A Video Device Application, Kevin Septor

Honors Theses

A video device, such as a webcam, has the capability to be used in many ways, including recording video and behaving like a security camera. A TV tuner card can also record video, and in addition be used for watching television. However, the video hardware and device driver the operating system uses to access it are only capable of delivering raw frames of video. A user space application is necessary for exploiting the capabilities of such a device beyond reading sequential frames of video. This research explores the desiderata in a powerful video device application, and introduces a program that …

Evaluations And Project Effectiveness : An Investigation Into The Evaluation Processes Of Development Projects In Bolivia, Kristin Saucier

Honors Theses

This study attempts to answer the question, do formalized evaluation procedures contribute to increased project effectiveness? Project effectiveness is defined as the successful attainment of project goals and objectives. According to the literature, evaluations have the potential to improve a project's success by raising awareness of problem areas and offering ways suggestions for improvement. To test this theory, the evaluation systems of seven international development organizations that are currently implementing projects in Bolivia are examined: Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), Peace Corps, Project Concern International (pCI), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Sates Agency for International Development (USAlD), …

Mapping Of Diepoxybutane Damage In The Cytochrome B Domain Of Mitochondrial Dna And The Β-Globin Domain Of Nuclear Chicken Dna Using Quantitative Pcr, Justin Juskewitch

Honors Theses

Diepoxybutane (DEB), a known industrial carcinogen, reacts with DNA primarily at the N7 position of deoxyguanosine residues and creates interstrand cross-links at the sequence 5'-GNC. Since N7-N7 cross-links cause DNA to fragment upon heating, quantative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) is being used in this experiment to measure the amount of DEB damage (lesion frequency) with three different targets-mitochondrial (unpackaged), open chromatin region, and closed chromatin region. Initial measurements of DEB damage within these three targets were not consistent because the template DNA was not the limiting reagent in the PCR. Follow-up PCR trials using a limiting amount of DNA are …

Whipping Up A Region : How The North Taught The South To Cook "Southern", Erin D. Bartels

Honors Theses

I will trace this progression toward the essentialization of southern cooking and therein southern identity by exploring cookbooks dealing with all or part of the South and ranging in years from 1877 to 1941.

Women Leaders Combining A Career In Higher Education With Raising A Family : A Study Of Leadership, Anne Simmons Williamson

Honors Theses

Much of the research within the field of Leadership Studies focuses on whether men and women lead differently and whether women can break "the glass ceiling." This study will examine women leaders in higher education administration who have children and have already broken the glass ceiling, focusing on their work-life challenges and analyzing the structural and attitudinal issues in their organization and society that impact their leadership.

Virginia Schein (1995) identified the larger challenge for society by asking,

How can we restructure work in a society in which work and family no longer are separate, but interface?...It is when this …

Comparative Population Dynamics Of Freshwater Dinoflagellates Of The Genera Peridinium And Peridiniopsis, Andy Canion

Honors Theses

Freshwater dinoflagellates, like their marine relatives, have the potential to reach large population sizes known as blooms. Though they are not toxic like some marine forms, freshwater blooms may have a large impact in their respective ecosystem. This study investigated the temporal and spatial changes in population density of four Peridinium species (P. deflandrei, P. volzii, P. wisconsinense, and P. limbatum) and one Peridiniopsis species (Peridiniopsis polonicium) in Boondoggle Lake, a shallow lake (4.5 m) in northern Mississippi (Lafayette Co.). On each sampling date, measurements of the abiotic environment were made, including dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, and turbidity. Also, water …

Ignorance And Want In The Works Of Charles Dickens, Emily Katherine Ferris

Honors Theses

The process of writing this thesis to complete my requirements for the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College began with a Directed Reading of five novels by Charles Dickens-Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Hard Times, and A Christmas Carol. My intent was to investigate poverty present in the Victorian Era of England through these works of Charles Dickens. Upon further investigation, I focused my intent on questioning the social injustice attacked in each novel and the subsequent power that Dickens uses to fight this injustice. To begin with, Oliver Twist instituted a harsh indictment on the workhouse system. Yet, the …