Digital Commons Network^™

Growth Rate Of Mugil Cephalus From Two Isolated Ponds In Huntington Beach State Park, South Carolina, Matthew Vincent

Honors Theses

Measurement of growth of the euryhaline teleost Mugil cephalus is quite common in open ocean settings, but growth rates of M. cephalus in isolated areas is non-existent. Two isolated ponds in Huntington Beach State, Horry County, South Carolina were selected to study the growth rate of M. cephalus; Sandpiper Pond with virtual no hydrologic connection to the ocean and Jetty Pond with adequate hydrologic connection to the ocean were the sites of sample collection. Scales from M. cephalus in both ponds were collected then aged by two readers, where agreeing ages were kept in the dataset. A von Bertalanffy growth …

Net Metering And Interconnection Standards For Santee Cooper And Three Investor-Owned Utility Companies In South Carolina, Barnes Anderson

Honors Theses

Net metering and interconnection standards are designed to allow private residential and non-residential electric utility customers to pursue generating some of their own electricity through renewable sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power. Net metering allows customers to use their own electrical generation to offset their consumption over a billing period by allowing their electric meters to run backwards when they generate electricity in excess of their demand (SC Energy Office, vi). The interconnection standards govern the technical and procedural process by which an electric customer connects an electric-generating system to the electrical grid of their utility company (SC …

Unrelated Business Income Taxes: What The Federal Courts Have Said, Barry Long

Honors Theses

Several issues impact the management of accounting for large not-for-profit organizations that would not arise normally in a regular for-profit corporation. These issues vary widely from how much annual salary the executives rightfully deserve as compensation to the way the organization raises funds for its day-to-day activities. Slightly less common, but still very important, is the issue of taxes. Yes, not-for-profit corporations have to pay taxes, but only on certain forms of revenue. In many instances, large not-for-profit corporations operate similar to a for-profit firm. The money not-for-profits have to pay tax on falls under the Internal Revenue Code sections …

The Effects Of Strengthening And Rehabilitation Programs For The Collegiate Baseball Player, Briana Patton

Honors Theses

Today, collegiate baseball players are doing everything that they can in order to excel and perform at their highest level. They are training their bodies through various strength and conditioning programs so that they can be in peak condition when game time arrives. In order to help these athletes, researchers are continually trying to find the next best routine or technique to enhance performance and to reduce injury for all athletes. The studies performed by these researchers have led to the development of many new and effective routine methods. Despite the fact that these new techniques' and routines' efficiency are …

Uv Irradiation On Bacteriophage Survival, Sherri Tomlinson

Honors Theses

Bacteriophage is of great interest because of its potential role in controlling bacterial populations in our environment. UV exposure has a damaging effect on the virus decreasing lytic ability. This study set out to test the effects of UV radiation, in amounts comparable to local environmental conditions, on bacteriophage T2. The virus was placed in a Petri dish in a PBS medium and exposed to UV radiation at 365nm. The irradiated virus was allowed to infect E. coli and plated. The plaques formed were counted to determine lytic activity of the virus with respect to UV irradiation. The results showed …

The Quest Of A Lifetime : How The First Year Of University Of Richmond Life Affects Student's Spirituality And Religiosity, Melanie Martin

Honors Theses

First year university students’ religious and spiritual beliefs and attitudes were investigated over the course of the year. The survey used was largely made up of a subset of questions from the CSBV survey created by HERI and adapted and administered via Survey Monkey software to 153 first year students in the Fall Semester and 74 first year students in the Spring Semester at the University of Richmond. Students pray less and self-reflect more, are more likely to agree that the universe arose by chance, less likely to believe that ‘only religion can truly explain existence’, less likely to find …

A Criterion For Identifying Stressors In Non-Linear Equations Using Gröbner Bases, Elisabeth Marie Palchak

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Site Design Of A Four-Story 11,705 Sq-Ft Class A Office Building, Britney Richmond, Allison Porrett, Kimberly Warners

Honors Theses

This senior capstone design project was a two-semester long venture that began last fall with the formation of the team, the selection of the sponsored project, and the conclusion of a proposal. The purpose of the proposal was for the senior design team to display a thorough understanding of the project's scope of work and to declare the deliverables agreed upon by the team. The team began contact with the sponsor, Hurley &Stewart, prior to beginning the proposal writing in order to gain more details about the project at hand and to ask any questions. The team chose to add …

The Northwest Forest Plan: Up To Our Neck In Owls?, Ashley N. Horvat

Honors Theses

Traversing across the vast Pacific Northwest with the Northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), one would experience a dynamic landscape that ranged from areas shrouded with ancient forests, mountains dotted with dense young forests, large swathes of empty habitat from clearcuts, and corridors filled with canopies and a plethora of life. The once vibrant forests that blanketed the Pacific Northwest in an abundance of life and sheltered these rare owls in their canopies were threatened by the removal of these primordial giants in these forests. The wild salmon that journey in record numbers through the cold rivers and …

Torture Cannot Be Used As A National Security Policy, Peter Moshang

Honors Theses

This paper looks at the acceptability of torture as a national security policy to combat terrorism. This paper finds that torture is an ineffective and unconstitutional practice. It also explains that torture infringes upon the most basic human rights as well as basic democratic rights. The legalization of torture for antiterrorism would lead to the expansion of torture in the future as society became more accepting of torture. The legalization of torture could increase the amount of torture that occurs across the globe because the United States often sets global precedents. Finally, this paper explains that a national security option …

Selection Of Risk And Effort Levels Among Low-Stakes Players : A Case Study In Online Poker, Justin Weiss

Honors Theses

Firms pay workers using a variety of different pay structures. The structure that governs executive pay in many instances is a tournament pay structure. This paper examines the applicability of a tournament pay structure to lower wage workers by examining the effort and risk responses of players to tournament incentives and the role these responses play in determining the tournament’s outcome. Players from 19 different tournaments are observed on a hand by hand basis. It is found that players adjust effort and risk taking levels but only in response to certain incentives. This study finds evidence that tournaments are a …

Detecting Malicious Javascript, Matthew F. Der

Honors Theses

The increased use of the World Wide Web and JavaScript as a scripting language for Web pages have made JavaScript a popular attack vector for infecting users' machines with malware. Additionally, attackers often obfuscate their code to avoid detection, which heightens the challenge and complexity of automated defense systems. We present two analyses of malicious scripts and suggest how they could be extended into intrusion detection systems. For our analyses we use a sample of deobfuscated malicious and benign scripts collected from actual Web sites. First, using our malicious sample, we perform a manual analysis of attack signatures, identifying four …

Changing Magic : Evolving Conception Of Witchcraft In Essex County, Elizabeth Kiel Boone

Honors Theses

In 1579, a court in Essex, England arraigned thirteen-year-old Thomas Lever for acting as an assistant to William Randall, a conjurer suspected of leading a group of male witches. The court claimed young Thomas “mixed potions and was familiar with all [of Randall’s] workings.”1 Yet for Raphael Holinshed, the commentator on the trial, the case was unique only in the age of the defendant. Holinshed gives a stark example of a common view of the witch trials by noting “That her Majesty is sore oppressed by these witches and devil- mongers is now common knowledge, but that a child should …

A River Palimpsest: The Interdisciplinary Value Of Water, Katie Norris

Honors Theses

Water is an invaluable natural resource to both human and ecological communities, and is currently threatened by global and local pollution and availability. Hypoxia, climate change and local issues all strain river systems to beyond repair. In light of this, communities and scientists must come together to understand the quality and value of natural resources, such as the Great Miami River, in order to inform policy, management and societal perceptions. The overall purpose of this thesis research project is to utilize interdisciplinary areas together to create a valuable, spatially lateral and chronological baseline picture of the Great Miami River. The …

Especially In This Economy : The Effect Of Personal And Situational Factors On Charitable Intentions And Attitudes Toward The Homeless, Eric M. Vanepps

Honors Theses

In response to tough economic times and difficulty meeting the need of homeless populations, many charities could use an improved understanding of what predicts and contributes to charitable intentions. The current studies sought to empirically address this issue. Study 1 results revealed that positive attitudes toward the homeless and charitable intentions predicted actual donation behavior. Study 2 results suggested that morality dimensions focused on fairness and harm predicted positive attitudes and charitable intentions. Additionally, a combination of moral commitment and interdependent self-construal predicted higher donation intentions. Study 3 examined how political affiliations and media coverage regarding the current state of …

Johann Christian Bach's Influence On Mozart's Developing Style, Austin Bourdon

Honors Theses

The methods by which great composers create their masterpieces often remain a mystery to modern scholars. There are essentially two approaches to determining what these methods might be: investigating a composer’s surviving drafts, sketches, and letters and analyzing their musical influences. The first approach can be very limiting, especially when applied to a composer such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who did not leave behind many musical sketches. Therefore, when studying Mozart’s compositional process, it is more useful to rely on the second method in which one traces his stylistic development to key musical figures. From these major influences, one can …

Defender Of The Faith? : Anti-Heresy Policy And The Consolidation Of Ecclesiastical Authority Under Henry Viii On The Eve Of The English Reformation, Daniel James Rudary

Honors Theses

In March 1521, Catholic Europe was on the brink of rupture. It had been more than three years since Martin Luther had posted his Ninety-Five Theses in the university town of Wittenburg, and what had been a mere invitation to a public disputation concerning the power and efficacy of ind ulgences had gone on to embroil Christian Europe in an unprecedented doctrinal conflict. The political and religious significance of Luther's revolt was certainly not lost on Rome, which had by this point responded to Luther's December 1520 bonfire fueled by copies of Leo X's excommunication bull and books of canon …

'A Great Disturbance In The Force:' Thematic Dissonance Between The Two Star Wars Trilogies, Lauren Baiers

Honors Theses

All fans, scholars, and critics have their favorite films. Some support all of the films equally, some embrace the special editions, and others deny the existence of any movies other than the original versions of the first three films released. No matter what critics and fans say, all of the live-action movies are Star Wars movies: they follow the same mythology and bear the words "Star Wars" in their titles. However, the themes of the two trilogies of the Star Wars saga conflict. The prequel trilogy undermines the concerns of the original Star Wars trilogy by subverting the themes of …

Stuck Together: Searching For A Model Of Peritoneal Adhesions Using The August Rat, James W. Bathe

Honors Theses

Fibrous adhesions, a by-product of the healing process, often appear post-surgically as a result of peritonitis related to the surgery. These adhesions can be either primarily "scar tissue" or excess "healthy tissue," and are the leading cause of intestinal obstruction in modern medicine. Shockingly, adhesions occur in up to 96% of patients undergoing intra-abdominal surgery. Adhesions can lead to multiple complications other than obstructions such as inadvertent enterotomy at the time of adhesiolysis, chronic pain, and female infertility. Additional complications arise from the adhesions preventing the free movement of organs and causing strangulations. The causes of the peritonitis, and therefore …

Analysis Of Boolean Functions With High Second Order Nonlinearity, Corneliu A. Bodea

Honors Theses

Highly nonlinear Boolean functions play a central role in the design and security analysis of high speed stream cyphers and block cyphers. We focus on analyzing the structure of Boolean functions that exhibit high second order nonlinearity. We commence with a theoretical overview of Boolean functions and Reed- Muller codes. We then introduce a new equivalence relation, 2-equivalence, for which we prove a number of important properties. Finally, we analyze the second order nonlinearity of concatenations of two Boolean functions.

Of Horror And Humor : The Transformation Of The Grotesque Into The Gothic In The Novels Of Frances Burney, Brittany Taylor

Honors Theses

This year was ushered in by a grand and most important event,—for at the latter end of January, the literary world was favoured with the first publication of the ingenious, learned, and most profound Fanny Burney!—I doubt not but this memorable affair will, in future times, mark the period whence chronologers will date the zenith of the polite arts in this island! This admirable authoress has named her most elaborate performance “EVELINA, OR A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD.” (Ellis 212)

When 1778 dawned, twenty-five-year-old Frances Burney was not the egotist this pronouncement in her diary might suggest. She …

Aid Effectiveness In Sub-Saharan Africa And South And Southeast Asia : An Analysis Of Substantive Measures Of Development, Brooke Christofferson

Honors Theses

Recently, aid effectiveness has become a popular topic in the literature. Generally, it is measured by instrumental measures of well-being, specifically, GDP per capita. This paper uses a substantive approach, pioneered by Amartya Sen, to evaluate aid effectiveness. Substantive measures attempt to measure welfare directly. Specifically, I use infrastructure as measured by telephone lines per 100 people, life expectancy, economic diversification as measured by agriculture as a percentage of GDP, and education as measured by enrollment in primary school, as substantive measures of well- being. I find that aid is not allocated based on substantive need in the regions of …

What Counts? : Legitimizing Female Role Models, Audrey N. Innella

Honors Theses

The effect of exposure to female role models with gender specific attributes was examined in two studies. In Study 1 both women and men were presented with one of eight stimuli (role model gender: male or female; role model legitimacy attributes: organizational high, organizational low, social high, or social low). Results demonstrated women’s higher preference for female role models and vis‐à‐vis. Regression analyses demonstrated women’s preference for role models in general while men only preferred socially legitimate role models. In Study 2 both participants and role model exposure were limited to only women. Additionally a stereotype threat manipulation was added. …

How Much Did The Germans Know About The Final Solution?: An Examination Of Propaganda In The Third Reich, Issa A. Braman

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Closed Time-Like Curves And Inertial Frame Dragging: How To Time Travel Via Spacetime Rotation, Conrad Wilson Moore

Honors Theses

As the number of solutions to the Einstein equations with realistic matter sources that admit closed time-like curves (CTC's) has grown drastically, it has provoked some authors [10] to call for a physical interpretation of these seemingly exotic curves that could possibly allow for causality violations. A first step in drafting a physical interpretation would be to understand how CTC's are created because the recent work of [16] has suggested that, to follow a CTC, observers must counter-rotate with the rotating matter, contrary to the currently accepted explanation that it is due to inertial frame dragging that CTC's are created. …

The Impacts Of Land Use And Development Patterns On Water Quality Of The Belgrade Lakes, Ian M. Mccullough

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts of patterns of land use and development on water quality in the Belgrade Lakes on a regional scale. Regional research and cooperation could identify key areas in the watershed where development or changing land use could have the greatest negative influences on lake water quality. Past work has centered on water chemistry, nutrient dynamics, development and economic factors but there has been no comprehensive analysis of land use and development history for the entire Belgrade Lakes Region. The Belgrade Lakes are a chain of 7 lakes in central Maine connected …

Therapeutic Discourse And The American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship With Psychology, Clifford D. Vickrey

Honors Theses

I explore the main currents of postwar American liberalism. One, sociological, emerged in response to the danger of mass movements. Articulated primarily by political sociologists and psychologists and ascendant from the mid-fifties till the mid-seventies, it heralded the "end of ideology." It emphasized stability, elitism, positive science and pluralism; it recast normatively sound politics as logrolling and hard bargaining. I argue that these normative features, attractive when considered in isolation, taken together led to a vicious ad hominem style in accounting for views outside the postwar consensus. It used pseudo-scientific literature in labeling populists, Progressives, Taft conservatives, Goldwaterites, the New …

Family Ties: Mainstream Environmentalists' Understanding Of Radical Environmentalism In America, Zachary W. Ezor

Honors Theses

Environmentalism in the United States manifests itself in numerous ways. While American environmentalists have been grouped into broad camps over the years, observers have struggled to accurately classify the different components of the movement. Lately, environmentalists have been characterized based on their chosen modus operandi. Environmentalists who employ typical interest group tactics of policy advocacy and accept the notion of political compromise can generally be called 'mainstream.' Alternatively, those environmentalists who employ non-conventional strategies like direct action and take a no-compromise stance on environmental issues are typically described as 'radical.' Despite these distinctions, both radical and mainstream environmentalists are parts …

The Purely Reflected Self, William A. Price

Honors Theses

Belief in the concept of the self causes suffering. Unfortunately, although conceptual constructions like this may help to define our goal—the casting off of the belief in the self—this is a much more difficult thing to actualize and attain in daily practice. Our building blocks can form a neat tower, and we can climb to the top and gaze at the horizon, but they will topple, leaving us once again over our heads in the hedgerow. Buddha describes his teachings as a raft to ford the river of suffering in order to reach the far off bank of enlightenment: as …

Erasing The Steps Of Kingdom: Indigenous Autonomy In Chiapas, Mexico And The Zapatistas' Re-Conception Of Power, Tara Brian

Honors Theses

Although the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994 emerged from a long history of guerrilla struggle in Central America, the indigenous movement offered something new: a bold re-conception of power and a novel approach to revolution that shifted the locus of struggle away from state capture to the realm of civil society, opened the revolution to previously excluded participants, and conceived of innovate means to manage power within Zapatista autonomous zones. In this thesis, I begin with a discussion of the ways in which the Zapatistas’ rhetoric of revolution and power has inspired theorists and activists around the world …