Digital Commons Network^™

From The Pixels Up : Processes And Procedures In The Construction Of A Neural-Site Geographic Information System, Christopher John Mason

Master's Theses

This study examines the question, is it possible to develop a neutral-site Geographic Information System (GIS) that addresses information needs useful for the training of emergency management personnel? To answer this question a subordinate question requiring an answer is what specific steps are required to accomplish this goal? As a base for the data provided here, the history of cities as an initial root of civilization and the concept of emergency management are discussed. Direct intersections, where the specific applications of emergency management technology provide real benefits to local governmental organizations, such as those at the city level are also …

The Marketing Of Mussolini : American Magazines And Mussolini, 1922-1935, Anthony F. Ambrogi

Master's Theses

Until the Halo-Ethiopian War, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the American press had a symbiotic relationship. Mussolini used his charisma and journalistic skills to put himself in the limelight of the American foreign press, and whether they loved him or hated him, American periodicals relished the constant flow of news and sensationalism from Rome. This analysis examines the rise of Fascism and Mussolini in Italy and his efforts to market himself to the press, especially the American press. It then reviews American magazines from 1922 until Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and their varying attitudes toward II Duce. Popular …

Ipcc Model Simulations Of Future Climate Change In Southeast Asia, Chakkrit Reamruk

Master's Theses

The coupled atmosphere-ocean model simulations from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007) are used to investigate climate change over Southeast Asia (SEA) in the 2U‘ century. Simulations of the 20th century temperature and precipitation are compared to observations and guide the selection of the most appropriate models for the study of fiiture climate change in SEA. These models are run for both low (Bl), and high (A2) emission scenarios. By 2100, model projections show SEA temperature rising by 1.0-2.1°C for the Bl scenario and 2.1-3.8°C for the A2 scenario. Under A2 and Bl scenarios, the average annual precipitation increases by …

The "Cosmic Covenant" In The Letter To The Hebrews, Jeffrey P. Walker

Master's Theses

The Topic The "cosmic covenant" in Hebrews reflects three main ideas: There exists a close affinity between the letter and Enochic Judaism; the letter is a product of Roman Gentile Christianity that emerged as a response to Jewish particularists in the Second Temple covenantal debate; and the writer's cosmic perspective had the simultaneous effect of supplanting and universalizing the Jewish covenantal concept. The Purpose The thesis offered here is that Hebrews presupposes a notion of "cosmic covenant" similar to that found in Enochic Judaism. Conclusions What has emerged is support for how the universalistic scope of 1 Enoch and its …

Eliciting Facial Expressions In Children With And Without Down Syndrome, Orietta Coz

Master's Theses

This study investigated facial expressions of children between the ages of 10 and 15 years with Down Syndrome (experimental group) and compared them to typically developing children (control group). Elicitation of facial expressions was carried out through showings of video clips. Trained observers were used to code expressions of happiness, anger, and disgust from video recordings that were made of the children’s reactions while they watched the video clips.

I hypothesized that Down Syndrome children will not differ from typically developing children in the frequency of elicited happy expressions. However, I expected them to differ in the frequency of elicited …

Sentence Recognition In Native And Foreign Languages : Comprehension Of Form And Meaning, Sara Elizabeth Sepanski

Master's Theses

The goal of language comprehension is to retrieve and retain the meaning of speech or text. Research with monolinguals has shown that participants' ability to detect structural changes in sentences decreases with time, while their ability to detect meaning changes remains accurate (Sachs, I967). In this study I examined whether this monolingual pattern holds for bilingual speakers in a second language. English-Spanish bilinguals at three different proficiency levels participated in a reading task in which native (LI) and non-native (L2) language sentences were presented. Participants read both LI and L2 sentences and were then tested for their recognition of the …

Richmond, Virginia's Every Monday Club, 1889-1919, Maureen Elizabeth Salmon

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the formation and growth of the Every Monday Club, a woman's literary club in Richmond, Virginia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Since the group has never been researched before, most of the study concentrates on untouched archives. The study uses the extensive Every Monday Club papers which include club meeting minutes, letters, papers, pictures, yearbooks, and newspaper clippings. This information is also supplemented with obituaries, census, and other primary data. The records disclose issues of class, race and education.

The Troubled Intersection Of The Interests Of Christ And Commerce : Appellate-Court Review Of Virginia Sunday Closing Laws In Historical Overview Through 1942, William Robert Vanderkloot

Master's Theses

Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals, between 1900 and the conclusion of this thesis in 1942, consistently narrowed Virginia's Sunday closing law, enacted in 1786 to prevent Sunday labor. While paying lip service to the statute's purpose, the court almost unhesitatingly chose statutory interpretations encouraging more Sunday labor, particularly by expanding its ''necessity" and "charity" exceptions. The legislature also granted additional statutory closing law exceptions. This reflected the preferences of the public as well, which increasingly depended on the services of others laboring on Sunday. These results were also due, in part, to inherent confusions and contradictions in the law itself, …

Transactional Literature Circles And The Reading Comprehension Of At-Risk English Learners In The Mainstream Classroom, Cheryl Mcelvain

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Ngo Narratives Of Human Rights And Rehabilitation In Cambodia: A Transnational Advocacy And Policy Framework For Appropriating Identity Amidst A Quest For Transitional Justice, Henrik J. Mann

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Experiences Of Ethnic Acceptance And Prejudice In English Language Learning: Immigrants' Critical Reflections, Jeffrey T. Labelle

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Transition From Advanced Beginner To Competent Nurse In The Labor And Delivery Unit, Janice Mcmillin

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

The Status Of Leptodactylus Validus As A Single Taxon And Its Relationship To Letptodactylus Pallidirostris, Kenneth Christopher Yanek

Master's Theses

Leptodactylus validus exhibits an unusual distribution inhabiting Trinidad, Tobago, and the Lesser Antilles, but not the mainland of South America. This distribution is inconsistent with other distribution patterns observed for these islands. Although slight variation in adult morphology has been observed among the island populations, call data suggest the presence of a single species. Calls of Leptodactylus pallidirostris from Venezuela suggested that this taxon might be conspecific with L. validus. Herein sequence data from the 12S and 16S mt rRNA genes were collected and analyzed in order to address: 1.) whether more than one species is represented within L. validus, …

Mercy Charism And Its Relationship To Effective Schooling, Dorothy J. Mccrea

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

The American Association Of Museums' Accreditation Program: An Analysis Of Benefits Perceived By Museums, Sara Wendt

Master's Theses

This study conducted a mail survey of 210 museum directors whose institutions had undergone accreditation through a program sponsored by the American Association of Museums. The study sought to ascertain directors' perceptions ofthe overall benefit and cost of the program, as well as their perceptions of the degree to which their museums both expected to receive and actually received 16 individually specified benefits. It further sought to determine the extent to which museum size and accreditation history may have impacted their perceptions.

The study found that while the time burden associated with the accreditation process was considered fairly high, most …

How Mediation Is Used By Alternative Dispute Resolution Organizations To Resolve Racial Conflict, Pam Hogan

Master's Theses

This study reports findings of interviews with volunteer mediators for Community Boards, a dispute resolution organization in the city of San Francisco, California, describing their approach to participating as panel members in multiethnic mediations.

The study demonstrates a notable difference in the approaches taken by mediators when race is identified as a point of contention in a mediation. The data show experience and ethnicity as variables in these responses. The findings further suggest that most mediators believe they require further training to feel equipped and comfortable in their handling of such mediations.

"What Was I Created For, I Wonder?" : Occupation For Women In Shirley And Cranford, Julie Anne Tignor

Master's Theses

Charlotte Brontë's Shirley and Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford unite in asking and answering the question of what unmarried women were supposed to do with their time and talents in Victorian England, considering the constraints of both gentility and economic conditions. In writing these novels, Brontë and Gaskell joined mid-nineteenth century feminists such as Francis Power Cobbe and Florence Nightingale in discussing women's occupation. Cranford, rather than presenting the typical young unmarried woman as its heroine, features a community of old maids as its "heroines," revealing their story through the narration of Mary Smith. Shirley's Caroline Helstone examines the socially accepted …

Out Of Bounds: The Unspoken Rule And The Loyola 1963 Ncaa Championship Team, Nona P. Martin

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Case Study In Volunteer Management: Volunteer Stress At A Northern California Rape Crisis Center, Holly Tedford

Master's Theses

This research project is a case study of a rape crisis center's volunteer program. Because the volunteers respond to recent victims of sexual assault in hospital emergency rooms, the study was designed to examine the stressors arising from their confrontation of such emotionally volatile situations. The study focused on the stressors volunteers experienced, how they coped, how the rape crisis center's training program prepared volunteers for job stress, what rape crisis center employees did to mitigate volunteers' job-related stress, and how effective volunteers perceived these efforts to be. The research project also compared the stress experienced by rape crisis volunteers …

Context Effects And Lexical Ambiguity Processing: An Activation-Based Account, Frazier Orgain

Master's Theses

Many studies have been conducted to test the effects of ambiguous words in sentence processing. There are two views: the modularity hypothesis and the interactive hypothesis that dominate this field of study. The effect of ambiguity has been tested in many ways, including gating, cross-modal priming, naming, and self-paced reading. This utilizes the methods of self paced reading with lexical decision and naming tasks to examine the hypotheses as they relate to the access period of lexical differentiation. Results indicate that context has an immediate effect, after which participants look to other factors to discern meaning of a sentence. Details …

Working Memory In Schizophrenics And Older Adults : A Mediator For Episodic Memory Deficits?, Matthew W. Webster

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the role of working memory on episodic memory in older adults and adults with schizophrenia. This study included 15 adults with schizophrenia, 20 young adults without psychopathology, and 21 older adults without psychopathology. Storage working memory scores were greater than processing working memory scores in all groups. Young adults had the fewest problems with episodic and working memory, compared to older adults and adults with schizophrenia, who had similar deficits in both memory types. Speed of processing was found to be the greatest predictor of working memory capacity.

The Effectiveness Of An Interactive Multimedia Learning Explanation On Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Mathematical Achievement And Self-Efficacy, Margaret Hansen Maag

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Poetry And The State: The Politics Of Nabat Tradition In Kuwait, Abdullah Alajmi

Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the relationship between the practice of an old tribal Bedouin oral tradition (Nabat poetry) and the politics of the nation-state in Kuwait. The historical context of this tradition, its development within modern state boundaries, and its current role in the politico-cultural exchange are all examined. Anthropological, ethnohistorical, and Arabic local printed resources are used. In addition, Bedouin oral traditions and personal observation are employed for final analysis. Unlike the pre-state Nabat, the current practice is institutionalized to become an essential aspect of state modern processes. A connection is suggested between the emphasis (in the current practice of …

From The Postal Medium To Electronic Media: A Historical Overview Of The Development Of Distance Learning In Higher Education With A Focus On Correspondence Study And Electronic Delivery Methods, Robson Marinho

Master's Theses

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to overview the development of distance learning in higher education both in the United States and around the world, stressing the relationship between correspondence study and electronic delivery methods as a basis for understanding and fostering different distance-learning methodologies.

Significance of the Study

The significance of this study resides in the fact that the current technological revolution is challenging all traditional forms of higher education and pointing to distance learning as the great phenomenon of today’s educational world. If distance education has played a secondary role in higher education so …

The Role Of Matrix Metalloproteinase-2 In Glioma Invasion, Nicole Danielle Sauers

Master's Theses

Overexpression of matrix metalloproteinase 2, MMP-2, is correlated with highgrade gliomas in vivo. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether MMP-2 overexpression in glioma cell lines leads to increased invasion of glioma cells in vitro. The entire MMP-2 gene was isolated from U87, a glioma cell line known to have high expression of wild-type MMP-2. This :tvIMP-2 gene was inserted in a sense and antisense orientation into pCR3 .1 vectors with a CMV promoter to ensure high levels of expression. Glioma cell lines were transfected with the sense and antisense constructs, as well as the pCR3.l vector alone …

The Effects Of Cognitive Strategy Instruction On Students' Reading Comprehension, Shira Lubliner

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Teachers' Perceived Effectiveness Of Their Evaluation Process At Selected School Districts, Heather Mcdougall

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Levels Of Reflection Of Physical-Therapy Students Using Structured Journals During A 9-Week Clinical-Education Experience, Susan Mae Young Mcginty

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Segments, Carol Coggin

Master's Theses

Segments is fictionalized memoir structured as eight short stories, or segments of the central character's life. These autobiographical incidents begin in Redding, California, in 1947, when the central character leaves the family farm on her first day of school only to return to face the loss of her innocence. I find it ironic that boys and girls sexually abused by a parent or other family member are not considered incest victims, but incest survivors. Even if one survives the effects of incest, all subsequent perspectives and decisions are colored by loss of trust.

"Praise Raleigh" is told by a third …

The Relationship Between Immediate Communication, Flow, And Motivation To Continue Learning And To Integrate Technology, Warren Linger

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis