Digital Commons Network^™

Re-Entry Challenges: Comparison And Contrasts Between Korean And American Mks, Ok Kyung Ha

Master's Theses

Problem

Missionary Kids (MKs) have a different experience in the mission fields in terms of culture, language, and social adjustment when compared with their parents. They also face another challenge when they return to their parents’ home country, for they feel out of place and often do not think of their parents’ country as home. The purpose of this Masters thesis is to investigate the experience of MKs in the mission field, during re-entry, and to research the common elements or differences between Korean MKs and American MKs in their re-entry process.

Method

The research method used in this Masters …

Beyond The Reach Of The Safety Net: The Geography Of Social Service Provision In The Context Of Suburban Poverty, Christine Breit

Master's Theses

Poverty rates have risen across the United States since 2000, but the fastest growth in poverty is occurring in the suburbs (Berube and Kneebone 2013). Today, more poor people live in suburbs than cities (Berube and Kneebone 2013). Parallel to this increase in suburban poverty has been federal retrenchment in cash assistance in exchange for service-based assistance (Allard 2004). By and large, the federal government administers social service funds to state governments who then allocate the money to nonprofit entities. This reliance upon local providers creates an uneven patchwork of care (Peck 2008; Allard 2009; Berube and Kneebone 2013) as …

Queer People Navigating Experiences With Health Care Providers And Contraception, Dana Lavergne

Master's Theses

Contemporary views of contraception have intrinsically linked birth control to heterosexual sex and pregnancy prevention. As such, contraception is culturally understood to be exclusively for heterosexual women. Despite this, the little work that has been done on queer people1 and contraception use demonstrates they are also accessing birth control (Chrisler, Gorman, Manion, Murgo, Adams-Clark, Newton and McGrath 2015). This schism between the cultural understanding of contraception as a manifestation of heterosexual womanhood and the everyday use of contraception by both queer and heterosexual people takes root in the medical system. Based in heteronormative ideologies, the medical system fails to take …

Teaching And Telling Difficult Stories: An Analysis Of Colombian Narratives Of Violence, Paula Liliana Mantilla Blanco

Master's Theses

Making sense of chaos takes a narrative form. It is for that reason that efforts to find and comprehend narratives commonly follow violent events. After all, violence leaves societies in a state of turmoil that demands some sort of order. Such order can only be reached through the act of telling and hearing difficult stories. However, in societies affected by conflict, stories are as diverse and biased as people’s experiences. Privileging a single story can have the unintended effect of aggravating violence by failing to recognize the validity of people’s interpretations of war. Echoing an array of stories is therefore …

Cryptic Diversification Of Two Widespread Species In Madagascar, Lynika Sharlice Strozier

Master's Theses

Using phylogenetic and phylogeographic tools to uncover hidden diversity within the genus Newtonia in Madagascar

Madagascar is known for its rich biodiversity and high level of endemic species that are found nowhere else. Cryptic diversification, defined as genetically and evolutionarily distinct species that are hard to detect because they are morphologically indistinguishable from their closest relatives, has been hypothesized to occur in many groups on Madagascar. Currently it is unclear to what extent this phenomenon occurs in birds because only a few studies have been conducted. My study examined the phylogenetic and phylogeographic patterns within a songbird genus, Newtonia, that …

Analysis Of A Newly Digitized Long-Term Dataset Of Environmental Observations From Long Island Sound, Jacob Snyder

Master's Theses

Project Oceanology, a non-profit oceanographic educational organization has been collecting data including pH, oxygen, and temperature conditions as well as abundances of benthic invertebrates and near-shore fish catches since 1972 from Eastern Long Island Sound. These data had been stored solely on single-copy paper sheets and were therefore inaccessible to analysis. I digitized more than 100,000 abiotic measurements and 50,000 species abundance and size data collected over the past 45 years, and developed a web-based SQL database housed on the Long Island Sound Integrated Coastal Observing System (LISICOS) server. The database will ultimately become a searchable, downloadable, user-friendly web-based tool …

Hmong In America: An Emergence Of The American Identity, Nkauj Hli Melinda Lo

Master's Theses

The historical background of the Hmong ethnic group and immigration in regards to how the emergence of the American identity has impacted their cultural identity is examined in this thesis. A qualitative study was conducted to better understand the impacts of immigration and the reasons that younger generations have pushed to be one with the American identity. Drawing upon 10 in-depth interviews of second-generation children of Hmong immigrants, the findings show that the Hmong identity has lost its preservation through the Hmong ethnic group’s experiences in the United States. The researcher found that the American identity affects the Hmong cultural …

The Sediment Analysis Of A Prehistoric Shell Midden From Nevis, West Indies, Erika Harvey

Master's Theses

Archaeology in the Caribbean is a growing area of research. The last few decades have revealed a series of Ceramic Age sites +600BCE - 1620CE along the Windward coast of Nevis, West Indies. These sites must be excavated and examined soon, due to the effects of erosion and sea level rise. It is pertinent to explore and expand the knowledge of the prehistoric Carib peoples, if we are truly going to understand the history of the Caribbean. By bridging aspects of science and humanities through geoarchaeological methods, this project is aiming for an interdisciplinary approach to better understand the pre-Colonial …

Transfer Student Experiences At Stanford University And The University Of California, Berkeley, Rachael Madison

Master's Theses

Elite institutions have a long history of serving students from high socioeconomic status families. Transfer students who begin their college career at community colleges are typically from low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented minority status families. This population of students has historically been underrepresented at elite colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine the community college transfer student experience at two elite universities, one public and one private, and how institutional programs and structures affect the transfer student experience. The study gathered information from eight community college transfer students, four from each elite university, interviewed in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Four …

Rethinking Civil Wars: An Overview Of Literature And The Syrian Conflict Towards A Structural Definition Of Civil War, Mphatso Kaufulu

Master's Theses

Civil War is a term often used to classify a type of conflict which arises within states. This being so, the exact criteria upon which such a classification of conflict is arrived remains unclear. Additionally, political, dispensational and ideological currents have influenced the classification of conflicts within states by different scholars, so that the determination of conflicts as being civil wars rather than some other kind of intra-state conflict can seem arbitrary. Beyond just the academic implications of this arbitrariness are policy impacts as well. This is because the term civil war carries with it certain implications about the nature …

The Legacy Of British Rule On Lgbt Rights In Jamaica And The Cayman Islands, Zachary Stewart

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between British colonial influence and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights in the Caribbean. Comparing the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and Jamaica, an independent former colony of the United Kingdom, the situation for LGBT people is evaluated. While Jamaica has serious abuses and a concerning situation for the human rights of LGBT people, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT community’s position is far less concerning. Owing to its continued connection to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT rights situation is much less dire. Through British influence via …

The Impact Of Fe-Ti Oxide Concentration On The Structural Ridgity Of The Lower Oceanic Crust, Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge, Daniel Winkler

Master's Theses

Fe-Ti oxides are important components of oceanic core complexes (OCC) formed at slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges since Fe-Ti oxides are more susceptible to crystal-plastic deformation than silicate minerals. This study investigated the predicted relationship between the presence and concentration of Fe-Ti oxides and the presence and intensity of crystal-plastic deformation in gabbroic samples from Atlantis Bank, Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR). Atlantis Bank is an oceanic core complex that formed through the exhumation of lower oceanic crust along a detachment fault. OCCs form along slow-spreading ridges and are characterized by the complex interactions between magmatism and lithospheric extension, thus making these complexes …

Enhancing Phylogenetic Resolution With Taxonomic And Geographic Characterization Of The Chilean Species Of The Cicada Genus Tettigades, Katherine Nazario

Master's Theses

The Patagonian cicada genus Tettigades, although abundant and diverse, was poorly documented until Torres (1958) reviewed the species of the genus, describing 17 new species and redescribing others. His review provided useful insights on variation and distribution of species in the genus. However, despite Torres’ efforts, some species descriptions remained vague and many lacked descriptions of morphological variation within or among populations.

The goal of this thesis is to compile, evaluate, and integrate previous work with new data to serve as a reference for future studies of this genus. Morphological, geographical, and molecular data are combined in order to treat …

Combined Universal Kriging And Kalman Filter Techniques To Improve Wind Speed Prediction For Northeastern U.S., Alexander Samalot

Master's Theses

The scope of this study is to identify and improve wind speed prediction errors for storms that have impacted the Northeastern United States during 2003-2014. Accurate wind speed prediction under storm occurrences is significant to identify and assess impacts to the environment and critical infrastructure. Post-processing of a numerical weather prediction model (Weather Research and Forecasting-WRF) was used in the form of Universal Kriging for spatial interpolation and Kalman Filter for bias reduction. Two strategies for using the Kalman Filter in combination with Universal Kriging are investigated and assessed. Universal Kriging of Kalman Filter corrections reduced all error statistics of …

Environmentally-Driven Variation In The Population Dynamics Of Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia Patronus), Grant D. Adams

Master's Theses

Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) is an abundant forage fish distributed throughout the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). Gulf Menhaden support the second largest fishery, by weight, in the United States and represent a key linkage between upper and lower trophic levels. Variation in the population dynamics can, therefore, pose consequences for the ecology and economy in the NGOM. Here we aim to understand variation in the individual and population dynamics of Gulf Menhaden throughout ontogeny and how such variation relates to environmental processes. We utilized a suite of fishery-dependent and –independent, remote sensing, modeled, and in situ data …

Textural Analysis Of Historical Aerial Photography To Determine Change In Coastal Marsh Extent: Site Of The Present-Day Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Gbnerr), Mississippi, 1955-2014, Heather Michelle Nicholson

Master's Theses

Coastal marshlands are among the world’s most highly productive ecosystems but they have diminished greatly in the past several decades owing to sea-level rise and direct anthropogenic influences. An effective means of quantifying loss or gain in marsh area is through the use of aerial image data, which offers synoptic views of the landscape at decadal-scale sampling frequencies. However, a potential problem with older panchromatic, or black-and-white, imagery is the absence of multispectral information that might be used otherwise in remote identification of vegetation types. Nevertheless, the analysis of horizontal variability in image brightness values, or image texture, can be …

"There Was No Sign Of Man In It": Casting Dracula As Posthuman And Valuing The Progressive Vampire, Mary Elizabeth Wolverton

Master's Theses

Although not an immediate commercial success, Dracula has since become a seminal example of Gothic horror at the fin-de-siècle, leading not only to film, stage, and television adaptations, but also to literary reimaginings and a plethora of scholarship. I argue that the vampires in Dracula do not fit into the traditional critical understandings of the vampire; rather, they belong in two different but related categories recently theorized by science fiction studies and related to human evolution: transhuman and posthuman. I suggest that a reading of the novel that prioritizes the pervasive influence of evolutionary theory on Victorian literature encourages …

Sedimentary Characteristics And Nutrient Sequestration Of Embanked Floodplains Along The Lower Mississippi River, Mississippi And Louisiana, R M Malitha Rathnayake

Master's Theses

The Mississippi River Basin is the largest river basin in North America and the third largest river basin in the world. Most of the corn, soybeans, wheat, cattle, and hogs harvested in the United States come from the Mississippi River Basin and about 58% of the entire drainage basin is croplands. Runoff from these lands carries sediments and nutrients, and the Mississippi River transports these downstream and ultimately deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico. The northern Gulf of Mexico is one of largest human-caused hypoxic zones in the world. Hypoxia is the phenomena where the dissolved oxygen level decreases …

Exploitation Of Land And Labor In Appalachia: The Manipulation Of Men In Ann Pancake's Strange As This Weather Has Been, Britani W. Baker

Master's Theses

Ecofeminism is traditionally interested in the relationship between patriarchal domination of women and nature. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange As this Weather Has Been critiques the way the coal mining industry has affected the Appalachian people and land. The novel reflects natural ecofeminism, which views the connection between women and nature in essentialist terms. This outdated mode of ecofeminism leads to a reinforcement of gender stereotypes and a misrepresentation of the relationship between gender, nature, and culture. This study of Pancake’s novel employs a material ecofeminist approach to both critique and develop the novel’s gender politics. Material ecofeminism, even as it …

Investigating The Potential Of Plant-Derived Antimicrobials And Probiotic Bacteria For Improving The Microbiological Safety Of Dry Pet Food, Chi-Hung Chen

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Quantifying The Impact Of Truck Only Lanes On Vehicular Emissions On A Limited-Access Highway, Edward Chee Tang

Master's Theses

This thesis seeks to estimate CO₂ emissions on a portion of the U.S. 101 highway in San Luis Obispo County before and after construction of a truck only lane on the Cuesta Grade. Towards that aim, the microsimulation software, VISSIM, was used in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions model, MOVES. The microsimulation model was calibrated and validated against historical and present traffic volumes obtained from Caltrans with good results using several validation measures. It was found that CO₂ emissions did decrease between 1998 and 2012 (pre and post lane addition), but this effect was shown to …

A Geospatial Assessment Of Social Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise In Coastal San Luis Obispo, Jesse A. Carpentier

Master's Theses

This project is an assessment of social vulnerability to sea-level rise in the unincorporated coastal area of the County of San Luis Obispo (County) using geospatial and statistical analysis. The intention of this assessment is to inform local climate adaptation efforts now required by state legislation. A social vulnerability index was generated at the Census block group level using 32 variables positively correlated with social vulnerability. The social vulnerability score for each block group is the sum of scores generated for the following principle components: (1) race/ethnicity and disability status, (2) social isolation and age, (3) income, and (4) housing …

Transnational ‘Interruptions’ In Eritrean Refugee Lives In The Bay Area, Meron Y. Semedar Mr

Master's Theses

For many refugees, the day they flee their home country is the start of the interruption of their life. For refugees, such interruption brings the absence of continuity and loss of vision for the future, that they have to be present in the current situation – not knowing their future. This interruption literally 'interrupts' the life plan of refugees. Many Eritrean refugees vocally state that, "Our body might be here, but our soul is all in Eritrea". Eritrean refugees, having fled an oppressive regime, continue to experience nonstop interruption to their lives in their new country. Due to both the …

The Rise Of The Maquiladoras And Crimes In Mexico, Christelle K. Bamona

Master's Theses

While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing …

Income Shocks And The Acceptance Of Intimate Partner Violence In Indonesia, Matthew N. Krupoff

Master's Theses

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive issue affecting 1 in 3 women worldwide. Despite the negative welfare impacts, it is still seen as acceptable in some parts of the world, even amongst women. This paper examines how elastic these accepting attitudes towards IPV are to changing economic conditions. Specifically, this paper focuses on changes in intra-household resources from negative shocks to male-sourced income. The setting and context takes place in coastal communities in Indonesia, where fishing is a main source ofincome generated primarily by men. This paper uses satellite-derived fishing conditions to measure how women's attitudes towards IPV change …

Invoquer La Mer : Vers Une Écopoétique Du Poème Chez Saint-John Perse, Victoria Farrell

Master's Theses

Saint-John Perse's poetry is known for featuring elments of nature. This study of his body of poetry, which includes an in-depth ecocritical reading of the poem Amers, considers his work from an ecocritical viewpoint.

Rapping Back: Counter-Narratives From Auckland, New Zealand, Mariel Lopez Rogers

Master's Theses

Across the Pacific in Auckland, New Zealand two rap groups, Homebrew and @Peace, are contributing to a theoretically rich and socially conscious Hip Hop scene. Their music critically questions commercialism and conformity in a culture shaped by a history of colonialism. This makes their message starkly opposed to the normative values of New Zealand. The musicians of Homebrew and @Peace, a mix of Polynesian and Pakeha (people of European descent), employ methods of decolonization theory through the use of storytelling and focus on indigenous values. In a country that has adopted the neoliberal beliefs that competition drives human relations, and …

Coastal Protection, Environmental Change, And The Heterogeneity Of Preferences: A Case Study Of The Eastern Shore Of Virginia, Ian T. Yue

Master's Theses

There is growing interest amongst the environmental management community to understand the feedback links between human and environmental systems, particularly the way humans value the natural environment and how such valuation affects behavior, choice, and actions. One prominent method for examining these linkages has been to consider the framework of ecosystem services: the naturally-occurring processes, functions, or outputs that are utilized (actively or passively) to produce human well-being. Especially in the context of climate change, ecosystem services can be used to gauge the value humans place on their surrounding environment, given that the supply of ecosystem services is expected to …

A Multi-Millennial Drought Reconstruction For West-Central New Mexico Using Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus Scopulorum, Sarg.), Joshua S. Oliver

Master's Theses

A new multi-millennial tree-ring record from living and remnant Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum, Sarg.) wood from Candelaria in west-central New Mexico is used to determine the temporal and spatial variability of scPDSI over the past two millennia (B.C. 492 to A.D. 2014). Our record indicates extreme drought events found within other hydroclimatic proxy records in the Colorado Plateau region spanning the time period (16^th century and 2^nd century megadroughts). By ranking the extreme drought events by magnitude, duration, intensity, and overall score, the most extreme drought events of this record are compared to drought events …

Does Personality Similarity In Bottlenose Dolphin Pairs Influence Dyadic Bond Characteristics?, Kelsey R. Moreno

Master's Theses

Social structures are critical to the success of many species and have repercussions on health, well-being, and adaptation, yet little is known about the factors which shape these structures aside from ecology and life history strategies. Dyadic bonds are the basis of all social structures; however, mechanisms for formations of specific bonds or patterns in which individuals form which types of bonds have yet to be demonstrated. There is a variety of evidence indicating personality may be a factor in shaping bonds, but this relationship has not been explored with respect to bond components and is yet to be demonstrated …