Digital Commons Network^™

The Differential Expression Of Gene Cohorts Over The Course Of Development In Type I And Type Ii Layer V Pyramidal Neurons Of The Mouse Medial Prefrontal And Primary Somatosensory Cortex, Ryan Shaun Pevey

Master's Theses

Two of the most challenging problems in neuroscience may be the characterization of different neuron types and determining the various decision points over the course of development that defines those different cell types. Part of the problem is that for the clear majority of neuron types, no single gene so far has been shown to act as a type marker. Instead it seems that signatures involving multiple genes are necessary to define each type. The identity of the genes in these signatures remains an important gap in our knowledge. However, recent developments in bioinformatics have produced population level transcript sequencing …

The Influence Of Perceived Job Flexibility And Spousal Support On The Marital Satisfaction Of Parents Of Children With Special Needs, Katie M. Perlowski

Master's Theses

Parents of children with special needs can experience more stress in their marriage than parents of children without special needs. Previous work has focused on the child as a major influence for the marital relationship, however this research sought to examine less commonly discussed factors that influence marital satisfaction for these parents. Perceived job flexibility and perceived spousal support in parenting were targeted as potential influencers. A mediation model was attempted to explain the mediating role of perceived spousal support in parenting in the relationship between perceived job flexibility and marital satisfaction. Results showed no correlation between perceived job flexibility …

For King And Country: Reconsidering The Great War Soldier In Britain, 1914-1945, Nicholas John Schaefer

Master's Theses

In the postwar period historians argued that the horrors of the First World War created an irreparable disconnect between soldiers’ pre and postwar lives. Scholars led by Paul Fussell and Eric Leed presented the Great War as a futile waste of life for a meaningless cause. This historiography argues that the generation which survived the Western Front returned to Britain as jaded shells of their former selves unable to relate to their old lives and families. Bitterness and apathy replaced belief in cause and country. In contrast, recent historiography asserts that British soldiers maintained belief in their country’s cause and …

Biodiversity And Phenology Of The Epibenthic Macroinvertebrate Fauna In A First Order Mississippi Stream, Jamaal Bankhead

Master's Theses

I used Hester-Dendy multiplate samplers and stick and leaf samples to collect the aquatic insects of Granny Creek, a first-order perennial stream in southern Mississippi, on twelve sampling dates from March 2014 to June 2015. The dominant insect/invertebrate group in Granny Creek was the dipteran family Chironomidae. Forty-two distinct taxa of chironomid larvae were collected over the duration of my study. Two of the dominant chironomid subfamilies in my samples, the Orthocladiinae and the Chironominae, displayed a phenological pattern in which the Orthocladiinae were more prevalent, both in terms of number of species and in abundance of individuals, in the …

The Effects Of Plickers As Response Cards On Academic Engagement Behavior In High School Students, Morgan G. Mccargo

Master's Theses

Multiple studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of increasing student opportunities to respond for increasing academically engaged behavior. The use of response cards has held the most efficacy in terms of increasing opportunities to respond, yet no research has been done with the addition of a technology component. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the utility of technology-based response cards on increasing academically engaged behavior of students in three high school general education classrooms. It is hypothesized that the use of Plickers® will increase academically engaged behavior classwide and decrease disruptive behavior across students in all three classrooms.

The Classroom Password: An Independent Group Contingency Targeting Academic Engagement And Disruptive Behaviors In High School Classrooms, Kayla E. Bates-Brantley

Master's Theses

The classroom password, an independent class-wide group contingency, was implemented in a high school setting in effort to determine its effects on academically engaged behaviors, disruptive behaviors and passively off-task behaviors. This was done using a reversal design across three classes. The focal point of this study was to determine if the classroom password would increase academic engagement. The classroom password was implemented by having the teacher select a word of the day that was then incorporated into the classes lecture. The students were given the word for the day before the lectures began and were required to code each …

Evidence Of Multidecadal Recruitment In The Ocean Quahog, Arctica Islandica In The Western Atlantic Ocean, Sara M. Pace

Master's Theses

Ocean quahogs (Arctica islandica) are the longest-lived, non-colonial animals known today, with a maximum life span exceeding 500 years. Limited information is available regarding recruitment, making the sustainable management of this valuable fishery a challenge. The objective of this research was to describe the age structure and growth rates for four populations of ocean quahogs from the mid-Atlantic stock to evaluate long-term recruitment trends. Clams were sectioned for age estimation to develop population age frequencies. Initial colonization began approximately 175-250 years ago depending upon site. All sites experienced an increase in recruitment beginning in the late 1800’s to …

Austin (22tu549): Mississippian Emergence In The Northern Yazoo Basin, Elizabeth Kay Hunt

Master's Theses

The Austin Site (22TU549) is a known transitional Late Woodland to early Mississippian village located in Tunica County, Mississippi. Compared with the cultural phases that have been developed in other regions the northern Yazoo Basin lacks a clearly defined “Emergent Mississippian” phase. This study examined the ceramic assemblage (n=30,567) from a 25% random sample of pit features to measure transitional change as a way to define an early Mississippian phase. It also explored the ways in which this site experiences the Mississippian transition and how it fits into the larger trajectory of the Mississippian phenomenon in the Southeastern United States …

Black And Blue: Competing Social Constructions Of Police On Instagram And Twitter, Mary Frances Thornhill

Master's Theses

Mass media outlets newspapers and television were traditionally where individuals gathered their news information; however, with the growth of new media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, individuals are now co-producers of the content that is seen by the public. Previous research indicated that media-generated images of the police influence public perception and that new media outlets are becoming increasingly influential, particularly in regards to social and political conflicts. This means that research on the role of new media outlets in socially constructing reality is essential, though not much of this research has yet been completed. This current analysis fills …

"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 …

A Close Encounter With Death: Narration In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Erin M. Gipson

Master's Theses

While critics have discussed Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief (2005) in terms of the Holocaust, its generic hybridity, and its crossover readership for child and adult audiences, I offer the first narratological reading of its unusual narrator: Death. This reading focuses on the rhetorical strategies underlying Death’s contradictory narration, which is at once anthropomorphized and constitutively nonhuman. Scholars of The Book Thief often assume the narrator’s omniscience, but I find that Death is crucially not omniscient; rather, he merely performs omniscience to mask his humanlike limitations. Since current terminology falls short of describing Zusak’s narration, I propose the new classification …

Born To Run: A Grounded Theory Study Of Cheating In The Online Speedrunning Community, Christopher G. Brewer

Master's Theses

Video games represent a growing genre of media quickly becoming one of the leading forms of entertainment (Jordan, 2014). This popularity has allowed new playstyles to emerge across the video game genre, such as e-Sports and speedrunning. In particular, the speedrunning community has somewhat redefined what it means to “cheat” in a video game by accepting the use certain software and hardware violations that could be seen as “cheating” to the general gaming community. This paper examined the social construction of cheating in this digital community through the use of grounded theory methods.

Multi-Scale Assembly Methodologies Of Poly(3-Hexylthiophene) Derivative Systems For Enhanced Optoelectronic Anisotropy, David William Bilger

Master's Theses

Conjugated polymers represent a class of semi-conducting materials with numerous applications in optoelectronic devices, including organic light-emitting diodes, field-effect transistors, and photovoltaics. Because of the numerous advantages of macromolecular systems, including solution processing and mechanical flexibility, conjugated polymers have become a burgeoning field of research with the hopes of producing cost-effective solution-based electronics. Importantly, optoelectronic device performance is heavily influenced by conjugated polymer backbone orientation and overall thin film morphology. As such, the processing conditions of these systems are important to the construction of high- performance optoelectronics. Polythiophenes are model conjugated polymers that have been studied extensively in halogenated organic …

Potential Of Ozone And Hydroxyl Radicals To Degrade Emerging Organic Contaminants, Lisa Elaine Vance

Master's Theses

Advanced water treatment processes are necessary for the treatment of emerging organic contaminants. Traditional treatment processes do not filter or treat these contaminants causing humans and animals to come into contact and ingest them, both causing illness. Advanced oxidation processes are a good alternative method, but are cost and time intensive.

Previous research on ozone and hydroxyl radicals leads to the conclusion that they might be a vial option for advanced water treatment processes. To test the effects of ozone and hydroxyl radicals on the destruction of algae, ozonated phosphate buffer was mixed with Anabaena and modified BG11 culture media …

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 …

When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis In Medieval Ireland 800-1366, Dawn Adelaide Seymour Klos

Master's Theses

Ethnogenesis, or the process of identity construction occurred in medieval Ireland as a reaction to laws passed by the first centralized government on the island. This thesis tracks ethnogenesis through documents relating to change in language, custom, and law. This argument provides insight into how a new political identity was rendered necessary by the Anglo-Irish. Victor Turner’s model of Communitas structures the argument as each stage of liminality represents a turning point in the process of ethnogenesis.

1169 marked a watershed moment as it began the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. English nobles brought with them ideas of centralized power. In …

How Did We Get Here? An Inquiry Into Pop Culture, Pop Culture Icons, And America's Support Of The Degradation Of Humanity Through Mass Media Consumption, Thomas Steele

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the contemporary human condition associated with the consumption of current entertainment media. Sampling on modes of thought from anthropological, biological, psychological, sociological, and biographical points of view I sought to define what it means to be uniquely human. Furthermore, I sought to compare and contrast contemporary human interactions as described through research studies associated with tabloid news sources, and the entertainment industry. The results of this study were then articulated through four works of art that visually describe that which was found amongst a variety of resources. They describe the rise and fall of the careers …

"To Mississippi, Alone, Can They Look For Assistance:” Confederate Welfare In Mississippi, Lisa Carol Foster

Master's Theses

In 1860, few destitute white citizens lived in Mississippi, and they were supported by their home counties. The Civil War drastically increased county indigent levels due to the high service and casualty rates of Mississippi soldiers. This thesis explores how Mississippi provided for its soldiers and their families during and immediately after the war (1861-1868), through post-war pensions (1888-1992), and through the Beauvoir Jefferson Davis Memorial Soldiers’ Home (1903-1957). This thesis challenges the existing historiography, showing that Mississippi began aiding indigent soldiers and families as early as 1861, and the 1888 pension law operated outside the Lost Cause movement, providing …

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.

Neurophysiological Characteristics Of Magnetic Seizure Therapy Vs. Electroconvulsive Therapy In Geriatric Patients With Severe Depression, Monica T. Ly

Master's Theses

Objective: Magnetic seizure therapy (MST) is under development as an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), as it offers reduction in depression symptoms with fewer adverse cognitive effects. This study examined the feasibility and efficacy of MST versus ECT in a randomized trial of geriatric patients with severe depression, then compared the neurophysiological characteristics of seizures induced by MST or ECT and investigated potential links between seizure expression and therapeutic response.

Method: Six patients (mean age: 64.8) with severe depression were randomized to receive MST (n=3) or ECT (n=3) until maximal antidepressant effect (mean number of sessions: 14.67). Depression symptoms were …

Two-Implant Supported Maxillary Overdentures: One-Year Assessment Of Patient-Centered Outcomes., Florian R. Kernen

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Iota: Internet Of Things Assistant, Brandon M. Okumura

Master's Theses

The Internet of Things is the networking of electronic devices, or “Things”, that enables them to collect and share data, as well as interact with their physical surround- ings. Analyzing this collected data allows us to make smarter economic decisions. These interconnected networks are usually driven by low-powered micro-controllers or cheap CPUs that are designed to function optimally with very little hardware. As scale and computational requirements increase, these micro-controllers are unable to grow without being physically replaced.

This thesis proposes a system, IoTA, that assists the Internet of Things by pro- viding a shared computational resource for endpoint devices. …

Network Traffic Anomaly-Detection Framework Using Gpus, Meera Ramesh

Master's Theses

Network security has been very crucial for the software industry. Deep packet inspection (DPI) is one of the widely used approaches in enforcing network security. Due to the high volume of network traffic, it is challenging to achieve high performance for DPI in real time. In this thesis, a new DPI framework is presented that accelerates packet header checking and payload inspection on graphics processing units (GPUs). Various optimizations were applied to GPU-version packet inspection, such as thread-level and block-level packet assignment, warp divergence elimination, and memory transfer optimization using pinned memory and shared memory. The performance of the pattern-matching …

In Colbert We Trust: Teenagers And Comedic Persuasion, Peter G. Kistler

Master's Theses

In this study, high school students were exposed to either a comedy or conventional television news editorial segment, and each video’s persuasive effect was compared with the other. The sample consisted of 271 high school students from Valley Christian High School in San Jose, CA, a majority of whom were juniors and seniors. Students were separated into sample groups; one group viewed a Colbert Report editorial and guest interview focused on the concept of net neutrality, while the other group viewed an All In with Chris Hayes editorial and guest interview focused on the same subject. Both sample groups were …

Devil In A White Dress: Marie-Antoinette And The Fashioning Of A Scandal, Sarah Lorraine Goodman

Master's Theses

The portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, known as La Reine en gaulle, has been discussed widely in art history owing to the scandal it provoked when it was exhibited in the Paris Salon in August 1783. Analysis has focused primarily on socio-economic issues of late-ancien regime France as a means of understanding how a relatively benign portrait of the Queen of France could engender so much anger when displayed for public consumption, centering around the queen’s identity as a public figure in contrast to the private individual painted by Vigée-Lebrun. However, very little has been discussed about the clothing …

The Moderating Effect Of Gender And Tenure On The Relationship Between Perceived Supervisor Support And Organizational Commitment, Megan Evelyn Little

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which the demographic variables of gender and tenure influence the strength and direction of the relationship between perceived supervisor support and organizational commitment. Responses to a 2014 organization-wide employee opinion survey from 383 employees within a computer software company were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. In support of previous research, results from this study lay credence to the finding that perceived supervisor support has a positive, significant relationship with organizational commitment such that individuals who felt supported by their supervisors were more likely to report higher levels of organizational …

Recombinant Expression And Potential Autocatalysis Of Aedes Aegypti Trypsin-Like Serine Proteases (Aaspii And Aaspiv), Diane Francine Eilerts

Master's Theses

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes can be found globally in tropical and subtropical urban areas and spread Zika, Dengue fever, yellow fever, and Chikungunya viruses. Current vector control methods are limited and nonspecific. The female Ae. aegypti mosquito uses blood meal proteins to obtain nutrients required for oogenesis; inhibition of the midgut trypsin-like serine proteases responsible for blood meal digestion may provide a novel method of vector control. Ae. aegypti blood meal digestion is complex and the role of uncharacterized serine proteases in blood digestion is unclear; specifically, a group of trypsin-like serine proteases (AaSPII–V) is expressed at constant levels before and …

Using Stable Isotope Analysis To Infer Breeding Latitude And Migratory Timing Of Juvenile Pacific-Slope Flycatchers (Empidonax Difficilis), Emily Bailey Moffitt

Master's Theses

Effective conservation of migratory species is hindered by a lack of knowledge of population links between breeding, wintering and stopover habitats. The Pacific-slope flycatcher (Empidonax difficilis) is one of the many Neotropical migratory songbirds whose populations are steadily declining throughout western North America. This research contributed to the assessment of connectivity in this species by inferring relative breeding origins and habitat selection of juvenile birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway to the South San Francisco Bay Area in the fall. Feather data collected from July 20 to October 12, 2014 were analyzed for three stable isotopes (δ2H, δ13C, δ15N). …

Biochemical And Enzymatic Studies Of The Midgut Serine Protease Aaspvii From The Aedes Aegypti Mosquito, James Thientoan Nguyen

Master's Theses

The Aedes aegpyti mosquito is an efficient biological vector of four known neglected tropical arboviruses: the yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. Since the female mosquito can acquire multiple blood meals to complete the gonotrophic cycle, she can potentially infect multiple hosts. With the reemergence of these viruses, especially due to global warming, it is crucial to slow the spread of the mosquito and the blood-borne diseases she transmits. The Ae. aegypti mosquito relies heavily on midgut serine proteases that digest blood meal proteins to provide nutrients required for the egg laying process. The focus of this work is …

Affective And Cognitive Effects Of Awe In Predicting Hopelessness And Brooding Rumination, Eldita Tarani

Master's Theses

This study investigated the effects of awe, as a positive emotion, in ameliorating

depressive symptoms such as hopelessness and rumination. Previous research indicates that awe is unique compared to other positive emotions in that is elicited by information rich-stimuli that facilitate shifts in cognition as one attempts to accommodate this new information to their current frame of reference. In addition, awe was found incite a self- diminishing effect that contrast the inflated significance one places on the self, during negative self-referential thinking (e.g. hopelessness). We hypothesized that exposure to an awe stimuli (video) would prompt subjects to feel less hopeless …