Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing High School Science Students’ Abilities To Use Cross Cutting Literacy Skills And Scientific Argumentative Writing Skills In A Mid-Western School District, Ellen M. Karel

Masters Theses

This study sought to determine to what extent a centrally focused initiative concentrated on how to teach students to not just write, but how to think, read, and speak about real world problems in a persuasive manner based on multiple sets of data related to science concepts, increased scientific argumentative writing proficiencies among high school students. A secondary area this study attempted to explore was the correlation between the implemented processes in the initiative and high school students’ scientific argumentative writing proficiencies. The study was conducted in a mid-western high school, population 1,088, with a select group of students in …

Microcystin Accumulation In Fish Muscle Tissue: Exploring The Safety Of Fish Consumption In Several Michigan Water Bodies, Heather Snyder

Masters Theses

A variety of anthropogenic factors, including global climate change and eutrophication, are causing increases in cyanobacterial abundance. Increased prevalence of cyanobacteria can be detrimental, as some genera of cyanobacteria have the ability to produce toxic secondary metabolites known as cyanotoxins. The cyanotoxin microcystin- a hepatotoxin, is the most ubiquitous and toxic cyanotoxin in freshwater ecosystems, and has been quantified in a number of aquatic organisms. Microcystin was quantified in 8 fish species from St. Mary’s River in June, Saginaw Bay in September, and from Stony Creek Lake in October in 2014 by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the …

Toxin Production And Population Dynamics Of Gloeotrichia Echinulata With Considerations Of Global Climate Change, Sarah Stamann

Masters Theses

Global climate change has been identified as a driver for increasing cyanobacteria blooms world-wide. Blooms of the cyanobacterium, Gloeotrichia echinulata, (hereafter, G. echinulata) have been observed in Silver Lake (Oceana County, MI), often forming dense surface scums. This organism is known to produce the hepatotoxin, microcystin- LR, and its growth is linked to phosphorus accumulation from sediment and temperature.

A series of experiments at ambient and elevated temperatures (+2° and +6°above ambient) with sediment from four locations in Silver Lake with varying phosphorus concentrations were conducted to examine the effect of these variables on G. echinulata growth. These …

Great Lake Island Biogeography Of Plethodon Cinereus: Effect Of Island Elevation On Color Polymorphism, Cameron N. Eddy

Masters Theses

Islands have long fascinated ecologists and evolutionary biologists because they provide replicated systems with which to test hypotheses regarding evolutionary and ecological theory. Because islands are relatively simple systems, they enable researchers to isolate specific factors responsible for observed phenomena. Many current questions in ecology and evolutionary biology have been addressed in island systems. For example, factors involved in the genetic divergence of populations are easier to discern in island populations because confounding effects of gene flow from adjacent populations are limited. This study focuses on isolated island populations of the color polymorphic Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) …

Invasive Asian Earthworms Negatively Impact Woodland Salamanders: Competitive Exclusion, Foraging Interference, And Habitat Degradation Reduce Salamander Density, Julie L. Ziemba

Masters Theses

Asian earthworms (Amynthas spp.) are invading North American forests and consuming the vital detrital layer that forest floor biota (including the Eastern Red-backed Salamander, Plethodon cinereus) rely on for protection, food, and habitat. Salamander population decline has been associated with European earthworm-mediated leaf litter loss, but there have been few studies on the interactions between Amynthas spp. and P. cinereus. Since the large, active Amynthas spp. earthworms spatially overlap with salamanders beneath natural cover objects and in detritus, they may compound the negative consequences of resource degradation by physically disturbing important salamander activities (foraging, mating, and egg brooding). I predicted …

Computer Simulations Of Propulsion Of Self-Propelled Flexible Nanobody, Ye Luo

Masters Theses

Swimming bodies such as flagellum and fishes are found everywhere in liquid environment. The research of simulation of swimmers is one of the most important branches among the field of biophysics. This study focus on the direct computer simulation of self-propelled flexible nanobody in fluid field. Two new objectives is studied based on the previous research of Tai-hsien Wu and Dewei ai (2014)[1]. ln Wu's article, the front end of micro swimming body is fixed and the migration of swimmers is neglected. For a further study, one of new targets is to release the head in 3-D simulation fluid area. …

Estimating Sediment And Nutrient Loading In The Davis Creek Watershed Using Soil And Water Assessment Tool (Swat), Fatma Ulku Karatas

Masters Theses

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a physically model to estimate impact of land cover on water, sediment, and agricultural chemical yields in large, complex yields in large, complex watersheds with fluctuating soils, land use, and management conditions for long periods of time. ln order to simulate the movement of sediment and nutrients, the Davis Creek Watershed is subdivided into 31 homogeneous sub basins, having unique soil and land use properties. The data for each subbasin is grouped into categories of land cover, soil, management within sub basin, draining the sub basin.

The objectives of this study are …

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish: The Analysis Of The Specter Cell Cycle Mutant In Zebrafish, Tetiana Petrachkova

Masters Theses

Cell division is controlled by genes that regulate the cell cycle. Here we show that the zebrafish specter (spr) mutant is mutation in the cyclin B1 gene, a gene necessary for the G2 to M transition of the cell cycle.

The spr mutation mapped to the cyclin B1 gene. Sequencing showed a transition (C139→T) that caused a nonsense mutation in exon 2 of the cyclin B1 gene. In situ hybridization of cyclin B1 revealed that the mRNA is absent in the mutant embryo by gastrulation. We found that the earliest visible mutant phenotype was a darkening of the head caused …

Sleep Hygiene Practices: A Cross Cultural Survey Of Sleeping And Dreaming In College Students, Ivan Noe Martinez Salazar

Masters Theses

There is consensus that a sizeable percentage of people in most developed countries do not obtain adequate amounts or quality of sleep. These disruptions in sleep, when chronic and severe, can lead to psychological, behavioral and health consequences. The focus on behavioral and contextual factors that impact sleep has been termed “sleep hygiene”. An on-line anonymous survey collected sociodemographic information, as well as self-reports on sleep, sleep hygiene practices and dreaming across two cultural groups (English & Spanish speaking responders). A total of 204 participants (majority of them college and graduate students) answered the survey. Both cultural groups, English and …

Differential Effects Of Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (Mdpv) And Mephedrone In Rats Trained To Discriminate Mdma Or A D-Amphetamine+Mdma Mixture, Eric Louis Harvey

Masters Theses

Recent reports on the abuse of novel synthetic cathinone derivatives call attention to serious public health risks of these substances. In response to this concern, a growing body of preclinical research has characterized the psychopharmacology of these substances, particularly mephedrone (MEPH) or methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), noting their similarities to MDMA and cocaine. The present study employed drug discrimination methodology to assess the discriminative stimulus effects of MEPH and MDPV in male Sprague-Dawley rats trained to discriminate 1.5 mg/kg 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or a mixture of 1.5 mg/kg MDMA and 0.5 mg/kg d-amphetamine (MDMA+AMPH). After establishing dose response functions with each training …

Evolutionary Convergence Of The Caffeine Biosynthetic Pathway In Chocolate Followed Duplication Of A Constrained Ancestral Enzyme, Andrew J. O'Donnell

Masters Theses

Caffeine biosynthesis is widely distributed in flowering plants and requires three consecutive methylation steps of xanthine alkaloids. Genes that have previously been reported to participate in the multi-step pathway in Coffea sp. (coffee) and Camellia sinensis (tea) encode members of the SABATH family of methyltransferases. Two genes highly expressed in fruits of Theobroma cacao (cacao) are orthologous to the caffeine genes in tea and appear to have diversified following gene duplication. Biochemical characterization of the enzymes (XMTs) encoded by these genes strongly suggest an unprecedented major pathway to theobromine, a precursor to caffeine. These findings imply that caffeine biosynthesis evolved …

Effects Of Altering Motivation In Pigeons Performing A Titrating-Delayed-Matching-To-Sample Task, Zachary J. Zimmermann

Masters Theses

In order to better understand the role motivating operations (MOs) serve in preceding and evoking behavior, it is useful to examine the effects of whether manipulating motivation can influence performance on tasks with known behavioral outcomes. It is well established that altered stimulus control is responsible for changes in responding on tasks of generalization and discrimination. Therefore, if stimulus control could be influenced by MOs, then perhaps stimulus discriminations could be improved by manipulating the relevant MO. To this end, the effects of altering motivation via food deprivation were examined in pigeons using a titrating-delayed-matching-to-sample task. Additional pharmacological variables (i.e., …

Microbial Community Analysis From Petroleum-Contaminated Sediments With High Magnetic Susceptibility, Anja E. Williams

Masters Theses

Microbial biodegradation is an increasingly incorporated method of hydrocarbon mineralization during oil spill cleanup. To monitor biodegradation, magnetic susceptibility (MS) is a geophysical tool that detects changes in sediments’ magnetism, possibly caused by microbial activity, for example by anaerobic iron reduction that can induce magnetite formation. Furthermore, the high input of carbon from an oil spill makes other required nutrients, like nitrogen, limiting. The first study goal was to characterize the microbial communities present at high levels of MS with 16S rRNA gene clone libraries at the petroleum-contaminated site in Bemidji, Minnesota. Sequences with high similarity to known iron-reducers were …

Simulation Of Drainage Rates Of A Flexible Fiber Network On Wire Screen, Yihsin Tang

Masters Theses

A forming process of a fiber mat over a filter or wire net/screen, which can move horizontally, is numerically simulated. A lattice Boltzmann equation is used to simulate fluid velocity, vorticity and structures and a lattice spring model is employed to mimic the collective motion of up to 750 flexible fibers, with aspect ratio of 20.

The interaction between the fluid and fibers is handled by an immersed boundary method. The fiber motion is driven by the hydrodynamic forces and the gravity of both fluid and solid fibers and disturbed by the horizontal shear force between the fluid and the …

'Sing Unto The Lord A New Song--Just Not That One!' A Case Study Of Music Censorship In Free Will Baptist Colleges, Jon Edward Bullock

Masters Theses

Like so many of the world’s other religious institutions, the Christian church has a long and well-documented history of using music to enhance and enliven the spiritual experiences of believers. Many of the church’s greatest champions throughout history have spoken about the inherent power of music, but as history always seems to demonstrate, along with power comes the need for control. As long as church leaders have used music to attain spiritual progress, they have also censored music that threatens to impede that progress. Even today, many church leaders still rely on music censorship to protect the future and identity …

A Teleological Exploration Of The Plausibility Of Moral Knowledge, Kevin Lebel King Jr.

Masters Theses

Natural selection seems to offer a compelling case for the development of evaluative judgments independent of evaluative facts. If such a case can be made, then how do moral judgments correlate to moral facts? It seems that there would be no tight connection from judgments to truth and moral judgments would be unwarranted. Gilbert Harman realized the implications of a probable non-moral genealogy. Richard Joyce goes on to provide a probable non-moral genealogy that would epistemically undermine moral judgments as Harman thought. Joyce argues that in a naturalistic world natural selection can account for moral judgments, but that the truth …

The Romantic Egoist: Fitzgerald's View On Identity And Culture, Tara Bender

Masters Theses

"Who am I?” is a question that not only each individual asks himself or herself at various points in the process of maturation from childhood to adulthood, but also society itself as it changes and grows. During the 1920s, Americans were asking themselves these defining questions. F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the pre-eminent writers of that time period provides examples in his novels This Side of Paradise, Beautiful and The Damned, and The Great Gatsby of the immaturity of masculine figures. Amory Blaine, Anthony Patch, and Jay Gatsby exemplify the struggle of men in the 1920s to develop their …

Aquinas The Pacifist? A Comparative Study, Lloyd George Pemberton

Masters Theses

It is claimed by some scholars that when recent analytical tools of interpretation are placed upon the Summa Theologica, a presumption against harm emerges from the mind of Thomas Aquinas as he formulated his just war theory. This presumption against harm is thereby construed as Aquinas having an affinity toward pacifism. The present thesis offers a comparative study between two scholars, Richard Miller and Gregory Reichberg. Miller supports this claim while Reichberg finds it unjustifiable. The thesis lays out the arguments put forth by both, ultimately siding with Reichberg as making the better case. In addition, I offer my own …

Thermal History Of The Michigan Basin: Results From Thermal Maturation Data And Geodynamic Modelling, Kirk A. Wagenvelt

Masters Theses

Thermal cooling, crustal convection, high temperature fluid advection, and 1.0 Km of eroded overburden are required to explain thermal maturation observations in the Michigan Basin. Observed tectonic subsidence in central Michigan follows an exponential decay indicative of thermal cooling following an anomalous heating event. Crustal convection is responsible for episodes of rapid subsidence coincident with the late Paleozoic Appalachian orogeny. Fluid advection through dilated faults reactivated by the Alleghanian orogeny brought hot fluids (as much as 255⁰ C) to the surface and impacted thermal maturation of organic matter in sediments. Models require 1.0 Km of eroded overburden to model thermal …

Neoplastic Therapy : On Violence And Aesthetics, Mengyu Chen

Masters Theses

The goal of this thesis is to create a new theoretical framework to examine and understand the meaning of an art object and its relational social existence. This thesis serves as a critique on contemporary media culture and hierarchical social oppression. At the same time, it adopts a pseudoscientific way to introduce notions of art’s autonomy and its opposition to social functionality. By merging political theories on individualism, capitalism, and metaphysics with foundational structures of art creation, I am attempting to construct a new system of thinking that challenges traditional ways of understanding mediums, functions and the viewer’s relationship with …

The Void, The Mystery, The Vast Array, The Infinity Of Unities, The Otherworld, The Absolute, The Hidden Order, The Randomness, The Infraworld, The Nothing, The Zone Of Immaterial Sensibility, The Silence, The Hollow Of Space, The Ineffable, The Emptiness, The Wild, Drew Ludwig

Masters Theses

This thesis presents the culmination of two years of excursions into and longing for the void: the sense of absolute presence and connectivity that I have always found in the desert of the Colorado Plateau. Away from the desert, I use my artistic practice as a means of approaching this kinship with the wild, the void.

My work may be understood as a series of experiments, striving to locate and access the void through different language, logic and media. My process speaks to a deep respect for the external wild of landscape (the desert), and a growing recognition of the …

Make Every Day Count: Longing, Vision, & Painting, Sarah R. Pater

Masters Theses

Images are non-verbal holders of narrative and meaning in Western culture. Historically, painting served this function—a job that we now generally give to digital photography and cinema. One task for contemporary painting, then, might simply be as a self-reflective metaphor for the experience of vision that is mostly lost in photographic technologies: seeing as looking plus touching. Paintings are simultaneously objects and images—corporeal material constructions and visceral illusionary fields. Given the current state of rapid image production, consumption, and instrumentalization, painting’s insistence on singularity and a more ‘composed gaze’—one that asks the viewer to re-read—stands out as significant and potentially …

Think Again: The Decision Making Process In King Lear And Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres, Elizabeth Burgess

Masters Theses

This thesis is a feminist reading of Shakespeare‟s King Lear and Jane Smiley‟s Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres that applies psychological insights into human behavior to explain economic decision-making. Many of the traditional readings of King Lear, including the works of critics A. C. Bradley, Maynard Mack and Stephen Greenblatt, approach the play by accepting the patriarchal view of Lear as the rightful ruler, while Goneril and Regan are wicked for taking the kingdom from their father. Smiley‟s A Thousand Acres, however, approaches the text from what she imagines Goneril‟s perspective to be and includes the …

Careers In Aging: Increasing Interest And Investigating Career Paths, Paul Cunnington

Masters Theses

This qualitative study explored the perspective of young professionals on how to increase interest in choosing a career in the field of aging and how their own career path led to their current employment in the field of aging. Fifteen professionals in the field of aging, ranging in age from 23 to 34, participated in semi-­‐structured interviews. Data were analyzed using a thematic analysis. Results confirmed prior research that professionals working in the field of aging come from a variety of disciplines. Participants noted attractive aspects of a career in the field of aging, including flexibility and mobility. To increase …

Emotional Responses To Musical Dissonance In Musicians And Nonmusicians, Rebecca Joan Bumgarner

Masters Theses

The purpose of this project was to investigate the influence of music education on individuals’ subjective and physiological responses to consonant and dissonant excerpts. Participants were categorized as having high experience (HE) or low experience (LE) in music education. Participants listened to 40 randomized excerpts of music, half of which were consonant, the other half dissonant. Electrodermal Activity (EDA) and Facial Electromyography (EMG) data were collected for each participant, as well as self-reports of perceived pleasantness for each excerpt. It was expected that HE participants “learned” dissonance through music education, and therefore would respond more strongly to dissonant excerpts. As …

Environmental Impact Of Conference Realignment, Bradley Farley

Masters Theses

Sports have a large impact on the environment. While leagues and teams are looking at improving their sustainability at stadiums, they also have increased their travel distances. NCAA Division I athletic conferences have recently endured conference realignments. This expanding geographic footprint of these conferences has led to teams having an increased travel distances for all sports. This research investigates the environmental impact of travel distances that conference realignment has had in NCAA Division I athletics, particularly regarding the Power 5 conferences carbon footprint. The research question examined is, based on travel distances, has the carbon footprint of the conferences changed …

Progressive Decline Of Testicular Function In Leptinreceptor Deficient Obese Mice, Jennifer Long

Masters Theses

The incidence of obesity and metabolic syndrome among the human population is increasing, but the effects on male fertility are unresolved. Leptin insensitivity appears to show a consistent relationship between obesity and fertility problems in men. Genetically modified mice lacking the leptin hormone (ob/ob) or leptin receptor (db/db) are reported to be subfertile and/or infertile but there is only minimal information about testicular function (sperm and hormone production) and the progression of infertility. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate testicular function using a leptin-receptor-deficient obese mouse model (the POUND mouse; Charles River). Testicular sperm production is reduced in POUND …

Exploring The Oncolytic Potentail Of A Double Knock-Out Tanapoxvirus Containing Flic Transgene, Esaw W. Kurban

Masters Theses

Since the emergence of oncolytic viruses (OVs), OVs have seen success in clinical trials and are a vital alternative treatment for cancer. Colorectal cancers are diseases which cause substantial health issues in the developed world, but current invasive treatment methods do not perform well in patients with advanced disease. We have explored the potential of tanapoxvirus (TPV) for its oncolytic virothrapy in two manners; specific gene deletion and non-targeted gene deletion. The non-targeted mutation of TPV’s genome was attempted using N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (NTG) and N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) as alkylating chemical. Specific gene deletion involved knocking-out a thymidine kinase gene (TPV-66R) and a …

The Effects Of Electronic Response Systems On Student Learning, James D. Morrison

Masters Theses

One of the most technologically advanced methods of implementing active student responding is the electronic response system (Judson & Sawada, 2002). This technology is known under several names including audience response system, classroom response system, and colloquially as clickers (Smith, Shon, & Santiago, 2011). To accurately assess the impact of clickers on learning performance and classroom achievement, more quantitative analysis and systematic replication of studies was needed (Kay & LeSage, 2009). This study examined the effects of ASR questions on exam performance in two sections of an organizational psychology class for majors and non-majors. A social validity questionnaire was also …

Examining The Effects Of Robot-Enacted Guilt Appeals In A Human-Robot Negotiation, Brett Stoll

Masters Theses

Social robotics is a quickly evolving and expanding field in which significant contributions may be made by the communication discipline. Prior research has demonstrated the successful employment of robots throughout varying contexts such as work team decision-making, education, and healthcare. The purpose of this study is to expand upon existing research and generate an understanding of how robots may be used in competitive communication environments. The study highlights face negotiation theory (FNT) and the computers are social actors (CASA) paradigm to frame predictions and understanding of how humans interact with robots in a negotiation context. The researcher uses a 2 …