Digital Commons Network^™

"Does This Thesis Make My Behind Look Big?" A Master's Thesis Using Qualitative Research To Examine Clothing As A Communication Tool, Lynne Forth

Masters Theses

The purpose of this narrative research study is to discover and understand what and how clothing communicates by using carefully selected individuals as studied in their natural environment. The study utilized Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, which is based on in-depth research and analysis of cultures across the globe and what aspects define each culture. In order to understand clothing as a communication tool, the researcher interviewed participants from both American and Dutch cultures. Many books, articles and the above mentioned interviews were utilized to gain a more in-depth understanding of clothing as a form of communicating and how this …

Selling Life To Abortion-Seekers: A Content Analysis Of Passive And Active Persuasion In Crisis Pregnancy Center Marketing, Alexander Kocman

Masters Theses

For supporters of the pro-life cause, crisis pregnancy centers (or CPC's) have become the "darlings of the movement," according to the New York Times (Belluck, 2013), offering women with unplanned pregnancies free advice, information, classes, childcare, and needed supplies. For abortion advocates, such establishments are intended to seduce vulnerable abortion-seekers into a situation where they will be counseled out of an abortion and possibly even proselytized. Yet for as much controversy as exists in the news media, medical community, and legal realm about CPC's, there is an unsettling lack of understanding of how--and why--CPC's market themselves the way they do. …

Like, Retweet, Repeat: Social Media's Impact On Real Estate Marketing, Emily Kendall

Masters Theses

With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, people from all walks of life in all parts of the world have the ability to connect electronically, impersonally, and constantly. Small businesses are just beginning to unlock the power of social media marketing, specifically real estate professionals. Shelly Chaiken created the Heuristic Systematic Model of persuasion, the descendant of the Elaboration Likelihood Model. This study applies the tenets of Chaiken's HSM to the methods of persuasion employed by real estate agents via Facebook and Twitter. Fifty participants were surveyed by the researcher in order to gauge their activity, interest level, and motivation …

Appreciating The Mystery Of "Three Persons" And "One Substance": A Study Of Tertullian's Legacy Concerning The Historical Development Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity, Brandon Walker

Masters Theses

Tertullian of Carthage is hailed by many as the most influential Western theologian prior to Augustine, and his most impressive theological contributions involved Trinitarianism and Christology. This study is a thorough investigation of the extent to which Tertullian influenced subsequent Trinitarian theologians and writers in the Western tradition. It explores how Tertullian repeated and expanded existing arguments popularized by earlier apologists and theologians. It also identifies those original features of Tertullian's theological vocabulary and reasoning which subsequent Western pre- and post-Nicene theologians found most valuable as Trinitarian doctrine progressed toward its maturity. This analysis concludes with an evaluation of Tertullian's …

Postsecondary Inclusion For Individuals With An Intellectual Disability: A Comparative Case Study, Eric Jordan Moore

Masters Theses

Postsecondary education programs for individuals with intellectual disabilities have emerged exponentially in the United States over the last decade. Research regarding these programs has largely been descriptive, and thus there exists a need for qualitative, outcome-based research. In this comparative case study, graduates from two types of postsecondary education programs for individuals with intellectual disability are surveyed regarding employment outcomes and other personal developments. The results from each program are compared with one another and also with a comparison group of individuals with intellectual disabilities who did not attend a postsecondary program (utilizing the 2009 National Longitudinal Transition Study-2). This …

A Textbook Analysis: A Case Study Of Changes In History Textbooks Based On The Revolutionary War, Danielle Renee Wager

Masters Theses

Research has provided us with information that textbooks are not free from bias. Textbooks are subject to a variety of influences such as the background, beliefs and motivations of the authors of primary sources, secondary sources, and analyses of sources. They are also subject to influences by large consumer groups as well as political and interest groups who finance the textbook market. Due to these influences, it is important for teachers to understand that textbooks are not free from bias, and if they do not do so already, they should supplement their students’ learning with primary and secondary sources beyond …

Arts Outreach In The Middle East, Matthias Clark

Masters Theses

After centuries of debate and discussion regarding the value and appropriateness of arts in the Middle East, specifically music, many indigenous people have recently pursued active roles in championing indigenous and international arts toward social reform, identity formation, and spiritual development. This shift in use and function of the arts has been reflected in some groundbreaking attempts of using arts in contextualized forms that have impacted spiritual communities. This study is designed to compare two specific case studies that exemplify these shifts: the "School of Worship and Music" and the "Creative Center". These organizations will be analyzed and compared in …

Moore Of Feminine Style: A Rhetorical Examination Of "Wednesdays With Beth", Terrie Meeks

Masters Theses

Beth Moore is a best-selling author of books and Bible studies, a speaker to crowds that fill places like the Georgia Super Dome, as well as an international speaker, a radio and television personality, and she is achieving this milestone as a woman, in a world lit with male stars. Through all of these venues it is estimated that Moore speaks to hundreds of thousands of people each year. One of Moore's most recent ventures is speaking on Life Today with James and Betty Robison. Each week features an episode of "Wednesdays with Beth." Using Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's theory of …

Evaluating The Success Of Wetland Mitigation In West Michigan: A Macroinvertibrate-Based Approach, James N. Neal

Masters Theses

Michigan’s wetlands, and their invaluable natural services, were declining at an alarming rate; therefore, the process of wetland mitigation was introduced in 1979 to offset this loss. From 2003-2006, a series of mitigated wetlands were installed to compensate for the wetlands removed during the construction of the M-6 highway south of Grand Rapids, MI. The objectives of my research were to determine whether these man-made wetlands function similarly to natural wetlands in terms of biological integrity, further develop methods for a macroinvertebrate-based index of biological integrity for inland wetlands, and provide pragmatic suggestions for wetland mitigation practices. Macroinvertebrate, plant, and …

The Effect Of Drying On Desiccation Tolerance And Late Embryogenesis Abundant Protein Gene Expression In Immature Seeds Of Phalaenopsis Amabilis, Huijing Zhu

Masters Theses

Orchidaceae as the most diverse family of flowering plants are endangered due to losing habitats or destruction of their unique symbiotic living style. Long-term seed storage banks can be a solution for threatened plant species but the stored seeds must tolerate extreme drying and cold. This ability is acquired during the last stage (maturation drying) of seed development and is correlated with a decline in water content and expression of the Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) protein genes. Our goal is to investigate if premature orchid seeds can be artificially induced to become desiccation tolerant and the potential role of LEA …

"You'll Have To Take It: Urban Vigilantism And American Film, 1967-1985", Joseph E. Roskos

Masters Theses

My thesis shows how vigilantism as expressed through the politics of race interacted from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, serving to support a culture of backlash that drew from the public’s mistrust of government institutions and authorities, and its reactions to crime, class conflict, and racial tensions. Vigilante films served as the battleground where class conflicts were played out; violent backlash was realized; historical wars were refought; cultures and principles clashed; and people cleansed their communities of crime and illegal drug-use. The culture of backlash as portrayed in vigilante films as well as historical events showed how their relationship …

How Women Became Priests In Ireland: The Development Of Women’S Ordination In The Church Of Ireland, Meagan Farrell Howe

Masters Theses

30 years ago, the Church of Ireland allowed women’s ordination as deacons, then later priests and bishops. Leading to this doctrinal and social development, the Church of Ireland wrestled with big questions on the nature of Christian ministry and women’s roles in the church. Have the Bible and church tradition always upheld male headship? Are women being called by God to serve as deacons, priests and bishops? Can groups with major theological differences reconcile and remain one church? The author introduces this historic Irish development to a United States audience with relevant lessons for social transformation, following the human drama …

An Analysis Of Burn Cut Pull Optimization Through Varying Relief Hole Depths, Michael Robert Allen

Masters Theses

"In underground blasting, the pull of the initial cut is the limiting factor for the success of the rest of the round. By improving the pull of the first cut, a critical step is made towards improving the entire round. This project attempted to optimize a burn cut's effective pull by varying the depths of the relief holes in the burn, and then analyzing the results. In testing, relief holes were drilled to depths both shorter and longer than that of the cut's charged holes. The overall objective was to consistently achieve greater pull than in a standard burn, using …

Energy Tradeoffs Between Food Assimilation, Growth, Metabolism And Maintenance, Lihong Jiao

Masters Theses

"The effect of metabolic rate (MR) on organisms' health maintenance is a long-standing puzzle and empirical data on this issue is contradictory. A theoretical model was developed for understanding animal's energy budget under the food condition of Ad libitum (AL) and food restriction. This model offers a framework for understanding the role of MR and health maintenance mechanism from the perspective of energy tradeoff between food assimilation, growth, metabolism and maintenance. Hornworm (Manduca sexta larva) has been selected as an model to test the energetic tradeoff under different food supply and ambient temperatures. The changes in energy budget can …

Analysis And Modeling Of Resilience For Networked Systems, Kamlesh Ashok Joshi

Masters Theses

"A cyber physical system (CPS) has two main subsystems; a physical infrastructure that is responsible for managing and implementing physical tasks, e.g., generation and distribution of a physical commodity, and a cyber infrastructure that is used to support and enhance these physical operations through computing, communication, and control. Imperfect cyber control can lower the efficacy and even reliability of existing physical infrastructures. As such, justifiable reliance on CPSs requires rigorous investigation of the effect of incorporating cyber infrastructure on functional and non-functional aspects of system performance. One non-functional metric of note is resilience, defined as the ability of a system …

Fair And Optimal Resource Allocation In Wireless Sensor Networks, Vinodhini Ravikumar

Masters Theses

"There is a large amount of research in wireless networks focuses on optimization of either network routing and power control alone. In contrast, this work aims at jointly optimizing the transmission power and routing path selection in order to optimize allocation of resources in interference constrained wireless environment. Moreover, we consider a multipath routing where multiple alternative paths are employed to transmit data between the end nodes. One of modern communication techniques that it applies to a network coding, though not explicitly implemented in this work. The proposed approach is first analyzed theoretically using Lagrangian optimization for a three-node scenario. …

Evolving Decision Trees For The Categorization Of Software, Jasenko Hosic

Masters Theses

"Current manual techniques of static reverse engineering are inefficient at providing semantic program understanding. An automated method to categorize applications was developed in order to quickly determine pertinent characteristics. Prior work in this area has had some success, but a major strength of the approach detailed in this thesis is that it produces heuristics that can be reused for quick analysis of new data. The method relies on a genetic programming algorithm to evolve decision trees which can be used to categorize software. The terminals, or leaf nodes, within the trees each contain values based on selected features from one …

Privacy Preservation Using Spherical Chord, Doyal Tapan Mukherjee

Masters Theses

"Structured overlay networks are primarily used in data storage and data lookup, but they are vulnerable against many kinds of attacks. Within the realm of security, overlay networks have demonstrated applicability in providing privacy, availability, integrity, along with scalability. The thesis first analyses the Chord and the SALSA protocols which are organized in structured overlays to provide data with a certain degree of privacy, and then defines a new protocol called Spherical Chord which provides data lookup with privacy, while also being scalable, and addresses critical existing weaknesses in Chord and SALSA protocols. Spherical Chord is a variant of the …

The Effectiveness Of Student Success Courses On Students Enrolled In A Remedial Reading Course, Emily Walters

Masters Theses

This study examined the impact of strategies for success courses on success of students in remedial education at a rural community college. Participants included 594 students ages 17 to 51 (M = 20.03, SD = 4.25) that were enrolled in one of two remedial reading courses while concurrently enrolled in strategies for success course. A quantitative study was used to determine if students completed more terms and achieved a higher cumulative GPA, if they were enrolled in strategies for success compared to their peers that were not enrolled in a strategies for success course. Results showed that students enrolled …

Never Give A Sword To A Man Who Can't Dance, Colin Slade

Masters Theses

War dances have long been a powerful means of preparing warriors for combat or the intimidation of an enemy, but they are also used in the ceremonial supplication of deity or celebration of victory. They are a fundamental artifact of many cultures throughout the world. Nevertheless, the United States of America boasts the most powerful military in history, yet it lacks a war dance. This is valid until one accepts a simple truth; military drill is a dance. However, Americans would object to such a proposition even though they have adopted and adapted military drill as their own, describe it …

Dish And Pot: Scatology And Liminal Space In Samuel Beckett, Keegan Bradford

Masters Theses

In the final novel of Samuel Beckett's trilogy, The Unnamable, the eponymous main character whose monologues, musings, and diatribes comprise the entirety of the work bemoans his inability to harness the communicable properties of language: "...it's like shit, there we have it at last, there it is at last, the right word, one has only to seek, seek in vain, to be sure of finding in the end, it's a question of elimination" (Three Novels 368). Beckett's work is consumed with this question of elimination. In this sense, language is parallel to scat in Beckett's work. Beckett's absurd language, circular …

Master Of The Universe: The Theatrical Director As Artist And Communicator, Audrey Thomas

Masters Theses

This qualitative study was undertaken to examine the processes by which theatrical directors determine the theme for a production and communicate their unifying artistic visions to the agents who, in turn, relay it to the audience. The research revealed that the director's message is formed through comprehensive study of the text, the artifact around which the system is formed, as well as information which provides context for the work of the playwright; consideration of the theatrical organization's missional objectives (the environment in which the system exists); and concerns of artistic leadership. Communication of the concept to stakeholders, and ultimately to …

The Impact Of A Functional Understanding Of The Image Of God On Mission, Gary Hubbard

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to apply the work of biblical scholars regarding the functional image of God to the mission of the Church in order to argue for a comprehensive understanding of mission. By demonstrating continuity between God's creation purposes for humanity and his post-Fall work among his people, this study will seek to demonstrate that the Lord has always desired that his image bearers participate in the missio Dei. Furthermore, by explaining how Christ restores the imago Dei in the Church, this work will show that the mission of the Church is comprehensive, involving active participation in …

Duck, Duck, Oops!: A Content Analysis Of The Crisis Surrounding Phil Robertson, Sarah Malinda

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to apply Benoit's theory of image restoration to apologetic discourse offered by those involved in the crisis surrounding Phil Robertson following his January 2014, GQ Magazine interview. This content analysis applied the theoretical framework to a collection of news segments, articles, and letters that contained apologetic discourse and analyzed them to identify the strategies of image restoration used. The results indicated that the most prevalent strategy used was transcendence- placing the act that caused offense in a different context. Robertson and those involved in his image restoration directed the audience's attention to higher moral …

Historical Movements And The Theology Behind The Pluralism Project At Harvard University, Scott Macleod

Masters Theses

The focus of this paper is to address religious pluralism as a belief along with examining multiple factors that have been a catalyst for the Pluralism Project at Harvard University to become part of American culture. The theology behind and ideology of the Pluralism Project will be examined along with the writings of Diana Eck, founder of the Pluralism Project. Outwardly, The Pluralism Project and the works of Eck give the impression of an impartial attempt to educate people on the growing religious diversity found within America. However, it will be shown that the Pluralism Project and the efforts of …

Grayscale, Emily Bowers

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Long-Term Effects Of An Aac Communication Partner Training Program, Brooke Capp

Masters Theses

The current investigation was a follow-up study to a research project conducted in summer 2012 by Fanale. The Fanale (2012) study looked at the effectiveness of parent training on parents' perspectives of AAC, as well as parents' use of specific communication facilitating strategies. The follow-up maintenance study investigated long-term effects of training on parent perceptions' and use of communication facilitating strategies. Through this project parents received additional training and different levels of support over four months in order to enhance the parents' abilities to utilize AAC in other environments, activities, and communication partners, as well as gather information on parents' …

Assessing Middle School Students' Perceptions Of Social Support Provided By Teachers And Other School Professionals, Constantine J. Pappas

Masters Theses

Despite the expanding body of research pertaining to social support practices within the educational environment, there remain questions regarding which types of social supports and teacher behaviors students perceive as being most meaningful. This mixed-methods study investigated students' perceptions of social supports as offered by teachers and other school professionals through the use of qualitative narrative reports and quantitative rating scales. Participants included 94 regular and special education middle school students. Results revealed three types of positive social support (Informational Support, Instructional Support and Emotional Support, respectively) and one type of negative social support (Lack of/Negative Emotional Support) that emerged …

Comparison Of Direct Instruction And Parent Consultation For Promoting Social-Emotional Competence In Preschool And Kindergarten Children, Michael Stinson

Masters Theses

Direct instruction and parent consultation interventions for promoting social-emotional competence of preschool and kindergarten children were compared. Thirty-six Parent/child dyads were randomly assigned to a direct instruction (children receive intervention from the researcher), parent consultation (coaching from the researcher), or control group. Teachers and Parents were both asked to complete the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales - Second Edition (PKBS-2) before and after the seven week intervention to measure changes in social-skills and problem behaviors. Two-way mixed-factorial ANOVA was conducted to compare changes in social skills from before to after the intervention across conditions. A significant interaction of time of …

Red Star Studded Chaos: Sex Scandal, Juan Salas

Masters Theses

Leon de Cruz is a fame hungry journalist that published sex pictures of the greatest pop group in the world: Red Star Studded Chaos. The group was genetically engineered to be physically perfect and live a minimum of 10,000 years without aging. Leon's news article about the group catapults him into international superstardom, and RSSC's only rival, a recently founded Christian pop group called Properness, wants to manipulate Leon into using his new found fame to write a novel that condemns the very debauchery RSSC stands for.

Looking to capitalize on the chaos sparked by the sex photographs, Properness's management …