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Assessing Reading And Mathematics Achievement Of Students With Disabilities In A Suburban Middle School, Terri Melissa Toomer Jan 2018

Assessing Reading And Mathematics Achievement Of Students With Disabilities In A Suburban Middle School, Terri Melissa Toomer

Theses and Dissertations

Co-teaching classrooms consist of general and special education teachers working together to benefit students with disabilities (SWDs). Many parents and teachers believe the content knowledge provided by general educators in the regular education setting, combined with the instructional service delivery model (SDM) expertise of special educators, will result in the greatest academic growth for SWDs. However, it is not known if SWDs served in one SDM progress at a faster rate than SWDs served in another SWD. Therefore, the focus of this study was to compare the reading and mathematics achievement of male and female middle school SDWs in two …


"A Grave Subject:" Hollywood Cemetery And The Ideology Of Death In Mid-Nineteenth Century America, Kelli Brooke Nelson Dec 2017

"A Grave Subject:" Hollywood Cemetery And The Ideology Of Death In Mid-Nineteenth Century America, Kelli Brooke Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century, Americans began to develop a new relationship with death. Urbanites were less confronted with the constant presence of the dead and dying than they had in the past. A new trend in cemeteries also developed as a result. The Rural Cemetery Movement promoted the idea that the dead should be buried amongst a natural setting that was pleasing and calming to visitors. The first few initial cemeteries were an immediate success, but this was not the case in Richmond, Virginia. Although the developers had grand ideas about their cemetery project, Richmonders opposed the cemetery in the …


"Deep" South: Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, And Environmental Knowledge, 1800-1974, Alyssa Diane Warrick Dec 2017

"Deep" South: Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, And Environmental Knowledge, 1800-1974, Alyssa Diane Warrick

Theses and Dissertations

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the longest known cave in the world. This dissertation examines the history of how scientists and non-scientists alike contributed to a growing body of knowledge about Mammoth Cave and how that knowledge in turn affected land use decisions in the surrounding neighborhood. During the nineteenth century visitors traveled through Mammoth Cave along with their guides, gaining knowledge of the cave by using their senses and spreading that knowledge through travel narratives. After the Civil War, cave guides, now free men who chose to stay in the neighborhood, used the cave as a way to build …


Ecology And Conservation Of Bird Assemblages In Native And Afforested Environments In The Northern Campos Grasslands Of Uruguay, Juan Andrés Martínez Lanfranco Dec 2017

Ecology And Conservation Of Bird Assemblages In Native And Afforested Environments In The Northern Campos Grasslands Of Uruguay, Juan Andrés Martínez Lanfranco

Theses and Dissertations

Commercial forestry has expanded across the Rio de la Plata Grasslands (RPG) of South America in recent decades. I conducted a resource-use based study on bird communities during the 2013-2014 austral breeding season in northern Uruguay. I assessed relationships between habitat types and bird abundance as a function of vegetation structure. To compare avian responses to treatments, I included native environments, pine and eucalyptus plantations of different ages and thinning regimes. I detected differences in species richness and composition and species-specific responses in abundance along structural gradients sampled. Although poorer in species than native habitat types, tree plantations were extensively …


Effecting Organizational Change At The Macro Level Of Professions, Robert Anthony Green Dec 2017

Effecting Organizational Change At The Macro Level Of Professions, Robert Anthony Green

Theses and Dissertations

Much has been written in academic and popular publications about organizational change. Topics have ranged from case studies to anecdotal stories of how leaders can change an organization. There is little written on changing the culture and vision of a profession at the macro level. This dissertation shows that one key to effecting change within a profession is to educate those at the entrant level and thereby effect change with the profession. Over time, these new entrants to the profession will rise to senior positions and be able to effect greater change through the hiring, training, and mentoring processes inherent …


Transcriptome-Wide Prevalence Of Selection Among Wild Populations Of Helianthus Annuus (Common Sunflower), Michael Emmett Kartje Dec 2017

Transcriptome-Wide Prevalence Of Selection Among Wild Populations Of Helianthus Annuus (Common Sunflower), Michael Emmett Kartje

Theses and Dissertations

In the present study, I used transcriptomic data to elucidate the role of selection in maintaining genetic cohesion and promoting divergence among wild populations of the annual sunflower Helianthus annuus. I observed that nearly half of the loci displaying high levels of population structure (44%) show allele frequency spectrum skew consistent with recent exposure to natural selection. Among transcriptomic regions at which allele frequency divergence is lowest, fewer loci maintain strong signals of selection (34%). Additionally, I find evidence supporting the maintenance of evolutionarily complex haplotype structure within populations at loci showing high levels of among-population allele frequency divergence.


Use Of Formative Research To Develop A Healthy Eating Social Marketing Campaign For Low Resource Families In Mississippi, Rahel Mathews Dec 2017

Use Of Formative Research To Develop A Healthy Eating Social Marketing Campaign For Low Resource Families In Mississippi, Rahel Mathews

Theses and Dissertations

Mississippi leads the nation in chronic disease, obesity, poverty, and food insecurity. Preventing further growth in disease rates, requires a cultural shift towards a ‘healthy eating’ environment. Healthy patterns of food consumption along with physical activity can prevent and reduce these rates. A state-wide ‘healthy eating’ social marketing campaign could motivate voluntary population behavioral change. Three different methodologies were used to develop a strategy for Mississippi: a systematic review of the literature, a state-wide phone survey (quantitative), and focus groups (qualitative). A systematic review of articles published since January 2007 was conducted, using PRISMA guidelines. Five databases were searched with …


Factors Influencing The Use Of Consulting Foresters By Non-Industrial Private Forest Landowners In Mississippi, Sagar Godar Chhetri Dec 2017

Factors Influencing The Use Of Consulting Foresters By Non-Industrial Private Forest Landowners In Mississippi, Sagar Godar Chhetri

Theses and Dissertations

This study describes landowners’ willingness to hire consulting foresters and compares forest management expenses between the 1990s (1995-1997) and 2015. Two thousand and ten Mississippi non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners were selected randomly from a tax roll mail list maintained by Mississippi State University. Participants were surveyed to identify the characteristics of those landowners willing to hire consultants and compared the landowners’ participation in forestry-related activities during the 1990s and 2015. Results indicated three fourth of the survey participants were not willing to use a consultant to manage their forest land. However, consultant fees have increased from the 1990s to …


Jittery Gauges: Combating The Polarizing Effect Of Political Data Visualizations Through Uncertainty, Bethany Blaire Hardy Dec 2017

Jittery Gauges: Combating The Polarizing Effect Of Political Data Visualizations Through Uncertainty, Bethany Blaire Hardy

Theses and Dissertations

Since the late 1800s, public data visualizations displaying election forecasts and results—such as the red and blue map of the United State—have presented an irreparably divided country. However, on November 8, 2016, the New York Times published a data visualization on their live presidential forecast page that broke over a century of visual expectations, inspiring many to tweet reactions to what popular media has dubbed the "jittery gauges." Not surprisingly, the tweets about this unique and difficult-to-interpret display were mostly negative. This paper argues, though, that the negative feedback indicates that the gauges, while imperfect, represent an important step away …


Brava & Gloria: A Mexican Counterstory Screenplay, Jose David Garcia Gilling Dec 2017

Brava & Gloria: A Mexican Counterstory Screenplay, Jose David Garcia Gilling

Theses and Dissertations

“Brava & Gloria: A Counterstory Screenplay” is a thesis work which combines the theoretical aspects of Latinx representation in films with a full-length, feature film screenplay. In this work I use speculative fiction aesthetics to address the matter of representation and I create a version of how I would like to see Latinxs represented on screen. The story of “Gloria and Brava” is a medium to achieve this. Even though it does not mimic my personal experience as an immigrant, the core of the story is my family’s and my own experience as a Latino in the United States. Consequently, …


College Readiness Indicators Of First-Generation Hispanic High School Students In South Texas, William Morley Dec 2017

College Readiness Indicators Of First-Generation Hispanic High School Students In South Texas, William Morley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between first generation Hispanic student participation in an AVID program and college readiness. The dependent variable, college readiness, was measured by passing the Texas Success Initiative (TSI) Reading, Writing, and Math assessment. Predictor variables included Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) elective course participation, Advanced Placement courses taken, Advanced Placement Exams taken, Advanced Placement Exams passed, Dual Enrollment Courses Passed, and ACT Composite score. A factor analysis was performed on the predictor variables, resulting in three independent variables for the study: AVID elective course participation, Average of T-scores for …


Two Essays On International Capital Flows And Cross-Listings, Lu Sui Dec 2017

Two Essays On International Capital Flows And Cross-Listings, Lu Sui

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores two interesting issues: international capital flows and cross-listings. With high volatility of capital flows and imbalance of capital flows between emerging and advanced economies, the topic of capital flow management is always attractive to researchers and policy makers. The first essay explore how capital flows in G20 countries are significantly impacted by pull and push factors. The results show that international capital flows are significantly associated with domestic financial development, which is measured by stock market liquidity and domestic credit. Moreover, international capital flows are affected by some push factors such as, the growth of world economy …


Phylogeography Of An Estuarian Calanoid Copepod; Acartia Tonsa In The Texas Gulf Of Mexico, Nicole J. Figueroa Dec 2017

Phylogeography Of An Estuarian Calanoid Copepod; Acartia Tonsa In The Texas Gulf Of Mexico, Nicole J. Figueroa

Theses and Dissertations

The calanoid copepod, Acartia tonsa is one of the most abundant and well-studied estuarian species. However, the idea that this cosmopolitan species has unrestricted dispersal and high gene flow has been challenged. In this study, a more holistic picture of the phylogeography of A. tonsa was developed using the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase one (mtCOI). Multiple new lineages were found in the Texas Gulf of Mexico that are basal to Northeastern Atlantic lineages. Connectivity was also observed between Brazil and the Texas Gulf of Mexico. The revised phylogeny shows a clear pattern of cryptic speciation as the species made a …


Laying The Foundation For A Fremont Phytolith Typology Using Select Plant Species Native To Utah County, Madison Natasha Pearce Dec 2017

Laying The Foundation For A Fremont Phytolith Typology Using Select Plant Species Native To Utah County, Madison Natasha Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeobotanical evidences for the presence of wild plants at Fremont archaeological sites are numerous. However, little can be positively argued for why those plants are present, if they were used by site inhabitants, and how they were used. Additionally, there are likely several wild plants that were used but that do not appear in the archaeobotanical record as pollen or macrobotanicals, the two most commonly identified plant remains. I argue that it is possible to provide better interpretations for how and why the Fremont used plants by researching how their historic counterparts, the Goshute, Shoshone, Ute, and Southern Paiute, used …


Information Densification Of Social Constructs Via Behavior Analysis Of Social Media Users – A Study On Twitter, Diogo F. Pacheco Dec 2017

Information Densification Of Social Constructs Via Behavior Analysis Of Social Media Users – A Study On Twitter, Diogo F. Pacheco

Theses and Dissertations

We live in a digital era where everyday activities are increasingly being replaced by online interactions. In addition, technology advances and data availability are changing the way we expand our knowledge about ourselves, society, and the environment. The increasing availability of data, especially social media data, has called the attention of researchers, and we have been witnessing an outbreak in studies relying on this rich source of information. However, most social media research is tuned to improve the outcomes of specific problems. Therefore, the reuse of techniques used in different areas is limited to data specialists. We propose a straightforward …


The Smuggler Journals: Transgressing And Policing The Border In The Rio Grande Valley, Lupe Alberto Flores Dec 2017

The Smuggler Journals: Transgressing And Policing The Border In The Rio Grande Valley, Lupe Alberto Flores

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis summarizes recent human smuggling scholarship and provides ethnographic insights into migrant smuggling in a border zone that is my home. Through exploring my own experiences and observations of smuggling and militarized border policing, and those of other interlocutors in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, I advance nuanced understandings of the symbiotic processes of irregular migration and of the people who brokerage a great deal of these journeys across militarized borders. I analyze fieldnotes that highlight the quotidian realms in which gender and power play out when irregular migration takes place and argue that acts of border …


Hablando De Negocios: Three Rio Grande Valley Businesses During The Great Depression, 1929-1939, Karla A. Lira Dec 2017

Hablando De Negocios: Three Rio Grande Valley Businesses During The Great Depression, 1929-1939, Karla A. Lira

Theses and Dissertations

The Rio Grande Valley is in the South most tip of Texas and borders Northern Mexico, it includes Willacy, Cameron, Hidalgo, and Starr Counties. Scholars have focused on gender, agriculture, and labor of the area. However, historians have failed to research the region through a business perspective during the Great Depression. This thesis then seeks to analyze ways in which the Great Depression affected the Rio Grande Valley through the research of two stores and one business in the area: The Manuel Guerra Store, Edelstein’s furniture store, and John Shary’s land selling business. Its objective will fill an existing gap …


A Strategic Communication Plan For The Florida Tech Wellness Committee, Anushka Karina Boyd Dec 2017

A Strategic Communication Plan For The Florida Tech Wellness Committee, Anushka Karina Boyd

Theses and Dissertations

With rising healthcare costs, it is critical for corporate wellness to be prevalent in the workplace in order to assist employees and their family members to make healthy lifestyle choices. The materials provided in the following design project serve as a guide for the Florida Institute of Technology Wellness Committee in the form of a strategic communication plan. For the Wellness Committee to succeed and have a more profound presence on campus, missions, goals, and objectives must be set in place. In addition, to efficiently make use of their time, the Office of Human Resources staff members should set tasks …


Serving Their Country And Their Communities? An Exploratory Study Of The Impact Of Military Presence On County-Level Crime Rates, Rocio A. Paez Oct 2017

Serving Their Country And Their Communities? An Exploratory Study Of The Impact Of Military Presence On County-Level Crime Rates, Rocio A. Paez

Theses and Dissertations

Criminologists have long established an association between social disorganization factors and crime. The majority of criminological literature on social disorganization, however, has overlooked the role that certain social institutions play into the equation. Specifically, the degree to which military presence, manifested by the exposure to the military institution and its personnel, influences local areas has yet to be examined from a criminological perspective. This dissertation was designed to extend this body of research by envisioning the military as a social institution salient in understanding variation in the of crime and delinquency across communities. To accomplish this, I relied on data …


Diurnal And Seasonal Variation In Groundwater Nitrate -N Concentration In A Saturated Buffer Zone, Joseph Miller Oct 2017

Diurnal And Seasonal Variation In Groundwater Nitrate -N Concentration In A Saturated Buffer Zone, Joseph Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Surface water pollution by nitrate (NO3-) is identified as a critical problem in agricultural land-use areas. Excess NO3- loading causes eutrophication and hypoxia in near-shore marine waters such as the Gulf of Mexico. Diversion of agricultural runoff into saturated buffer zones reduces NO3- loading. Although the mechanisms responsible for NO3- reduction in saturated buffer zones are well characterized, little is known about how NO3- concentrations vary temporally and what factors control those changes. The objective of this study is to understand NO3- concentration and environmental factor variability in a saturated buffer zone on a diurnal scale within and among the …


A Quantitative Analysis Of Methods Used For Avoidance And Acceleration Of Developmental Mathematics Sequences In Community College, Steven Todd Travers Oct 2017

A Quantitative Analysis Of Methods Used For Avoidance And Acceleration Of Developmental Mathematics Sequences In Community College, Steven Todd Travers

Theses and Dissertations

Many developmental mathematics programs at community colleges in recent years have undergone a process of redesign in an attempt increase the historical poor rate of student successful completion of required developmental coursework. Various curriculum and instructional design models that incorporate methods of avoiding and accelerating the developmental mathematics requirements have been created in an effort to increase the retention and course completion rate of students placed in developmental mathematics programs. It is believed that developmental students need developmental mathematics courses in order to build a strong mathematical foundation; this will enable them to achieve their desired higher education goals. The …


A Location-Aware Middleware Framework For Collaborative Visual Information Discovery And Retrieval, Andrew J.M. Compton Sep 2017

A Location-Aware Middleware Framework For Collaborative Visual Information Discovery And Retrieval, Andrew J.M. Compton

Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses the problem of scalable location-aware distributed indexing to enable the leveraging of collaborative effort for the construction and maintenance of world-scale visual maps and models which could support numerous activities including navigation, visual localization, persistent surveillance, structure from motion, and hazard or disaster detection. Current distributed approaches to mapping and modeling fail to incorporate global geospatial addressing and are limited in their functionality to customize search. Our solution is a peer-to-peer middleware framework based on XOR distance routing which employs a Hilbert Space curve addressing scheme in a novel distributed geographic index. This allows for a universal …


Intercultural Communicative Competence In Chinese Language Programs: Curriculum Design And Instructional Strategies, Li Cao Aug 2017

Intercultural Communicative Competence In Chinese Language Programs: Curriculum Design And Instructional Strategies, Li Cao

Theses and Dissertations

The qualitative two case comparisons study explored the effect of different curricular models and instructional strategies on increasing learners’ intercultural communicative competence in two Chinese programs at two American universities. There were five student participants and three faculty members in a Confucius Institute program in a public university and five student participants and one faculty member in a traditional Chinese language acquisition program in small private baccalaureate college. Participants were interviewed for one hour individually on curricular models, instructional strategies and intercultural communicative competence. Student participants took the CCAI assessment before their interviews. The scores of the assessment indicated that …


Mapping Argenta From Annexation To Secession, Lyle C. Grisham Aug 2017

Mapping Argenta From Annexation To Secession, Lyle C. Grisham

Theses and Dissertations

This project illustrates the use of interactive media in the form of interactive maps to Display a section of history, the annexation and secession of Argenta, Arkansas. Founded in the late 1860’s, Argenta became a boom town in central Arkansas, just north of Little Rock, the capitol of the state. In 1890, seeking to expand its economic bases, Little Rock annexed the small community. This thesis details the rise of Argenta during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, its time as a ward of Little Rock and its secession, describing the process of creating a Wordpress website in combination …


By Degree: A History Of Heat In The Subtropical American South, Jason Hauser Aug 2017

By Degree: A History Of Heat In The Subtropical American South, Jason Hauser

Theses and Dissertations

Heat has a history, both because temperatures changed and the way humans understand and experience those temperatures changed. This dissertation excavates that history by examining how southern heat—heat considered distinct to the subtropical American South—affected the social, economic, and political development of the United States. This dissertation argues that southern heat proved consequential for the nation as both a physical force and human construct, and that only by keeping the materiality of relatively high temperatures in conversation with the idea of heat does a full history of southern heat emerge. By looking at how humans interacted with southern heat, both …


Engendering Landscape: A Gendered Analysis Of Migration To The Buffer Zone Of Carara National Park, Costa Rica, Jessica Ann Arends Aug 2017

Engendering Landscape: A Gendered Analysis Of Migration To The Buffer Zone Of Carara National Park, Costa Rica, Jessica Ann Arends

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses gender as a lens of analysis for understanding the motivations of internal migrants in their decision to move to the 10 kilometer buffer zone of Carara National Park in Costa Rica. The thesis is in reaction to Wittemyer et al.’s (2008) article that statistically demonstrates that population levels at the borders of study selected national parks and protected areas across Africa and Latin America are growing due to in-migration. The study is composed of 30 interviews with Costa Rican migrants who live in three communities inside Carara’s buffer zone. This study used cultural consensus analysis and semi-structured …


Analysis Of Near-Surface Relative Humidity In A Wind Turbine Array Boundary Layer Using An Instrumented Unmanned Aerial System And Large-Eddy Simulation, Kevin Allan Adkins Aug 2017

Analysis Of Near-Surface Relative Humidity In A Wind Turbine Array Boundary Layer Using An Instrumented Unmanned Aerial System And Large-Eddy Simulation, Kevin Allan Adkins

Theses and Dissertations

Previous simulations have shown that wind farms have an impact on the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) as turbulent wakes generated by the turbines enhance vertical mixing of momentum, heat and moisture. These changes alter downstream atmospheric properties. With the exception of a few observational data sets that focus on the impact to near-surface temperature within wind farms, little to no observational evidence exists with respect to vertical mixing. These few experimental studies also lack high spatial resolution due to their use of a limited number of meteorological sensors or remote sensing techniques. This study utilizes an instrumented small unmanned …


Identifying Factors Affecting The Presence And Abundance Of Invasive Tree Species In Mississippi, Jun Zhai Aug 2017

Identifying Factors Affecting The Presence And Abundance Of Invasive Tree Species In Mississippi, Jun Zhai

Theses and Dissertations

The presence and spread of invasive tree species have caused great ecological and economic damages. Previous studies usually ignored the role of socioeconomic factors and seldom treated presence and abundance as different phenomena. Using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) analysis, important driving factors affecting the presence and abundance of invasive tree species in Mississippi were identified. Then these selected important factors were spatially analyzed using a spatial lag model at the plot and county levels. The empirical results from the spatial lag model showed that: 1) presence was associated with elevation, ownership, population density and per capita annual income; 2) …


Native And Exotic Street Trees: A Spatio-Temporal Analysis In New York City, Mariana Schroter Aug 2017

Native And Exotic Street Trees: A Spatio-Temporal Analysis In New York City, Mariana Schroter

Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at the differences in the temporal distribution of urban street native and exotic trees in New York City from 1995 to 2015, attempting to answer the research question: Is there inequity in the distribution of tree population diversity or health, affected by socioeconomic and physical factors, when nested within origin?


Ecological Niche Modeling Of The Genus Papio, Amanda J. Fuchs Aug 2017

Ecological Niche Modeling Of The Genus Papio, Amanda J. Fuchs

Theses and Dissertations

Ecological niche modeling investigates how climatic variables have influenced taxonomic diversity in Papio. Models performed well suggesting climatic variables influence the distribution of baboon species. Niche overlap among all possible pairs of taxa determined that species exhibited significantly different niches. The results of these models support a parapatric speciation scenario.