Digital Commons Network^™

Preparing Non-Native English Speakers For The Mathematical Vocabulary In The Gre And Gmat, Irina Mikhailovna Baskova

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop vocabulary materials to aid non-native English speakers, specifically Russian speaking test-takers, in their preparation for the mathematical sections of the General Record Examination (GRE) and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) in terms of English mathematical vocabulary. GRE and GMAT preparation materials and practice tests published by the Educational Testing Service, Kaplan, and Barron's were analyzed with the help of computer software. This data was then used to determine which key words to include in the vocabulary tool, which is now available on Quizlet (www.quizlet.com). The developed materials were further proofread by …

"A Poem Containing History": Pound As A Poet Of Deep Time, Newell Scott Porter

Theses and Dissertations

There has been an emergent trend in literary studies that challenges the tendency to categorize our approach to literature. This new investment in the idea of "world literature," while exciting, is also both theoretically and pragmatically problematic. While theorists can usually articulate a defense of a wider approach to literature, they struggle to develop a tangible approach to such an ideal. By examining Ezra Pound's critical approach to poetry, especially in The Cantos, an applicable visualization of a global approach to literature becomes more transparent.

Phylogenetic Relationships, Species Boundaries, And Studies Of Viviparity And Convergent Evolution In Liolaemus Lizards, Cesar Augusto Aguilar

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I have connected different evolutionary studies of Lioalemus lizards. In Chapter 1, I followed an integrative approach to delimit species in the Liolaemus walkeri complex. Using mitochondrial markers, morphological data, bioclimatic information and methods appropriate for each data type, we found that the name L. walkeri was covering three new lineages. Three new species were described and one of them (L. chavin) is now categorized as Near Threatened in the IUCN red list. In Chapter 2, I change the subject from species boundaries to the study of viviparity and placentation. In this paper we employed …

The Development Of A Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine Wake Model For Use In Wind Farm Layout Optimization With Noise Level Constraints, Eric Blaine Tingey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on providing the means to use vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) in wind farms as an alternative form of harnessing wind energy in offshore and urban environments where both wake and acoustic effects of turbines are important considerations. In order for VAWTs to be used in wind farm layout analysis and optimization, a reduced-order wake model is needed to calculate velocities around a turbine quickly and accurately. However, a VAWT wake model has not been available to accomplish this task. Using vorticity data from computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of VAWTs and cross-validated Gaussian distribution and polynomial surface …

Assessing And Improving Student Understanding Of Tree-Thinking, Tyler A. Kummer

Theses and Dissertations

Evolution is the unifying theory of biology. The importance of understanding evolution by those who study the origins, diversification and diversity life cannot be overstated. Because of its importance, in addition to a scientific study of evolution, many researchers have spent time studying the acceptance and the teaching of evolution. Phylogenetic Systematics is the field of study developed to understand the evolutionary history of organisms, traits, and genes. Tree-thinking is the term by which we identify concepts related to the evolutionary history of organisms. It is vital that those who undertake a study of biology be able to understand and …

Design Of A 3d Printable Mechanical Time Simulating Solar System Model For Use In Stem Education, Mark Bedford Moffett

Theses and Dissertations

The use of designed tools to assist with relating abstract ideas to reality is now a possibility with the use of the modern manufacturing method of 3D printing. The inner four planets’ natural orbital periods with respect to Earth were modeled in SolidWorks and then fabricated using 3D printing. A 3D printable mechanical time simulating solar system model used in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) could assist with the user’s understanding of the history of science, planetary orbital mechanics, gearing ratios, 3D printing, and systematically constructing a project using instructions. This paper describes the design of a 3D printable …

Common Support Equipment And Its Impact On Aircraft Availability, Jason M. Leighton

Theses and Dissertations

The ability of military aircraft maintenance personnel to prepare aircraft for flight depends not only on the technical ability and availability of replacement parts, but also on access to serviceable support equipment. While the general relationship between support equipment failures and aircraft availability is understood, the struggle to quantify that relationship makes targeted support equipment replacement or quantity authorization increases difficult. Tight budgets and aging equipment further complicate the task of keeping serviceable support equipment assets in the hands of maintainers. We identify key pieces of support equipment which may affect aircraft availability and other metrics and investigate the associated …

An Examination Of The 16pf Global Factors As Predictors Of The Scale Of Accurate Personality Prediction (Sapp), Maria Christina Mandina

Theses and Dissertations

The Scale of Accurate Personality Prediction (SAPP), first developed by Miller (2000), was designed to measure one’s self-knowledge regarding their personality traits. The SAPP was derived from the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) by means of comparing the differences between a respondent’s predicted and obtained scores on the 16PF. Numerous studies to date have examined both the reliability and validity of the SAPP. A recent study looked at the predictability of the SAPP score utilizing the 16 obtained primary scales of the 16PF (Mazur, 2015) so as to be able to derive a SAPP score directly from the obtained 16PF …

Exploring The Policymaking Process Of School-Based Physical Education: A Congressional Perspective, Edward B. Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory case study design was to investigate and analyze the policymaking process of physical education at the national level. The participants used to explore this phenomenon were senators and representatives from the 114th-115th Congress who sat on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (n = 21), and the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education (n = 14). Additional participants were national policymakers (n = 3), staffers (n = 6), and legislative liaisons (n = 2). Data was collected from semi-structured interviews (n = 8), policy artifacts (n = 87), and the researcher's journal …

José, Joe, Zé Carioca: Walt Disney's Good Neighbor Colonial "Monument" In Brazil, Andrew Kelly Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Although Walt Disney's early animated feature films were successful, a variety of economic, operational, and external forces required him to continually be on the cutting edge of new ideas and technologies in order for his studio to continue operations. Latin America became the studio's source of inspiration in the early 1940s, sprouting from Walt Disney's involvement with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros were the result. While many critics have decried Disney's involvement in Latin America as being an apparatus of cultural imperialism and economic exploitation, they almost universally give him credit …

Visual Rhetoric And Cinemas Of The Non-Western World: Mapping Cultural Identity In Gendered Images From Egyptian And Emirati Popular Film, Montiana Bahgat Ashour

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative paper explores the gendered concept of cultural identity in non-Western popular film, through a synthesized lens of visual rhetoric and cultural studies. The term non-Western is of limited presence in film scholarship, and existing literature on popular film from non-Western geographies, is primarily interested in reading a national definition of identity through the non-Western cinematic lens. Building towards an inductive process of theory building, qualitative features of interest and intensity determine the paper's purposive selection of its two film cases, which become cinematic grounds for the exploration of a cultural dimension of identity: Molasses (Êswid, 2010); Egypt, and …

Between Accumulation And (In)Security: The Real Estate Industry And The Housing Crisis In Egypt, Norhan Sherif Mokhtar

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the turmoil and instability triggered by the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, the real estate market has remained relatively stable. According to the Ministry of Investment, real estate has witnessed a noticeable growth “despite political instability” , and government figures show that the real estate sector has become the second largest sector in receipt of public and private investments beginning from the financial year (FY) of 2010/2011, with 14% of total investments, a figure that grew by FY of 2011/2012 to reach 16.3% . For the following financial years, albeit slowing down in pace, real estate continued to be the …

Cozy Mart: Convenient Aesthetics, Eric John Edvalson

Theses and Dissertations

Convenience stores in their various forms are not only commercial outlets of foodstuffs and sundry items but are also experiential in nature; the act of going to a convenience store is a culturally shared experience. In homage to these spaces, Cozy Mart is a public art installation and performance which recreates this shared experience in an idealized form. Based on do-it-yourself culture, appropriation of public space, and artistic traditions of sculpture and printmaking, Cozy Mart invites interaction with art outside of the traditional gallery space and capitalizes on alternative methods of art distribution.

Improved Fault-Tolerant Pmu Placement Using Algebraic Connectivity Of Graphs, Mahmoud El Hosainy

Theses and Dissertations

Due to perpetual and innovative technological advancements, the need for reliable and stable power generation and transmission has been increasing dramatically over the years. Smart grids use advanced technologies to provide self-monitoring, self-checking and self-healing power networks, including smart metering devices capable of providing accurate measurements of the network’s power components. Among the most important metering devices in this context are “Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs)”. PMUs are metering devices that provide synchronized measurements of voltage, current and phase angle differences using signals from the GPS satellites. However, due to the high cost of such advanced metering devices, studies were performed …

An Examination Of The 16pf Demographic Variables As Predictors Of The Scale For Accurate Personality Prediction (Sapp), Jack Dorian Bartel

Theses and Dissertations

The Scale of Accurate Personality Prediction (SAPP) was first developed in 2000 by Miller. Its principal purpose is to serve as a measure of one’s ability to accurately predict his or her personality traits, and as such, potentially reflect the level of one’s self-knowledge. The measure is derived from the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). The purpose of the current study was to follow up on a recent attempt to identify the best predictors of the SAPP using the 16 primary factors of the 16PF (Mazur, 2013). This study focuses on certain demographics to determine their potential ability to predict …

Islamophobia In South Korea With A Focus On Muslim Migrants, Sang Yong Han

Theses and Dissertations

Much academic research has analyzed the issue of Islamophobia and how Muslims are often represented in a negative or stereotypical way in Western countries. There is little research focusing on this phenomenon in East Asia, and specifically, in South Korea. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by shedding light on this particular topic in South Korea, in explaining why Islamophobic attitudes were particularly pervasive among certain sectors including right wing politicians and Protestants in the country between 2014 and 2016. Despite the visible presence of a Muslim minority since the 1990s in South Korea a decade before 9/11, the …

On Becoming Citizens Of The 'Non-Existent': Violence, Document-Production And Syrian War-Time Migration In Abkhazia, Jihad Abaza

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I look at the ways in which statehood comes to be defined, practiced, and performed through Syrian war-time migrants "repatriation" in Abkhazia, a small state with limited recognition.1I argue that while separatist states' desires and aspirations towards statehood grant legitimacy to the modern nation-state system, they at once expose the fragility of its very order. An unrecognized state like Abkhazia still maneuvers within the system that it is locked out of, but the way that Abkhazia, like other unrecognized states, is shunned from the "family of nations" could reveal how constructed and hallucinatory the modern state-order is. …

The Tutktuks In Maadi: What Is Their Presence Disrupting?, Doaa Ayman Kaddah

Theses and Dissertations

Why is the maneuvering of the tuktuks in certain elite spaces in Maadi a disruption to the fragile and in many ways, imaginary boundaries between people, spaces, objects, histories and narratives? How can one street, whether it is the one where I live or Street 9 where I did my fieldwork, encompass a wide range of lives and worlds that do not "touch"? Why is it ok for the tuktuk to be seen in Arab El Maadi, usually conceived as a lower-class neighborhood adjacent to Sarayat El- Maadi, but when it moves in Sarayat El-Sarayat, it becomes a disruption to …

The Interpretation Of Islamic Art And Architecture Of Cairo In European Paintings In The 19th Century, Heba Sheta

Theses and Dissertations

After the French expedition to Egypt in 1798, travelers tempted to discover this newly revealed land. European orientalist painters, when in Cairo, encountered an exotic culture. They documented Islamic architecture, as well as religious and social traditions and rituals. Their paintings became as tableaux vivants such as the oriental settings in universal fairs in the 19th century. These painters could be classified into two different groups. On the one hand, a group of painters focused on the documentation of Islamic monuments with their decorative and architectural features. Most of these European painters resided in Egypt for many years, and sometimes …

Uses And Gratification Of Spiritual And Religious Music In Egypt: A Descriptive Analysis Study, Hend El-Taher

Theses and Dissertations

Media is one important constituent of the culture in a society. Its importance is reflected in the contents it presents especially in religion and music. The way both religion and music are blended and used as a medium to gratify certain needs is the interest of this study. In that sense, the relation between religions and music is examined, how music was perceived by religious figures, what disputes the music provoked, and how spiritual music is used as an intrapersonal, interpersonal, or a mass communication tool to influence the audience cognitively, behaviorally, and attitudinally. Accordingly, a descriptive survey is conducted …

Perceptions Of Nonclinical Competencies As An Organizational Response: Exploring The Influence Of Institutional. Task Environments, Organizational Factors And Interorganizational Relationships On Educators' And Employers' Perceptions Of Nonclinical Competencies In Newly Graduated Speech Pathologists, Paula H. Boaz

Theses and Dissertations

The qualitative comparative case study had as its purpose to explore perceptions of nonclinical competencies as viewed through the lens of organizational theroy, vis-a-vis the perceptions of educators and employers and the environmental pressures placed on them through institutional and task environments, by organizational factors, and through interorganizational relationships. Knowledge and abilitites which are not clinical in nature, yet are essential in professional postitons, are termed nonclinical competencies. The literature on organizational theory and nonclinical competency in speech pathology was reviewed. A conceptual framework was developed from reviews of the related literature and was used as a guide to the …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Collaborating Teacher Leadership In Professional Development Schools (Pdss), Nedd James Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Professional Development Schools (PDSs) provide teachers with multiple new opportunities for leadership. As teachers are encouraged to assume new roles outside of the classroom and beyond the school, it is important to examine the concept of teacher leadership in practice--specifically, how it is perceived by those most closely associated with it. This study identifies a shared understanding of teacher leadership from collaborating teachers, using a sequential explanatory mixed methods design in PDSs within a large, diverse southern New Jersey school district-university partnership. The two-phase study examines perceptions about teacher leaders through data collected from the Teacher Leadership Inventory (TLI) (Angelle …

Well Enough Alone: Stories, Sarah Jane Huskey

Theses and Dissertations

This collection of short stories aims to capture the difficulties of telling anything at all, let alone the truth, the whole story, or the abstract reality. Though its thematic concerns might seem a bit cheerless at first blush, Well Enough Alone aims to treat them as prominent features of day-to-day life rather than gloomy afflictions or the loci of trauma.

Exploring Spatial Patterning And The Impact Of Obesogenic Built Environments For Youth Obesity, S. Morgan Hughey

Theses and Dissertations

Youth obesity is a major public health concern due to an array of physical, social, and psychological health consequences. Residential location, often referred to as ‘place’, has continued to emerge as a key health determinant with studies showing that where a child lives impacts their health. Environments where it is easy for individuals to have low levels of physical activity – either by discouraging active behavior or promoting sedentary behavior – and easy for individuals to consume unhealthful foods – either by the limited availability of healthful foods or increased availability of unhealthy foods – have been coined ‘obesogenic’. Additional …

Odor And Power In The Americas: Olfactory Consciousness From Columbus To Emancipation, Andrew Kettler

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes discourses concerning odor within the Atlantic World from approximately 1492 until 1838. Numerous historians and philosophers have described how the Reformation’s emphasis on texts and an increased concentration on visual science during the Enlightenment influenced Western Europeans to heighten the importance of the eye to the detriment of the lower sense of smell. This dissertation begins by thinking about materialist contours of this olfactory decline through a linguistic analysis of sulfur within seventeenth century England. It then proceeds to examine how in the early Americas such a repudiation of the sense of smell did not occur. The …

From Rice Fields To Duck Marshes: Sport Hunters And Environmental Change On The South Carolina Coast, 1890–1950, Matthew Allen Lockhart

Theses and Dissertations

In part because some historians are ethically opposed to their avocation, sport hunters of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era are an understudied group. As environmental actors, they have been virtually ignored. Based on the biological traits of their quarry, one particular subset of sportsmen, waterfowl hunters, were especially disposed to manipulating the environment in which they hunted. Their efforts to attract migratory waterfowl to privately owned wetlands through habitat management, which started nearly a half-century before federal engineers and biologists undertook similar work on the national wildlife refuges in the 1930s, were pioneering. By the midpoint of the twentieth …

Multilevel And Multisectoral Processes Of Implementing Nutritionsensitive Ideology And Programming In Ethiopia’S Development Landscape, Andrea Marie Warren

Theses and Dissertations

This research sought to understand the ways in which ideas and discourses in international development are adapted in a country context. Our particular focus was on how ideas at the international and national level become reality at the subnational and community levels. We primarily examined the sensitization of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program to nutrition across sectors and down levels of government as a way to understand how the global momentum around nutrition, particularly multisectoral or nutrition-sensitive initiatives, can be translated into action.

The first manuscript delves further into the operational realities of implementing multisectoral nutrition-sensitive programming among the neglected …

Branded For Success: A Longitudinal Examination Of Brand Associations As Drivers Of Team Identification For A New Sport Brand, Henry Wear

Theses and Dissertations

The competition for the sport consumer has intensified over the last decade, and many teams are now seeking to establish a foothold in the marketplace (Baker, McDonald, & Funk, 2016). To form a competitive advantage in the sport industry, many sport organizations are beginning to think of their organizations as brands to be managed (Ross, 2006). From a sport marketer’s perspective, it is difficult to rely on brand characteristics based on success or team composition to promote a sport brand and develop fans due to the unpredictable nature of the sport product. Conversely, brand characteristics regarding the logo, color scheme, …

Functional Data Smoothing Methods And Their Applications, Songqiao Huang

Theses and Dissertations

In many subjects such as psychology, geography, physiology or behavioral science, researchers collect and analyze non-traditional data, i.e., data that do not consist of a set of scalar or vector observations, but rather a set of sequential observations measured over a fine grid on a continuous domain, such as time, space, etc. Because the underlying functional structure of the individual datum is of interest, Ramsay and Dalzell (1991) named the collection of topics involving analyzing these functional observations functional data analysis (FDA). Topics in functional data analysis include data smoothing, data registration, regression analysis with functional responses, cluster analysis on …

Piglia And Russia: Russian Influences In Ricardo Piglia’S Nombre Falso, Carol E. Fruit Diouf

Theses and Dissertations

In his work Nombre falso (False Name, 1975), leading Argentinian writer Ricardo Piglia (1941-2017) presents a double tale composed of the story of a search, and of the supposed results of the search: the short story Luba. According to the narrator, the short story is written by influential Argentinian author Roberto Arlt (1900-1942), but it is in fact a distorted copy of Russian writer Leonid Andreev’s (1871-1919) The Dark (T’ma, 1907). Piglia mixes real life with falsification to create his work, changing elements of the life of Arlt and modifying Andreev’s story. In this work, I revisit Piglia’s text, paying …