Digital Commons Network^™

Word Order Typology In Modern South Arabian Languages: A Study Based On A Corpus Of Analyzed Texts, David A. Cross Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I present a typological analysis of the Modern South Arabian Languages. Typological research is often based on a six-way typology of dominant word order based on clauses containing nominal subjects, objects and verbs. However, this clause type is extremely rare in this language group, making typological analysis based on a six-way typology problematic.

Dryer's Four-way typology of dominant word order is applied to the Modern South Arabian Languages and they are shown to be VS&VO. Greenberg's universals which refer to dominant word order are then reformulated in terms of the Four-way typology. These reformulated universals are shown …

Assessing Economic And Hrql Burden Of Food Allergy And Anaphylaxis In The U.S., Dipen Patel

Theses and Dissertations

Background: Food allergy, an abnormal immunologic response to food protein, has an estimated prevalence of 6% in young children and 3.7% in adults in the U.S. The only proven therapy for food allergy is strict elimination of the offending allergens. As a result, caregivers and patients could experience constant anxiety and stress that affects their quality of life. Additionally, food allergy can lead to significant economic impact on the health care system, since severe reactions often lead to ED visits and hospitalizations. Objectives: The first major objective was to determine the economic burden of Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis (FAA) patients …

Construction Of Complex A At La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico: A History Of Buildings, Burials, Offerings, And Stone Monuments, Arlene Colman

Theses and Dissertations

In 1969, Paul Tolstoy commented that archaeological investigation at La Venta had become "a fairly long and at times tortuous story of excavation, interpretation, re-interpretation, and depredation at the famous site found by Stirling." This thesis adds to the torture by describing and illustrating the architecture, burials, offerings, and stone sculpture of La Venta Complex A in an effort to reconcile data into an accurate sequence of meaningful cultural events. The details derive from excavation reports, field notes, maps, photographs, and correspondence of the early investigators of the site. This study addressed three myopic perceptions regarding La Venta: (1) the …

Evolutionary Relationships In Afro-Malagasy Schefflera (Araliaceae) Based On Nuclear And Plastid Markers, Morgan Gostel

Theses and Dissertations

The genus Schefflera is the largest in Araliaceae, with approximately 900 species. Recent studies have shown that Schefflera is polyphyletic and represents no fewer than five distinct clades, each corresponding to a specific geographic region including Asia, continental Africa and Madagascar, Melanesia, the Neotropics, and a small clade distributed throughout several islands in the insular Pacific Ocean. The Afro-Malagasy clade contains nearly 50 species distributed throughout tropical, sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros, and the Seychelles islands. Previous studies have suggested that this group is monophyletic, identifying two smaller subclades within Afro-Malagasy Schefflera corresponding roughly to informal groups identified as “Meiopanax” …

Dante Gabriel Rossetti And The Italian Renaissance: Envisioning Aesthetic Beauty And The Past Through Images Of Women, Carolyn Porter

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s knowledge and interpretation of the Italian Renaissance during the 1860s. I argue that there is a relationship between Rossetti’s Aestheticism and his understanding of the Italian Renaissance and that this relationship is visibly manifested in his images of women from the period. In Victorian England, Aestheticism and the philosophy of beauty for its own sake became increasingly popular throughout the 1860s. I challenge the idea that Aestheticism and an interest in Renaissance art are mutually exclusive aspects of the artist’s work. Rossetti’s images of women expressed both his understanding of Renaissance art and the …

The Development And Use Of A Geographic Information System For Evaluating The Association Between Pesticide Exposure And Prostate Cancer, Kristen Wells

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract 1 – A Geographic Information System for Evaluating Residential Pesticide Exposure and Prostate Cancer Incidence Agricultural pesticide exposure is hypothesized to be a risk factor for prostate cancer, and such exposures are of particular concern for men living in farming communities where large-scale pesticide applications occur. Prostate cancer incidence data were obtained from the State Health Registry of Iowa for the years 1996 through 2006, and county and census tract level age-adjusted incidence rates were calculated. Historical crop-specific land use records and pesticide sales data for the state of Iowa during 1990 were integrated into a geographic information system …

24 Hour Portraits, Lee R. Cowan

Theses and Dissertations

I believe an individual can be profiled by their color preferences, but not indefinitely, for a shorter period of time, a 24-hour period of time. A person's state of mind will change continually based on their experiences. These experiences will affect their perception and preference of color. I developed a model that will map an individual's profile, a portrait, through color. Participants are given a worksheet and a list of terms describing personality traits and states of mind. The worksheet is categorized by event, time of day, duration, impact, and summed term. From midnight to midnight, a 24-hour period, the …

Identifying Social Studies Content Embedded Inelementary Basal Readers, Wendy Taylor Workman

Theses and Dissertations

In the current educational climate of federally mandated assessments of student learning, the survival of the elementary social studies curriculum may depend on interdisciplinary instructional methods to link social studies to the accountability-favored discipline of literacy. The purpose of this content analysis study was to examine and identify social studies content embedded within a second grade and a fifth grade basal reader from the 2008 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series. Each of the basals were read and coded using the Utah State Office of Education Social Studies Standards indicators and the National Council for the Social Studies Standards as a priori …

An Introduction To Major University English Tests And English Language Teaching In China, Caiping Sun

Theses and Dissertations

The purposes of this project were to introduce (1) the four main college level English tests used in the People's Republic of China to expatriate English language educators, researchers, curriculum developers, and program designers; and (2) the college English language teaching situation in China to expatriates and give them information on where and how to apply for teaching positions there. The project produced two products to fulfill these goals. First, a paper titled an introduction to major university English tests in China: Their nature, development and importance is now ready to submit for publication. It is a paper that introduces …

Multidisciplinary Assessment And Documentation Of Past And Present Human Impacts On The Neotropical Forests Of Petén, Guatemala, Christopher Stephen Balzotti

Theses and Dissertations

Tropical forests provide important habitat for a tremendous diversity of plant and animal species. However, limitations in measuring and monitoring the structure and function of tropical forests has caused these systems to remain poorly understood. Remote-sensing technology has provided a powerful tool for quantification of structural patterns and associating these with resource use. Satellite and aerial platforms can be used to collect remotely sensed images of tropical forests that can be applied to ecological research and management. Chapter 1 of this article highlights the resources available for tropical forest remote sensing and presents a case-study that demonstrates its application to …

Planning Policy And Public Perception In Small-Town Utah, Greg M. Platt

Theses and Dissertations

City growth policies codify community values and serve as the basis for enforcement of community standards. If these policies do not match resident preferences for growth, potential exists for communities to grow in ways which make the community undesirable. This thesis examines whether adopted city growth policies match resident preferences in small towns in Utah. Findings include a strong relationship between resident preferences and city leader preferences for growth. Also, city staffs are poor readers of public sentiment relative to growth and growth management. Some cities are more effective in enacting city policies to match resident attitudes towards growth than …

Developmental Contributions To Variation In Aspen Clones And The Influence Of Pre-Fire Succession Status On Aspen Regeneration Success, Eric A. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis includes two studies: The first examined developmental changes that take place in the physiology of aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) and to characterize developmental influences on patterns of phenotypic trait variation among different aged ramets within the aspen clones. We surveyed eight clones, each with 8 distinct age classes ranging from 1 to 170 yrs in age. Using regression analysis we examined the relationships between ramet age and expression of functional phenotypes. Eight of the phenotypic traits demonstrated a non-linear relationship in which large changes in phenotype occurred in the early stages of ramet development and stabilized thereafter. …

Wireless Sensor Network Approach To Aeronautical Telemetry, Oluwasegun Babatunde Tinubi

Theses and Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks have become a rapidly growing research field in recent years. They are envisioned to have a wide range of applications in military, environmental and many other fields. We examine the performance of wireless sensor network applications to aeronautical telemetry. To date, test ranges have relied on a single telemetry ground station for the reception of packets from all air borne transmitters. We researched an alternate means of achieving this same goal with fewer resources. It is a well known fact that communication power and bandwidth are the most expensive commodities in wireless communications. The telemetry world is …

Development Of Psychometrically Equivalent Speech Recognition Threshold Materials For Native Speakers Of Samoan, Jennifer Lane Newman

Theses and Dissertations

The speech recognition threshold (SRT) is an important measure, as it validates the pure-tone average (PTA), assists in the diagnosis and prognosis of hearing impairments, and aids in the identification of non-organic hearing impairments. Research has shown that in order for SRT testing to yield valid and reliable measures, testing needs to be performed in the patient's native language. There are currently no published materials for SRT testing in the Samoan language. As a result, audiologists are testing patients with English materials or other materials not of the patient's native language. Results produced from this manner of testing are confounded …

Interrupting The Cycle: Idealization, Alienation And Social Performance In James Joyce's "Araby," "A Painful Case," And "The Dead.", Nicholas Muhlestein

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis considers Joyce's short stories "Araby," "A Painful Case," and the "The Dead," illustrating how these works present three intellectually and emotionally similar protagonists, but at different stages of life, with the final tale "The Dead" suggesting a sort of limited solution to the conflicts that define the earlier works. Taken together, "Araby" and "A Painful Case," represent a sort of life cycle of alienation: the boy of "Araby" is an isolated, deeply introspective youth who lives primarily within his own idealized mental world before discovering, through a failed romantic quest at the story's end, the complete impracticality of …

An Assessment Of The Methods That Are Used To Recruit College Students Into The Turkish Hezbollah., Tuncay Unal

Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to identify tactics used by the Turkish Hezbollah to recruit college students into joining their terrorist organization. This study based on the assumptions that social networks and institutional structures are two main tools that are used effectively by the Turkish Hezbollah to recruit college educated students. In this sense, the researcher claims that Social Learning theory and Social Control Theories can be used to provide theoretical explanation to the Hezbollah’s recruitment strategy. Parallel to these theories assumptions, while having militants within social networks increases the likelihood of being recruited through social learning theory assumptions, college students who …

Narrating The Literate Identities Of Five Ninth Grade Boys On The School Landscape, Mary Frances Rice

Theses and Dissertations

I conducted a narrative inquiry with five ninth grade boys in my English class that I identified as displaying multiple literacies. The classes I taught the boys in were two sections of honors ninth grade English. The boys came from a variety of backgrounds and lived in various neighborhoods in the approximately 20,0000-member community where we all live. The site of this research was the junior high school in Utah where the boys attend school and I had been employed for six years. After the research was collected, I conducted several negotiation sessions with the boys and their parents at …

Women Mourners, Mourning "Nobody", Jennifer Pecora

Theses and Dissertations

Historian David Bell recently suggested that scholars reconsider the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) upon modern culture, naming them the first "total war" in modern history. My thesis explores the significance of the wars specifically in the British mourning culture of the period by studying the war literature of four women writers: Anna Letitia Barbauld, Amelia Opie, Jane Austen, and Felicia Hemans. This paper further asks how these authors contributed to the development of a national consciousness studied by Georg Lukács, Benedict Anderson, and others. I argue that women had a representative experience of non-combatants' struggle to …

Modeling And Optimization Of Supply Chain Cost Of Responsiveness, Moataz Mohamed Magdy Hamouda Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

In today's ever increasing competitive business world, a responsive Supply Chain (SC) should adapt itself quickly to customer demands resulting into maximum benefits to all its primary stakeholders. The objective of this work is to provide a managerial tool that optimizes the cost of responsiveness of supply chains where various transportation durations are present between the SC components, and to determine the weakest links in the SC that need strengthening for elevating the overall responsiveness. For these objectives a mathematical model was formulated and solved using CPLEX. Assessing supply chain's responsiveness is discussed in this work as well using the …

The Evolution Of Birkat Al-Fil (From The Fatimids To The Twentieth Century), Nadia Fouad Younes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will be exploring in depth the urban fabric of the area formerly known as Birkat al-Fil, or Elephant Pond, and its modern day transformation into areas such as Hilmiyya and Hilmiyya al-Jadida. Though the pond was eventually filled in the middle of the nineteenth century, the area will still be discussed in terms of its development within the modern era. I have defined the pre-twentieth century area of Birkat al-Fil by historical landmarks such as Bab al-Khalq to the north, the Mosque of Sultan Hasan to the east, and Sayyida Zaynab to the west. The pond area that …

Typography: From Internal Conflict To External Content, Ernest F. Bernhardi Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This body of work represents a celebration and pursuit of realizing an alternative language, one capable of expressing internal conflict through process and response to external typographic form and content.

The Application Of Collaborative Planning Principles With A Content Management System And Web 2.0 Technologies, Craig Macivor

Theses and Dissertations

As urban planners have sought to move away from the rationalist approach that has been employed for decades, and to encourage more public participation than has traditionally existed in the planning process, they have consistently encountered obstacles in successfully communicating with other stakeholders. Likewise, many citizens do not feel they have enough access to planning-related information or adequate means of participation. These systemic problems are due in large part to the limitations of the media on which planning documents have always been printed; the structure and content of the paper-based comprehensive plan has meant that the rationalist process has, at …

An Investigation Of Warm-Season Cloud Patterns And Related Precipitation Across Maryland And The Delmarva Peninsula, Heather Richelle Hyre

Theses and Dissertations

Surface heterogeneities cause differential heating that can generate mesoscale convective boundaries, sometimes leading to cloud development and enhanced localized precipitation. A preferred cloud pattern has been identified across Maryland and the Delmarva Peninsula region from 1998-2006 through the detection of cumuliform clouds on days when synoptic-scale forcing is weak. Hourly visible Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imagery data are used to identify convective cloud masses. This allows quantitative description of the frequency and spatiotemporal extent of the clouds, helping forecasters gain insight into when and where they are likely to develop. Despite the inability to determine the underlying causes of …

The Suitability Of Lidar-Derived Forest Attributes For Use In Individual-Tree Distance-Dependent Growth-And-Yield Modeling, Hilary Alexis Londo

Theses and Dissertations

Studies have not been conducted examining the influence of the spatial distribution of LiDAR-derived tree measuresments and their affects the predictive ability of LiDAR-derived forest metrics as input for growth-and-yield analysis on individual trees. This study addresses both of these voids in current knowledge and determines the suitability, concerns and application of LiDAR for time-series analysis, specifically forest growth-and-yield. LiDAR datasets of the same site acquired in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2006 by different vendors using different specifications were utilized in this study. Directional differences of Lidar-identified tree top locations were examined. Minimal location differences were noted, but no bias …

Assessing The Demand For Simplified Stormwater Modeling Tools Within The Design Profession To Facilitate The Adoption Of Sustainable Stormwater Practices, Austin Malone Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater runoff is a major environmental concern, particularly in urban environments. Trends in managing stormwater have evolved (and continue to evolve) from a quantity only approach into a sustainable approach, which integrates quantity, quality, the environment, and aesthetics. Best management practices (BMPs) and Low Impact Development (LID) are two well-documented techniques capable of managing to sustainable standards. There are a number of stormwater models available to design professionals today. However, there are few which integrate site-scale BMP/LID analysis in a simplified fashion. The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a demand in the design profession for …

Beyond Bigger And Better: Gilbert White And America's New Approach To Floodplain Management, Brian Edward Rumsey

Theses and Dissertations

Until the early twentieth century, Americans generally responded to the risk of floods by building protective levees. By the late 1800s, this approach was firmly entrenched in federal policy. Because of the singular focus on levees, floods actually became more severe, with a prime example occurring in 1927. The floods of 1927 demonstrated that levees-only was an untenable policy, but a new approach to managing flood risk took several decades to fully materialize. The geographer Gilbert Fowler White played a central role in developing the nation’s new approach to floods. In his 1945 doctoral dissertation, White laid out a multiaceted …

Soil Modification And Potential Allelopathy: An Investigation Into How The Invasive Casuarina Equisetifolia L. (Australian Pine) Modify Their Environment, Charlotte P. Buehler

Theses and Dissertations

Casuarina equisetifolia L. is a noxious plant species known to be invasive in the West Indies. Not much is known about its impact on its host environment. This study’s objective was to quantitatively compare physical and chemical soil differences between sites dominated by and devoid of Casuarinas. This study also conducted growth chamber experiments to determine potential for allelopathy. It was demonstrated that sites dominated by Casuarinas differed significantly in K, P, organic matter, and leaf litter depth. Application of Casuarinas leachate showed reduction in germination of radish and bean seeds by at least 32% and 70%, respectively. Once germinated …

We Are Clay People: The Struggle Against Choctaw Communal Dissolution, 1801-1861, Gary Coleman Cheek

Theses and Dissertations

Acculturation has become an integral part of scholarship about Native Americans in the Southeast. Recent studies have focused on trade the eighteenth century and Choctaw entry into the American market economy during the beginning of the nineteenth century. This study analyzes acculturation from 1801 to 1861, carrying the story about cultural change and persistence through the Removal era and to the American Civil War. It argues that while Choctaws acculturated to survive, prosper, and protect autonomy in a changing world, they continuously battled communal dissolution, which threatened to destroy their nation. Some individuals attempted to promote new methods of subsistence, …

Exceptionally Well-Preserved Quaternary Fossils From Sawmill Sink Blue Hole, Abaco, The Bahamas, Nancy Ann Albury

Theses and Dissertations

A diverse assemblage of exquisitely-preserved fossil animals and plants were collected from Sawmill Sink blue hole in Abaco, Bahamas. More than 40 species have been identified including extinct tortoise, an extant crocodile, and birds that no longer live in The Bahamas. This study addresses the mechanisms that preserve fossils in blue holes and discusses paleoecological implications from faunal diversity and sediment composition. Blue holes are waterilled caves with surface openings that may trap animals and surface-driven vegetation. In Sawmill Sink the talus cone within the halocline acts as a substrate on which organics collect that drive microbe ecology. Their byproducts, …

Handedness As A Predictor Of Success In Far Part 141 Flight Training, Danielle Dracy

Theses and Dissertations

The current study assesses the prevalence of left-, right-, and mixed-handedness and handedness as a predictor of success in flight training. The convenience sample is comprised of students enrolled in or who have previously completed the private pilot course at the University of North Dakota’s Part 141 flight training program. The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory and self-report methods are used to determine subject’s handedness. Success in flight training is assessed using student computerized academic and flight records. Statistical analysis of the data does not show a significant difference between left-, right-, and mixed-handed students with any of the measures used. This …