Digital Commons Network^™

How Reading Can Shape Us As Literary, Cognizant, And Ethical Human Beings, Namely Witnesses, Yukiko Yamasaki

Theses and Dissertations

The juridico-symbolic violence, which includes or excludes the survivors of the Holocaust and wartime rape in Bosnia from the legal category of a witness, shapes the reader's bodily engagement with texts. The MA program of Gender and Women's studies and the institutional networks with the English and Comparative Literature and Law department at AUC have facilitated my reading of three main texts: a novel about wartime rape in Bosnia S.: A story about the Balkans, a particular world map rendering of the former Yugoslavia, and the judicial opinions found in a landmark case regarding wartime rape in Bosnia, Kunarac. My …

Modeling Of Trace Element Transformations In Coal-Fired Power Plant Plumes, Chen Zhu

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

North Dakota's Renaissance Zone Program : Evaluating Success In Northeastern North Dakota, Jordan L. Neau

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Mixed Methods Assessment Of Service Quality In Demand Response Transportation : A Grand Forks Metropolitan Area Case Study, Daniel J. Fasteen

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

F C Baur And The TüBingen School : Turning Point In The Historiography Of Acts Of The Apostles, Kevin M. Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Dutch Water Management On The Revolt Of The Netherlands : 1568-1648, Robert J. Tiegs

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Digenea For Neorickettsial Dna And Phylogenetic Analysis Based On Partial 16s Rrna Gene Sequences, Jay A. Schroeder

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Landscape Change In The Multi-Use, Multi-Ownership Forests Of The Olympic Peninsula, Washington, 1988-2006, Justin D. Braaten

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Utilitizing And Moving Beyond A Constructionist Approach To Trace The Emergence Of Racial And Ethnic Identities Among Pre-Mexican, Mexican And Americans Of Mexican Descent, Owen Williamson

Theses and Dissertations

Cornell and Hartmann (2007) developed a constructionist framework that can describe the development of racial and ethnic identities. Yet this framework has greater utility than its authors have intended as it also provides the best rubric to date for comprehending the transitions between collective identity group types. This study engages in a thorough investigation of the development of racial and ethnic identities within the context of those that precede it via an ethnohistorical analysis. It also demonstrates that this framework is capable of describing pre-modern religious and national identity types in addition to racial and ethnic identity types. This permits …

Cyber Power In The 21st Century, Joseph M. Elbaum

Theses and Dissertations

Historically, the United States Congress has acknowledged that a separate branch of military service is required to exert supremacy over each of the recognized Domains of Operation. Throughout the evolution of modern warfare, leading minds in military theory have come to the conclusion that due to fundamental differences inherent in the theory and tactics that must be employed in order to successfully wage war within a domain’s associated environment, a specialized force was needed - until now. With the recent inclusion of Cyberspace as an operational domain by the Department of Defense, the case should be made that it, too, …

Ontology Generation, Information Harvesting And Semantic Annotation For Machine-Generated Web Pages, Cui Tao

Theses and Dissertations

The current World Wide Web is a web of pages. Users have to guess possible keywords that might lead through search engines to the pages that contain information of interest and browse hundreds or even thousands of the returned pages in order to obtain what they want. This frustrating problem motivates an approach to turn the web of pages into a web of knowledge, so that web users can query the information of interest directly. This dissertation provides a step in this direction and a way to partially overcome the challenges. Specifically, this dissertation shows how to turn machine-generated web …

The Spatial Demography Of Reported Crime: An Examination Of Urban-Rural Crime Articulation And Associated Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Processes, U.S. 1990 - 2000, Jeremy Reed Porter

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, increased attention has been given to the social and environmental context in which crimes occur (Wells & Weisheit 2004). This new interest in the human ecology of crime is largely demographic, both in terms of subject matter and increasingly in terms of the analytic methods used. Building on existing literature on the social ecology of crime, this study introduces a new approach to studying sub-county geographies of reported crime using existing census place and county definitions coupled with spatial demographic methods. Spatially decomposing counties into Census places and what Esselstyn (1953) earlier called “open country,” or non-places, allows for …

The Teacher Shortage: Factors That Influence The Recruitment, Retention, And Attrition Of Teachers In Selected Mississippi Teacher Shortage Area, Gloria (Gloria Diane) Hayes

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude of the teacher shortage in the Mississippi Delta region, and to investigate the factors which seem to influence the attrition and retention of teachers. This study employed a nonexperimental quantitative investigation designed to analyze survey data. The sample for this study included selected K-12 teachers employed in school districts in the Mississippi Delta region, and two non-Delta school districts. 436 teachers participated in the study. The study was designed to answer questions on the commitment level of currently employed teachers in the Mississippi Delta region. Data were collected using …

Nmr Backbone Chemical Shift Assignments Of The Hvdhfr1:Nadph Binary Complex, Karthikeshwar Vangala

Theses and Dissertations

Extremophiles are the organisms that survive in environments which are inhospitable to other creatures. This thesis made an attempt to understand the enviromental effects, in particular saline, on enzyme structure by using three dimensional NMR. The enzyme DHFR1 from halophile Haloferaxi volcanii is complexed with its coactor NADPH, and the saline effects on the complex are studied by comparison with its apoenzyme, hvDHFR1. Backbone chemical shift assignments of the hvDHFR1:NADPH complex were attained which can be functional (along with future work) in understanding the effect of salts on enzyme structure, function, and flexibility. A total of 27 amino acids were …

A Population Genetic Study Of Middle Eastern Populations Using Dys 458 Microvariants And Cohen Modal Haplotypes, Enass Nabeel Tinah

Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive population study in the Middle East was conducted using different genetic markers in order to establish a wider genetic profile of the Middle Eastern populations. The main goal of this study was to analyze DNA from samples collected from different locations, and produce genetic motifs and patterns that could be used to identify and distinguish the target populations. This information will allow us to analyze the ancestry of these populations, their interactions through time and space, and the effects these interactions have on the populations' structure. We have collected around 1300 individual samples from different populations in the …

Using Geoscience Education Graduate Students To Help Faculty Transform Teaching Practice, Teagan L. Tomlin

Theses and Dissertations

Universities make claims about student learning that graduates don't often achieve and are under pressure to show improvement in teaching and learning in their undergraduate programs. This has been the constant focus of university-level professional development programs, but most teachers are still not using the most effective teaching methods. Individual departments need to find ways to help their instructors overcome three main challenges associated with adopting more effective student-centered teaching methods. No matter what strategy is adopted, instructors need considerable support to 1) change their beliefs about what constitutes effective teaching and learning, 2) learn to effectively implement new strategies, …

Marital Problems And Marital Satisfaction: An Examination Of A Brazilian Sample, Nalu De Araujo Nunes

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study is to examine the types of problems faced by Brazilian couples in the sample, the gender differences in the perception of marital problems, and the associations between marital problems and marital satisfaction. The sample used in this study was part of the third wave of data collection of a longitudinal study of 126 families living in Porto Alegre, a city in southern Brazil. The RDAS was the instrument used to assess marital satisfaction. Marital problems were identified by asking participants to check the problems they perceive in their marriage from a list of common marital …

Assessing Water Quality Modeling In Subtropical Regions Based On A Case Study Of The Aguamilpa Reservoir, Oliver Obregon

Theses and Dissertations

The shortage of water in Mexico has made public and private institutions look at reservoirs as an alternative solution for present and future water supply. However, eighty percent of the existing reservoirs in Mexico are contaminated at some level, many severely. Water quality models are water-management tools used to diagnose water quality problems and the impact of various environmental conditions. They can be effective in assessing various measures of remediation leading to improved water quality. In most of the cases such water quality models have been successfully applied in reservoirs located in temperate climates. However, the use of water quality …

Resurrecting Speranza: Lady Jane Wilde As The Celtic Sovereignty, Heather Lorene Tolen

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which Lady Jane Wilde, writing under the pen name of Speranza, established ethos among a poor, uneducated, Catholic populace from whom she was socially and religiously disconnected. Additionally, it raises questions as to Lady Wilde's exclusion from the roster of Irish literary voices who are commonly associated with the Irish Literary Revival, inasmuch as Lady Wilde played a critical, inceptive role in that movement. Lady Jane Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde, was an ardent nationalist who lived in Victorian Ireland. She contributed thirty-nine poems and several essays to the Nation newspaper—a nationalist publication—under the …

The Professional Development Of Teachers For International Contexts: A Case Study Of Concordia Language Villages' Study Abroad Programs, Michelle L. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

In the face of globalization, educational institutions the world over have developed institutional learning outcomes that seek to graduate students who are culturally competent. To accomplish this goal, colleges and schools must have a faculty who is prepared to facilitate student growth in this regard or provide the faculty with professional development opportunities to achieve that end.

Concordia Language Villages, an intensive language and culture education program sponsored by Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, is intentional in its mission to prepare young people for responsible citizenship and has professional development opportunities available to personnel in their programs and educators; however, …

Teacher And Technology: How Faculty Resource Centers Can Enhance Higher Education Teaching And Learning, John T. Freden

Theses and Dissertations

As many classrooms around the world utilize instructional technology to attempt to enhance student learning, the faculty resource centers that support this instructional technology are sometimes left out of the equation. This study asks the question "What can faculty resource centers do to help teachers integrate instructional technology to improve student learning?" To help answer this question surveys were sent out to educators at two different higher education institutions. Questions were asked in a survey about the educators' background information, instructional technology, and faculty resource centers. The , information gathered from this survey is useful to faculty resource centers as …

Evolution Of Picornaviruses: Impacts Of Recombination And Selection, Nicole Noel Lewis-Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

Picornaviruses are responsible for some of the most common and debilitating diseases affecting humans and animals worldwide. The objectives of this dissertation research were (1) estimate phylogenetic relationships among 11 picornavirus genera and within three species: foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV: Aphthovirus) which afflicts cloven-hoofed animals and human rhinovirus A and B (HRV: Enterovirus) which cause the common cold; (2) better understand the impact recombination has on genomic organization and evolution; (3) characterize where positive and purifying selection has occurred in proteins and how selection has influenced phenotype. The dissertation includes four studies. The first chapter provides an overview of the …

Rethinking The Historical Lens: A Case For Relational Identity In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Annalisa Wiggins

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis proposes a theory of relational identity development in Chicana literature. Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera offers an interpretation of Chicana identity that is largely based on historical models and mythology, which many scholars have found useful in interpreting Chicana literature. However, I contend that another text, Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, not only illustrates the need for an alternative paradigm for considering identity development, but in fact offers such an alternative. I argue that Cisneros shows a model for relational identity development, wherein the individual develops in the context of her community and is not determined solely …

Memoirs Of The Persecuted: Persecution, Memory, And The West As A Mormon Refuge, David W. Grua

Theses and Dissertations

The memory of past violence in Missouri and Illinois during the 1830s and 1840s shaped how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Latter-day Saints or Mormons) saw themselves, their persecutors, and the states and the nation where the violence occurred. This thesis explores the role of collective memory of violence in forming Mormon identities and images of place from 1838, when governor Lilburn W. Boggs expelled the Latter-day Saints from Missouri, to 1858, with the conclusion of the Utah War. I argue that Latter-day Saint authors during these two decades used the memory of persecution to …

Statistical Methods For Polarimetric Imagery, Daniel A. Lemaster

Theses and Dissertations

Estimation theory is applied to a physical model of incoherent polarized light to address problems in polarimetric image registration, restoration, and analysis for electro-optical imaging systems. In the image registration case, the Cramer-Rao lower bound on unbiased joint estimates of the registration parameters and the underlying scene is derived, simplified using matrix methods, and used to explain the behavior of multi-channel linear polarimetric imagers. In the image restoration case, a polarimetric maximum likelihood blind deconvolution algorithm is derived and tested using laboratory and simulated imagery. Finally, a principal components analysis is derived for polarization imaging systems. This analysis expands upon …

Ethnojournalism: A Hybrid Model Of Ethnography And Journalism To Create Culturally Diverse News Content, Valica Boudry

Theses and Dissertations

This research's purpose is twofold: to study a newsroom culture to see how news is constructed and to change the approach reporters take to constructing news using ethnojournalism, a hybrid model of ethnography and journalism. The core part of this research focuses on the training of reporters in the use of ethnographic techniques to use in newsgathering. The underlying reason was to see if the ethnojournalism approach would promote culturally diverse story selection and content in newspaper stories. This research addresses the issue that the dominant paradigm in journalism is not objective in the scientific sense of objectivity. It is …

An Examination Of The Prevalence Of Obesity And Student Performance In A Low Socioeconomic School District, Mary L. Hillones

Theses and Dissertations

Since few studies exist that examine the relationships between adolescent obesity and academic performance, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of obesity on high school students’ academic performance in a low socioeconomic school district. The topics addressed in this study included prevalence of overweight and obesity in high school students and the impact of overweight and obesity on student academic performance. The potential population of this study consisted of 236 high school students aged 14 to 19 years old enrolled in a rural Mississippi school district in grades 9 -12. However, only 35 students had usable …

An Assessment Of Suspended Sediment In Weeks Bay Reserve, Baldwin County, Alabama, Using Geospatial Modeling And Field Sampling Methods, Jamie Cindi Thomason

Theses and Dissertations

This study compares suspended sediment and land use/land cover in the watershed of Weeks Bay, Alabama. Using Landsat thematic mapper imagery, potential high and low erosion sites were determined based on the increase in urban development form 2002 to 2005. In situ sediment sampling was used to test the hypothesis that the high erosion potential sites have larger amounts of suspended sediments. Additionally, sampling was performed along the Fish and Magnolia rivers to establish a background total suspended sediment level. The background study established an average total suspended sediment concentration of 18.71 mg/L for the Fish River and 17.47 mg/L …

Multi-Scale Evaluation Of Mechanisms Associated With The Establishment Of A Model Invasive Species In Mississippi: Imperata Cylindrica, D Christopher Holly

Theses and Dissertations

Of concern in this research were the ecological parameters associated with the establishment of a model invasive plant species, Imperata cylindrica, across a scale of ecological organization. Specifically, the study addressed the species’ ability to: differentially respond to abiotic and biotic constraints during seedling establishment, exhibit a novel underground competitive interference mechanism, and alter the decomposition dynamics in newly invaded ecosystems. Finally, the last portion of the research was centered around creating a predictive habitat model that will provide information on the most important variables responsible for creating habitat for this species. The population level seedling study indicated that soil …

Design Of Frozen Orbits For Lunar Navigation And Communications Missions, Joel Jefferson Konkle Parker

Theses and Dissertations

Eccentric lunar frozen orbits are analyzed in this study in relation to lunar navigation and communications missions, particularly the proposed Magnolia-1 mission. An overview of the Earth/Moon system, frozen orbits, and the Magnolia-1 mission is provided. A review of existing literature is presented, and potential limitations are discussed. Both preliminary and numerical perturbation analyses are presented, and a general set of perturbations for further analysis of high-altitude lunar orbits is identified. Analysis of potential orbits for the Magnolia-1 mission is performed through calculation of a maximum deviation metric and through visualization as a function of initial orbital elements. Trends are …