Digital Commons Network^™

Next Year In Jerusalem: A 21st Century, Medieval Pilgrimage Site, Mark Fafard

All Volumes (2001-2008)

American Protestantism is generally regarded as scripturalist and lacking in such features as Passion plays and pilgrimage. The Holy Land Experience is an Orlando based Christian attraction that includes characteristics of both modern and medieval pilgrimage sites. In addition to the publicized Christian theme, an underlying yet equal message of Jewish heritage is pronounced within several of the park’s attributes. One dimension of this is that it serves as a substitutional pilgrimage; that is, an alternative to traveling to war torn Israel. This ethnography provides an emic perspective of the Holy Land Experience to hypothesize that it is a Christian …

Federal Funds Target Rate Changes And Sector Equity Returns, Michael King, Scott Martin

All Volumes (2001-2008)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how equities of nine individual economic sectors are affected when monetary policy announcements in the form of federal funds rate changes are made over the period January 1, 1999 to May 11, 2005. This sector-analysis is conducted over a recent time period, when the Federal Open Market Committee has adopted a policy of immediate disclosure of its federal funds target rate changes. Our results indicate that the Consumer Discretionary and Technology sectors’ equity returns are negatively and significantly related to changes in the federal funds target rate. This negative relationship appears to …

Looking Behind The Veil Of An Idealized Past: The Useful Legacy Of A False Prophet, James Holeman

All Volumes (2001-2008)

Traditional Muslim narratives maintain that in 632 C.E., while the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632) was on his deathbed, several Arabian tribes apostatized from Islam only to be “recaptured” by Muslim armies during a series of wars fought under the first Caliph Abu Bakr. Muslim traditions attributed leadership of those “apostate” movements to a number of “false prophets.” The most notorious of these “enemies of God” was Musaylima B. Habib, otherwise known as the “archliar” and the “false prophet” of Yamamah. Several scholars have attempted a historical reconstruction of Musaylima’s career, but the problematic nature of the primary source material renders …

Design, Fabrication, And Implementation Of Jump-Cue Testing Machine, Joe Lewandowski, Ivan Faustino

All Volumes (2001-2008)

A device for measuring the effectiveness of a jump cue performing the jump shot in the game of pool is presented. The design, build, integration, and current application of the jump-cue testing machine are described. A physical system model is described that allows for the basic actuation of the mechanical system to be established and understood. The mechanical design embodiment of the jump-cue testing machine is presented with mechanical design and realization aspects of the device emphasized. Examples of current use of the jump-cue testing machine by industry are described.

Isokinetic Hamstring: Quadriceps Strength Ratio In Males And Females: Implications For Acl Injury, Meghan Eileen Lyons

All Volumes (2001-2008)

Although high rates of ACL injuries are seen in contact sports, the majority of injuries occur as a result of a no contact mechanism. The mechanism causing this injury usually falls into one of three categories: planting and cutting, straight knee landing, and one-step stop landing with the knee in hyperextension. Depending on the specific parameters of the group assessed, female athletes are two to eight times more likely to tear the ACL in one of these motions than are male athletes. Numerous studies focusing on different sports at various levels have shown similar trends, demanding that attention be paid …

Falling Into Love, Adam Groff

All Volumes (2001-2008)

No abstract provided.

The Birds In My Life, Christopher Sylvester

All Volumes (2001-2008)

No abstract provided.

The Cult Of Love, Michal Paul

All Volumes (2001-2008)

There can be no doubt that romantic love is, at a minimum, a cultural preoccupation; arguably, it closer resembles a frenzied obsession. Love is the subject of song lyrics, television shows, films, books, watercooler conversation, gossip, scandal, historic tragedy, and uncountable daydreams and fantasies. Type “romantic love” into a Google search and you will retrieve over 4,570,000 hits for websites featuring the topic. We even recognize a national holiday in its honor. Certainly one could say that love is an ultimate concern in American culture. Just how deep, though, is our devotion to its tenets? I argue that people live …

In The Lion’S Den: Orthodox Christians Under Ottoman Rule, 1400-1550, Neil Paradise

All Volumes (2001-2008)

The Ottoman Empire’s conquest of the Balkans and subsequent administration left a perplexing religious legacy. The Islamic Ottoman presence lasted almost five centuries, yet Christianity remained the overwhelming religion of choice in the area. The Ottoman treatment of subject Christians has been long debated, with characterizations ranging from a cosmopolitan haven of freedom to a brutal rule of forced conversion. However, the real picture appears far more complex than these generalizations – the Ottoman relationship with Orthodox Christianity in the Balkans changed over time, depending in part on religious tenets but also largely on the realities and varying situations facing …

Evaluating A Parent Training Program: Scale Analysis And The Effects Of Systematic Training For Effective Parenting (Step) On Child And Parent Behavior, Anne E. Damrad

Open Access Dissertations

Two studies examined archival pretest and posttest data collected from 490 parents who participated in a 7-week Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP; Dinkmeyer & McKay, 1976) program in a large, suburban, public school district in Rhode Island between 1994 and 1999. The first study cross-validated the underlying structure of selected subscales from the Behavior Rating Profile, Second Edition (BRP-2; Brown & Hammill, 1990) and STEP Parenting Assessment Technique (SPAT; Dinkmeyer, 1981). Principal components analyses revealed two components (Externalizing Behavior and Internalizing Behavior) with good to very good coefficient alphas on a revised version of the BRP Parent Rating Scale, …

Analyses Of Sea Surface Height, Bottom Pressure And Acoustic Travel Time In The Japan/East Sea, Yongsheng Xu

Open Access Dissertations

The observed water motions in the Japan/East Sea (JES) and the associated sea surface height and bottom pressure fields are heavily influenced by the semi-enclosed nature and the specific configuration of this marginal sea. As part of the United States Office of Naval Research JES program, a two-dimensional array of pressure-gauge-equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) was deployed in the southwestern JES for two years, from June 1999 to July 2001. The PIESs recorded hourly vertical acoustic travel time and pressure, which are respectively good proxies of baroclinic and barotropic sea level variability. Three topics are investigated based on the PIES …

Radium Isotopes As Tracers Of Water Mass Age And Groundwater Flux To Shallow Coastal Salt Ponds, Andrea L. Hougham

Open Access Master's Theses

Water mass age within and submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) to coastal southern Rhode Island was estimated from measurements of the naturally-occurring radioisotopes of ²²³Ra (t_1/2 = 3.66 days), ²²⁴Ra (t1/2 = 11.4 days), ²²⁶Ra (t1/2 = 1600 yrs) and ²²⁸Ra (t_1/2 = 5.75 yrs). Surface water and porewater samples were collected quarterly in Winnapaug, Quonochontaug, Ninigret, Green Hill, and Pt. Judith-Potter Ponds, as well as nearly monthly in the surface water of Rhode Island Sound, beginning January 2002 through August 2003. Additional porewater samples were collected in August 2005. Surface water activities ranged from …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of An Anger Management Program In A Detention Facility, Heather M. Frank

Open Access Dissertations

Offenders struggle with anger management not only before prison, but also while incarcerated (e.g., difficulty with prison adjustment, institutional behavioral problems). For these reasons, a number of correctional institutions offer anger management programming. However, the literature of these outcome studies within corrections is limited (Dowden, Blanchette, & Serin, 1999). This study is a program evaluation of psycho-educational anger management/substance abuse groups provided to male federal detainees at a privately owned detention facility in the northeastern United States. Objectives of the study were to: understand the demographics of this offender population, assess the effectiveness of the program, and explore participants' group …

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reproducing Published Results From In Silico Computer Models Of The Acute Inflammatory Response To Severe Sepsis, Wayne W. Wakeland, Joe Fusion, Brahm Goldstein

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent studies describe computer simulation models of the acute or systemic inflammatory response (AIR or SIR) to severe sepsis, a condition that can lead to multiple organ failure and death. One study used an agent-based model, while the other used differential equations (DEs) to simulate a randomized clinical trial. Both studies obtained results similar to the actual results from a successful clinical drug trial of severe sepsis, suggesting that in silico (simulated) randomized clinical trials may be used to design more effective in vivo clinical trials.

What's Wrong With Inclusive Fitness?, Jeffrey Fletcher, Martin Zwick, Michael Doebeli, David Sloan Wilson

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph:

In a recent issue of TREE, Foster et al. [1] defend inclusive fitness theory [2] from recent challenges [3,4]. The main author of these challenges, E.O. Wilson, argues that inclusive fitness (also called kin selection [5]) may not be the main explanation for the evolution of altruism and eusociality. In contrast, Foster et al. claim that inclusive fitness is not only the most prominent explanation for altruism, but that genetic “relatedness is always required for altruism to evolve” [1, p. 59]. Here we take issue with their claim about …

The City Of Oil & Water: The Rise And Fall Of An American Landscape, Jeffrey B. Goodman

Library Map Prize

TBD

The Effect Of Tgf-B And Egf On Mmp-2 Activation And Mt1-Mmp Phosphorylation In U87mg And T98g Human Glioma Cells, Jacquelyn B. Knupp

Honors Theses

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a high-grade, malignant brain tumor of astrocyte origin, invades normal brain tissue and most often results in death ofthe patient withinayearofdiagnosis. In order to invade the surrounding tissue and thereby metastasize, these tumor cells must migrate through the extracellular matrix. The pmpose ofthis research project is to investigate the family ofmatrix metalloproteinases responsible for extracellular degradation. Specifically, this investigation looks at MMP-2 activation via MT 1-MMP and the possible importance of phosphorylation of the tyrosine residue on the cytoplasmic tail of MTl-MMP. U87wildtypegliomacellsaswellasT98 p53 mutant glioma cells were treated with transforming growth factor beta (TGF-P). Preliminary results …

University Of New Hampshire Stormwater Center 2005 Data Report, Thomas P. Ballestero, Robert Roseen, James J. Houle

UNH Stormwater Center

No abstract provided.

Cover Image, P. J. Crook

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Cover with film still image for Reconstruction, Volume 9, Number 2.

Guide To Mf498 Janos Presidio Collection, Special Collections Staff

Guides to Microfilm Collections

No abstract provided.

Pilgrimage Of Dignity : Pope John Paul Ii's June 1979 Visit To Poland, Przemyslaw P. Polaski

Honors Theses

Pope John Paul II's first visit to Poland took place in June of 1979. The pilgrimage was arguably one of the most important trips of his pontificate. Within a matter of days the Pope was able to transform Polish society, inspire hope, and ignite a sense of collective dignity. Through a series of rhetorically powerful speeches the pilgrim awakened the oppressed nation and questioned the foundations of Communist authority to rule. Talking about the inalienable rights of man, the Pope stirred up a longing for freedom that matured with the birth of the Solidarity Movement in 1980. His epical journey …

Masthead, Journal Of Law And Health

Journal of Law and Health

No abstract provided.

How We Die: A New Prescription, Martin Bienstock

Journal of Law and Health

The dawn of the twenty-first century brought with it a profound change in the way we experience death. Until the last decades of the twentieth century, our bodies died all at once: when the heart kidneys, lungs, or brain failed, the body's other organs failed with them. Modern medicine now allows us to die in pieces, with failing organs supported or supplanted by technology. Modern death is different not only biologically, but also sociologically. Until the twentieth century, death was a private event that took place in the home with the family. It offered one final opportunity for family members …

Book Review: Neither Kin Nor Kind: The Peculiar Ties That Bond Organ Donors, Their Families And Transplant Recipients, Bradley T. Miller

Journal of Law and Health

Reviewing Strange Harvest: Organ Transplants, Denatured Bodies, and the Transformed Self by Leslie A. Sharp, Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press, 2006.

Masthead, Journal Of Law And Health

Journal of Law and Health

No abstract provided.

China's Longest Campaign: Birth Planning In The People's Republic, 1949-2005, Tyrene White

Political Science Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Crum Creek Spirituality: Earth As A Living Sacrament, Mark I. Wallace

Religion Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Man Thinking About Nature: The Evolution Of The Poet's Form And Function In The Journal Of Henry David Thoreau 1837-1852, Sh Bagley

Honors Papers

The real question at hand with the study of any work of prose literature is not related at all to the textual contents-the who, the what and the how that comprise its narrative-but the why. The attempt to understand the reasons behind the events described is often undergone in conjunction with a degree of considering the author's own role or purpose in the given written endeavor. These considerations are framed in their relationship to the reader, forcing the reader to become an active participant in something which amounts to an interaction with a text. This three-step process is, at bottom, …

The Gods Within: Checkhov, Lorca, And The Internalization Of Tragic Fate, Gabriela A. Nirenburg

Honors Papers

This paper will attempt to prove the continuation of fate into modern tragic theater, using the plays of Chekhov (a Naturalist) and Lorca (a post-Romantic) as representative examples. After setting up these authors in their proper cultural contexts, I will examine their works against well-established definitions of tragedy, both classical and modern. I will then closely analyze the internal workings of the tragic heroes of these plays, ultimately demonstrating how they have managed to create and fulfill their destinies, even in the absence of gods.