Digital Commons Network^™

Adding Soft-Skills To The Hard Target Of Adequacy: The Case For Rearticulation Based On A Multifocal Analysis, Robert C. Knoeppel, Curtis A. Brewer, Jane Clark Lindle, Patricia F. First

Publications

The purpose of this study is to expand the definition of adequacy by adding soft skills as a measure of school productivity. The singular focus on academic standards inherent in education policy has prevented scholars from seeing the concept of adequacy through myriad perspectives and has contributed to a resegregation of schools. Education policy includes legal, historical, and political perspectives; research inquiries must accommodate these multiple foci. This study made use of multifocal analysis to investigate the development of the concept of adequacy in South Carolina. Conclusions suggest an expanded definition of adequacy has potential for addressing school financing policy, …

Ua94/6/1 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Western Kentucky University Small Collections, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Small collections of personal papers and oral histories relating to the Western Kentucky University.

Virtual Kinoeye: Kinetic Camera, Machinima, And Virtual Subjectivity In Second Life, Lori Landay

The Journal of e-Media Studies

The "virtual kino-eye" of the synthetic camera in a virtual world like Second Life not only realizes the kinetic possibilities imagined by Dziga Vertov for making "machinima" (digital video captured in a virtual world or 3-d game environment), but also is one of the ways through which virtual subjectivity is constructed. Virtual subjectivity is a mode of first-person experience in a virtual world that is founded on a fusion of visual and metaphoric point of view, shaped through "self-design" of the avatar and environment, reinforced and extended through social interaction, known through the avatar body's actions and movements in virtual …

42 Kindles: A Discussion On The Evolution Of Text, Catherine Coker

The Journal of e-Media Studies

This essay discusses the hyper-mediation of text through a discussion of what a "book" is and means primarily through an analysis of the popular Kindle ereader. The book and text are also discussed from an evolutionary and revolutionary perspective as depicted in a variety of new and old media, touching on how the death of the book has been heralded for some five hundred years.

Digital Commons Annual Report: Year One 2008-2009, Heather M. Leary

Digital Commons Reports

This report shows the progress for Utah State University's Digital Commons repository during it's first year, from October 27, 2008 through October 31, 2009.

Buying Our Way Out Of Corruption: Performace-Based Incentive Bonuses For Developing Country Politicians And Bureaucrats, Martin Skladany

Faculty Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Voices: On Stage And In Print, 2009, Utah State University Department Of English

Voices of USU

This collection of student writing represents the voices of over 2,000 students who enroll each academic year in Utah State University’s second-year composition course, Intermediate Writing: Research Writing in a Persuasive Mode. Voices of USU celebrates excellence in writing by providing undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines the opportunity to have their work published.

The Falcon 2009-2010, Seattle Pacific University

Seattle Pacific Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Factors Affecting Breeding Territory Size And Placement Of The Florida Grasshoper Sparrow (Ammodramus Savannarum Floridanus), Jill Aldredge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For most taxa, maximizing fitness depends on maintaining access to adequate resources. Territories provide exclusive use of resources for an individual or a family group, thus facilitating successful reproduction. The economic defensibility of a territory depends on the quality, abundance, and distribution of its resources as well as the amount of competition that an individual must endure to maintain exclusive access. The benefits of defense must outweigh the costs for territoriality to be profitable. Territory owners may benefit from territories with high quality resources, but they also may incur greater costs defending these resources from competitors. In contrast, territories with …

Sea Turtle Conservation Program - 2009 Report, Curtis Burney, Laura J. Wright

Sea Turtle Nesting Trends Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Relationship Between Virulence And Repellency Of Metarhizium Anisopliae And Beauveria Bassiana Towards Macrotermes Michaelseni And Chemical Identification Of The Mediating Signals, David M. Mburu

All PhD Dissertations

It is not well understood how termites survive in hemiedaphic habitats with diverse array of potentially infective fungi. In the present study, it was initially found that Macrotermes michaelseni detected a virulent isolate of Metarhizium anisopliae from some distance in a specially designed Y-olfactometer and avoided direct physical contact through olfaction. The overall objective of the study was to evaluate the relationship between virulence and repellency of different isolates of M. anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana towards the termite and identify possible mediating signals. The results show an interesting co-evolutionary phenomenon in which the termite's response to either M anisopliae or …

Morphological And Genetic Diversity Of The New Invasive Species Bactrocera Invadens (Diptera: Tephritidae) In Africa, Mbarak Khamis Fathiya

All PhD Dissertations

Species of the genus Bactrocera in the family Tephritidae, or 'true fruit flies', are among the most important pests of fruits and vegetables. Because of the broad larval host range and cosmopolitan distribution, pest fruit flies are highly invasive, with adults often exhibiting a strong tendency for dispersal and larvae being readily transported to new areas via fruit movement. Recently, a pest species was recorded for the first time in Kenya and has subsequently been found in countries across tropical Africa. The insect was described as Bactrocera invadens, due to its rapid invasion of the African continent. Taxonomic description of …

Socio-Economic Factors In Technology Development And Adoption: An Assessment Of The “Push-Pull” Technology Of Controlling Maize Stem Borers In Trans Nzoia District, Dorothy Mukudi Wanyama Masinde

All PhD Dissertations

This study sought to examine the collaborative participation approach and technology adoption. The objective of this study was to determine the linkage between socio-economic factors in collaborative participation and technology adoption and diffusion among Trans Nzoia district resource-limited farmers. Collaborative participation involves farmers, researchers, and extension agents in developing and disseminating technology. The study reviewed the push/pull' technology of controlling maize stem borers. The goal was to provide information that would contribute to improvement of the collaborative participation approach, eventually enhancing adoption of developed technologies.The study was conducted in the villages of Yuya, Wamuini, Kaminini, and Kissawai in Trans Nzoia …

Relationship Between Virulence And Repellency Of Metarhizium Anisopliae And Beauveria Bassiana Towards Macrotermes Michaelseni And Chemical Identification Of The Mediating Signals, David Mwangi Mburu

All PhD Dissertations

It is not well understood how termites survive in hemiedaphic habitats with diverse array of potentially infective fungi. In the present study, it was initially found that Macrotermes michaelseni detected a virulent isolate of Metarhizium anisopliae from some distance in a specially designed Y-olfactometer and avoided direct physical contact through olfaction. The overall objective of the study was to evaluate the relationship between virulence and repellency of different isolates of M. anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana towards the termite and identify possible mediating signals. The results show an interesting co-evolutionary phenomenon in which the termite's response to either M anisopliae or …

A Web Based Grading Assistant System, Nabeel Saeed Alzahrani

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is the design and development of a web-based tool, Gas, that can automatically, or semi-automatically grade beginner-level programs written in programming language C++. This project aims at a system that is highly customizable so that various grading criteria can be changed and implemented depending on the assignment to be graded.

Attitudes And Beliefs Toward Hoarding Among Adult Protective Services Workers, Jade Yuko Lambert

Theses Digitization Project

This study examined the attitudes and beliefs toward hoarding among Adult Protective Services workers in San Bernardino County. APS workers do not identify behavior as OCD although further research is needed to find out the correlation between hoarding behavior and OCD.

Shaping Our Children's Future: Perceived Self-Efficacy In A Montessori Environment, Candace Joan Andrews

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility that students who spend more time in a Montessori environment exhibit higher levels of self-efficacy than children who have more of their school career exposed to traditional education methods. This study used a nonprobability convenience sampling where participants were selected using a volunteer process. The sample included a total of 36 children ranging from 7th to 12th grade who volunteered to participate in this study.

Winter Food Habits And Preferences Of Northern Bobwhites In East Texas, Donald R. Dietz, R. Montague Whiting Jr., Nancy E. Koerth

Faculty Publications

During late winter, 1994 and 1995, we investigated food habits and preferences of northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus; hereafter, bobwhites) collected on forested lands in east Texas. Crops for bobwhites were collected from areas under 3 management regimes, namely intensively managed for bobwhites (QMA) (i.e., tree basal area reduced, annually burned, numerous multi-stage food plots, etc.), extensively managed for timber and wildlife (NBS) (i.e., burned every 3-5 years, scattered 2-stage food plots with corn feeders), and unmanaged for wildlife (i.e., burned every 5-7 years). With years pooled, partridge pea (Cassia fasciculata), Hercules club (Zanthoxylum clava-herculis), and pine (Pinus spp.) seeds, and …

Annual Report Of The Officers Of The Town Of Warren, New Hampshire For The Fiscal Year Ending December 31, 2008., Warren Town Representatives

Warren, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

Snai1 And Snai2 Are Asymmetrically Expressed At The 2-Cell Stage And Become Segregated To The Te In The Mouse Blastocyst., Christine E Bell, Andrew J Watson

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Publications

SNAI1 and SNAI2 are transcription factors that initiate Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal cell transitions throughout development and in cancer metastasis. Here we show novel expression of SNAI1 and SNAI2 throughout mouse preimplantation development revealing asymmetrical localization of both SNAI1 and SNAI2 in individual blastomeres beginning at the 2-cell stage through to the 8-cell stage where SNAI1 and SNAI2 are then only detected in outer cells and not inner cells of the blastocyst. This study implicates SNAI1 and SNAI2 in the lineage segregation of the trophectoderm and inner cell mass, and provides new insight into these oncogenes.

2009-2 Lucas, Keynes, And The Crisis, David Laidler

Department of Economics Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Atypical Antipsychotic-Induced Weight Gain: A Look At Leptin Signaling, Jessica Y. Davie

Digitized Theses

Atypical antipsychotic drugs are associated with increased weight gain, which often leads to patient non-compliance and decreased quality of life among individuals with schizophrenia. It is proposed that atypical antipsychotics facilitate metabolic disturbances by disrupting hypothalamic control of feeding and energy homeostasis. The first aim of this thesis focused on the development of a reliable animal model of antipsychotic-induced weight gain. Female Sprague Dawley rats received daily oral administrations of olanzapine for 14 days. After sub-chronic treatment, these animals were sacrificed to analyze the expression of specific hypothalamic peptides involved in leptin signaling pathways, specifically phosphorylated signal transducer and activator …

Apocalypse In Anime: Shifting Boundaries Of Human Technology Interface, Pauline Morris

Digitized Theses

Anime is the definitive postmodern genre through which to portray apocalyptic narratives as it provides an imaginative liminal site that transcends any specific culture and ethnicity, and through which global concerns can be investigated. The study of apocalypse in selected anime - Japanese animated film and television - is beneficial at the outset o f the 21st century when we are beset with catastrophes both ecological and technological that are recognizably manufactured by some degree of human involvement. This examination is pertinent to disciplines as diverse as communications, cultural theory, anthropology, film, cyborg studies, Asian studies, and English literature. The …

Appetite Regulatory Neural Circuitry In The Prenatal Testosterone Treated And Obese Ewe, Kayla M. Sheppard

Digitized Theses

Body weight and energy expenditure are regulated by the nervous systerfi. The first aim of this thesis was to characterize appetite regulatory neurons in the sheep brain which express both agouti-related protein (AgRP) and neuropeptide Y (NPY), or proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and cocaine- and amphetamine- regulated transcript (CART). We then asked whether this circuitry is altered in ewes at increased risk of obesity following prenatal testosterone (T) treatment, or in diet-induced obese ewes. Using immunocytochemistry, we found that prenatal T-treated ewes showed increased expression of the appetite stimulatory peptide, AgRP, but not the inhibitory peptide, POMC, consistent with the increased risk …

Radiobiological Modeling And The Impact Of Treatment Uncertainties, Laryssa M. Kurjewicz

Digitized Theses

Radiobiological models are used to predict normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCP) in irradiated healthy tissues. The dependence of these models on the inherent uncertainties of dose-response data is not well established. This thesis has evaluated the impact of these uncertainties in the Lyman model for NTCP in lungs. Datasets were generated, based on previously published clinical and animal data, to simulate dose and volume uncertainties in numerous animal experiments and clinical trials of lung irradiations, and fit to the Lyman model to determine parameter estimates. Results from datasets with the same level of uncertainty were compared to the reference values, …

Ct Perfusion Study Of Angiogenesis Progression And Arterio­ Venous Anastomoses In Rodent Models Of Cancer, Peter Gabra

Digitized Theses

Tumour-associated neovascularization (angiogenesis) is essential for tumour

growth, invasion, and metastases. The trigger for angiogenesis has been termed the 'angiogenic switch'. To non-invasively identify this switch and track angiogenesis, twelve transgenic mouse adenocarcenoma of the prostate (TGMAP) mice with identifiable tumours of a minimum 2 mm diameter and three groups of five nude rats injected with LoVo colorectal cancer cells in the left flank/thigh region underwent CT perfusion (CTP) scans. Mice were scanned every 7-14 days for 63 days and rats in groups 1 and 2 were scanned 3 days post injection and then 7-14 days for 56 days. Blood …

The White Fraud: White Elephants, Value, And Exchange In American Literature, Ross Daniel Bullen

Digitized Theses

My dissertation examines the literary and cultural history of the term “white elephant” - a phrase that refers to a costly and burdensome object that is impossible to sell or give away - by tracing its origin in the American lexicon to the United States’ diplomatic relations with Siam in the 1850s. Although a certain kind of albino elephant was historically regarded as auspicious in Siam, these animals were not white, nor were they given away as gifts by the king of Siam in order to “ruin” his rivals, as virtually every text that seeks to explain the significance of …

Forces And Torques On Small Animal Insert Coils, Matthew Aloysius Mcalpine

Digitized Theses

Magnetic Resonance is a popular imaging modality for research and diagnostic purposes. With the increased usage of smaller localized insert coils needed to provide the resolutions required to image smaller sample sizes, the safety with regards to the Lorentz forces has been investigated. These insert coils are made to be readily interchanged in a MR magnet, and are not often motion stabilized inside the magnet's bore. With the large magnetic fields produced by an MR magnet, the Lorentz forces and torques on an insert coil may become quite large, especially during coil failure. In this study the safety of an …

Phosphodiesterases And E Prostanoid Receptors In Endometrial Sensitization And Artificially Induced Decidualization, James Patrick Mather

Digitized Theses

Inhibition of prostaglandin (PG) production renders the sensitized rat endometrium unresponsive to an implanting blastocyst or an artificial stimulus. Responsiveness can however be restored by the co-administration of PGE2, which binds to the four E prostanoid (EP) receptors; EP1, EP2, EP3, or EP4. Furthermore, the EP2 and EP4 receptors stimulate the production of cAMP, suggested to be important in artificially induced decidualization. To investigate PGE2 function, this study looked at the role of the EP2, EP3, and EP4 receptors and cAMP degrading phosphodiesterase (PDE) enzymes in endometrial sensitization and artificially induced stimulation. The EP4 receptor has significantly (p<0.05) greater protein levels in the maximally sensitized endometrium compared to endometria sensitized with low estrogen (Day 5L). Immunolocalization studies showed that the EP2, EP3, and EP4 receptors were differentially present in the luminal and glandular epithelium and co-localized with the PDE enzymes. The role of the individual receptors in artificially induced decidualization was investigated using specific agonists. Agonists for all three receptors resulted in uterine endometrial vascular permeability (EVP) and decidualization that were significantly (p<0.05) greater than vehicle treated animals. However, L09-2688 (EP4 agonist) showed the greatest effects and was not significantly different from PGE2 using either endpoint. Total PDE activity levels were found to be significantly (p<0.05) reduced in the maximally sensitized endometrium compared to Day 5L endometria. The effect of PDE inhibition on artificially induced decidualization was then determined in Day 5L animals. Compared to vehicle, PDE4 inhibition resulted in significantly (p<0.05) greater EVP, while PDE7B inhibition did not. In contrast, both inhibitors resulted in significantly (p<0.05) increased decidualization compared to vehicle treated animals. Collectively these results indicate that EP4 receptor stimulation and PDE4 enzyme inhibition have the greatest effects on EVP and decidualization following an artificial deciduogenic stimulus.

Phosphodiesterases And E Prostanoid Receptors In Endometrial Sensitization And Artificially Induced Decidualization, James Patrick Mather

Digitized Theses

Inhibition of prostaglandin (PG) production renders the sensitized rat endometrium unresponsive to an implanting blastocyst or an artificial stimulus. Responsiveness can however be restored by the co-administration of PGE2, which binds to the four E prostanoid (EP) receptors; EP1, EP2, EP3, or EP4. Furthermore, the EP2 and EP4 receptors stimulate the production of cAMP, suggested to be important in artificially induced decidualization. To investigate PGE2 function, this study looked at the role of the EP2, EP3, and EP4 receptors and cAMP degrading phosphodiesterase (PDE) enzymes in endometrial sensitization and artificially induced stimulation. The EP4 receptor has significantly (p<0.05) greater protein levels in the maximally sensitized endometrium compared to endometria sensitized with low estrogen (Day 5L). Immunolocalization studies showed that the EP2, EP3, and EP4 receptors were differentially present in the luminal and glandular epithelium and co-localized with the PDE enzymes. The role of the individual receptors in artificially induced decidualization was investigated using specific agonists. Agonists for all three receptors resulted in uterine endometrial vascular permeability (EVP) and decidualization that were significantly (p<0.05) greater than vehicle treated animals. However, L09-2688 (EP4 agonist) showed the greatest effects and was not significantly different from PGE2 using either endpoint. Total PDE activity levels were found to be significantly (p<0.05) reduced in the maximally sensitized endometrium compared to Day 5L endometria. The effect of PDE inhibition on artificially induced decidualization was then determined in Day 5L animals. Compared to vehicle, PDE4 inhibition resulted in significantly (p<0.05) greater EVP, while PDE7B inhibition did not. In contrast, both inhibitors resulted in significantly (p<0.05) increased decidualization compared to vehicle treated animals. Collectively these results indicate that EP4 receptor stimulation and PDE4 enzyme inhibition have the greatest effects on EVP and decidualization following an artificial deciduogenic stimulus.