Digital Commons Network^™

Problem Solving With Geographic Networks In The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Steven Hong

Master's Theses

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) serves as the crossroads for many geographic networks that crisscross California. These include a conveyance network for drinking water, a biological network for delta smelt, and a transportation network for roads. As a result, local Delta issues concerning flooding and endangered fish hold implications for the entire state. This thesis explores these underlying network structures that pass through the Delta as a means for solving subsets of these most difficult challenges.

Recognition of these larger networks enable the transformation of the Delta's convoluted maze of waterways and islands into a series of nodes and segments. …

The Environmental Impact Of The Retail Photoprocessing Industry In Santa Clara County: 1996 Vs. 2006, Benoit Delaveau

Master's Theses

Consumer digital cameras appeared on the market in 1994. Consequently, the photoprocessing industry experienced a downturn beginning in 2000, with a sudden drop in activity. This study focuses on the evolution of the retail photoprocessing industry between 1996 and 2006 and evaluates its four major environmental impacts: (1) energy use, (2) associated greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), (3) silver discharge, and (4) water consumption. The main method used for data analysis is based on the ISO 14040 standard for Life Cycle Assessment. The study utilizes data from: (a) impact quantification for two photoprocessing labs in Santa Clara County, and (b) a …

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On Gulf Coast Libraries And Their Disaster Planning, Jeffrey Frank

Master's Theses

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast, becoming infamous for the destruction it wrought to communities from Louisiana to Alabama. Most notably, it caused massive flooding in New Orleans and surrounding parishes by breaching the levee system. The storm's impact on the region's population, buildings, and collective psyche is impossible to measure. As was the case with other Gulf Coast institutions in the path of Hurricane Katrina, the region's libraries also suffered extensively.

Through examination of the available literature and first-hand accounts of library professionals, this thesis examines the impact that Hurricane Katrina had on libraries …

Dangerous Decor: Consumer Knowledge Of Health Risks Within Interior Spaces, Kaitlin Keith

Master's Theses

Interior décor is an ever-present part of people's daily lives. The furnishings and finishes with which people surround themselves are part of their personal expression, but these components in people's homes and work spaces can negatively affect their health. Products such as furniture and paints can contain harmful chemicals, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) so toxic they are pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. With the rise in the "green" movement, healthy and environmentally safe alternatives such as low or zero-VOC paints are becoming more available. This study assessed how aware consumers and design professionals are of environmentally …

Modeling Of The Impact Of Electrical Stressors On The Degradation Process Of Power Mosfets, Shompa Shohiny Mahiuddin

Master's Theses

This research focused on building a model based on collection of experimental data acquired with high electrical stressors at the gate of the power MOSFET under an isothermal condition to analyze certain deviations of intrinsic properties leading to degradation. The primary indicators were threshold shift, deviation in switching characteristics, and significant expansion of the Miller Plateau due to accelerated stressing of the device from the pristine condition. The intrinsic mechanism associated with the threshold shift and changes in the parasitic capacitances were observed and analyzed with mathematical precision and device parameter simulation. It was seen that, in addition to altered …

Dialectical Tensions: Drunk Driving-Related Loss Among Emerging Adult Siblings, Krista Nilsen

Master's Theses

The longest relationship many of us will share in our lifetime is that with our siblings. Siblings sometimes experience the loss of their brothers and sisters to drunk drivers. Despite the risks associated with drinking and driving, this behavior continues to occur. This study explores drunk driving, sibling loss, and loss during emerging adulthood. This study explores the ways in which dialectical tensions and liminality take shape across educational and professional contexts when emergent adults lose her/his siblings to drunk drivers.

Two dialectical tensions emerged in this work: openness-closedness and connectedness-autonomy. Surviving siblings engage in four patterns of praxis in …

Utilizing H.M.S. Richards' Sermons And Writings In The Development Of Sermons That Focus On The Unique Aspects Of Seventh-Day Adventist Preaching As Implemented At The Kress Memorial Church In Winter Park, Florida, Eric M. Doran

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

H. M. S. Richards maintains that Seventh-day Adventist preaching should be distinct from the preaching of others. What guidelines does Richards provide for determining what should be included in Adventist preaching, and how can those guidelines be integrated into the preaching at the Kress Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church?

Method

The books, articles, and sermons of H. M. S. Richards were researched for guidance on what Seventh-day Adventist preaching should include. On the basis of the principles developed from Richards, twelve sermons preached prior to the research were evaluated. Twelve new sermons following Richards’ principles were then written and preached …

Improving Marital Satisfaction Among Couples In The Ottawa Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Floyd Samuel Spence

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

A number of marital issues are challenging the members of the Ottawa Seventh- day Adventist Church. Of primary concern is the increase in “marital distress.” Given the importance of marital satisfaction on the health of a marriage, an examination of marital satisfaction levels among couples in the Ottawa Seventh-day Adventist Church is a priority. Based on this background, the primary focus of this study was to investigate marital satisfaction and its effect on marital health, with the intention of improving marital satisfaction levels among couples in the Ottawa Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Method

This study evaluated marital satisfaction factors that …

The New Playgoer's Club: The Emergent Theater Weblog Culture And The Practice Of Theater Criticism, Elizabeth Hunter Spreen

Master's Theses

New York City has one of the most active and engaged theater blogging communities in the country. It is common practice for theater bloggers to supplement and comment on the journalistic and critical practices of the New York Times, Time Out, New York, and The Village Voice, but the idea of a theater blogosphere is still a relatively new phenomenon. The emerging role of blogger-critics and their critical practice is largely uncharted and far from understood. While sharing some of the same tasks as the journalist-critic, blogger-critics are still defining and identifying the scope of their practice and, in some …

African American Community College Student Perceptions Of Mathematics Instructor Immediacy Behaviors And Perceived Cognitive Learning, Georgia Lynne Toland

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to examine what instructor immediacy behaviors are perceived to most positively affect the perceived cognitive learning of African American community college mathematics students. Data were provided via voluntary student surveys collected in various mathematics classrooms at two community colleges. The survey instrument was modeled from the works of Gorham (1988) and Sanders and Wiseman (1990) and included an experimental survey method of direct questioning. The perceptions of African American community college students regarding the behaviors of their mathematics instructors, along with their stated preferred instructor behaviors, produced a subset of effective strategies similar to …

Can't Sing, Can't Dance, Can't Draw: How Leisure Constraints And Negotiations Impact Midlife Women's Participation In The Creative Arts, Debra Ann Ullmann

Master's Theses

This qualitative, exploratory study involving semi-structured interviews of 12 midlife women, ages 45 to 65, sought insight into how intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints, constraint negotiations, and motivations facilitate or impede midlife women's active participation in the creative arts. The data were analyzed within a socio-cultural context using grounded theory. Findings indicate that dynamic interactions involving social comparison result in judgment by others, of others, and of self. This spiraling effect is often initiated in childhood or adolescence. Once a woman internalizes the notion that she "can't sing, can't dance, can"t draw," there is seldom any attempt to negotiate constraints …

Spiritual Growth Perceptions Of Students At Southern Adventist University, William Brennon Kirstein

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Seventh-day Adventist collegiate young adults are disengaging from the church in alarming numbers in North America today. In this context, the need arises for Adventist colleges and universities to be much more intentional about the relationships it forms with its students and the spiritual formation system it is promoting during these years.

Method

A comprehensive spiritual master plan, as well as an assessment process, was developed for Southern Adventist University in order to explore the perceived quality of campus spirituality and how it impacts the lives of students.

Results

In this study, students perceived the following three objectives to …

John Bell Hood: Extracting Truth From History, Thomas John Brown

Master's Theses

The year 2011 brings us the Sesquicentennial celebration of the American Civil War. Surprisingly, one hundred and fifty years later, students continue to find themselves asking many of the same questions about the great national tragedy faced during the Centennial in 1961. For example, did slavery cause the great conflict, or did constitutional questions act as the catalyst? Does the Battle of Gettysburg represent the turning point of the War, or did that occur elsewhere?

In connection with the last question, Lost Cause advocates, those great pro-Confederacy propagandists, found convenient villains to blame for the southern defeat. One of these, …

The Effects Of Kettlebell Training On Aerobic Capacity, Jonathan Asher Falatic

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a kettlebell training program on aerobic capacity. Seventeen female NCAA Division I collegiate soccer players (age 19.7 +1.0 years, height 166.1 +6.4 cm, weight 64.2 +8.2 kg) completed a graded exercise test to determine maximal oxygen consumption (VO₂max). Participants were placed into a kettlebell intervention (KB) group (n = 9) or a circuit weight training control (CWT) group (n = 8). Participants in the KB group completed a kettlebell snatch test to determine individual snatch repetitions. Both groups trained 3 days per week for 4 weeks in …

An Existential Phenomenological Examination Of Parkour And Freerunning, Jennifer L. Clegg

Master's Theses

Recently, there has been growing interest among scholars in the concept of edgework to examine voluntary risk-taking behavior. Parkour is an emerging sport that finds a nexus between transgression, risk, and accessibility that may represent a unique form of edgework. Few scholars have examined sport as an edgework pursuit, and fewer still have attempted to portray the lived and embodied experiences of edgeworkers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to expand sport and edgework research by qualitatively examining the lived, sporting experiences of parkour practitioners.

Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 11 (9 male, 2 female) intermediate-to-advanced traceurs (parkour practioners) …

Tools Of Engagement: The Potential Of Theatre Web Sites For Fostering Active Audience Participation, Elizabeth Lynn Mcclelland

Master's Theses

This thesis explores whether theatre Web sites contain tools that have the potential to deepen audience engagement in live performance. By synthesizing data from a variety of scholarly sources, it presents a thorough and specific definition of engagement (active participation through educated interpretation, conversation and critique, social connection to a theatre company's community, or creative expression) and makes a detailed case that online tools can increase audience engagement. Because it addresses the significance of engagement and Internet technologies to audience participation in the theatrical event, this study is relevant not only to theatre and arts participation scholars but also to …

Polytasking And Job Stress Across Cultures, Ashwini Palekar

Master's Theses

The current study explored the relationship between country of origin and personal and organizational polytasking in relation to stressors and strains. The study also investigated how temporal incongruence could be a source of stress. A total of 440 surveys were collected from full-time employees, including Asian Indians in the USA (n= 67), Asian Indians in India (n=253), and non-Asian Indians in the USA (n= 120). Results indicate that non-Asian Indians in the USA perceive significantly greater levels of personal and organizational polytasking than Asian Indians. There were no significant differences in perceptions of personal and organizational polytasking for Asian Indians …

Understanding The Relationship Between Hyper-Violence And Educational Disparity: Listening To The Voices Of Latina Youth From Oakland, Yanira Madrigal-Garcia

Master's Theses

The hyper-violence that exists in Oakland, California, has persistently made national headlines. When examining the violence that exists in low-income urban cities, studies usually overemphasize the male experience. The studies that center on female experience usually focus on extreme cases such as gang-involved and incarcerated girls. This study foregrounds the experiences of Latina high school girls from Oakland who are "in the middle," neither gang-involved nor academic high-achievers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) how the participants make sense of and understand the violence that is present in their communities; 2) how violence impacts their everyday lives …

Public Awareness About Global Warming In Hyderabad, India, Vani Sarraju Rao

Master's Theses

This study addressed public perceptions and awareness about global warming in India through a survey of 851 subjects in the city of Hyderabad in the year 2007. A stratified sample of nine segments of society showed that, although people consider global warming a serious problem, they do not clearly understand its causes, impacts, and solutions. The data analyses using paired T-tests indicated differences in levels of awareness about global warming, across age and education. ANOVA and regression analysis suggested that levels of awareness among respondents varied according to their occupation. The degree of seriousness with which subjects viewed global warming …

Investigation Of The Impact Of Co₂ On Water-Rock Interactions Using Sequential Extractions, Sarah Beers

Master's Theses

Release of CO₂ into groundwater has an impact on groundwater geochemistry, including a decrease in pH, and increases in alkalinity and cation concentrations. From an experiment in Bozeman, Montana, it was concluded that the cations were released by interactions between groundwater, CO₂, and aquifer sediment. To evaluate these interactions, ions from the aquifer sediment were sequentially extracted to determine which cations and trace metals were associated with different phases in the sediment. These phases included ion exchange sites, carbonate, oxide, and sulfide minerals, and organic material. The data were then compared with the groundwater chemistry data to determine the likely …

The Effects Of Self-Referencing On Mood And Information Processing, Michael Mehler

Master's Theses

Research in the area of attitude change has demonstrated that people can process a persuasive message in a systematic or heuristic manner. It has been shown that positive mood increases heuristic processing, whereas negative mood increases systematic processing. In the current study, we were interested in examining one factor that may increase happy people's ability or desire to systematically process a persuasive message, self-referencing. Self-referencing occurs when information is processed by relating it to oneself or one's personal experience. After a happy, neutral, or sad mood was induced, participants were exposed to a message with either self-referencing or no self-referencing …

The Body Dysmorphic, Nicholas Grant Goodwin

Master's Theses

The Body Dysmorphic is a book of poetry situated around the absurdity of the human body in a world of fast advancing technologies, or around the body as a machine, a pump primed for sexual exertion in a cycle of life and death that is shit across the following pages while the poet grimaces and writhes in an overwhelming fit of laughter-induced vomiting. The whole gimmick is really to inspire a revolution.

In the vain effort to become another scab on the aging dermis of poetics, the poet here reconstructs life from the dismembered parts of ideologies, memories, and language …

Examination Of The Relationship Between User Participation And Technology Acceptance In Post-Implementation, Ekta Menghrajani Makhijani

Master's Theses

Implementing information technology (IT) systems to support organizational effectiveness and enhance efficiencies is increasingly costly, challenging, and has a low success rate. Many researchers have explored user technology acceptance as a key to successful implementation of IT systems. Research on characteristics inherent to the implementation process can aid interventions designed to enhance user technology acceptance. User participation is a process characteristic that has been linked to IT system success and user satisfaction before and during implementation.

Using data from 131 survey respondents, the current study investigated the relationship between user participation and technology acceptance in the post-implementation phase of an …

Moderating Role Of Justice Perception In The Relationships Between Stressors And Strains, Jashaswini Rath

Master's Theses

Various studies indicate the workplace to be an important source of stress. Researchers analyzing the relationship between stressors and strains in the workplace have urged for the need to explore various moderators that influence this relationship. The purpose of the present study was to explore whether justice perception (perceived procedural justice and interactional justice) moderates the relationship of role stressors and strains. Role stressors included role overload, role conflict, and role ambiguity. Strains were measured in terms of anxiety, general health, affective commitment, intention to leave, and job satisfaction. One hundred and fifty-five employees from three government-owned organizations in India …

Emancipatory Pedagogy Through Serialized Heuristic Reflection: Fostering Self-Awareness Of Dental Students' Prejudicial Beliefs, Deborah Narcisso

Master's Theses

This study investigated dental students' prejudicial beliefs towards underserved patient populations as an upstream constituent of provider attitudinal barriers to care. The objectives were to explore the nature of prejudicial beliefs, to assess the value of critical reflection as essential preparation for patient care, and to identify insights that would inform the preclinical curriculum that, ultimately, reduce oral health disparity.

An original reflection assignment was introduced into the preclinical curriculum of first year dental students to journal about the legitimacy of their prejudicial beliefs. Results indicated dental students identified a range of prejudicial beliefs and, through self-direction, experienced awareness and …

Habitat Use Of Striped Bass (Morone Saxatilis) In The San Francisco Estuary And Its Effect On Total Mercury And Heavy Metal Body Burden Upon Capture, Jonathan Hugh Walsh

Master's Theses

Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) is a nearshore, anadromous fish in the San Francisco Estuary (SFE). A notable aspect of Striped Bass populations in general is yearly migrations, but there has been considerable disagreement over the homogeneity of these movements within the SFE. Additionally, since Striped Bass spend their entire lives in estuarine and nearshore environments, they likely encounter contaminants due to their proximity to anthropogenic pollution sources, a known concern with this species.

The purpose of this study was to clarify habitat use, movements of Striped Bass in the SFE, and potential dangers to Striped Bass and consumers from contaminants …

Land Use Interpretation In Flood Damage Estimation, Sharon Michelle Metzler

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the role of geographic land use interpretation in flood damage estimation. Sample flood data were drawn from the 1998 flood event along San Francisquito Creek in northern Santa Clara County, California. Spatial flood data for the event were collected from the Santa Clara Valley Water District (the District); depth-damage factors and the flood damage equations were both collected from US Army Corps of Engineers' (the Corps) publications; and spatial parcel data were collected from the Santa Clara County Tax Assessor's office (the Assessor).

This study computes flood damages per parcel using the Corps' recommended equations. Within that …

Reducing Mass Incarceration: Lessons From The Deinstitutionalization Of Mental Hospitals In The 1960s, Bernard E. Harcourt

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

2011 Adea Annual Session: Poster Abstracts, Susan L. Tolle, Leslie M. Congdon, Michele L. Darby

Dental Hygiene Faculty Publications

Poster session abstracts from the 2011 American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Conference.

Locuszoom: Regional Visualization Of Genome-Wide Association Scan Results, Randall J. Pruim, Ryan P. Welch, Serena Sanna, Tanya M. Teslovich

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Summary: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed hundreds of loci associated with common human genetic diseases and traits. We have developed a web-based plotting tool that provides fast visual display of GWAS results in a publication-ready format. LocusZoom visually displays regional information such as the strength and extent of the association signal relative to genomic position, local linkage disequilibrium (LD) and recombination patterns and the positions of genes in the region.