Digital Commons Network^™

A State-To-State Analysis Of Mexican Migration To The U.S., Avilia Bueno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The determinants of undocumented immigration flows from Mexican states to U.S. states utilizing data recently released by the Mexican consulate are analyzed. The impact of economic, demographic, and geographic factors on immigrant location choice in the year 2007 is analyzed using ordinary least squares, tobit, and two stage least squares to control for factors likely to be endogenous with immigration. The results generally support that immigrants tend to migrate towards states with higher Mexican immigrant populations, shorter distances, higher wages, and smaller populations. In addition, the relationship between undocumented immigration and economic freedom and the policy measures used to construct …

Three Essays Employing Cultural Value Theories To Explain Individual And National Differences In Ict Use/Adoption And Media Utilization Among Multiple Nations, Khendum Choden

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates the impact of values on Information Communication Use/ adoption at an individual level and at the national level among advanced and emerging economies. We employ the use of Schwartz's individual values, Schwartz's cultural values and Hofstede's cultural values to empirically demonstrate its impact on multiple information communication technologies across advanced economies while controlling for demographics, GDP, income, and pronoun drop. We also study the moderating effects of culture on a variety of task characteristics and media use.

Quantifying Carbon Allocation To Mycorrhizal Fungi By Temperate Forest Tree Species Across A Nitrogen Availability Gradient, Shersingh Joseph Tumber-Davila

Honors Theses and Capstones

Terrestrial ecosystems make up the largest carbon pool with a major portion of that being forests. With carbon being a major concern due to global climate change, being able to make accurate models is increasingly important. Studies have shown that trees may allocate up to 50% of their photosynthetically fixed carbon underground; however these values haven’t been accurately quantified and underground carbon allocation has been historically overlooked. Mycorrhizal fungi may be a large portion of underground carbon allocation, as they have a symbiotic relationship with trees where they provide the plant with water and nutrients in return for sugars (carbon). …

Reddish Egret (Egretta Rufescens) Nesting In Clearwater Harbor And St. Joseph Sound, Pinellas County, And Crystal Bay, Citrus County, Florida From 1991 To 2011, Ann B. Hodgson, Ann F. Paul

Florida Field Naturalist

No abstract provided.

A Fashion Paradox: Reflective Thinking For Fashion Forecasting, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

In-Situ, Integrated U-Pb, Hf And O Isotopic Study Of Igneous, Metamorphic And Detrital Zircons. Implications To Crustal Evolution And Geodynamics, Munazzam Ali Mahar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Zircon data from South Karakoram gneiss dome provide evidence for Proterozoic inherited cores (1.8-1.9 Ga and 2.3-.2.5 Ga) surrounded by migmatitic overgrowth with ages ranging from ~6 to ~20Ma. Oxygen isotopic data of Neogene migmatite and inherited core is similar and indistinguishable ranging from 7.5 to 9.5 /. However, Neogene overgrowth is significantly less evolved than the inherited core in terms of Hf composition. This implies that the Hf composition of the migmatitic zircons is not controlled exclusively by the dissolution of the inherited cores and that contamination by external melts is likely. Isotopic data from the Baltoro plutonic unit …

Microstructure And Mechanical Properties Of Titanium Nitride Optical Coatings Made By Dc Magnetron Sputtering, Gustavo Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Titanium nitride (TiNx) thin films were grown by DC (Direct Current) magnetron sputtering method onto Si(100) substrates by varying time of deposition to produce films with variable thickness (dTiN) in the range of 20-120 nm. The grown TiNx films were characterized by studying their structure, composition, and mechanical properties. Nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) combined with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) analyses indicate that the grown films were stoichiometric TiN. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurements indicate that the texturing of the TiN films changes as a function of dTiN. The (111) and (002) peaks appear initially; with increasing dTiN, (111) becomes …

Developing A Community Of Practice Among Peer Leaders: The Leadership Seminar, A.E. Dreyfuss, Janet Liou-Mark, Amelise Bonhomme, Travion Joseph

Publications and Research

The Leadership Seminar, piloted in the fall semester of 2011, is a mandatory weekly meeting for Peer Leaders at New York City College of Technology, City University of New York (CUNY). Its main purpose was to create a community of practice among first-time and experienced Peer Leaders. Continued in the spring 2012 semester, the one hour session provides a setting where Peer Leaders can share their experiences, discuss problems that arise in their workshops, and further develop their leadership and professional skills

Carbon Farming In Wa, Department Of Agriculture And Food, Western Australia, Department Of Regional Development And Lands, Western Australia

Natural resources published reports

Fact sheets:

1. Applying biochar to improve soil quality and crop productivity

2. Reducing methane emissions from cattle using feed additives

3. Cattle breeding for lower greenhouse gas emissions

4. Managing genetic codes to reduce methane emissions from cattle

5. Managing pastures and stocking rate to reduce methane emissions from cattle

6. Claying as a method of increasing soil carbon content

7. Green and brown manuring as part of carbon farming

8. Permanent environmental plantings to earn carbon credits

9. Nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soils

10. Sheep genetics in methane reduction

11. Managing sheep pastures to reduce methane production …

Informal Alliance: Royal Navy And U.S. Navy Co-Operation Against Republican France During The Quasi-War And Wars Of The French Revolution, Jon Paul Eclov

Theses and Dissertations

The Quasi-War was an undeclared conflict fought between the young United States of America and the French Republic at sea during the years 1798-1801. It began when the French mounted a guerre de course against the significant American blue-water merchant marine in response to America concluding Jay's Treaty with Great Britain. At the time, the U.S. had no navy whatsoever with which to combat these French corsairs primarily operating from bases in the West Indies. Seeing there was little hope of immediately ending the matter diplomatically after the infamous XYZ Affair, President John Adams convinced a normally divided Congress to …

An Evaluation Of Data Collected By Middle School And College-Level Students In Stream Channel Geomorphic Assessment, Martin D. Lafrenz

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

This project tested the accuracy and repeatability of geomorphic stream channel assessments conducted by two different middle school classes from the Walt Morey Middle School in Troutdale, OR and college students from Portland State University in Portland, OR. Each group surveyed the same three cross-sections in Fairview Creek, a tributary to the Lower Columbia River, in order to assess stream channel geometry, discharge, composition of the bed material, and water quality. The three student groups were all able to accurately document the stream channel geometry, including stream width and mean depth, indicating that these data can be successfully collected by …

From Space-Off To Represented Space, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

In Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home, author Anita Hill explores some of the literal and figurative meanings of "home," focusing specifically on African-American women in their quest for home. Hill layers discussions of law, literature, and culture with stories of individual women, both historic and contemporary. In Reimagining Equality, Hill takes on a topic clearly distinct from the Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings, the episode for which she is best known. Her work here is, nonetheless, evocative of her struggle in those hearings, because the book addresses the interrelation between gender, race, place, space, …

Environmental Education Through The Lens Of Diverse Elementary School Students In The United States: A Phenomenographic Study, Brissa Yazmin Quiroz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Global environmental change is occurring, putting our planet under pressure. Children need to understand not only why the environment is important, but also their role as citizens of a globalized society and their necessary contribution to solving global problems. Students carry their own perspectives about the environment and education, and these differing perspectives should be a significant topic for environmental education research. Recent research studies have included the conceptualization of nature and the environment through children's eyes; yet, no studies have examined the concept of environmental education through the eyes of diverse children. Minority voices and experiences are not frequently …

The Chicana Experience In Indonesia: An Autoethnography And Dialogic Performance Evaluating The Influence Of Cultural Identity And Gender, Bianca Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to evaluate how aspects of cultural identity, gender and religion play a role on a Chicana's (mestiza's) experience of studying abroad internationally through an Indonesian conservation program. The experience of traveling to Indonesia, engaging in cross-cultural dialogue, and experiencing adversities prohibiting multiculturalism, influences the ability of the Chicana/o ethnographer to examine cross-cultural parallels in dialect and behavior. I also analyzed the rhetoric contained within the dialogic performances of the mestiza ethnographer's documented experiences. Lastly, the intersections of cultural identity, gender, and class were evaluated to determine their influence on the mestiza ethnographer's ability to successfully engage in …

A Diathesis-Stress Approach To Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Associated With An Hiv Diagnosis: Implications For Medication Non-Adherence., John Andrew Sauceda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction. We fit a diathesis-stress model with childhood trauma and neuroticism as predictors of depressive and HIV-related PTSD symptomatology in a sample of HIV+ Latino men who have sex with men (MSM). We then examined the impact of depressive and HIV-related PTSD symptomatology on medication adherence. We hypothesized the primary stressor from the diathesis-stress model to be symptoms of dissociation at the time of being diagnosed with HIV.

Method. We sampled 149 Latino adult MSM living with HIV at a local HIV treatment clinic in El Paso, Texas. We administered all surveys in paper-and-pencil form, with viral loads and CD4 …

Individual Predictors Of Hindsight Bias: A Longitudinal Study, Sonya M. Stokes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The hindsight bias, a person's tendency to overestimate their ability to predict the outcome of an event after the fact, is a phenomenon present in nearly every area of our lives (Arkes, Faust, Guilmette & Hart, 1988). The bias can be mitigated by factors such as analytical and deep thought regarding an outcome and increased expertise (Gray et al., 2007; Knoll, 2009; Arkes et al., 1988). In this study, we examined the growth of hindsight bias over 4 time points using a within-subjects memory model. For our analysis, we quantified hindsight bias in two ways: the number of "flips" a …

A Novel Fkbp52/Β-Catenin Complex Specifically Regulates Androgen Receptor Activity, Cheryl Lynne Storer

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The androgen receptor complex plays an essential role in prostate cancer progression due to exploitation of the androgen receptor (AR) as a transcription factor. The final stage of the receptor complex consists of a dimerized receptor, a dimeric heat shock protein (Hsp90), the cochaperone p23, and an immunophilin. Hormone-dependent prostate cancer progresses due to key interactions between the androgen receptor complex and its ligand α dihydrotestosterone (DHT). While current treatments focus on blocking the androgen receptor-ligand interactions, these therapies are no longer effective in advanced stage, hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC).

Therefore, we have been interested in targeting other members of …

Textbooks, Teachers, And Compromise: The Political Work Of Freedmen Education, Ashley Marie Swarthout

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

After the end of the Civil War, Northerners flooded into the South in order to participate in the education of freedmen. While many, perhaps most, of the individuals who worked in freedmen education had the best interests of the freedmen in mind, freedmen education in of itself was inherently political; therefore, all contributors to freedmen education were also sponsors of Southern Reconstruction politics. It is my argument that the aid organizations (particularly the American Missionary Association and the American Freedmen's Union Commission), the writers and printers of freedmen-specific textbooks (the American Tract Society and Lydia Maria Child), and the teachers …

International Polar Year (Ipy) Back To The Future (Btf): Changes In Arctic Ecosystem Structure Over Decadal Times Scales, Sandra Villarreal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Arctic vegetation communities are responding to climate warming through shifts in species composition and diversity but most observations have been made over relatively short time frames, and/or in association with experimental manipulations. Because vegetation plays a key role in regulating ecosystem productivity, nutrient cycling, surface energy budgets, and trophic interactions in the Arctic, there is a need to better understand shifts in tundra vegetation communities over decadal time scales. Understanding these shifts and their impact on ecosystem structure and function in the Arctic has important implications for predicting the future state of both the Arctic and the Earth System. Long …

The Impact Of Public Relations On News, Laura Follis

Journalism

No abstract provided.

Finding Room For Everyone: Libraries Confront Social Exclusion, Jen Hoyer

Publications and Research

Communities that are working to combat exclusion have greater potential for success if they enlist the support of public libraries, which are in many ways ideally situated to welcome marginalized populations and provide programs and services that combat social exclusion. This chapter explains how this adaptability in response to social problems fits with the mandate of public libraries; examines why and how libraries should confront social exclusion; and looks at the Atwater Library and Computer Centre (ALCC) in Westmount, Québec, as an illustration of how this has been successfully accomplished.

Communicating Resilience: A Discursive Leadership Perspective, David H. Torres, Jeremy P. Fyke

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

In this essay we challenge whether current conceptions of optimism, hope, and resilience are complete enough to account for the complexity and nuance of developing and maintaining these in practice. For example, a quick perusal of popular outlets (e.g., Forbes, Harvard Business Review) reveals advice to managers urging them to “be optimistic,” or “be happy” so that these types of emotions or feelings can spread to the workplace. One even finds simple advice and steps to follow on how to foster these types of things in the workplace (McKee; Tjan). We argue that this common perspective focuses narrowly …

Promises And Challenges Of Teaching Statistical Reasoning To Journalism Undergraduates: Twin Surveys Of Department Heads, 1997 And 2008, Robert J. Griffin, Sharon Dunwoody

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

This research is dedicated to the memory of Victor Cohn, former science reporter for the Washington Post and often considered the dean of science writers, who collaborated on the first wave of the survey. The 1997 survey was supported by a grant from the American Statistical Association and the 2008 survey by a grant from the Communication graduate program at Marquette University. Special thanks to research assistants Kathryn Zabriskie and Gongke Li for their valuable help in the survey. The analyses and conclusions are solely those of the authors.

Water Management Capabilities Of Bio-Inspired Flow Field Configurations For Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells, Nicholas Warren Freer

Masters Theses

"Fuel cells have received an increasing amount of attention over the past decade for their power production capabilities. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells in particular are researched because of their high power density, large range of operating conditions, green products, and ease of scalability. PEM fuel cells do have a number of issues that reduce their overall performance. These issues include variations in reactant distribution, materials issues for the bipolar plate, and flooding caused by poor water management. Variations in the reactant distribution causes lower overall power output due to regions of low reactant density. This means that optimizing …

Characterization Of An Evolving Serotonin Transporter Computational Model, Laura Marie Geffert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A major obstacle for developing new antidepressants has been limited knowledge of the structure and function of a central target, the serotonin transporter (SERT). Established SERT inhibitors (SSRIs) were docked to an in silico SERT model to identify likely binding pocket amino acid residues. When mutated singly, no one of five implicated residues was critical for high affinity in vitro binding of SSRIs or cocaine. The in silico SERT model was used in ligand virtual screening (VS) of a small molecule structural library. Selected VS "hit" compounds were procured and tested in vitro; encouragingly, two compounds with novel structural scaffolds …

Dental Student Indebtedness: Where Did It Come From And Where Will It Lead?, Gary L. Stafford

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

Today’s dental school graduates are burdened by an ever-increasing amount of student loan debt from both their undergraduate and predoctoral educations. Although considered to be multifactorial in origin, this article explores the microeconomic theory of supply and demand as a source for rising tuition costs and subsequent educational debt. The historical context for the cost of a dental education is provided, and serious questions are posed about how this indebtedness might impact the future of the profession.

True Crime: Real-Life Stories Of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-Robbing, And More, Lee Gutkind

In Fact Books

In these pages, a magazine intern, kidnapped and brutalized by her ex-boyfriend, struggles to live free from fear; an identity thief encounters a prison guard who knows her better than she knows herself; a young adventurer supports her travels by smuggling pre-Columbian artifacts; a triple homicide devastates a high school swim team; a detective searches for the truth in a he-said-she-said situation. Plus, award-winning journalists investigate the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the unsolved lynching of Claude Neal.

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis And Computer Simulation Of Polyurea Aerogels, Victoria Ann Prokopf

Masters Theses

"Historically, the use of aerogels has been limited due to their poor mechanical properties. However, polyurea aerogels have proven to be mechanically strong under quasi-static conditions. Polyurea aerogels can be created by filling molds of the desired shape with a liquid solution that then creates a solid gel filled with liquid. The liquid can be removed from the gel by supercritical drying. This thesis outlines dynamic testing as well as simulation for polyurea aerogels.

Testing has been conducted in dynamic tension and bending for densities of polyurea aerogels ranging from 0.12 g/cm³ to 0.31 g/cm³. In most …

Taxpayers As Victims: Taxpayer Harm & Criminalization, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Economics And/Of Science: The Meaning(S) Of Financial Bias And The Ideal Of Interest-Free Science In Law, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

Images of scientific research and funding conventions are important in legal contexts when, for example, a trial judge or agency administrator evaluates the integrity of a scientific expert or risk assessment report — is industry affiliation or sponsorship of research a marker of bias, and should the results of “independent” research be given greater weight? In the discourse concerning the commercialization of science, there is a geography of positions reflecting different images of how science is affected by, or alternatively rises above, financial or economic pressures or entanglements. Of course, science costs and has always cost a lot of money, …