Digital Commons Network^™

Advanced Reactors And Novel Reactions For The Conversion Of Triglyceride Based Oils Into High Quality Renewable Transportation Fuels, Michael James Linnen

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainable energy continues to grow more important to all societies, leading to the research and development of a variety of alternative and renewable energy technologies. Of these, renewable liquid transportation fuels may be the most visible to consumers, and this visibility is further magnified by the long-term trend of increasingly expensive petroleum fuels that the public consumes. While first-generation biofuels such as biodiesel and fuel ethanol have been integrated into the existing fuel infrastructures of several countries, the chemical differences between them and their petroleum counterparts reduce their effectiveness. This gives rise to the development and commercialization of second generation …

Dreaming Of Masculinity: The Middle English "Pearl" And The Masculine Space Of New Jerusalem, Kirby Lund

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the gendering of spaces, particularly the city of New Jerusalem in the fourteenth-century Middle English dream vision Pearl. Earlier scholars have gendered this space as feminine based on the appearance of the city landscape. Instead, I examine the city in terms of both form and function to argue that New Jerusalem is a masculine space. In doing so, I hope to recognize the patriarchal control in the poem to demonstrate the masculine construction of the space, not to reinscribe patriarchy as a construct. This analysis combines the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey with performative …

A "Keeping Place For Souls": Photo, Body, And Narrative Impulse In Cormac Mccarthy's Suttree, Melissa Anne Mondry

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines how the treatment of photographs in Cormac McCarthy's novel Suttree sheds light on its main character's narrative project, his motivation for writing and his approach to his subjects. It extends the work of critics who have identified the character of Suttree as a burgeoning writer in order to examine what this narrative subplot might indicate about the purpose of narrative in McCarthy's world. It also responds to previous readings of the novel's photo album scene, which have focused on photographs as reminders of death. I argue that Suttree's adverse reaction to photographs is more complicated than fear …

Effect Of A Nutrition Program On Eating Habits In Female Collegiate Athletes, Jorid Dagfinrud Oiestad

Theses and Dissertations

In the present study, an intervention took place using two female collegiate NCAA Division 1 (D1) teams. One team was randomized to be the experimental group, receiving the intervention of the 6-week nutrition education class Fueling for Performance (FFP). And the other team served as the control group, receiving no treatment. The purpose was to examine the effect of the FFP intervention on energy balance, body composition and self-efficacy compared to the control group, pre- and post- intervention.

The participants provided pre- and post intervention data through 3-day food records entered in MyPlate Super Tracker, wearing of a BodyMedia Senswear …

Potential Juror Credibility Evaluations Of Gay And Lesbian Witnesses, Lisa Mae Olson

Theses and Dissertations

This study looked at whether the sexual orientation of a witness has an effect on a potential juror's determination of the witness's credibility, and examined traits such as respondent gender and college major, that may predict high levels of sexual prejudice. The sample consisted of 379 undergraduate students at a medium sized, upper Midwestern university. Results did not reveal an overall link between witness credibility ratings and sexual orientation, with the gay male witness receiving the highest credibility rankings followed by the heterosexual male witness, heterosexual female witness, and lastly, the lesbian female witness. It does not appear that the …

Some Versions Of Timon's Epitaph: Performance, Text, And Gift In Shakespeare And Middleton's Timon Of Athens, Silas Frederick Pera

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines how notions of textuality influence the production of William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton's Timon of Athens in both scholarly, print editions and in theatrical performances of the play. It focuses specifically on the scenes involving Timon's epitaph, which have proven difficult to handle both editorially and theatrically, and seeks to show how changing views of the nature of textuality has significantly altered the way that different readers and audiences encounter this play. These issues regarding the idea of textuality begin with the play itself, which enacts its own ideas about the power of texts to intervene in …

Rodrigo's Equation: Race, Capitalism, And The Search For Reform, Richard Delgado

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Instruction Of Mindfulness: Developing Standards And Objectives For Mindfulness Training In Graduate Programs, Crystal Rofkahr

Theses and Dissertations

Mindfulness is an effective therapeutic tool for multiple disorders and

conditions. A set of standards, methods, assessments, and teacher characteristics had

not been formulated to effectively teach future mental health providers mindfulness.

This study utilized a Delphi Method to meet this need in the field. This methodology

was used to assemble a panel of experts to provide data on the best practices in teaching

mindfulness. The experts participated in three rounds of data collection. They provided

information pertaining to their ideal and real teaching standards, methods, and

assessments. They, then, narrowed down the concepts in each domain until consensus

was …

Marijuana Consumption And The Perception Of Harm, David Ruggeri

Theses and Dissertations

Drug use is a public health issue with one-third of the United States population having reported consuming marijuana at some point in their lifetime. This paper examines how the perception of risk (both health and criminal sanctions) affects consumption behavior. This study examined marijuana consumption for the age ranges of 12-17, 18-25, and 26 and older during the years of 1999-2007.

Perceptions of health risk of marijuana vary from by age groups (12-17, 18-25, and 26 years of age and up). Persons age 26 and older perceive the health risks to be the greatest for occasional marijuana consumption, trailed by …

Identifying Landscape-Level Trends In Prairie Songbirds With Fragmented Habitats, Jessica Shahan

Theses and Dissertations

Grassland songbirds are experiencing significant population declines due to habitat loss and degradation. This study investigated the relationship between landscape-level patterns and prairie-level patterns in presence/absence, richness, and diversity for seven individual species, the total grassland songbird community, and three community subgroups. Overall, grassland songbirds did respond to landscape-level variables, although the strength of the relationship and the variables involved differed by species and functional group.

Fear Of An Undeterrable Other, Fredrick E. Vars

Articles

America is presently fighting a war on terror and a war on sex offenders. In each, the government openly detains hundreds of individuals not for what they have done, but for what they might do. Some warn that this greatest restriction on liberty may expand to other types of people. This Article examines the risk of such expansion by putting our current wars in historical perspective. The two main conclusions are: (1) some categories of people detained in prior periods are not being detained today; and (2) the risk of expansion is real but lower than previously suggested.

Patent Trolling Why Bio & Pharmaceuticals Are At Risk, Robin Feldman, Nicholson W. Price Ii

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transparency, Robin Feldman

Faculty Scholarship

The patent regime is a quintessential notice system. Implicit in its design is the concept that one attempting to license a patent can identify those who hold the requisite rights and the territory that the patent holders claim. The modern system, however, bears little resemblance to the idealized form. In the last decade, an entire Hobbit’s world has been created under the foliage with little information available to inform the market. To address the problem, this Article suggests borrowing from doctrines related to disclosure in the realm of corporate securities, molding those doctrines to particular patent concerns. As a government …

Association Mapping Of Agronomic Traits Of Dry Beans Using Breeding Populations, Chiti Agarwal

Plant Sciences

Genome wide association mapping (GWAS) is an effective method to fine-map QTL because of its higher mapping resolution. In order to evaluate the possibility of using breeding populations for GWAS, analysis were conducted using AYTs (Advanced Yield Trials) and PYTs (Preliminary Yield Trials) from the NDSU dry bean breeding program, grown in 2012 at four locations in North Dakota using a 6k SNP chip. Genomic regions were evaluated separately for AYT, PYT, AYT+PYT, and races Mesoamerica and Durango. Overall, 13, 11, 9, and 9 significant markers were found for seed yield, maturity, 100-seed weight, and plant height respectively. Two candidate …

Radiation Hybrid Mapping Of Barley Chromosome 3h, Mona Mazaheri

Plant Sciences

Assembly of the barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) genome requires high resolution maps for aligning contig-based physical maps along chromosomes. Genetic maps lack accurate information on the physical position of almost half of the barley genome located in recombination-poor regions. Radiation hybrid (RH) mapping is an alternative approach, which is based on radiation-induced chromosomal deletions. In this study, an RH population for barley chromosome 3H was developed. Genotyping 373 3H-RH lines with 113 markers resulted in an RH map with an average resolution of 2.22 Kb. Compared to an analogous genetic map, the 3H-RH map resolution was 9.53-X higher, reaching to …

Droplet Size Effect On Herbicide Used In Cereals To Control Dicotyledonous Weeds, Andrew Nathan Fillmore

Plant Sciences

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of droplet size on the efficacy of translocated and non-translocated herbicides. Translocated and non-translocated herbicides provided similar control when comparing droplet size effect on efficacy. Medium and very coarse droplet sizes gave the greatest visible injury whereas coarse-sized gave the lowest visible injury assessments for most species. However, droplet size generally did not affect contact herbicide efficacy. Overall, droplet size was not a strong factor contributing to herbicide efficacy and often, differences were only between herbicides. Non-ionic surfactant solutions measured by a Sympatec droplet analysis system gave the highest percent of volume in …

Nuclear-Cytoplasmic Interaction Analysis: A Critical Step For Wheat Germplasm Enhancement, Ali Soltani

Plant Sciences

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) possesses the largest set of available alloplasmic lines in either the plant or animal kingdom. These alloplasmic lines consist of novel combinations of wheat cultivar nuclei and cytoplasm, derived from the Triticum and Aegilops genus. This set of alloplasmic lines provides a unique genetic resource for the enhancement of existing germplasm. The current study was devised to address several aspects of cytoplasm genetics, including cytoplasm evolution and its interaction with the nuclear genome. Initially, the ATP6 gene from 46 different alloplasmic lines was isolated and sequenced. ATP6 resides on the mitochondrial genome, and its function involves the …

Genetic Dissection And Molecular Approaches Of Root Morphology Of Canola, Muhammad Arif Uz Zaman

Plant Sciences

The inheritance of root vigor and days to flowering were studied in the F2 populations derived from winter- and spring-type crosses and their reciprocal crosses. Root vigor was found to be controlled by three genes whereas, a single dominant gene was found to be responsible for days to flowering. Positive and significant correlation was found between seed yield and yield attributing traits, seed yield and root length, days to flowering and root length. Days to flowering was negatively correlated to seed yield. Linkage map was constructed with 262 SNP and 3 SSR markers. Two QTL for both root vigor and …