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The Grammar Of Choice: Charles Dickens's Existential Idea Of Religion, Hai Na

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation challenges the received opinion that Charles Dickens's religious thinking is merely sentimental and philanthropic. Instead, I argue that there is in his works a very consistent "existential" sense of religion, especially in his mature novels. To be religious for him does not lie in the adherence to dogma or the study of theological arguments, but in the crucial choices people make every day. In order to illustrate this "existential" sense of religion, I analyze, in the first chapter, relevant works by Kierkegaard, Carlyle, George Eliot, and Dostoevsky, in order to establish the context in which Dickens's religious views …

Big Man On Campus: Therapy Dog Eases Stress, Jody Record

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis, Scott Hardy, Daniel Schull, Mark Vinopal

Bioengineering Senior Theses

For the study of neuromodulation in Cancer borealis we have designed a microfluidic device to separate and detect bioamine concentrations with a high temporal resolution. Our goal is to use this device to measure the concentration of continuous bioamine microdialysis samples directly from the pericardial cavity (the area surrounding the heart) of Cancer borealis. The microfluidic device that we designed is made from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and exhibits an off-channel configuration of capillary electrophoresis (CE) by incorporating micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC). CE is used to separate bioamines based on charge and size due to the applied electrical potential. In the off-channel …

The Eastern Echo, June 3, 2014, Eastern Michigan University

EMU Student Newspaper: The Normal News & The Eastern Echo

No abstract provided.

Food, The Nutritional Product That Fuels The Passing Of Time: How Time And Nutrition Transformed Eating Into Refuelling, Diarmuid Cawley

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Long-Term Effects Of Low Level Laser Therapy (Lllt) Combined With Complex Decongestive Therapy (Cdt) In The Treatment Of Breast Cancer Lymphedema: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study, Olivia Bramlett, Igor Daysudov, Toshi Odaira, Bethany Rodriguez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Complex Decongestive Therapy (CDT), the gold standard for lymphedema treatment, fails to demonstrate long-term efficacy. The purpose of this study was to determine the long-term efficacy of low level laser therapy (LLLT) in reducing post-mastectomy lymphedema when used with CDT. The experimental group received LLLT and CDT (n = 7) while control group received sham laser and CDT (n = 7), twice a week for 4 to 8 weeks. Percent arm circumference difference between affected and unaffected limbs was collected over 18 months. Results revealed no statistical difference between both groups at all time periods: 1 (p = 0.902), 2 …

Don't Push Me Over The (Knowl)Edge: The Social Correlates Of Latino High School Dropouts, Robert Charles Baskerville

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to the forecast of the US Census Bureau, Latinos are the largest, fastest-growing ethnic group within the United States today and will comprise the majority of the US labor force sometime during the mid-21st century. Yet today, the youth of this diverse segment of the population are plagued by alarmingly high high school dropout rates, about double that of African-Americans youth and triple that of white youth. This yawning disparity prompts the examination of the social conditions contributing to this social crisis. How do demographic, aspirational, school-level, and socioeconomic variables affect the decision that so many Latino youth make …

Between Sites: Critical Convergences At The Personal, Interpersonal, And Institutional Levels In A Service Learning Course, Kendra Rashaun Brewster

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Set within the context of the increasing emphasis on civic engagement and transformative education, this work addresses service learning as a form of civic engagement that holds both the risks of acriticality and critical potential. This study examines the capacity for the critical consciousness and relationality that define the primary commitments of critical service learning (see Kinefuchi, 2010). Thus, this study is grounded in the ways that the circuits of privilege and dispossession were breached in a service learning course where college students travelled to mentor adolescent girls who were in a secure residential facility. The narratives of former service …

Environmental Progress Under China's New Leadership, Arielle Dumornay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Environmental issues have been a consistent problem that many countries have had to adhere to. There have been many demands on global resources, it was not until the end of the 1960s did the ideals and visions about environmental protection begin to come to fruition. The UN in 1972 convened the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm which was considered to be a very pivotal moment in taking environmental problems more seriously. Declaring 19 principles that represent an environmental doctrine, this conference laid the groundwork for the new environmental agenda of the United Nations. The General Assembly …

Huu-Fa Thesis Dat?: A Syntactic Analysis Of Possessive Jamaican Creole Possessive Wh-Elements, Toni Ashlie Foster

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis discusses the differences between the Jamaican Creole expressions huu-fa and fi-huu. Jamaican Creole is a language that was born from a combination of the lexifier language English and the substrate language Twi, therefore it is reasonable to check whether the features of JC were derived from these languages. The distribution of huu-fa and fi-huu resembles the distribution of English whose. Fi-huu and huu-fa are WH-elements that show possession, similar to the English word whose. They are made of a WH-pronoun and a form of the preposition fi "for". Both terms differ in internal structure, and distribution. The difference …

The Journey Back: Revisiting Childhood Trauma, Ruth Lipman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the adult's endeavor to revisit childhood trauma in four sets of literary texts that are not typically studied together. These works, all published after 1968, address the central problem of revisiting childhood trauma in order to open a potential for mourning and sometimes for healing. I explore connections between individual/family trauma and collective/historical trauma. I argue that the use of objects and/or photographs is integral to the process of touching and representing the buried, embodied wounds of childhood, propelling the journeys and conveying the experience to the reader. Each pairing of literary works concerns a different kind …

Musical Landscapes: Theophile Gautier And The Evolution Of Nineteenth Century French Poetry, Dana Milstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Theophile Gautier's first edition of Emaux et camees (1852) marks the juncture at which Romantic, Neoclassical, and nascent Symbolist poetic theories converged under the umbrella ideology of "Parnassianism." Emaux et camees synthesizes the aesthetics promoted by these diverse groups, primarily by 1) using "musical" and "painterly" language, 2) emphasizing correspondences among arts, and 3) paradoxically demanding an attention to form and the artist's labor while also emphasizing art's inutility during a century characterized by Progress. Gautier's Emaux et camees bridges painterly and musical poetics to create a new model for poetry.

While the vocabulary of painting captivated many nineteenth century …

Wild Nyc: Building Biodiversity In Fresh Kills And City Parks, Melissa Zavala

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an anthropological field study of the work of urban ecological maintenance being conducted in New York City through the analysis of the reclamation and biotic restoration of the Fresh Kills landfill, located in the borough of Staten Island. This landfill was once the largest urban dump in the United States. Its 2,200 acres of trash buried in four mounds have polluted an area historically noted for its natural beauty as a collection of marshes and woodlands bordering the Kill Van Kull, a tidal strait that flows into the New York Harbor. The current plan for park and …

A Review Of Animal Studies For The Efficacy Of D-Methionine In Reducing Threshold Shifts And Affecting Biochemical Changes After Exposure To Noise, Alexandra Petraru

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a major public health concern in the United States and worldwide. Certain individuals such as factory workers and military personnel are at greatest risk for irreversible sensorineural hearing loss due to the limitations of hearing protection measures and devices. D-Methionine (d-Met) is an antioxidant otoprotective agent that currently is in human clinical trials. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to review d-Met’s efficacy in reducing threshold shifts as well as in producing biochemical and physical changes in animal studies vis-à-vis the administration paradigm (preloading, rescue and a combined approach), d-Met dose quantity …

Summer Camps Appeal To Those Interested In Music, Jewelry Or Robotics, Winthrop University

Winthrop News 2014

• The camps will appeal to students interested in studying either music, jewelry design or robotics, according to organizer Courtney Starrett, an associate professor of fine arts.
• Tuition for a week of activities is $125 and scholarships are available. Lunch is included in the tuition.

Interactions Of Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factors And 3' Untranslated Region Of Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus Mrna During Protein Synthesis: A Study Of Equilibrium Binding, Kinetics And Thermodynamics, Bidisha Banerjee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4F binding to mRNA is the first committed step in cap-dependent protein synthesis. Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) employs a cap-independent mechanism of translation initiation which is mediated by a structural element BTE (BYDV translation element) located in the 3’ UTR of its mRNA. eIF4F bound the BTE and a translational inactive mutant with high affinity; thus questioning the role of eIF4F in translation of BYDV. To examine the effects of eIF4F in BYDV translation initiation, BTE mutants with widely different in vitro translation efficiencies ranging from 5-164% compared to WT were studied. Using fluorescence anisotropy …

Aging Out Of The Spectrum Of Cultural Visibility, Darthea M. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I argue that the valorization of youth and the subsequent quest for agelessness has caused such an explosion of ageism that the elderly have been relegated to a culturally invisible status. The intersection of age and gender is doubly problematic for women due to sexism and the perennial objectification of the female body. Thinking of visibility as a measure of social acceptability, the consequences of cultural disappearance for the aging woman is an important site for investigation and theorizing. This thesis depicts the erasure of aging women from the cultural landscape as an effect of media representation and self-care work …

Households, Landscapes, And Post-Collapse Continuity In Postclassic Jalieza, Valley Of Oaxaca, Mexico, Elise Marie Maragliano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through the lens of household and landscape archaeology, this dissertation examines an Early Postclassic archaeological site located in Jalieza in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. The analysis reviews data collected during an intensive archaeological field survey consisting of mapping and systematic surface collection. The site of Postclassic Jalieza is compared with other Postclassic sites in the Valley, as well as with the Early Classic and Late Classic settlements at Jalieza. The Postclassic component at Jalieza is a single time-period occupation restricted to the Early Postclassic, thus presenting a rare glimpse into this turbulent and little understood episode in the history …

Cortical Modulation Of Spinal Reflexes In Healthy Humans, Caitlin Bedell, Joseph Capogrosso, Kristin Thomas, Charlotte Westmoreland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Considerable evidence suggests that monosynaptic and polysynaptic spinal reflexes are prone to corticospinal inputs. The goal of this study was to establish the cortical modulation of monosynaptic and polysynaptic spinal reflexes in healthy humans. Cutaneomuscular responses were evoked following stimulation of the medial edge of the right foot with a 30 ms pulse train every 10 s via a bipolar electrode and recorded from the ipsilateral tibialis anterior (TA) muscle. Across subjects, medial edge foot stimulation was delivered at 1.2 to 1.5 times the response threshold. The soleus H-reflex was evoked and recorded via conventional methods. The effects of transcranial …

Efficacy Of N-Acetylcysteine On Prevention And Amelioration Of Cisplatin-Induced Ototoxicity: A Systematic Literature Review, Maryana Peravozchykava

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objective: The purpose of this investigation is to perform a systematic review of the existing literature on NAC efficacy in prevention of cisplatin-induced ototoxicity.

Methods: A comprehensive search utilizing databases via the Mina Rees Library of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York was conducted to identify relevant studies for analysis. The levels of evidence were applied to restrict articles reviewed to Level 3 or better.

Results: Eight articles evaluating NAC protective efficacy against cisplatin-induced ototoxicity were identified. The results revealed significant variability in NAC otoprotective efficacy.

Discussion: The significant variability in findings on NAC otoprotective efficacy …

Evolution And Ethics, Franklin Roy Bennett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Does evolution inform the ancient debate about the roles that instinct (emotion/passion/sentiment/feeling) and reason do and/or should play in how we decide what to do? Evolutionary ethicists typically adopt Darwinism as a suitable explanation for evolution, and on that basis draw conclusions about moral epistemology. However, if Darwinism is to be offered as a premise from which conclusions about moral epistemology are drawn, in order to assess such arguments we must assess that premise. This reveals the highly speculative and metaphysical quality of our theoretical explanations for how evolution happens. Clarifying that helps to facilitate an assessment of the epistemological …

The Vastness Of Small Spaces: Self-Portraits Of The Artist As A Child Enclosed, Matthew John Burgess

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A tent of bed sheets, a furniture fort, a corner of the closet surrounded by chosen objects--the child finds or fashions these spaces and within them daydreaming begins. What do small spaces signify for the child, and why do scenes of enclosure emerge in autobiographical self-portraits of the artist? Sigmund Freud's theory that the literary vocation can be traced to childhood experiences is at the heart of this project, especially his observation that "the child at play behaves like a writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or rather, re-arranges the things of this world in a …

Structure And Function In Bacteriophage Phi6, James Carpino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study of bacteriophage Phi6 has been preceded by a great number of exploratory studies of its structure and function, and these studies have formed a basis for Phi6's development into a model organism. In this study, two aspects of the model organism have been examined. 1. There are several uncharacterized and presumed untranslated regions (UTRs) in Phi6's 13.3 kilobase-pair dsRNA genome. I examined the impact of specific modification to the 3' UTR of the small segment of bacteriophage Phi6. I determined that modification to the purported UTR of the small segment resulted in severe fitness costs, supporting a …

Roles Of Dopamine D1 And D2, Opioid And Glutamate Nmda Receptor Signaling In The Acquisition And Expression Of Fat- And Glucose-Conditioned Flavor Preferences In Rats And C-Fos Analysis Of The Dopamine Mesotelencephalic And Nigrostriatal Pathways Following Intake Of Sugars And Fats In Rats, Julie Dela Cruz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Systemic administration of the non-competitive NMDA antagonist, MK-801, demonstrated that acquisition, but not expression, were found to affect the orosensory-mediated (flavor/flavor: f/f) fructose-conditioned flavor preference (CFP). The present studies demonstrated a similar outcome when f/f and f/n processes were combined. Fat-CFP and glucose-CFP studies indicated that systemic injections of the NMDA antagonist, MK-801, were able to significantly reduce acquisition, but not expression, of Corn-Oil (CO)-CFP and glucose-CFP. Both studies appear to have mitigated effects on acquisition as compared to the separate orosensory and postingestive CFP studies.

Previous studies found that systemic administration of dopamine (DA) D1 (SCH23390) and D2 (raclopride) …

Mechanisms Of Regulation Of Mrna 3' Processing By P53 Pathway, Emral Cakmak Devany

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although the p53 network has been intensively studied, genetic analyses long hinted at the existence of components that remained elusive. This dissertation focuses on the study of the regulation of mRNA 3' processing during DNA damage response (DDR) by the p53 pathway and the regulation of p53 expression by the mRNA 3' processing machinery. The results in this dissertation revealed new roles of tumor suppressor p53 in mRNA 3' processing. In Chapter II, I showed that p53 inhibits the cleavage step of polyadenylation reaction and that cells with different levels of p53 expression have different mRNA processing profiles. As part …

Enchanted Entrepreneurs: The Labor Of Esoteric Practitioners In New York City, Karen Gregory

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through participant observation and in-depth interviews, this dissertation weaves portraits of urban esoteric practitioners together with contemporary social theories of labor in order to explore the embodied and subjectifying project of becoming a psychic or intuitive practitioner capable of offering emotional and psychological "support" to city dwellers. By placing this project in a larger, contemporary political-economic framework, this dissertation looks to explore how spirituality is "entangled" (Bender 2010) in both social structures and cultural practices, as well as shifting configurations of work and the nature of labor. Here, we meet a network of individuals who are predominantly Tarot card readers …

Homeostasis-Driven Responses To Consumer Sensations, Rhonda Hadi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research examines the effect of experienced physical temperature on an individual's decision-making process. Reliance on emotions can function as a warming process and reliance on cognitions can function as a cooling process, hence individuals are nonconsciously induced to alter their decision-making style according to their thermoregulatory objectives. My first two studies support a thermoregulatory account by demonstrating that the mere use of cognitive versus affective processing leads to both self-reported and objective changes in body temperature, and that the adoption of a compensatory pathway can indeed aid in providing temperature-related comfort. My last three studies demonstrate that individuals adopt …

"We Are Refugees In Our Own Homeland": Land Dispossession And Resettlement Challenges In Post-Conflict Teso, Uganda, Matt Kandel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is based off of fieldwork that I conducted in post-conflict Teso region in northeastern Uganda from 2012-2013. It focuses primarily on land dispossession and challenges to resettlement. Conflicts over land intensified in the early 1990s, coinciding with the early stages of resettlement in southern Teso after a period of regional civil war and large-scale cattle rustling. In contrast to the large-scale "land grabs" in Sub-Saharan African that have occurred since the 2007-08 global commodities crisis, land expropriations occur mainly on a small-scale in Teso. I argue that there are a number of drivers to land dispossession in the …

Counterfeiting: A Challenge To Forensic Science, The Criminal Justice System, And Its Impact On Pharmaceutical Innovation, Pauline Elizabeth Leary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Counterfeit drugs threaten public health and present unique and complex challenges to the criminal justice system and the field of forensic science. Theft of intellectual property in the pharmaceutical industry has caused sickness and death, and it is necessary that the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice. In some cases, threats to health and safety are short term; in others they are long term. This research describes these threats in detail.

The problem is complex, and there are many important factors that need to be considered to successfully address the problem. Public-health challenges, drug-development challenges, legal challenges, issues …

Promoting Wellness Through Mindfulness-Based Activities, Malgorzata Powietrzynska

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The central idea of this dissertation is mindfulness framed as a sociocultural, secular, and multidimensional construct involving attention that is purposeful, in the present moment, and non-judgmental. Mindfulness represents a unification of century-old contemplative Eastern traditions (including Buddhism) and the recent developments of modern, Western science. Hence, supported by the emerging scientific evidence, I argue that mindfulness practices have a potential to offer a wide range of benefits related to wellness. In particular, I report on our hermeneutic-phenomenological studies investigating the centrality of emotions in teaching and learning. Our findings confirm that when adopted in education, mindfulness may mediate positive …