Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of An Andean Cosmovisión: Nature, Culture, Ecology, And Cosmos, Christian Ardeleanu

Master's Theses

Modern life may offer certain benefits for humanity, but it can also create a barrier between humans and the natural world. In contrast, the millenarian Aymara culture of the Bolivian Andes exhibits a harmonic interrelation with nature, ecology, and the cosmos, and it also represents a living system of indigenous knowledge and knowledge production/transformation. The Aymara system of knowing and knowledge production, like other indigenous systems, should not be mistaken for antiquated elements of culture and folklore but should be seen as a distinct and dynamic epistemology. The Aymara cosmovisión is similar to the philosophy of ecology, sharing some general …

Synthesis Of Hybrid Inositol Glycan Analogues, Sudi Sabet

Master's Theses

A 2010 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has projected that one of three US adults could have diabetes by the year 2050. More than 90% of the diagnosed cases are Type II diabetes, a condition characterized by insulin resistance. In search of new antidiabetic drugs, a class of natural, phosphorylated, inositol-containing pseudosaccharides called inositol glycans (IGs) has been studied for years. These compounds have insulin-mimetic activity in insulin-sensitive cells and can stimulate processes such as lipogenesis and glucose transport. Due to the heterogeneity of IGs, it is very difficult to isolate them from their natural sources, and …

Having Fun About Jesus:" Children's Constructions Of Their Relationship To Church, Henry James Zonio

Master's Theses

Children are not clay tablets upon which adults can etch predetermined futures. Rather, children are active agents who repeatedly interact with various social fields. Religion, one of those fields, is a major social institution that influences one's religious beliefs as well as one's secular behavior. Studying children's views on religion and how they relate to their religious communities makes explicit the ways children actively participate in their own religious socialization. Consequently, this study is an in-depth examination of children's participation in their religious communities at two evangelical Protestant churches in Northern California utilizing a multiple methods qualitative approach including participant …

Effects Of Happiness On Gender Stereotyping In Social Perception, Eurika B. Marina

Master's Theses

Past research has shown that people's perception of others can be influenced by a number of factors, including their own affective state. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of happiness on gender stereotyping. College undergraduate participants in a happy or neutral state completed a social judgment task in which they determined the likelihood of guilt of either a male or a female suspect in a computer hacking case. Happy participants showed increased gender stereotyping, but only against the male suspect. Neutral participants did not show stereotype activation only when the suspect was identified as female. …

U-Pb Geochronology Of The Miocene Peach Spring Tuff Supereruption And Precursor Cook Canyon Tuff, Western Arizona, Usa, Marsha Izabella Lidzbarski

Master's Theses

The 18.8 Ma Peach Spring Tuff, Arizona, is a >600 km3 ignimbrite formed from the Miocene supereruption of Silver Creek caldera, Black Mountains, Arizona, and is an important Miocene stratigraphic bed in the southwestern United States. Peach Spring Tuff overlies the undated and less-voluminous Cook Canyon Tuff. Ion-microprobe and high-precision thermal ionization U-Pb dating of chemically abraded zircon crystals from Peach Spring Tuff and Cook Canyon Tuff reveal the crystallization history of both magma systems leading to eruption. A spread of U-Pb dates from ca. 18.1 to 22.0 Ma for Peach Spring Tuff relative to its 40Ar/39Ar age indicates variable …

The Perceived Intrusiveness Of Searching Electronic Devices At The Border: An Empirical Study, Matthew B. Kugler

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

This paper presents new empirical data that seeks to quantify the privacy interests and expectations of regular people in the context of a border crossing. Courts have previously disagreed about whether travelers understand that their electronic devices a

Characterization And Development Of An Extended Cavity Tunable Laser Diode, Fnu Traptilisa

Master's Theses

A laser diode emits a narrow range of frequencies. However, drifts in

frequency occur over time due to many factors like changes in laser temperature, current, mechanical vibrations in the apparatus, etc. These frequency drifts make the laser unsuitable for experiments that require high frequency stability. We have used an atomic transition in rubidium as a frequency reference and used Doppler

free saturated spectroscopy to observe the reference peak.

We have designed an electronic locking circuit that operates the diode laser at a specific frequency. It keeps the laser at that frequency for a long period of time with very …

Wastewater And Water Quality Changes In Lower South San Francisco Bay, 1957-2013., Simret Kesete Yigzaw

Master's Theses

The San José-Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility (Facility), located in the Lower South Bay (LSB), is the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in San Francisco Bay. From 1957 to 2013, the Facility added a series of expansions and upgrades that increased treatment capacity and improved the quality of treated effluent.

This study addressed the questions: (1) To what extent have expansions and upgrades in the treatment plant during the past six decades resulted in improvements to Facility effluent quality? (2) How and to what extent have the changes in the Facility effluent translated into changes in the water quality of …

The Influence Of Socioeconomic Factors On The Development Of Early Number Concepts, Brittany Meghan Caldwell

Master's Theses

Why are some children entering school unable to count, while others are able to

do simple addition? It may be that early experiences, like practice with numbers and extra resources to promote logical thinking, lay the foundation for how children and adults understand and use math in their everyday lives. The major objectives of this thesis are to explore the 1) link between children's intuitive number sense and their development of exact number concepts, 2) influence of language on early math achievement, and 3) influence of socioeconomic factors on various aspects of cognitive development. Participants included 133 preschool aged children …

Low-Voltage Continuous-Time Linear Equalizer For Digital Video Applications, Poonam Vinayak Agale

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a low-voltage continuous-time linear equalizer for the digital video application of 1080p HD video with a data rate of 3 Gbps. The equalizer was designed in the CMOS 45 nm technology with a supply voltage of 1V and bias current of 1.5 mA. The equalizer has a variable gain, which can be adjusted to suit the cable length and physical parameters. The circuit design of the equalizer filter includes a 3-stage filter, where each stage has been implemented as a variable gain amplifier along with a linear transconductance amplifier as a gain control stage. The equalizer is …

The Tempest, Marina Chappie

Master's Theses

This Creative Project in Creative Writing consists of an original feature-length screenplay titled The Tempest, which follows the story of a boy, Jax, who the night before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, watches a US Army General hand off secret intelligence to Japanese soldiers on US soil. Silenced by the death of his friend, Jax hides the evidence, which his granddaughter, Miranda, uncovers seventy years later.

Miranda is a 14-year-old wallflower struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother when dementia threatens to take away her O'Pa Jax. She grew up listening to his wild …

Networking And Craft In Three Generations Of Mail Art, Laura Dunkin-Hubby

Master's Theses

This thesis examines two threads in the history of mail art: a networking approach dedicated to open participation and a crafted approach dedicated to the art object. It then follows these two threads across three generations. Mail art is an international phenomenon that evolved over the past sixty odd years due to the efforts of a dedicated and growing group of individuals. American artist Ray Johnson and the international artistic group operating under the banner of Fluxus are discussed as establishing mail art as a separate form through their creation of the mail art network. The generation that followed Johnson …

Wrf-Model Data Assimilation Studies Of Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers And Orographic Precipitation Over Northern California, Arthur John Eiserloh

Master's Theses

In this study, data assimilation methods of 3-D variational analysis (3DVAR), observation nudging, and analysis (grid) nudging were evaluated in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for a high-impact, multi-episode landfalling atmospheric river (AR) event for Northern California from 28 November to 3 December, 2012. Eight experiments were designed to explore various combinations of the data assimilation methods and different initial conditions. The short-to-medium range quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) performances were tested for each experiment. Surface observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Hydrometeorology Network (HMT), National Weather Service (NWS) radiosondes, and GPS Radio Occultation (RO) vertical …

Novel Bacterial Lineages In The Uncultured Candidate Division Sr1, Sumreet Kaur Ghotra

Master's Theses

Complex and naturally occurring microbial communities are known to be predominantly composed of uncultured bacteria and archaea. A few representatives of uncultured prokaryotes (e.g., from the candidate divisions TM7 and SR1) have been found in environmental samples and in association with animals, including humans. It is not yet clear, however, how uncultured bacteria found at environmental sites relate phylogenetically to their counterparts associated with animal hosts. In this study, we investigated the diversity of the SR1 candidate division to better understand the divide between animal-associated and environmental lineages. We generated 16S rDNA gene clone libraries from samples obtained from the …

Parity Promotes Peace: Resolving Conflicts Through A Random Device, Erik O. Kimbrough, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Publications

Due to the high costs of conflict both in theory and practice, we examine and experimentally test the conditions under which conflict between asymmetric agents can be resolved. We model conflict as a two-agent rent-seeking contest for an indivisible prize. Before conflict arises, both agents may agree to allocate the prize by fair coin flip to avoid the costs of conflict. The model predicts that “parity promotes peace”: in the pure-strategy equilibrium, agents with relatively symmetric conflict capabilities agree to resolve the conflict by using a random device; however, with sufficiently asymmetric capabilities, conflicts are unavoidable because the stronger agent …

A Tractable Analysis Of Contagious Equilibria, Gabriele Camera, Alessandro Gioffré

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

This paper studies contagious equilibrium in infinitely repeated matching games. The innovation is to identify a key statistic of contagious punishment that, used together with a recursive formulation, generates tractable closed-form expressions for continuation payoffs, off equilibrium. This allows a transparent characterization of the dynamic incentives created by contagious punishment schemes.

Uniqueness Of Equilibrium In Directed Search Models, Jaehong Kim, Gabriele Camera

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We study a decentralized trading model as in [7], where a finite number of heterogeneous capacity-constrained sellers compete for a finite number of homogeneous buyers, by posting prices. This "directed search" model is known to admit symmetric equilibria; yet, uniqueness has proved elusive. This study makes two contributions: a substantive contribution is to establish uniqueness of symmetric equilibrium; a methodological contribution is to develop a tool based on directional derivatives to characterize equilibrium.

Decision Making In A Sequential Game: The Case Of Pitting In Nascar, Alan Deck, Cary Deck, Zhen Zhu

ESI Publications

This article uses data from NASCAR to examine strategic decision making with professional players and high stakes. The authors look at driver decisions to pit, enabling car performance to be improved at the cost of track position. Unlike other sports choices that have been used to test game-theoretic play, pitting decisions occur sequentially. Therefore, optimal decision making should result in the sub-game perfect equilibrium outcome. After estimating the likelihood of successfully passing another driver, the authors find some evidence that drivers make optimal decisions; however, driver behavior is also consistent with a simple heuristic of following the preceding car.

Comparative Genomics Of 274 Vibrio Cholerae Genomes Reveals Mobile Functions Structuring Three Niche Dimensions, Bas E. Dutilh, Cristiane C. Thompson, Ana C P Vicente, Iruka N. Okeke

Biology Faculty Scholarship

Vibrio cholerae is a globally dispersed pathogen that has evolved with humans for centuries, but also includes non-pathogenic environmental strains. Here, we identify the genomic variability underlying this remarkable persistence across the three major niche dimensions space, time, and habitat. Taking an innovative approach of genome-wide association applicable to microbial genomes (GWAS-M), we classify 274 complete V. cholerae genomes by niche, including 39 newly sequenced for this study with the Ion Torrent DNA-sequencing platform. Niche metadata were collected for each strain and analyzed together with comprehensive annotations of genetic and genomic attributes, including point mutations (single-nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs), protein families, …

Evaluating Inquiry-Based Learning As A Means To Advance Individual Student Achievement, Cherilyn Gwen Ziemer

Theses and Dissertations

Although inquiry-based learning has been debated throughout the greater educational community and demonstrated with some effect in modern classrooms, little quantitative analysis has been performed to empirically validate sustained benefits. This quantitative study focused on whether inquiry-based pedagogy actually brought about sustained and measurable improved learning and higher levels of student engagement, satisfaction, and understanding. The present study employed classic stratified random sampling to form two sample groups. Sixth-grade student subjects in two middle school science classes completed a four step process: all students completed a 40-question objective pretest, students completed a unit of study in either an inquiry-based learning …

A Possible Solution To The Problem Of Diminishing Tribal Sovereignty, Hope Babcock

North Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Some Advice On Bice, North Dakota’S Marketable-Product Decision, John Burritt Mcarthur

North Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

Benefit Corporations: The Need For Social For-Profit Entity Legislation In North Dakota, Rujeko Muza

North Dakota Law Review

No abstract provided.

54 | Bet Yerah: The Early Bronze Age Mound, Volume Ii: Urban Structure And Material Culture, 1933–1986 Excavations, Raphael Greenberg

IAA Reports—Monograph Series of the Israel Antiquities Authority

This is the second volume in the series describing the results of 11 excavation campaigns at Tel Bet Yeraḥ over some 50 years (1933–1986). The first volume (IAA Reports 30) presented the stratigraphic framework and the Early Bronze Age pottery. This second volume comprises a companion to Volume I, presenting synthetic discussions of the excavations and finds, and the publication of further Early Bronze Age artifact assemblages, including flint, stone and other small finds.

The Challenges Of The New Defalcation Standard, Jonathon S. Byington

Faculty Law Review Articles

The crux of bankruptcy law is giving debtors a fresh start by discharging their debts. Yet society has recognized that some debts should not be discharged because they either have a high level of societal importance or derive from a debtor’s culpable conduct. One of these exceptions from discharge is for defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity. The legal meaning of defalcation has been unclear for 172 years, ranging from a breach of trust by one who has charge of money to the misappropriation of money in one’s keeping. A three-way federal circuit split developed on whether a state …

Food For Thought: Genetically Modified Seeds As De Facto Standard-Essential Patents, Benjamin M. Cole, Brent J. Horton, Ryan Vacca

University of Colorado Law Review

For several years, courts have improperly calculated damages in cases involving the unlicensed use of genetically modified (GM) seed technology. In particular, when courts determine patent damages based on the hypothetical negotiation method, they err in exaggerating these damages to a point where no rational negotiator would agree. In response, we propose a limited affirmative defense of an implied license due to the patent's status as a de facto standard-essential patent. To be classified as a de facto standard-essential patent, the farmer must prove three elements that reflect the peculiarities of GM seeds used in farming: (1) dominance, (2) impracticability, …

The Adolescent Community Of Engagement: A Framework For Research On Adolescent Online Learning, Jered Borup, Richard E. West, Charles R. Graham, Randall S. Davies

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the Adolescent Community of Engagement (ACE ) framework as a guide to research and design in adolescent online learning environments. Several online learning frameworks have emerged from higher education contexts, but these frameworks do not explicitly address the unique student and environmental characteristics of the adolescent online learning environment. The ACE framework consists of four main constructs that make up an adolescent online learning community. The first three (student engagement, teacher engagement, and peer engagement) build on frameworks originally established from higher education contexts. The ACE framework additionally recognizes the role of parents in their children’s learning …

Individual Characteristics And The Disposition Effect: The Opposing Effects Of Confidence And Self-Regard, Kathryn Kadous, William B. Tayler, Jane M. Thayer, Donald Young

Faculty Publications

We conduct two experiments to examine potential causes of the disposition effect. In Experiment 1, we rule out beliefs in mean reversion as a cause of the disposition effect. Although a belief in the mean reversion of stock prices should be independent of whether an investor owns or only follows the stock, we show only investors who own the stock behave as though prices will reverse. In Experiment 2, participants buy and sell securities over multiple periods. We find that self-regard and investing confidence (two types of self-esteem) have opposing influences on investors’ tendency to hold losing investments. Investors with …

Trust And Financial Reporting Quality, Jace Garrett, Rani Hoitash, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Using unique survey data from Great Place to Work R Institute, we investigate the association of intraorganizational trust (i.e., employees’ trust in management) with three aspects of financial reporting: accruals quality, misstatements, and internal control quality. We find that trust is associated with better accrual quality, lower likelihood of financial statement misstatements, and lower likelihood of internal control material weakness disclosures. However, these effects are not uniform across all companies. Consistent with trust improving financial reporting quality through improved information production and information sharing, we find that trust is significantly associated with financial reporting quality in relatively decentralized firms, but …

How Corporations Manage Industry And Consumer Expectations Via The Csr Report, Sarah Bonewits Feldner, Kati Tusinski Berg

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

With increased stakeholder scrutiny, it is increasingly salient to consider how corporations make the case that their CSR activities are sufficient, appropriate, and successful. The CSR report is the vehicle by which organizations communicate the breadth of activities they engage in to make a difference in society. Using rhetorical analysis and surveys, we argue that the CSR report functions as a means by which corporations manage stakeholder expectations and seek to legitimate corporate behaviors. Our findings indicate that most reports are structured based on external guidelines but include the use of classic rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, and logos to …