Digital Commons Network^™

2014 April 23 -- Agenda And Attachments

Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Culture-Independent Evaluation Of The Appendix And Rectum Microbiomes In Children With And Without Appendicitis, Hope T. Jackson, Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Katherine P. Davenport, Claire M. Fraser, Anthony D. Sandler, Steven L. Zeichner

Surgery Faculty Publications

Purpose

The function of the appendix is largely unknown, but its microbiota likely contributes to function. Alterations in microbiota may contribute to appendicitis, but conventional culture studies have not yielded conclusive information. We conducted a pilot, culture-independent 16S rRNA-based microbiota study of paired appendix and rectal samples.

Methods

We collected appendix and rectal swabs from 21 children undergoing appendectomy, six with normal appendices and fifteen with appendicitis (nine perforated). After DNA extraction, we amplified and sequenced 16S rRNA genes and analyzed sequences using CLoVR. We identified organisms differing in relative abundance using ANOVA (p

Results

We identified 290 taxa in …

Southern Enlightenment: Reform And Progress In Jefferson's Virginia, Scott Taylor Morris

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This dissertation posits that in the five decades following the American Revolution, there was a movement among the elite of Virginia's rising generation to envision a future different from the path that would ultimately take the state toward the retrenchment of slavery and even secession. This younger generation, claiming the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, demonstrated that the liberal side of the Enlightenment had a life in Virginia that went beyond the Founders' generation, and that the Enlightenment in the South offered possibilities for social and political reform. The primary types of reform animating liberal elite reformers in this generation were …

Technology For Effective Japanese Learning: Positive Influence Of Using Technology For American College Students, Junko Tokuda Simpson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine how college students can be supported in learning Japanese and to be exposed to culture by utilizing technological tools (computers, smartphones, and tablets). This study employed an online survey which was developed to elicit findings of five research focuses: college students' comfort levels and their perceptions about using technological devices as learning tools in terms of invested times and changes in their orientation in learning language and culture; kinds of devices, purposes, places, and reasons for their use of technology to learn Japanese; the support obtained through the use of technology to …

Representations Of Elite Masculinity In Medieval Castilian Narrative, Megan Elizabeth Havard

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

My dissertation the first book-length project to address long-held notions about elite masculinity in medieval Iberia. I contend that the study of masculinity must transcend our understanding of the male subject as a fixed point of reference; rather, he is to be understood as a mobile and multivalent construct in constant negotiation with cultural artifacts. I understand masculinity to be the set of socially constructed meanings and values imposed upon biologically male persons. The social norms associated with masculinity exist in relation to a given historical and cultural context, and are subject to change. Even within a particular moment in …

Being Different: The Life And Work Of Albert Memmi, Michael Jakob Lejman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation is a study of the life and work of Albert Memmi, author of over twenty novels, essays, and other book length manuscripts as well as a constant public commentator on subjects related to colonialism, Jewish identity, the sociology of race and oppression, and the postcolonial world. His work includes the widely acclaimed novel The Pillar of Salt as well as The Colonizer and the Colonized - a canonical text in the history of colonial society and power relations. A Tunisian Jew who immigrated to France following his home country's independence in 1957, both Memmi's work and his complex …

Dna Sequence Analysis For Applications To Phylogenetic Tree Construction And Simulated Metagenomic Binning, Si Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

We propose a new method, called Trinucleotide Usage Profile (TUP), to build a genome-wide phylogenetic tree for a large group of species. The main idea is to summarize the DNA sequence in a matrix of three rows corresponding to three reading frames and each row is the distribution on the (non-overlapping) words of length 3 for the corresponding reading frame. Based on the proposed TUP method, the empirical study showed that phylogenetic trees with strong biological support can be built. For a given DNA sequence for a gene, we consider the problem of gene classification into several possible categories. We …

A Portrait Of School Leadership At Senshu University Matsudo Junior And Senior High School, Travis T. Brady

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As an important symbolic figure and embodiment of the traditions and character of the school, the position of principal in Japan is crucial. Yet societal pressures and an undefined job description are serving to increase pressures of the position. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine school administrative leadership at a private high school, Senshu University Matsudo Junior and Senior High School. The central research question was: What is the leadership role of the secondary administrator at Senshu University Matsudo Junior and Senior High School?

The sub-questions were: (a) What were the post-war changes implemented in Japanese secondary …

The History And Educational Legacy Of The Manchester Art Museum, 1886-1898, Angela Parker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the history of the Manchester Art Museum (Manchester, England), which was founded by Thomas Coglan Horsfall (1841-1932) in 1886. It considers the museum’s permanent collections and its programming from 1886 to 1898 with brief notes on the later years of the institution. While, like previous work on the Manchester Art Museum, the thesis contextualizes the museum within Victorian arts and community institutions, it breaks new ground by highlighting the ways in which it diverged from these institutions. The analysis of the museum’s collections and programming emphasizes the contributions that Horsfall and the Art Museum Committee made to …

Television News: A Man’S World, Alexandra Sanchez

Whittier Scholars Program

This paper will be presenting to you my findings of the news industry in relation to gender and stereotypical fulfillment. I have compared the role of women reporters to that of men. I will also be using my personal experiences from my four internships within the KTLA News Station in Los Angeles, California to further support the claims gathered through my research. This paper is taking the stance that female journalists need their equal chance to succeed and prove their legitimacy in order to compete with men in the male-dominated industry of television news. This can happen with the stop …

Senses In Synthesis: Imaginative Sensing In The 19th Century, Jesse Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

During the late 19th century, arts and literature had a surge of sensory awareness, made manifest through sensory analogy, intersensory metaphor, and synaesthesia. This dissertation explores this phenomenon through a study of five poets and artists: Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Barlas, and Julia Margaret Cameron. Using imaginative sensing, these artists transformed the relationship between artist and observer, assigning greater responsibility to their audience while simultaneously asserting artistic control of their work. Their fascination with sensory mixing and multisensory awareness demonstrates unique ideas about perception and embodiment, ideas that have sparked both controversy and imitation. I begin …

Difficult Spaces: The Gothic-Blues Voice In Comparative African American Literary Movements, Cheng-Hsuan Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

In the African American literary heritage, a counter-discourse as opposed to the dominant culture's racial ideology is often needed to not only adopt the "master's text" but also redress it to accommodate the black American's experience and expression. The intention of this dissertation is to theorize the expressive modes of the gothic and the blues as one potent counter-discourse informing the voice of black resistance in African American literature against the exploitation of the master narrative from the mainstream. My project focuses on the potential inter-textuality of the blues/gothic voice in the literary conventions of the migration narrative, black drama, …

The Meaning Of Money And Possessions: A Cross-University Comparison, David J. Burns, Pola B. Gupta

Atlantic Marketing Journal

The purpose of the paper is to examine whether students attending state universities and Jesuit universities possess different levels of love of money and materialism. Students attending marketing classes at two universities in the same region of the U.S. (one state and one Jesuit) were asked to complete a survey containing instruments to measure their love of money and their materialism. The results suggest business students attending a Jesuit university have lesser love of money than those attending a state university, but higher materialistic envy.

Labeling Of Retinal Ganglion Cells In A Rat Glaucoma Model, Lucia Rodriguez

Honors Theses

Glaucoma is a degenerative disease of the retina containing multifactorial structural and functional defects. There is a loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) seen in this optic disorder. Cupping of the optic disk seen in glaucoma is a result of the loss of RGC axons at the optic nerve head where the nerve fibers connect. As a result of these factors, visual field loss is common among glaucoma patients.¹ In the United States, this visual field loss associated with glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness since glaucoma is difficult to detect.² Usually, increased intraocular pressure …

05. 2014 Imsaloquium Student Investigation Showcase, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Class of 2015

No abstract provided.

Master's Research Project : Transient Migrations And Responses To Effective Change For Mixtec Indigenous Youth, Maura A. Hennessey

Indigenous Studies

This qualitative research was developed not knowing the outcome. The primary goal was to find an indigenous group that resided in the Monterey Bay region of the Central Coast of California. Thanks to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District's Migrant Education Office, this goal was accomplished by the introduction of the Mixtec culture of Oaxaca, in Southern Mexico. The research began by 'hanging out' with the Mixtecs at Adult Education English class building a trust and familiarity. Their primary language is Mixteco,. Lessons were in Spanish to learn English. The project all fell into place after being introduced to Lucia, …

Sandspur, Vol 120, No 23, April 17, 2014, Rollins College

The Rollins Sandspur

Rollins College student newspaper, written by the students and published at Rollins College. The Sandspur started as a literary journal.

2014 Imsaloquium, Student Investigation Showcase, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

IMSAloquium Event Booklets

"The ability to work with professionals is a life-changing experience for our students. Working with world-class scholars and advisors, students have contributed to advances in a variety of fields from science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to the performing arts and history."

¡Vamos: Es Hora De Conocer España! Unit Plan For The Life And Culture Of Spain, Katheryn Cook

Honors Theses

This thesis, ¡Vamos: es hora de conocer España!, is a unit plan for a high school Spanish course focusing on the life and culture of Spain, with an intense focus on the languages of Spain other than Spanish. The cultures of the regions where these languages are found in Spain are rich with history and are quite individual and unique. The goal of this unit was to create a connection between language and culture for new language learners. When someone has a story and a context behind what they are learning, they will have a connection to the material …

Uncoupling Reproduction From Metabolism Extends Chronological Lifespan In Yeast, Saisubramanian Nagarajan, Arthur L. Kruckeberg, Karen H. Schmidt, Evgueny Kroll, Morgan Hamilton, Kate Mcinnerney, Ryan Summers, Timothy Taylor, Frank Rosenzweig

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Studies of replicative and chronological lifespan in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have advanced understanding of longevity in all eukaryotes. Chronological lifespan in this species is defined as the agedependent viability of nondividing cells. To date this parameter has only been estimated under calorie restriction, mimicked by starvation. Because postmitotic cells in higher eukaryotes often do not starve, we developed a model yeast system to study cells as they age in the absence of calorie restriction. Yeast cells were encapsulated in a matrix consisting of calcium alginate to form ~3 mm beads that were packed into bioreactors and fed ad libitum. Under these …

Rates Of Sustainable Forest Harvest Depend On Rotation Length And Weathering Of Soil Minerals, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Steven P. Hamburg, Ruth D. Yanai, Joel D. Blum

All Materials

Abstract

Removals of forest biomass in the northeastern US may intensify over the coming decades due to increased demand for renewable energy. For forests to regenerate successfully following intensified harvests, the nutrients removed from the ecosystem in the harvested biomass (including N, P, Ca, Mg, and K) must be replenished through a combination of plant-available nutrients in the soil rooting zone, atmospheric inputs, weathering of primary minerals, biological N fixation, and fertilizer additions. Few previous studies (especially in North America) have measured soil nutrient pools beyond exchangeable cations, but over the long rotations common in this region, other pools which …

Response Of Benthic Foraminifera To Ocean Acidification And Impact On Florida's Carbonate Sediment Production, Paul O. Knorr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are in dynamic equilibrium with the oceans. The absorption of CO2 by seawater causes a decrease in seawater pH and calcite saturation state (SS). This process, termed ocean acidification, exerts deleterious effects on marine calcifiers. Studies of symbiont-bearing large benthic foraminifera (LBF) have reported a generally unfavorable response to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide ([CO2]).

Experiments and analyses were undertaken to examine the effect of increased [CO2] on the growth rate, ultrastructure, stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen, as well as Mg/Ca of the high-Mg miliolid Archaias angulatus and the low-Mg rotalid Amphistegina gibbosa. A …

The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education, Jeremy Stoddard

Democracy & Education

Despite the potential for media and technology to act as a democratizing force and the challenges to democracy posed by partisanship and the explosion of political media spending, media education and the preparation of active citizens in schools is virtually nonexistent. This essay presents the case for revitalizing media education for the age of digital media as a tenet of democratic education and outlines an agenda for teacher education, curriculum integration, student engagement, and research.

Elip Mock Interviews Tips For Graduate Students Applying For Jobs, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

Gettin' Weird Together: The Performance Of Identity And Community Through Cultural Artifacts Of Electronic Dance Music Culture, Andrew Matthew Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

The growing popularity of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) on nearly every continent has given rise to the transition of EDM music from underground raves to large scale, multiple-day music festivals. Attendance at EDM events, whether at concerts or festivals, is primarily dominated by today's youth generation. The number of youth attending these events continues to grow as elements of EDM are being mixed into other mainstream music genres. This increase in the popularity of EDM has been an area of research interest in the past decades for a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, marketing, and tourism. The present …

The Role Of Fraternal Organisation In Migration And Informal Labour Organisations In Mining Communities: Cornwall, The Keweenaw, And California Compared, Roger Burt

Retrospection & Respect: The 1913-1914 Mining/Labor Strike Symposium of 2014

During the second half of the nineteenth century fraternal and benevolent associations of numerous descriptions grew and prospered in mining communities everywhere. They played an important, but neglected role, in assisting transatlantic migration and movement between mining districts as well as building social capital within emerging mining communities. They helped to build bridges between different ethnic communities, provided conduits between labour and management, and networked miners into the non-mining community. Their influence spread beyond the adult males that made up most of their membership to their wives and families and provided levels of social and economic support otherwise unobtainable at …

Bounced Between Two Cultures: Study Of Smoking Behavior Of Korean Americans, Loan Nguyen

Annual Undergraduate Conference on Health and Society

The United States is often referred as a melting pot, with a great wave of global immigrants constant populating its shores. When coming to America, the immigrants bring along their own culture. With the new generation born in the States, the fusion of two different cultures is an important factor in shaping their behavior. Coming from a different culture that is more accepting of smoking, many of the new generation also start to smoke. Asian Americans provide an important example. Despite having the lowest smoking rates of all ethnic groups, in 2011, 9.9 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander, …

Straightening Out Queer Stereotypes Through Literature, Paige M. Ferro

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Countless stigmas and prejudices abound regarding gender and sexuality issues and the dichotomy between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Even as it has existed as an accepted part of various cultures across time and continents, it continues to go undiscussed and overlooked in many communities due to the fallacies and preconceptions surrounding it. Literature, however, provides an outlet through which one may explore same-sex relationships beyond the common stereotypes and misconceptions. Literature and fiction not only give the writer an opportunity to relate his or her personal or intimate experiences to the world, but also allow the reader a socially-accepted means to …

Cultural Rights And Political Authority In Maya Guatemala, Dylan Dewitt

UROP Posters

Following a civil war that engulfed the nation for thirty-six years, the Guatemalan state has taken steps to integrate previously remote territories into its broader political and economic system. This has led to the increased political inclusion and economic integration of Mayan communities that had remained on the outskirts of Ladino society. Unfortunately, not much attention has been given to understanding the effects of this process on indigenous political institutions. After traveling to the Western Highlands region in December 2013 and surveying research from political science, anthropology, and environmental science, I have concluded that the 1996 Peace Accords have not …

Ferradáns Publishes Bilingual Collection Of Spanish Poet's Work, Kim Hill

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.