Digital Commons Network^™

Lessons From 3-D Surface Scanning Of 19th Century Coffin Plates From St. Thomas Anglican Churchyard, Belleville, Ontario, Canada, Abigail Woltering

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Immigration Cycle? : A Comparative Analysis Of Historical Determinants Of State Level Immigration Policy, Rome Gonsoulin

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Technology Fought The Law, And The Law Lost, Bryan Spencer Tiscia

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Home Is Where The Heart Is: Determining The Standard For Habitual Residence Under The Hague Convention Based On A Child-Centric Approach, Aimee Suzanne Weiner

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Modern Female Tricksters : Satirists Or Satiric Objects?, Shawn Mcdonald

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The trickster figure is an archetypal character that can be found in the oral traditions of Native Americans, Greek and Roman mythologies and stories from Polynesia, Africa, the Bible, African American tradition and even in modem literature. This essay examines the female protagonists of Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm as ideal prototypes of tricksters. In Loos’ story, Lorelei jet sets around Europe tricking men into buying her diamonds and offering up engagement proposals throughout her journey. In Gibbons’ story, Flora leaves her sophisticated urban world to enter another more primitive rural one in which …

Ideology And Subversion: Linguistic Registers In Barbara Kingsolver’S The Poisonwood Bible, Natalie Wallace

English

Effective colonial regimes have employed language to control and incapacitate their colonial subjects. However, anti-colonialist and Africanist authors have conversely used language as a significantly powerful tool in resisting colonial and neo-colonial discourses. Despite this subversive sentiment in contemporary literature about Africa, many scholars criticize Western authors, in particular, for their works about African nations, peoples, and struggles, noting their tendencies to generalize about a diverse continent, to project Western paradigms onto African contexts, and to disregard their own associations with colonial governments. Barbara Kingsolver’s 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible has received much critical attention as a work that deplores …

Urban Agriculture: An Environmental And Moral Imperative, Bridgit Hohlfeld

Geography and Planning

As we live in a society completely dependent on oil and its products, the contradictions within this self destructive system begin to unfold. Petroleum, its acquisition, and the products created with it, have been proven to cause unmanageable effects on a worldwide scale. As our natural resources become more finite, contributing to global and local inequities through widespread competition, the need for change is apparent. By introducing local farming initiatives, the creation, distribution, and usage of these products becomes obsolete through the elimination of demand and necessity. Sustainable urban agriculture is therefore presented as a tangible solution to the problem …

“Southerly Mohawk Hudson Convergence”- An Exploratory Case Study Of Terrain-Induced Wind Convergence On The Formation Of Thunderstorms In New York’S Capital Region, Christine Elizabeth Bloecker

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

Southerly Mohawk-Hudson Convergence (SMHC) is a mesoscale phenomenon over New York’s Capital Region whereby a southwesterly wind flow over Eastern New York is channeled by the mountainous terrain westerly through the Mohawk River Valley and southerly through the Hudson River Valley. When these winds converge over the Capital Region, thunderstorms may suddenly erupt, disrupting air and ground traffic in the area. On rare occasions, these storms may be severe. This is the first comprehensive study to be conducted on this phenomenon. Climatology was compiled and showed that SMHC occurs on average at least twice a year. A case study was …

Education And Economic Development: An Untapped Alliance, Serena E. Williams

Honors Theses

Many Mississippi economic developers firmly believe that education could be the answer to the economic development of a community. However, there is a relatively small amount of research published on how the connection between education and economic development works. This is a case study of the Greater Hattiesburg Area of Mississippi which seeks to explore and to begin to understand how to better the relationship between education and economic development.

The researcher conducted eight in-depth, open-ended interviews with key informants who were directly engaged in the K-12 education system and economic development of the Greater Hattiesburg Area. The researcher coded …

The New Constitution Of The United States: Do We Need One And How Would We Get One?, Jack M. Beermann

Faculty Scholarship

Government in the United States has some serious problems. At the federal level, is the problem of gridlock. The United States Congress seems unable or unwilling to do anything about anything (although it must have done something to run up more than $16 trillion in debts). Forget about addressing problems such as global warming, income inequality, failing schools, economic stimulus or you name it. How bad is it, really? Has the United States become ungovernable, and is the Constitution to blame? In my view, it’s a mixed bag. Some aspects of the United States government work very well, others are …

An Oreo With Chinese Characteristics, Srinivas K. Reddy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In late 2005, Shawn Warren, head of biscuits, Asia Pacific for Kraft, was in desperate need of a quick turnaround strategy. Oreo, after nearly 10 years in the China market was facing the imminent disaster of being completely pulled from the shelves. Local retail channels, along with company headquarters near Chicago, had finally grown impatient of the iconic product's lacklustre sales. When Warren described the turnaround in March 2012, he said, "The first step to solving a problem is to admit you have one. We are committed to have this brand and put resources behind it."

The Development And Application Of Nebraska’S Northeast Habitat Management Decision Support System, Christopher Jorgensen, Roger Grosse, Marian Langan, Alicia Hardin, Eric Zach, Karie Decker, Andrew Bishop

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: Staff Research Publications

In the face of the compounded effects of a changing climate, exponential human population growth, and accelerated land-use change, implementation of effective conservation measures grows ever more challenging, as conservation organizations are often faced with limited funding and resources. Given the complexity of managing for multiple species, each inhabiting various local habitat types, it is astonishing that we can pinpoint specific areas and tracts of land within the focus area where conservation measures would benefit all species (Figure 3). Here we demonstrate the usefulness of decision support systems in aiding policymakers and habitat managers in making decisions about where to …

Sea Power In The Precision-Missile Age, Walter E. (Ted) Carter

United States Navy: Publications

The article discusses how the use of long-range precision strike (LRPS) systems and other technological innovations have the potential to change the way sea wars are conducted. The increasing use of remotely piloted and autonomous air, surface, and sub-surface platforms can also impact sea wars. Advanced information and communications technologies also have an impact on warfare.

1. Key Trends 2. Implications for High-End Warfare at Sea 3. The Return of Command at Sea 4. New Approach to Logistics 5. Relevant Forces for the Future

‘Liberty Is The Word With Me’ The Ideologies And Allegiances Of Civil War Soldiers In Hamilton County, James J. W. Scott

Honors Theses

This case study of Hamilton County, Tennessee investigates Civil War soldiers to determine how the county was divided and why men chose to fight for the Union or the Confederacy. Using descriptive statistics and Grounded Theory Method, this study analyzes census data, military records, and personal correspondence to show that Confederate soldiers were concentrated in urban areas as wealthy businessmen or poor laborers, while Unionists dominated rural areas mostly as middleclass small farm owners. This research reveals that Confederates adopted an identity and ideology similar to other states in the Confederacy through railroad and business connections, and Unionists resented a …

Developing A Cross-Cultural And Cross-Content Foreign Language Curriculum, Sophia R. Seage

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to clarify the implementation of the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary French curriculum described in the associated work, Defining a Cross-Cultural and Cross-Content Foreign Language Curriculum (Seage). Using Social Studies as the primary source of cross-content exchange, the proposed curriculum is composed of three units of entry level French instruction that position the learner to acquire a second language through the broader process of acquiring an understanding of a second culture. By connecting the underlying philosophy outlined in the accompanying work to the recently implemented Common Core State Standards and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages' …

Geographic Variation Of Health Care Spending On Heart Failure In Metropolitan Areas, Kevin Mcmillan

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The costs of healthcare have long been a concern in the United States. It is well known that these costs vary geographically, but attempts to explain this variation have been met with limited and varied success. This is partly attributable to the fact that data available have restricted analyses to assessing the issue to using Medicare cost per beneficiary. In June, 2013, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new Medicare data that detailed the charges and payments made to hospitals throughout the United States in 2011. In this thesis, this new dataset was used to examine costs …

Emerging Market Challenges: Moving Beyond Trade To Promote The Middle Class And Avoid The Middle-Income Trap, Penelope B. Prime

Mercer Law Review

The rise of the middle class around the world is seen by many as the next frontier in business opportunities. In fact, the concept of "emerging markets" is closely associated with the likelihood of a rapid rise in middle-class incomes; in other words, a large "internal market potential" or an "increasing purchasing power among consumers." One report by McKinsey & Company estimated that annual private spending in emerging markets will reach $30 trillion by 2025. It has been estimated that global consumers and proportional spending will increase from 1.8 billion people spending $21 trillion in 2009 to 4.9 billion people …

The Evolution Of The Legend Of King Arthur, Krista Dayle Staropoli

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In all versions of Arthurian legend, the content, while encompassing adventure, magic and politics, is mainly focused on the nature of human relationships. These relationships are nearly always complex and emotional, intended to elicit certain reactions from the audience. The reactions to Arthurian legend depend on the relationship being explored; for example, when explaining a story about knighthood, the author hopes to impress upon the audience the importance and admiration of chivalry, duty and honor. Whereas, when explaining a story about the love triangle of Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot, the intent is not only to tell a captivating and enthralling …

A New Suburban Elysium: A Headstone For The Dying Periphery, Samuel David Chertock

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The proposed “cemetery” and retail center for the Idora neighborhood of Youngstown, Ohio is the result of one research semester and one design semester. The design proposal arose from dissatisfaction with the architectural community’s propensity for using jargon and clichés when describing the contemporary suburban condition. Many critics and commentators understand suburbia through the lens of the postwar period. It has been suggested that suburbia was developed for use as a media weapon – and thus, at the conclusion of the Cold War, should have been rendered architecturally irrelevant. However, suburbia has remained stagnant. Design standards employed by developers continue …

Representing Rurality, Carolina Esther Jimenez

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Architecture is a system of representation. Architecture’s power is that through representation we may change previously constructed conceptions and misperceptions, and ultimately it can transform patterns of spatial inhabitation. Through words, images, drawings, and built work, we define modes of experiencing space. This project seeks to redefine Nebraska as a territory of critical social, political, economic, and physical importance through architectural representations.

The Proliferation Of Diabetes: A Cultural Epidemiological Review Of Type 2 Diabetes In The Global Community, Kelly Heuer

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Global diabetes is a serious and growing problem, which has quickly turned into a public health crisis. The rapid spread of type 2 diabetes can be contributed to several different factors, including genetics, environmental influences, poor nutrition habits, and sedentary lifestyle. A large part of the proliferation of this diease is the spread of western culture, specifically diet.

A problem faced when addressing this disease from a global standpoint of prevention, control, and treatment is that type 2 diabetes affects different cultures in different manners around the globe due to differences in risk factors (including genetics, age, race, sex, education, …

The Knowledge Accident Situating The Built University Within The Virtual, Alanna Beth Rosenblatt

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract

The increasing un-sustainability of the built university and the rise of the apparent mass democratization or synchronization of higher education through the virtual Massive Open Online Course [MOOC] is occurring concurrently with the mutation of the historically grounded Accident into the Knowledge Accident. The standardization of higher education through the MOOC has created the conditions for the Knowledge Accident, the “integral accident”, of the built university. This is where we find the present state of the university, in a moment of crisis grounded in unconstrained "progress".

The current form of the MOOC, begun in 2011, has expanded and evolved …

Too Hot To Handle: Managing America’S Ecosystems In A Changing Climate, Riley Morin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For over 140 years, Americans and have enjoyed their national parks. In the national parks, nature and history come together to form uniquely public as well as enormously valuable landscapes. Today, America’s national parks are in danger of undergoing serious changes. Climate change is going to alter the physical characteristics of the national parks. Many of the parks have changed before, but this change will be the most dramatic. In this report I examine the historical and current mission of the National Park Service. I also examine the past and current valuation of the national parks by the American people. …

Visualizing The "Hermit Kingdom" Graphing, Mapping, And Analyzing The 2008 North Korean Census, Molly Linhorst

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Discussion rarely takes a dispassionate view of North Korea and its people, and ingrained aversion to the idea of promoting a better understanding of the state distracts from serious, empirical study of the population. This research makes use of the 2008 North Korean census, an extensive set of fifty-three tables, which received little attention and remained in PDF format. This research project first translates and publishes machine-readable formats of the census data and then employs R statistical programming to create visualizations of select tables and conduct simple data analysis, including p-tests and Mantel-Haenzel tests. Males and urban residents were found …

The Development Of The Maquila Industry In Honduras: A Holistic Approach To The Industry’S Effect On Women And Honduran Society, Andrea Mencia Viery

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The maquila industry in Latin America has received much attention due to its predominant presence in Mexico and several Central American countries. Numerous studies explore the nuances of the maquila industry in Mexico, yet few studies focus on other nations. This project concentrates on Honduras, the country where I was raised for eighteen years. Many Communities affected by this industry believe maquila owners prefer to employ young women over male applicants. This is also true for Honduras. Many scholars believe the owners’ motives lie behind the so-called docility characteristic of these young females. Critics of the industry argue that maquilas …

Slavery In Europe: Part 2, Testing A Predictive Model, Monti Narayan Datta, Kevin Bales

Political Science Faculty Publications

Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the United Nations Palermo Protocols of 2000, there has been an increased focus on the magnitude and complexity of modern day slavery. Yet, surprisingly, little empirical work exists. A comprehensive review of the literature by Elzbieta Gozdziak and Micah Bump in 2008 found that quantitative methodologies were noticeably scarce and that the dominant anti-trafficking discourse was not evidence based. One reason for this scarcity has been the difficulty in obtaining reliable representative data. In this paper, we utilize a novel measure of contemporary slavery in Europe that …

Countering The Voyage Of The Present: Histories Speak Fragmented In 25 Frames Per Second, Vanessa Kelly Gravenor

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

My thesis work presents a meditation on what it means to be contemporary. There are many ideas that prefigure this work but are not included in this written investigation.These notions come from Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations and Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. In these texts, the authors state that the contemporary is the one who turns her or his back from her or his time and looks at the past. For my purposes, to be contemporary, one has to revolutionize the notion of histories in order to make past materials relevant. Therefore, my videos and photographic works do not invite the viewer …

Understanding The Motivations To Attend The Blue Ridge Gay Pride Festival In Asheville, North Carolina, Denise Adams

All Theses

Local festivals and events are important tourist resources for a destination. They enhance economic benefits of the host area, improve the sense of community, and provide unique experiences to residents and tourists (Getz, 1997). Economically, tourism itself is recognized as the largest export earner in the world and an important provider of monetary exchange and employment, and over the last decades has sustained growth and increased diversification of product offerings (WTO, 2004). With this broadening of the market, various niches have emerged within the tourism sector including gay tourism. Gay consumers are deemed to be of special interest for the …

Analyzing The Impact Of Key Factors On An Individual's Life Expectancy From 1991 To 2006 In U.S, Jing Xue

All Theses

Since the 20th century, U.S. health spending has continuously increased, but the residents' life expectancy has not reached the average level of OECD countries. In this paper, hazard duration models are built; primary demographic, geographic, socioeconomic and healthcare factors are taken into consideration. The main purpose of this paper is to study the effect of these factors on an individual's risk of mortality and life expectancy. We build a general model and two gender-specific models. Females are affected by relative deprivation, a measure of their position in the income distribution, much more than males. The effect of family income is …

White Noise And Newer Media: The Prophetic Impact Of Jack's Avatars, Caleb Milligan

All Theses

In this paper, I analyze Don DeLillo's White Noise through a contemporary techno-literate approach that utilizes Internet and game studies to better understand its protagonist, Jack Gladney, and to reevaluate the novel's critical legacy. Jack is not a modernist living in a postmodern world, as critics like Tom LeClair, John Duvall, and Leonard Wilcox have claimed for the many years since the publication of this novel. Lacking the authentic consistency for such a title, he is instead a postmodern human simulacrum sampling different character types to avoid his lack of discernable self. In each role he plays, however, he is …