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Purpose And Design In Organisms And Artifacts: The Search For A Unified Philosophical Theory Of Function, Mark L. Bourgeois

Dissertations

This work examines the concept of function in both biological organisms and designed artifacts. Function is routinely attributed within both kinds of systems, yet it is unclear whether it can mean the same thing within each, and indeed whether function attribution within natural systems is legitimate at all. Function is typically understood to have teleological content; yet in true teleological causation, the end is somehow the cause of its own means. In artifacts the consciously envisioned design of an artifact is taken to be the cause of its parts and their roles. Yet in naturalistic science there is no prior …

Understanding The Impact Of Adolescent Attachment On Academic Success, Cristina Cortesi

Dissertations

In recent years, studies are citing an increase in adolescent mental health diagnoses and symptomotology related to AD/HD, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, and Conduct Disorders. While the associated behaviors may be the result of several variables, recent neurobiological studies combined with Attachment Theory have pointed to a possible link to attachment issues. Because of the developmental stage of adolescents, these behaviors have been observed in both home and school environments. Schools, in general in the United States, have been experiencing significant struggles in terms of lack of adequate educational success which prompted the implementation of legislation commonly known as No …

Science Youth Action Research: Promoting Critical Science Literacy Through Relevance And Agency, Elizabeth Coleman

Dissertations

This three-article dissertation presents complementary perspectives on Science Youth Action Research (Sci-YAR), a K-12 curriculum designed to emphasize relevance and agency to promote youth's science learning. In Sci-YAR, youth conduct action research projects to better understand science-related issues in their lives, schools, or communities, while they simultaneously document, analyze, and reflect upon their own practices as researchers. The first article defines Sci-YAR and argues for its potential to enhance youth's participation as citizens in a democratic society. The second article details findings from a case study of youth engaged in Sci-YAR, describing how the curriculum enabled and constrained youth's identity …

Anthologizing Modernism: New Verse Anthologies, 1913-53, Warren Scott Cheney

Dissertations

The history of the anthology form goes back thousands of years to what is often called the Greek Anthology--a modern term and not the title of one ancient work. Though there are fragments of earlier collections, Meleager of Gadara's Stephanos (or Garland) is the first known poetry anthology and dates to approximately 100 BC. Anthologies of English poetry begin in 1557 with Richard Tottel's Songes and Sonnettes, commonly known as "Totell's Miscellany." It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, however, that single-volume poetry anthologies became popular. This development changed the methods editors used and the constraints they …

Just Water: A Feminist Catholic Response To The Commodification Of Water, Rachel Noelle Hart Winter

Dissertations

Any Catholic ecological ethic today that does not focus sustained attention to our worldwide water crisis is inadequate, for it fails to engage one of today's core social justice violations and neglects to offer any moral guidance for one of the human family's most pressing challenges. A responsible Catholic approach to water justice that addresses the problems stemming from a commodified view of water must be informed by ecofeminist concerns and by the Catholic social justice tradition of moral reasoning. As populations grow and water sources run dry, access to water has become a pressing ethical issue. Today, nearly one …

Host Entry Factors For Human Coronaviruses, Taylor Heald-Sargent

Dissertations

Coronaviruses infect a diverse range of animals from birds to pigs and cats to humans. Coronaviruses employ RNA-based replicative processes and as such are genetically adaptable to acquire novel host ranges. A coronavirus from one species can jump to another by shifting its entry requirements. As we learned from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pandemic, this shift in species can have detrimental consequences. Thus, it is imperative that we understand the virus-host interaction during the entry process.

This dissertation focuses on host entry factors that influence human coronavirus entry. Recently, a new class of proteases, the type II transmembrane …

Teacher Impact On Supporting The Parent-Teacher Partnership During The Middle School Years, Karen R. Love

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions and experiences of middle school teachers in supporting parents as they move from traditional forms of parental involvement and towards engagement to support their children as they move into the middle school years of education. The design of this study was qualitative using in-depth interviews of middle school teachers. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological system theory of human development was the theoretical framework for this study to examine the factors influencing the child's development during the middle school years. Participants demonstrated that their perceptions and experiences did impact how they viewed parental involvement …

Biblical Lessons For Educational Leaders: The Servant Leadership Of King David, Apostle Paul, Dr. Joe Hairston, Dr. Tim Markley, Tracy D. Lett

Dissertations

This qualitative research study used the methodology of historical documentation. Primary and secondary sources were gathered alongside of the original sources for Servant Leadership as espoused by Robert Greenleaf in "The Servant as Leader" (1970). The New International Version (NIV) of the Bible will be referenced as a primary source and a host of primary and secondary sources regarding Superintendents Hairston and Markley will be supplied. Throughout this study, Greenleaf's definition and eighteen characteristics of a servant leader will be the framework for interpreting the biblical passages as they relate to the leadership of King David and Apostle Paul, as …

Eq, Not Just Iq: The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence And The Success Of High School Principals Who Have Been Awarded The Illinois Principals Association's High School Principal Of The Year Award, Rowena Mak

Dissertations

As educational reforms become more complex, the role of the principal as a change agent also becomes more challenging and dynamic. To confront the leadership demands of schools, principals require focus, passion, wisdom, courage, and integrity.

An underlying assumption of these traits is the principal's emotional fortitude. Emotional intelligence is as complicated as it is organic, in that its foundation rests on an individual's awareness of himself/herself and how these emotions drive his/her ability to relate with others. With this comes the question, what makes a successful principal? The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between a …

'We're Not Little Babies Anymore': A Cultural History Of Small Girls In America, 1920-1945, Stella A. Ress

Dissertations

The appearance of high-profile girl characters in popular culture media of all types soared between the years from 1924, when Little Orphan Annie first appeared in the comic section of newspapers, to 1945, when teenage girls replaced their younger sisters in the spotlight. As such, girl culture of the 1920s through the 1940s experienced a boon in popularity never before witnessed. And yet, despite substantial evidence that point to the impact preadolescent girls had on society during this time, surprisingly scholars have left the experiences of these girls and their depictions in popular entertainment unexplored. For historians, this raises a …

Life Course Narratives From U.S. Expatriates: Continuity Work, Victoria L. Russo

Dissertations

This qualitative, exploratory research examined the American life course through narrative accounts of twenty, former expatriates. All participants had lived and worked in another country for a minimum of at least one year before returning to the US. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted between April 2011 and June 2012. Interviews were unstructured and lasted between 1-2 hours.

Participants in this study were well-educated, middle class professionals with highly desirable skills. Yet, despite the flexibility that privileged status bestowed, participants maintained normative life course patterns. Families were instrumental in monitoring the life course and distributed sanctions and benefits to family members …

A Summer Reading Enrichment Experience: One District's Effort To Prevent Summer Reading Loss, Angela R. Sopko

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to gain insights into effective literacy practices and key factors that promote reading achievement for elementary age students during summer break. More specifically, the study examined the effectiveness of a summer reading enrichment experience offered to children from low-income families in an effort to prevent summer reading loss. The students involved in this study were considered to have average reading skills.

The particular focus of this study led to the formation of the following question to guide this research: To what extent is a student's reading achievement impacted by extended literacy instruction or enrichment? …

Judge Rakoff V. The Securities And Exchange Commission: Are "Neither Admit Nor Deny" Settlement Agreements In Securities Cases In The Public Interest?, Daniel T. Hubbell

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law

“DPAs [(Deferred Prosecution Agreements)] have had a truly transformative effect on particular companies and, more generally, on corporate culture across the globe,” declared Lanny Breuer, the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on September 13, 2012.2 Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) and non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) are settlement agreements between a prosecutor and a defendant in which the prosecutor agrees to either defer or forego prosecution in return for the defendant’s cooperation in an ongoing investigation or prosecution, as well as an agreement to comply with the requirements of the settlement. Rather than forcing prosecutors to …

Skills Is Not A Dirty Word: Identifying And Teaching Transactional Law Competencies, Sue Payne, Barbara Wagner, Ann-Marie Mcgaughey, Bill Bates, Danny Bogart

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Racial Identity On African American Youths' Psychosocial Adjustment: A Conceptualization Of The Literature And Meta-Analytic Review, Corinn Elmore

Dissertations

There is a general assumption of the positive effect of racial identity on the psychosocial adjustment of African-American youth. Despite this assertion, research findings for racial identity are unclear. The disparate measures of racial identity were organized into a cohesive framework with eight categories. Using this conceptual framework, a meta-analytic review was conducted on the effects the components of racial identity on African-American adolescents' psychosocial adjustment. There were 58 independent samples from 34 published journal articles and 14 unpublished papers (dissertations) including a total of 14,209 youth included in the study. Results of study highlight the importance of racial pride …

Andragogy In One Community College: A Study Of Students' Attitudes And Perceptions Toward Reading And Writing Following The Completion Of A Concurrent Acquisition One-Semester Developmental English Course, Michele Murphy Froehlich

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore if student attitudes and perceptions changed toward reading and writing after participation in and completion of a one-semester dual-enrollment mandatory developmental non-credit reading and/or writing course combined with a concurrent acquisition general education three-credit-hour English 101 course.

The subjects were nine voluntary participants in the dual-enrollment Accelerated Learning Program 099 and English 101. The classes were offered in a suburban community college close to a large metropolitan city in the Midwest and taught by the same instructor. A mixed methods approach, that is, descriptive-qualitative/ethnographic was used in this study. Descriptive data were …

Examining The Words And Actions Superintendents Used To Lead An Educational System Through A Culture Shift Following The Occurrence Of A Scandalous Critical Incident, Dale Ross Fisher

Dissertations

The dissertation examines the words and actions district superintendents used to lead an educational system through a culture shift following the occurrence of a scandalous critical incident. This qualitative study deeply investigated the specific words and actions as offered by the superintendents of two educational systems and members of their respective leadership teams. Those actions were then filtered through two lenses. The first lens was John Kotter's eight steps for change, and the second lens was Thomas Sergiovanni's five sources of authority. The study generated five themes of specific actions taken by the superintendents, determined that four of Kotter's eight …

Journey To The Neighborhood: An Analysis Of Fred Rogers And His Lessons For Educational Leaders, Jeana Lietz

Dissertations

Millions of children worldwide grew up watching Fred Rogers, aka “ Rogers,” as their childhood neighborhood friend on the television show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood . How was a man able to produce one of the most successful, longest running children’s television programs and stay true to his moral principles? This study examines the life and work of Fred Rogers, and identifies the leadership attributes of Fred Rogers and the implications for educational leaders, through the lens of the five sources of authority described in Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement by Thomas Sergiovanni (1992).

The central research …

Investigating The Biochemical And Catalytic Properties Of Nitrile Hydratases, Salette Martinez

Dissertations

Chemical and pharmaceutical industries make extensive use of amide compounds for the manufacture of commodity chemicals (e.g., acrylamide) and drug intermediates (e.g., nicotinamide). Production of amide compounds is typically achieved by the hydration of nitrile compounds under acidic or basic conditions, high temperatures, and copper catalysts. However, the use of such chemical methods leads to the generation of unwanted by-products and toxic wastes, in addition to low product yields and high production costs. An alternative route for amide production is the use of a natural catalyst, for example nitrile hydratases (NHase, E.C. 4.2.1.84). NHase is a metalloenzyme that efficiently converts …

Sorority Women & Eating Pathology: Communities Of Unhealthy Body Standards?, Ashley Marie Rolnik

Dissertations

The present study examines disordered eating, sorority social norms regarding the body and thinness, personal values regarding the body and thinness, body dissatisfaction, thin ideal internalization, fat talk, negative affect, and positive affect among sorority and non-sorority women. The aims of this study are to discern the underlying factor structures of the sorority/group social norms questionnaires and the personal values regarding the body and thinness questionnaire, investigate disordered eating among sorority and non-sorority women over time, and further examine the impact of social norms on sorority women's body and eating attitudes and behaviors. The results of this research illustrated three …

I Do Activist Things Even Though I'M Nothing: A Critical Ethnography Of Immigrant Youth Identity Formation In An Urban Community-School, Sophia Rodriguez

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how Latino immigrant youth make sense out of their educational experience, identity, and sense of belonging in an urban, public high school. This critical ethnography examines their social interactions. The youth live in a segregated neighborhood that is largely abandoned by policy-makers and recently impacted by massive school closures by the district. The youth, within the context of a community-school partnership, advocate for immigrant rights, march in solidarity with their teachers, and engage in organizing to transcend their immigration status and/or achievement status. The central question is: How do Latino immigrant youth in a community-school experience identity …

Identifying Novel Factors Involved In Biofilm Formation By Vibrio Fischeri, Valerie Ray

Dissertations

Biofilm formation by bacteria provides them with a means to survive harsh environmental conditions and promote colonization of a particular surface (biotic or abiotic). Due to the resistance properties of biofilms, biofilm-forming bacteria are difficult to treat in the context of host infections. Thus, investigating the processes that control biofilm formation will promote the development of novel therapeutics. To study biofilm formation in the context of a host, I utilized as a model system the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri, which must be competent to form a biofilm to colonize its squid host Euprymna scolopes. Biofilm formation by V. fischeri requires …

Closing The "Revolving Door": Identifying Predictors Of Time To Rehospitalization In A Sample Of Psychiatric Inpatient Youth, Alison Merri Stoner

Dissertations

Previously a long-term mental health treatment option, inpatient psychiatric care is now an acute service for brief crisis stabilization and psychiatric reconstitution. Although lengths of stay have declined, rehospitalization rates have risen, calling into question the effectiveness of inpatient treatment and the extent to which inpatient and post-discharge, community-based services are working together to promote community tenure for youth. The present study had three aims: (1) evaluate the utility of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS; Lyons, 1999) as an outcome assessment and decision support tool for youth inpatient hospitalization, (2) confirm a social ecological theory-informed factor structure …

Mutations In Phospholamban Alter The Structure And Function Of The Calcium Atpase Regulatory Complex, Neha Abrol

Dissertations

Phospholamban (PLB) is an integral membrane protein that plays an important role in regulation of cardiac calcium handling and contractility. PLB exists as a homopentamer in the membrane, which upon deoligomerization into active monomers reversibly inhibits sarco/endoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase (SERCA). Mutations in PLB that change the PLB monomer-pentamer equilibrium result in dysregulation of SERCA. To determine the structural and regulatory role of the C-terminal residues of PLB in the membranes of living cells, we fused fluorescent protein tags to PLB and SERCA. We then studied the effect of C-terminal alanine substitutions and truncation mutations on PLB oligomerization and SERCA …

Haploinsufficiency Of Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein-C In The Development Of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, David Barefield

Dissertations

Heart Failure is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the human population and represents a common endpoint for several diseases including inherited cardiomyopathies. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) is characterized by left ventricular wall thickening, diastolic dysfunction, and sarcomere disarray. Mutations in sarcomeric protein encoding genes have been established as causative for HCM.

The gene MYBPC3, encoding cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C), is the second most commonly mutated gene in HCM cases. As a majority of these mutations have been determined to result in a null allele which does not produce any protein, it is thought that haploinsufficiency …

Discrimination And Psychological Distress Among Latinos: The Role Of Family Conflict, Family Cohesion And Religion, Lydia Samir Billatos

Dissertations

This study examined the role of family conflict, family cohesion and religion on the relationship between discrimination and psychological distress among Latino/as in the United States with a focus on gender differences. The study had two main objectives: 1) To test alternate stress-buffering models to understand the mechanisms through which family cohesion, family conflict, and religion affect the relationship of discrimination and psychological distress, allowing for interaction effects with ethnicity and gender; 2) To test hypotheses about the possible non-linear effects of family cohesion on psychological distress, derived from the ([1989] 2000) Olson Circumplex Model (OCM), which was originally based …

Re-Examining The Female Voice In Chaucer's Italian-Sourced Works: A Study In Paleography, Textual Transmission, And Masculinity, Stacee Bucciarelli

Dissertations

Research on women in medieval literature is abundant but often focused on broad questions of narrative and character development. Among the areas seldom examined is what I will term "female voice," a term that encompasses the thoughts and speech of women in literature. This project analyzes the representation of female voice in Chaucer's work, and it explores alterations to female voices within the largely male worlds (both actual and literary) in which they were created.

This study broadens the analysis from the restrictive and traditional realm of women's studies and contextualize these alterations on a grander scale of textual and …

Examining Latino A First-Generation College Students' Educational Resilience At A Jesuit Post-Secondary Institution, Diana Chavez

Dissertations

This qualitative study focused on exploring and understanding Latino/a first-generation college students' process for drawing or enabling educational resilience to persist and achieve their postsecondary education degree. Using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Paradigm as the framework, the study explored how interactions between individuals and their environments influenced their persistence outcomes. Using purposeful sampling, 19 juniors and seniors attending a Midwest, private, religiously-affiliated university were selected to participate. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted during one-on-one meetings.

Findings indicated that Latino first-generation college students drew on or were enabled by internal (e.g., first-generation status, self-identified academic challenges, sense of purpose) and external resources (e.g., …

Luxury Romanticism: The Quarto Book In The Romantic Period, Matthew Hale Clarke

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the cultural presence of the quarto book in Romantic-era Britain and argues that the format classed the period's defining literary ideologies--from sentimentalism, to liberalism, to Wordsworthian Romanticism, to orientalism--as luxuries meant exclusively for the nation's wealthiest consumers. Chapter 1 situates the quarto within the context of the period's luxury debates and advances a conception of the quarto as the era's predominant luxury format. Focusing on Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, Chapter 2 argues that early quarto editions of the poem classed the sympathetic feeling it celebrated as the unique privilege of a readerly elite and describes how …

The Role Of Spirituality/Religion As A Coping Mechanism During Treatment For Disordered Eating, David Franczyk

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of spirituality/religion used as a coping mechanism during treatment for disordered eating. Given the mixed outcome results of current therapeutic and pharmacological treatment methods for disordered eating, it is important to investigate other factors which may influence the treatment process. This study evaluated the role of spirituality/religion used as a coping mechanism among 61 patients who were admitted into an eating disorder treatment program and then discharged over a period of 15 months. In this quantitative study, the Brief RCOPE measure was self-administered at admission to determine the levels of …