Digital Commons Network^™

Novel Experimental Method For Studying Trajectories And Wing Kinematics Of Freely Flying Butterflies, Jacob Taylor Cranford

Theses

A novel experimental technique is presented for gathering data on the kinematics and trajectories of flapping insects. An optical tracking facility was used to record the free flight of the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus). The 5.7mx9.1mx3.0m capture volume allowed enough space to capture large numbers of sequential wing flaps. The system automatically tracked small reflective markers, which were modified to reduce the effects of additional mass on butterfly flight characteristics. This technique was used to record 2,000 flights of 86 different butterflies. A data analysis method is also presented that efficiently extracts information on flapping and body motion. A sample …

Identification Of Two Novel Genome-Wide Significant Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Associated With Barrett’S Oesophagus, Determined By Further Replication Of A Genome-Wide Association Study, Laura Chegwidden

Peninsula Medical School Theses

Barrett's oesophagus (BE) is a common premalignant condition to oesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). A previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified BE susceptibility Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosome 6p21, within the HLA region, and16q23, where the closest protein-coding gene was FOXF1. The replication study outlined in this thesis aimed to identify possible additional variants that did not reach genome-wide significance in the GWAS, in up to 10,158 BE patients and 21,062 controls. Meta-analysis of the data identified two further BE susceptibility SNPs: rs3072 (2p24.1; OR=1.14; 95%CI 1.09-1.18; P=1.8×10−11); and rs2701108 (12q24.21; OR=0.90; 95%CI 0.86-0.93; P=7.5×10−9). The two closest protein-coding genes, and …

Taking Flight – January 2015 Edition, Georgia Southern University

College of Business: News & Publications

• Message from the Dean
• Alumni Spotlight – Jenny Gentry
• Augusta Eagle Executive Exchange – Connecting the Eagle Executive Network
• College of Business Online Graduate Programs Ranked in Top 25 by U.S. News & World Report
• MBAA Kick-off & Spring Schedule
• 12th Annual Distinguished Forensic Accounting Lecturer
• Congrats to Accounting Alumni, Phil Moore!
• Statesboro’s Cowboy: Former Georgia Southern star J.J. Wilcox making plays for Dallas defense
• Soft Spot for Southern
• College of Business Faculty Gives Finance Advice for the New Year

A Feasibility Test Of Using Smartphones To Collect Gps Information In Face-To-Face Surveys, Kristen Olson, James Wagner

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Survey organizations rely on interviewers to make informed and efficient decisions about their efforts in the field, including which housing units they approach to knock on doors, seeking to make appointments, and obtain interviews. This paper presents initial findings from a feasibility test on a face-to-face survey, the US National Survey of Family Growth, in which the interviewers were equipped with GPS-enabled smartphones. This test included an experiment to determine if the use of the GPS-enabled smartphone altered interviewer behavior. We evaluate interviewer compliance with the GPS request, the effects of using the GPS device on interviewer behavior, and the …

Longitudinal Predictors Of Homelessness: Findings From The National Longitudinal Survey Of Youth-97, Brittany Sznajder-Murray

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Homeless youth represent a vulnerable and understudied population. Little research has prospectively identified factors that may place youth at risk for experiencing homelessness. The current study utilizes data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-97 (NLSY-97) to examine predictors of experiencing homelessness as a young adult (before age 25). The NLSY-97 includes a nationally representative sample of 8,984 youth. Data were first collected from these youth when they were between the ages of 12 to 18 years. The current study examined whether individual and family risk factors reported during adolescence predict homelessness by the age of 25. The findings showed …

Estimating Vertex Measures In Social Networks By Sampling Completions Of Rds Trees, Bilal Khan, Kirk Dombrowski, Ric Curtis, Travis Wendel

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This paper presents a new method for obtaining network properties from incomplete data sets. Problems associated with missing data represent well-known stumbling blocks in Social Network Analysis. The method of “estimating connectivity from spanning tree completions” (ECSTC) is specifically designed to address situations where only spanning tree(s) of a network are known, such as those obtained through respondent driven sampling (RDS). Using repeated random completions derived from degree information, this method forgoes the usual step of trying to obtain final edge or vertex rosters, and instead aims to estimate network-centric properties of vertices probabilistically from the spanning trees themselves. In …

Citizen Volunteers In Prison: Bringing The Outside In, Taking The Inside Out, Lisa Kort-Butler, Sarah E. Malone

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The United States correctional system relies heavily on citizen volunteers, but there is little contemporary research on prison volunteers, which is further limited by sample and geographic region. The purpose of this project was to explore the role of citizen volunteers, including investigating why they volunteer and what their experiences with inmates and prison staff are like. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with citizen volunteers in the penal system of a Midwestern state. Volunteers had altruistic or faith-based motivations, viewing themselves as ‘seed planters’ but not saviors, and placing priority on building relationships. They described how volunteering transformed their views on …

How Long Does That 10-Year Smoke Alarm Really Last? A Survival Analysis Of Smoke Alarms Installed Through The Saife Program In Rural Georgia, Haresh Rochani, Valamar Malika Reagon, Steve Davidson

Biostatistics: Faculty Publications

Background: When functioning properly, a smoke alarm alerts individuals in the residence that smoke is near the alarm. Smoke alarms serve as a primary prevention mechanism to abate morbidity and mortality related to residential fires.

Methods: Using survival analysis, we examined the length of operability of 10-year lithium battery powered smoke alarms installed through the Georgia Public Health/CDC SAIFE program in Moultrie, Georgia. Attempts were made to reach all homes in the city limits. The premise of the study is that geographic clusters (in the case of Moultrie city quadrants) are associated with decreases in the length of time that …

Markets, Morals, And Limits In The Exchange Of Human Eggs, Kimberly D. Krawiec

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interrogation Policies, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

Despite growing concern regarding the problem of false confessions, including due to high profile DNA and death row exonerations, far too little is known about police interrogations in practice, including the written procedures that govern interrogations. This Essay provides a first study of police interrogation policies, focusing on written policies adopted by Virginia law enforcement agencies. Reviewing FOIA responses from over 180 agencies, the study found that few agencies require recording of entire interrogations as a matter of policy; nine did so. Over half, or 58 of 116 policies obtained, made recording an option, but did not encourage it or …

Embedding Self-Determination And Futures Planning Within A Schoolwide Framework, Hank Bohanon, Jose Castillo, Morgan Afton

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the infusion of self-determination approaches (e.g., futures planning) within a schoolwide context. Unfortunately, some students are not explicitly instructed by school staff to address their plans for the future. This may be a result of school professionals’ feelings of inadequacy to address skill sets outside of their specialization (e.g., content area, special education). By connecting self-determination practices with schoolwide initiatives (e.g., schoolwide positive behavior support, Common Core State Standards), educators in particular may be more willing to address these skills in their settings. This article provides an example of these types of …

All Together Now: Using Principles Of Group Dynamics To Train Better Jurors, Sara Gordon

All Faculty Publications

We ask juries to make important decisions that have a profound impact on people’s lives. We leave these decisions in the hands of groups of laypeople because we hope that the diverse range of experiences and knowledge in the group will lead to more thoughtful and informed decisionmaking. 1 Studies suggest that diverse groups of jurors have different perspectives on evidence, engage in more thorough debate, and more closely evaluate facts.2 At the same time, there are a variety of problems associated with group decisionmaking, from the loss of individual motivation in group settings, to the vulnerability of groups, to …

Holding Deposit Agreements: Pre-Tenancy Obligations And Rights, Samuel Beswick

All Faculty Publications

There is confusion in the rental market over the legal significance of holding deposits, which are routinely paid by prospective tenants prior to signing a lease document. The purpose of this article is to clarify the legal position of holding deposit agreements (HDAs) entered into in the pre-tenancy period. In particular, to emphasise that, in the usual course:

• The agreement to, and payment of, a holding deposit creates a binding contract between the prospective tenant and the landlord. • A HDA is a conditional contract, which grants the applicant both the right and obligation to enter into the proposed …

The Policing Of Major Events In Canada: Lessons From Toronto's G20 And Vancouver's Olympics, W. Wesley Pue, Robert Diab, Grace Jackson

All Faculty Publications

Major events ranging from sporting events to major international conferences too often result in disorder, deployment of riot squads, and mass arrests. Events surrounding a meeting of the G20 in Toronto and those at Vancouver’s Winter Olympics provide insight into the ways in which things can go wrong and the ways in which they can go well at major events. This article employs a “thick history” of events in order to explore gaps in Canadian law, including gaps between “law in the books” and “law in action.”
The legal frameworks governing large-scale events affect the likelihood of success measured in …

The Phytotronist And The Phenotype: Plant Physiology, Big Science, And A Cold War Biology Of The Whole Plant., David Munns

Publications and Research

This paper describes how, from the early twentieth century, and especially in the early Cold War era, the plant physiologists considered their discipline ideally suited among all the plant sciences to study and explain biological functions and processes, and ranked their discipline among the dominant forms of the biological sciences. At their apex in the late-1960s, the plant physiologists laid claim to having discovered nothing less than the “basic laws of physiology.” This paper unwraps that claim, showing that it emerged from the construction of monumental big science laboratories known as phytotrons that gave control over the growing environment. Control …

Integration Of Qos Metrics, Rules And Semantic Uplift For Advanced Iptv Monitoring, Ruairí De Fréin, Cristian Olariu, Yuqian Song, Rob Brennan, Patrick Mcdonagh, Adriana Hava, Christina Thorpe, John Murphy, Liam Murphy, Paul French

Articles

Increasing and variable traffic demands due to triple play services pose significant Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) resource management challenges for service providers. Managing subscriber expectations via consolidated IPTV quality reporting will play a crucial role in guaranteeing return-on-investment for players in the increasingly competitive IPTV delivery ecosystem. We propose a fault diagnosis and problem isolation solution that addresses the IPTV monitoring challenge and recommends problem-specific remedial action. IPTV delivery-specific metrics are collected at various points in the delivery topology, the residential gateway and the Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer through to the video Head-End. They are then pre-processed using new …

Human Factors Engineering At Design Projects For Process Industry - Challenges And Lessons Learned, Maria Chiara Leva, Farzad Naghdali

Conference Papers

This paper summarises current industrial practices and standards promoting Human Factors Engineering (HFE) at design stage and revise them with an action research approached based on the concrete case studies performed during a European project called TOSCA. The paper highlights how HFE can significantly impact the costs and risk associated with a plant lifecycle and the current gaps and issues encountered. The gaps identified are used to guide industrial practices and standards towards a more valuable inclusion of Human Factors knowledge in structured system design processes to support human performance and reduce the potential for human errors in operations and …

The Land Question In Amazonia: Cadastral Knowledge And Ignorance In Brazil’S Tenure Regularization Program, Jeremy M. Campbell

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

In the Brazilian Amazon, a quest˜ao fundi´aria (the land question) has been asked and answered in a variety of ways since the region was opened up tolarge-scale migration and development projects in the 1960s. The question of who is entitled to land and under what conditions is at the heart ofmost debates concerning the region’s future, but recent attempts to reform and simplify rural land tenure in Amazonia confront a history of contradictory land-use policies and a legacy of impunity. In response to economic and demographic pressures, the Brazilian state aims to combat the illicit occupation, sale, and transformation of …

Understanding The Physiological Effects Of Suspended Material On Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss), Tyler J. Weinhardt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The effect of global warming on northern environments is becoming increasingly evident. Melting of underlying permafrost is associated with widespread impacts in these environments. The loss of permafrost results in a destabilizing of underlying sedimentary layers resulting in thermokarst slumping. When this occurs on a large scale (mega-slumping) soil material becomes mobilized and is carried into local streams and rivers. The purpose of this study is to examine the sub-lethal physiological effects that suspended material has on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the context of the Peel River Plateau. Juvenile rainbow trout were exposed (following Environment Canada exposure …

Examination Of Field Scale Hydrological Processes Under Three Different Tillage Methods In Southern Ontario: Conventional Till (Ct); Modified Till (Mt); And No Till (Nt), Ian Martin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In the wake of the severe algal blooms of 2011 and 2013 in the Great Lakes, international governing bodies such as the United Nations, are advocating for increased studies on nutrient dynamics within agricultural systems. Understanding farm contributions to nutrient loads entering the Great Lakes involves quantifying nutrient export from different tillage practices common in the Great Lakes basin, which include no-till (NT), conventional till (CT) and modified tillage (MT). Understanding differences in nutrient export from different tillage practices may well be related to structural differences in the upper portion of the vadose zone which impact infiltration, soil moisture and …

Stepping Out Of The Dirt: A Case Study Of The Impact Of Reflective Expressive Writing On Male Teens Recently Released From A Closed Custody Facility, April D. King Ms.

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

When researching the topic of at-risk youth and reflective expressive writing there is little literature to be found. The limited literature that exists with regards to reflective expressive writing is not geared toward a population of at-risk teens (Burton & King, 2004). Although there is literature on alternative programming for at-risk youth (McKee & MacDonald, 2006), very little discusses reflective writing. The research question being addressed is: What is the impact of reflective expressive writing on male teens that have recently been released from a closed custody facility? The aim of this study is to present rich descriptive narratives that …

The Effect Of Emotion On Associative And Item Memory, Priyanga Jeyarathnarajah

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Numerous studies to date have demonstrated superior memory for emotional compared to neutral stimuli (Kensinger & Corkin, 2004; Bennion et al., 2013). This finding, although relatively stable across the item memory literature, becomes less consistent when examined in tasks measuring memory for associative or source information (Chiu et al., 2013). For this reason, the present study set out to examine how emotional content (negative, positive and neutral word pairs) influences memory in two distinct associative and item recognition tasks: associative identification (AI), associative reinstatement (AR), paired-item recognition, and single-item recognition. In measuring the influence of emotion on associations using an …

The Lived Experiences Of Sandwich Generation Women And Their Health Behaviours, Allison Steiner

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Sandwich generation caregivers simultaneously provide care to their aging parents/in-laws and at least one child under 18 years living in the home (Sinha, 2013). In 2012, 2.23 million Canadians were considered sandwiched caregivers. This group is expected to grow as individuals are delaying marriage, resulting in delayed childrearing (Robinson, Barbee, Martin, Singer, Yegidis, 2003). Further, the government has been advocating for caregiving to move from formal to informal caregiving. Although this would help the government immensely, this creates challenges for middle-aged adults occupying multiple roles. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of sandwich generation women …

"Where's The Support?": An Exploratory Study Of Supports For Primary Caregivers Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In The Toronto Region, Nicole H. Siron

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The experience of being a caregiver of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is complicated and fraught with obstacles. Presently, we do not know how to support caregivers adequately. In this thesis, I explore the supports that exist for primary caregivers of children with ASD in the Toronto region, with the goal of examining caregiver experience when accessing supports. The literature that I reviewed highlighted the importance of examining the caregiver experience by acknowledging that caregivers of children with ASD experience elevated levels of stress. This review made it clear that by not addressing how to support caregivers, the …

Canadian Christian Nationalism?: The Religiosity And Politics Of The Christian Heritage Party Of Canada, Leah A D Mckeen

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this dissertation I examines the worldview and concerns held by members of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada (CHP) as a means of understanding Canada’s Christian Right. I present a perspective of Canada’s Christian Right that challenges assumptions made about this religio-political ideology by showing how the political choices made by members of the CHP make sense within the members’ context. The CHP is a federal political party, first registered in 1986, that markets itself as “Canada’s only pro-life party.” Although the party was initially developed by a group of conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics, the majority of its …

Changing Theories Of Change: Strategic Shifting In Implicit Theory Endorsement, Scott Leith

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

People differ in their implicit theories about the malleability of characteristics such as intelligence and personality. These relatively chronic theories can be experimentally altered, and can be affected by parent or teacher feedback. Little is known about whether people might selectively shift their implicit beliefs in response to salient situational goals. We predicted that, when motivated to reach a desired conclusion, people might subtly shift their implicit theories of change and stability to garner supporting evidence for their desired position. Any motivated context in which a particular lay theory would help people to reach a preferred directional conclusion could elicit …

Imagining Accomplishments From Differing Visual And Temporal Perspectives, Deanna C. Hall

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The current research examined the relationship between grammatical aspect (GA) (imperfective vs. past perfect) and accomplishment verbs in event representation in Experiment 1, and then investigated the influence of visual perspective taking on this representation process in Experiment 2. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded with slow cortical potentials (SCPs) acting as a measure of cognitive processing during the imagination period, and behavioural measure questionnaires provided ratings of vividness, temporal component, and importance of the imagined events.

It was hypothesized for Experiment 1 that imagining imperfective events would result in more negative SCP amplitudes than when imagining events with past perfect aspect, …

Attitudes Toward Couple Therapy In Helping Profession Graduate Students, Laura Demoe

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

A core issue of couple therapy is the evident delay in help-seeking behaviours among distressed couples. This study had two main objectives. The first objective was to examine if there is a negative stigmatization associated with attendance at couple therapy and whether this is related to a person's willingness to attend. The second objective was to examine whether couple therapy is perceived as a resource to be used once distress levels are severe and other options have been exhausted. This study used a survey methodology with qualitative components and participants consisted mainly of graduate students enrolled in helping profession programs. …

Growth Potential In Relationships: A Promotion-Focus Perspective, Amanda E. Kohler, Justin Cavallo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Relationship research has long emphasized the importance of felt security for interpersonal wellbeing, but has focused less on how opportunities for growth influence relationship well-being. The present research investigates whether people’s motivational states may influence the extent to which people value growth in their romantic relationships. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, which distinguishes between promotion (concerned with advancement) and prevention (concerned with security) self-regulatory orientations, it was hypothesized that promotion-focused individuals would be more satisfied with relationships that offered greater opportunity for growth than with those that offered greater opportunity for security. In three experimental studies, participants evaluated others’ (Study …

Social Factors Influencing Early Reading Development From Kindergarten To Grade One In English-Speaking Public Schools In Ontario And Quebec, Katherine Wood

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This research study examines the influence of providing parents with early literacy or socio-emotional instruction on their children’s performance in reading and social skill development. Parents were offered four interactive workshops designed to assist them in identifying everyday opportunities to reinforce either early reading skills or early social skills development. Two reading skills approaches were explored, traditional text reading and traditional text reading with computer-assisted learning opportunities. These two reading approaches were contrasted with a set of social development workshops derived from social-emotional learning models. Children’s performance was measured at three time intervals from early kindergarten to early in grade …