Digital Commons Network^™

Reducing Antitrust Fines And Limiting The Liability Of Sme For Antitrust Violations – Proposal Of The Interpretation Of The Specific Inability To Pay Criterion, Katarzyna Wiese

internetowy Kwartalnik Antymonopolowy i Regulacyjny (internet Quarterly on Antitrust and Regulation)

Directive 2014/104/EU provides for a limitation of the liability of SMEs in cases where the application of its normal rules on joint and several liability would irretrievably jeopardise their economic viability and cause their assets to lose all their value. The meaning of this provision is everything but clear and commentators have voiced unanimous and harsh criticism of the chosen wording. This article presents a proposal for the interpretation of this provision based on its observed parallel with the requirements for a reduction of the fine imposed by the European Commission in antitrust cases.

Pengembangan Buku Ajar Berbasis Penelitian Evolusi Dan Filogenetik Molekuler Untuk Matakuliah Evolusi Di Universitas Jember, Ulin Nuha, Mohamad Amin, Umie Lestari

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

Molecular phylogeneticis a material which studied in Evolution Subject for undergraduete student in Biology Education Programm. This subject need contextual learning materials and allow in development and progress of science and technology developing. The general problem of student isthe low knowledge in molecular area. One solution for this problem is provide a research-based textbook based on molecular approach. The textbook was developed based on ADDIE development model. The product was validated by instructional media expert, subject matter expert, education practitioner and tested on small group (nine students). Validation results from instructional media expert, subject matter expert, education practitioner, and small …

Tuning Into Toxins And Channels: The Characterizations Of Tv1 And A Human Cardiac Sodium Channel Voltage-Sensor Domain, Mohammed H. Bhuiyan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In nature, peptide toxins are an abundant resource, produced both by marine and terrestrial organisms. A major target of these peptide toxins is the group of the highly important voltage-gated ion channels. Due to their high specificity and affinity, peptide toxins have been used for over a decade in discovery and characterization of voltage-gated ion channels. Although peptide toxins have been extensively characterized structurally, the structural characterization of eukaryotic voltage-gated sodium channels has seen much less progress, due to their large size and high hydrophobicity. Voltage-gated sodium channels play crucial roles in many physiological processes, and when these processes are …

The Antipolitics Of Food In Middle-Class America, Neri De Kramer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides an ethnographic account of the food and parenting practices of a diverse group of middle-class families in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. It starts from the basic premise that the economic pressures on the American middle classes find expression in family life around the socially reproductive work of choosing food and parenting.

The current economic climate marked with extreme and rising income inequality, low growth, high unemployment and stagnating wages has complicated the reproduction process for all parents in this study, regardless of income. Scholars have described how this concern for the future of the next …

Death Priming In Investigations: The Effects On Worldview Threat, Out-Group Derogation, And Stereotyping, Laure Brimbal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terror Management Theory (TMT) hypothesizes that thinking about one’s own death creates a need to boost our worldview and our self-esteem in order to cope with this existential threat. Decades of research support the theory’s premises with findings in many different settings (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010). The purpose of this dissertation is to extend the findings of TMT to research on decision making in investigations. In two studies, I evaluated how thinking about one’s death (Mortality Salience, MS) affected mock investigators’ reactions to the outcome of a case they investigated and their perceptions of a suspect, depending on their …

Consciousness, Perception, And Short-Term Memory, Henry F. Shevlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dissertation Abstract: Consciousness, Perception, and Short-Term Memory

When we engage in almost any perceptual activity – recognizing a face, listening out for a phone-call, or simply taking in a sunset – information must be briefly stored and processed in some form of short-term memory. For philosophers attempting to develop an empirically grounded account of perception and conscious experience, it is therefore crucial to engage with scientific theories of the kinds of short-term memory mechanisms that underlie our moment-to-moment retention of information about the world. To that end, in this dissertation I review recent scientific evidence for a new form of …

Lessons From The Past: Unfolding The Dynamics Among Climate, Balkan Landscapes, And Humans Over The Past Millennium, Charuta J. Kulkarni

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The primary objective of this doctoral dissertation is to reconstruct the environmental history of the Central Balkans (Serbia) over the past millennium utilizing biological proxies (pollen, spores, and charcoal), geochemical signals through X-ray fluorescence (XRF), statistical analyses, and atomic mass spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C chronology. This dissertation establishes the first chronological framework for vegetation-landscape changes in Serbia and discusses the role of humans and climate as underlying processes.

Chapter 1 discusses the background and the nature of the research problem followed by the extensive literature review on the topic of the Holocene climate and paleoecology. The state of Holocene paleoecology …

The Emergence Of The Bird In Andean Paracas Art. C. 900 Bce - 200 Ce, Mary B. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first millennium BCE, an enigmatic cultural group now known as Paracas inhabited the remote desert coast of southern Peru. Following its disappearance, Paracas culture did not emerge in the historical record until 1927, when three burial centers were scientifically excavated on the arid Paracas peninsula that gave the culture its name. The burials contained over 400 mummy bundles that preserved the only physical remnants of this culture and its unique art forms. When unwrapped, mummy bundles of elite males revealed multiple layers of finely woven and elaborately embroidered textiles and painted ceramics, along with gold objects, feathers, and …

Seeking Holiness: The Contribution Of Nine Vernacular Narrative Texts From The Twelfth To The Fourteenth Centuries, Stephanie Grace Petinos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Spirituality has been increasingly studied to determine the laity’s role within Church history in the Middle Ages. However, secular literature is often overlooked as a source of understanding lay spirituality, even though it is a crucial aspect of cultural and social history. I fill this gap by analyzing nine important vernacular texts to uncover several distinctive definitions of holiness, all of which blend the religious and the secular. Close reading of these texts reveals various paths to holiness, which undermine the Church’s attempts at sole control over spirituality. This study demonstrates that secular authors were concerned with exploring spiritual matters; …

Falling Forward: Continuity And Change In The Poetics Of Eden, Julie L. Gafney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation suggests that late fourteenth century vernacular poetry in Middle English takes up the idea of a secular Eden by which various non-normative theorizations of time and self are made possible. The invocation of a rich and multifarious Eden may be effectively understood through its relationship to the psychoanalytic theorization of origins by which Eden’s powerful potentiality for therapeutic or at least revelatory growth is inherent in its availability for processes of cyclical return. The present study will attempt to redress the tendency to treat Eden only as a fall and thereby gain a better understanding of the modes …

Adult Neurogenesis In Avian Auditory Cortex, Caudomedial Nidopallium (Ncm): Lateralization And Effects Of Statins, Shuk C. Tsoi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first part of this paper, we investigated the basic relationship between learning, memory and adult neurogenesis using zebra finches. We found that in the auditory cortex, the left hemisphere had more new neurons than the right hemisphere. This lateralization was correlated with song learning and memory. In the second part, we used juvenile zebra finches as a model organism to study the effects of Lipitor on learning, memory and neurogenesis. We found that Lipitor impaired song learning and memory storage. Lipitor treatments also changed the morphology of new neurons and size of old neurons, suggesting statins may affect …

Therapeutic Targets For Alzheimer's Disease: Insights From In Vitro And In Vivo Models Of Inflammation, Magdalena J. Kiprowska

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive neuronal loss that over the years spreads from the hippocampus to the neural cortex and impairs memory and cognitive functions. At the cellular level AD is linked to the presence of β-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles but despite decades of research little is known about their contribution to neurodegeneration and whether they are a cause or rather a result of the disease. It is well established that proteasome activity is impaired in AD brains and some studies suggest that this could be one of the initial factors leading to development …

Evaluating The Validity Of Technology-Enhanced Educational Assessment Items And Tasks: An Empirical Approach To Studying Item Features And Scoring Rubrics., Ally Thomas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With the advent of the newly developed Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, innovative assessments, including technology-enhanced items and tasks, will be needed to meet the challenges of developing valid and reliable assessments in a world of computer-based testing. In a recent critique of the next generation assessments in math (i.e., Smarter Balanced), Rasmussen (2015) observed that many aspects of the technology “enhancements” can be expected to do more harm than good as the computer interfaces may introduce construct irrelevant variance. This paper focused on issues surrounding the design of TEIs and how cognitive load …

Feeling Political: Affect, Emotion, And Ethics In Western Political Theory, John Mcmahon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What conceptual and methodological resources would it take for political theory to be able to more deeply analyze the emotional and affective dimensions of political life? In this dissertation, I articulate interdisciplinary work on affect and emotion into political theory in order to realize four linked objectives: first, to develop a method of reading and interpreting political theory capable of tracing the theoretical work done by affect and emotion in works of political thought; second, to reassess the boundaries of the political theory canon in terms of the thinkers that ‘count’ as part of that canon as well as the …

Declining City, Born-Again Citadel: Faith-Based Organizations And The Reconstitution Of Inequality In Postindustrial America, Michael J. Boyle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the context of the hegemonic neoliberalism of recent decades, faith-based organizations (FBOs) have flourished as mechanisms for addressing poverty and other varieties of social need. For all of the contributions of contemporary anthropological research to the study of FBOs, however, most analyses have stressed the potency of FBOs and elided the agency of recipients. The present dissertation aims, through a multisited study of Evangelical FBOs in the postindustrial American city of Plainfield, to focus on the latter theme. Owing to the traditional behaviorism of American culture and also its Evangelical reproduction in FBO settings, the pursuit of charity thrusts …

Seeing And Perceptual Content, Ben S. Phillips

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There are two widely held assumptions about perception: ascriber-independence (the view that the facts regarding what a subject perceives, as well as what her perceptual states represent, are independent of the interests of those attributing the relevant states to her), and determinacy (the view that perceptual content is relatively determinate). I challenge both of these assumptions, and develop a new approach to perceptual content, with implications for theories of mental content more broadly. In chapter one, I address the question of whether, in addition to low-level features, vision represents ordinary objects. I argue that there is just no fact of …

Masculine Identities Among Asian American Men: Negotiating Varying Masculine Ideals For The Self And Others, Elisa J. Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study examined the implications of varying masculine identities for Asian American men of East Asian descent. The study tested the hypotheses that compared to White men, Asian American men would endorse lower levels of Western hegemonic masculine ideals, see themselves as less masculine in terms of those ideals, and report lower levels of believing others perceive them as masculine by Western hegemonic standards. It also examined if the type of masculinity Asian American men endorsed moderated the psychological functioning (gender role conflict, psychological distress, and substance use) related to any discrepancies and synchronicities between self-perception and others’ perception (e.g. …

Native Language Adaptation To Novel Verb Argument Structures By Spanish-English Bilinguals: An Electrophysiological Investigation, Eve Higby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bilinguals have to learn two different grammatical systems. Some aspects of these grammars may be similar across the two languages (for example, the active-passive alternation) while others may exist in only one of the two grammars (for example, the distinction between recent and distant past). This dissertation investigates the degree to which grammar information specific to only one language is available when processing the other language. In particular, the current study focuses on the application of grammatical structures from the bilinguals’ second-learned language to their first-learned language, a direction of language transfer not often investigated. Based on a Shared Syntax …

Development Of New Radiolabeling Methods And Insights On Ionizing Radiation Interactions With Nanoparticles, Travis Shaffer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nanoparticles are often combined with radionuclides for various applications, ranging from waste remediation to imaging and therapy in the medical field. The overarching aim of this body of work is two-fold. The first aim is development of new radiolabeling methods for various nanoparticles that allow stable attachment of a variety of imaging and therapeutic radionuclides. The second portion more fully describes mechanisms of interaction between ionizing radiation and nanoparticles.

The following advancements will be presented in this dissertation: i) a new radiolabeling method for silica and silica-based nanoparticles that does not require the use of specific chelators, with both radiochemical …

Medication Management In Pediatric Chronic Illness: Should Patient Anxiety Be Considered?, Claire J. Hoogendoorn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Introduction: There is growing support that psychological symptoms can impact various aspects of disease, well-being, and medical treatment for those with a chronic illness like Crohn’s disease (CD). Yet, almost no studies have examined whether psychological symptoms can influence management or efficacy of patient medication regimens. The aims of this project were to examine whether anxiety predicted pediatric patients’ level of medication management, medication prescription changes, and corticosteroid prescription and duration.

Method: A total of 105 pediatric patients ages 8-18 (M=14.5, SD=2.3) completed a validated anxiety questionnaire during a GI office visit (baseline). Prescribed IBD …

Accessing Academe, Disabling The Curriculum: Institutional Locations Of Dis/Ability In Public Higher Education, Andrew J. Lucchesi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The field of Disability Studies has long committed itself to the project of making American colleges and universities more accessible places for disabled faculty, staff, and students. Indeed, many of the field of early ideological roots of the discipline of Disability Studies (DS) emerged from campus-based activist movements. This influence has impacted the ways DS scholars continue to frame their intellectual labor as a progressive public good. In recent years, composition/rhetoric scholars have begun applying DS approaches to questions of pedagogical and professional access as well. These critiques have drawn attention the ways teaching practice, administrative policy, and other aspects …

Perspectives On Iraq's Past, Present, And Future In The Works Of Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr And Yusuf Salman Yusuf, Amnah Almukhtar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through a look at the writings of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Yusuf Salman Yusuf, I argue that Iraq’s communists and Islamists during the middle of the twentieth century could not escape a common language, common circumstances and conditions which framed their conceptions of the relationship between their pasts, presents, and futures. Their political visions did not come from their disparate traditions, although couched in those terms, but from their common circumstances and struggles towards the establishment of a sovereign, independent Iraqi nation. Despite their disagreements or variously framed answers, they were guided by similar questions. Yusuf Salman Yusuf, also known …

Virtue’S Web: The Virtue Of Empathic Attunement And The Need For A Relational Foundation, Georgina D. Campelia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on two questions. First, is empathy a virtue? Second, if it is, then why is it neglected, even ostracized, in contemporary discourses on virtue? In response to the first question, this dissertation develops and defends a distinction between empathic practices and moral excellence in those practices, which is termed ‘empathic attunement’. This excellence is a virtue not because of its connection to standard altruistic behavior, but because it is a unique way of caring for, respecting, and understanding others’ emotional experiences in response to the need to be emotionally understood and the good of being emotionally understood. …

Evolving The Genre Of Empire: Gender And Place In Women's Natural Histories Of The Americas, 1688-1808, Diana Epelbaum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the eighteenth century, “natural history” was a capacious genre designation that alluded to conventions as diverse in their cultural and political resonances as they were in their applications within the New Science. My project is a genre study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural history text and art produced by women scientists, explorers, colonists, and early Americans writing the New World; it destabilizes rigid notions of genre that exclude women, suggesting that genre is by nature fluid, inclusionary as well as exclusionary. To this end, I return into conversation understudied naturalists Maria Sybilla Merian, Jane Colden, and Eliza Pinckney, who …

Relative Clause Sentence Comprehension By Japanese-Speaking Children With Specific Language Impairment And Children With Typical Language Development, Miho Sasaki

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Comprehension of sentences with relative clauses was examined in Japanese-speaking children with SLI and children with TLD. The children with SLI showed comparable comprehension with the TLD peers, when the language and memory tests’ scores were controlled. The children with TLD consistently had difficulties in OR sentences than SR sentences, in spite of that Japanese relative clauses are different from English ones. The children with SLI showed the opposite pattern. Working memory rather than language knowledge predicted better the comprehension performance for all the children.

Mindfulness In Learning, Anna Malyukova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In our everyday life, people feel busy, rushed, pressured to be productive and successful. There is little room for pausing, slowing down, having a moment of non-judgmental reflection on everyday activities, which include learning. One way to achieve balance and harmony in life is to become more mindful of oneself and one’s emotions. I argue that the speed and drive for productivity and achievement has disharmonized our lives, from the learning process inside and outside of the classroom to the way we interact with technology and attempt to find balance in life. Through my own personal journey of reflection on …

The Effects Of Alpha Oscillations On Touch Perception And Visuo-Tactile Integration, Lei Ai

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous studies have shown that touch perception and visuo-tactile integration have large inter-subject/intra-subject variations. For example, touch perception varies across trials and the temporal binding windows of visuo-tactile integration varies across subjects. I hypothesized that the variations might be due to the change of power, phase and peak frequency of brain alpha oscillations. In the first set of experiments, I examined whether the power and phase of alpha oscillations predict successful conscious touch perception. Near-threshold tactile stimuli were applied to the left hand while electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and fast signal optical imaging were recorded over the somatosensory cortex. Alpha power …

‘Open, And Always, Opening’: Trans- Poetics As A Methodology For (Re)Articulating Gender, The Body, And The Self ‘Beyond Language’, Lizzy Tricano Kaval

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Poetry is a useful medium for exploring the fluidity and possibilities in language beyond the everyday terms of normative language. For trans- and genderqueer subjects, whose identities cannot be articulated within the linguistic boundaries of binary gender, and whose outward appearance challenges the cultural logic of gendered visibility, poetry becomes a valuable and necessary tool for survival, disruption, activism, and personal and public empowerment. Through syntax, word choice, semantic and non-semantic qualities of language, poetry helps articulate the inexpressible, complex, and unstable gender identities and subject positions, even as they change or multiply. It gives names to felt ideas, which …

Series Of Intermittent Heroin Injections Enhances Acquisition Of Operant Responding For Cues Paired With Natural Rewards, Jennifer Morrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Repeated-intermittent heroin use has been implicated in altering learning processes. Ranaldi et al. (2009) and Morrison et al. (2011) demonstrated that repeated-intermittent heroin administration leads to an enhancement of conditioned reinforcement by a food-paired light stimulus; however, the mechanism governing this effect is still largely unknown. The aims of the present study were to examine modifications in Pavlovian and operant associations for cues paired with natural rewards after a series of intermittent heroin injections. The study consisted of three phases: (1) Pavlovian Conditioning Phase (4 days)- in which three groups of rats had a light stimulus paired with food, and …

The Anxious Shadow Of A Coldwar: Affect, Biopower & Resistance In Fiction & Culture In The Period Of Intra-Anxiety 1989-2001, Kate Adler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Don DeLillo’s 1997 novel Underworld stands as the framing text for this study of fiction, cultural affect, and resistance in the later part of the 1980’s – the exhausted, waning years of the Cold War – and the 1990’s, the period immediately following its collapse. DeLillo’s book is situated in the 1990’s, a period of what I term “intra-anxiety” following the Cold War and prior to the attacks of September 11^th and the ensuing “War on Terror.” The Cold War had provided an organizing myth for America and American culture, absorbing and structuring anxieties and governing affect. “The Cold …