Digital Commons Network^™

A Tricky Negotiation: Free Speech Versus Insensitivity, Melvin Dilanchian

Washington University Undergraduate Law Review

The central question presented in this paper is whether specialty license plates constitute government speech, and are thus subject to disapproval by the Board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. The core concerns reviewed in this research, largely focus on defining whose speech specialty license plates are. The purpose is to investigate and analyze the precedent established as a result of a recent case, Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans. The paper thoroughly reviews the arguments made in the majority opinion, as well as those of the dissenting opinion, with an interdisciplinary approach. The argument presented …

Clergy Cultural Competency : Multicultural Competency As A Prerequisite For Ministry In Hawaii, Debra K. Murray

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

For Such A Time As This : Ecclesiastical Response To Human Sexual Trafficking In North America, Dawn A. Beamish

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Ohio Model For Combatting Debtors' Prisons, Jocelyn Rosnick, Mike Brickner

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In 2013, the ACLU of Ohio released a report titled The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors’ Prisons Are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities. The report exposed the blatantly unconstitutional practice in courts across Ohio of jailing people who were too poor to pay their court fines and fees, and along with our ongoing advocacy efforts, resulted in sweeping change across the state. This Essay looks at the destruction modern debtors’ prisons have on individuals, families, and communities and overviews the research, advocacy, and communications tools the ACLU of Ohio has used to successfully combat debtors’ prisons. The goal is …

Towards An Informed Pedagogy Of Modern New Orleans Style Music, Matthew D. Leder

Dissertations

This study contributes to the literature of New Orleans jazz by providing a documentation of twenty-four New Orleans musician's perspectives on New Orleans style and their ideas on jazz education. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for common themes. Participants in the study agreed that New Orleans style is a dialect of the jazz language that can expand any musicians' vocabulary. Results concluded that New Orleans style continues to evolve and could be incorporated into current jazz pedagogy. New Orleans musicians offered several strategies for integrating New Orleans style into jazz curriculum.

Do We Need Subject Matter-Specific Pedagogies?, Kris Franklin

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Analysis And Simulation Of A Social Network, Twitter: A Case Study, Jonatan Reyes

Theses and Dissertations

The use of online social networks empowers its users to efficiently disseminate information across traditional social networks. Typically, the weight and value of messages are relative to its readers’ culture and interests. Nevertheless, in some instances, messages take the form of viral phenomenon, which circulates around the world in very short periods of time. Therefore, despite the actual content of the message spread over the network, the determination of the effectiveness of message dissemination across the social network becomes an attractive opportunity for scientific study. Since a meticulous analysis of a complete online social network would require the acquisition of …

Surprise. Aesthetics And Sensibilities Of Rhetorics, Matthew J. Osborn

All Dissertations

This dissertation investigates relationships scholars have with information and art associated with aesthetic and theoretical disruptions. Its governing metaphor is the surprise affect, figured as a rhetorical and aesthetic event. My purposes are to evaluate institutional and scholastic responses to both desirable and disastrous information-aesthetic liminalities, trial performative engagements with surprises, and propose viable ways of engaging "innovation" for writing instruction. It is argued that aesthetic (i.e., relational in the sense that it is not immediate), performative, and temporal engagements with surprising objects of study are relatively viable options when considered alongside the "critical" manuscript. While the aesthetic has sometimes …

An Enfolding And Fertile Abyss: Rhetoric As The Creative Becoming Of Biological Life, Haylee Renee Zertuche

All Dissertations

This dissertation seeks traces of enfolding corporeal paths within the ontological, epistemological, ethical abyss separating "Human" and "Animal." The "question of the animal," as it is often called, is currently en vogue within a larger ecological movement in the humanities. I seek to extend this engagement with "animality" beyond rhetoric, literature, and philosophy by enfolding the sciences and arts as well for a deeper understanding of humans as animals and therefore, I argue, as rhetorical life. This path of the HumAnimal emerges with a diffractive reading of new material feminism, evolutionary biology, contemporary art practices, and visual rhetorics, and in …

Religious Aspirations Among Urban Christians In Contemporary Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Recognizing that the Christians in Indonesia are not a homogeneous group, this article examines the various contested spiritual, social, and political aspirations of urban Christians in the contexts of the historical trajectory of Indonesian modernity, forces of globalization and urbanization, the role of capital, and the development of Islam - the indispensable religious 'Other' to this minority religion in contemporary Indonesia. It sheds light on the ways in which this minority exercises agency in using political participation and social activism as a counterbalance to the growing Islamization of Indonesia, and how they strategically utilize their extensive economic, social, and political …

Archaeological Potential Of The Rio Grande Valley: A Look At Brazos Island With A Historical Focus On The Civil War, Robin L. Galloso

Theses and Dissertations

The history of the Rio Grande Valley and the role it played in the Civil War is a developing field for both history and archaeology. This work helps to fill the existing gap that is present in academia and shows the archaeological and historical potential of this unique coastal area. The Brazos Island was heavily used during the Civil War by both the Confederacy and the Union. This thesis shows the rich history of Brazos Island and its archaeological potential through a multi-interdisciplinary lens, although rooted in the field of history. It covers a brief overview of the road to …

Gender In Stem: An Intersectional And Interdisciplinary Feminist Ethnography, Michelle Chouinard

Honors College Theses

While contextualizing the history of women in educational spheres, it is no surprise to learn that women have faced significant obstacles in sciences and mathematics since the inception of higher education. In her revolutionary challenge of patriarchal historical narratives surrounding knowledge production, historian Londa Schiebinger’s Has Feminism Changed Science? (1999) demonstrates that women have long been influential in the sciences. Christine de Pizan was documenting contributions made by women to the arts and sciences beginning in 1405; however, widespread acknowledgement of women in the sciences did not appear until the dawn of the 20th century, around the time of the …

Movements, Music, And Meaning: A Comparative Analysis Of Cultural Narratives In Vietnam Era And Post-9/11 Anti-War Music, Jonathan Nathaniel Redman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the presence of widely circulating cultural narratives in the lyrics of approximately eighty anti-war songs from the Vietnam and post-9/11 eras. Unlike prior movements and music research, this thesis privileges culture over movements and views movements as cultural antennae both picking up on trends and cultural narratives, and broadcasting their own altered cultural meanings back into the “cultural airways.” It sees music as a cultural medium which acquires cultural meanings from its surroundings, alters those meanings, synthesizes new ones, and perpetuates old ones. Drawing on comparative and narrative analysis approaches informed by grounded theory techniques, this thesis …

The Genetic Basis Of Baculum Size And Shape Variation In Mice, Nicholas G. Schultz, Jesse Ingels, Andrew Hillhouse, Keegan Wardwell, Peter L. Chang, James M. Cheverud, Cathleen Lutz, Lu Lu, Robert W. Williams, Matthew D. Dean

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The rapid divergence of male genitalia is a preeminent evolutionary pattern. This rapid divergence is especially striking in the baculum, a bone that occurs in the penis of many mammalian species. Closely related species often display diverse baculum morphology where no other morphological differences can be discerned. While this fundamental pattern of evolution has been appreciated at the level of gross morphology, nearly nothing is known about the genetic basis of size and shape divergence. Quantifying the genetic basis of baculum size and shape variation has been difficult because these structures generally lack obvious landmarks, so comparing them in three …

Designing-In Crime By Designing-Out The Social? Situational Crime Prevention And The Intensification Of Harmful Subjectivities, T Raymen

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences

Situational crime prevention and CPtED (Crime Prevention through Environmental Design) strategies have been broadly criticized within much of theoretical criminology. Most of these criticisms dismantle the notion of the fully rational criminal actor, questioning the shaky ground of classical criminology on which its claims are made. Through positioning hyper-regulated city centres as post-social, post-political ‘non-places’ of consumption, this article builds upon these critiques arguing that attempts to ‘design out crime’ create environments which are not only doomed to fail in their primary objective, but actively create environments which perpetuate and exacerbate the decline in symbolic efficiency and the narcissistic, competitive-individualist …

Refugee And Employer Perceptions Of The Effects Of Capital On Refugee Employability In Utah, Christian L. Fritz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology Department at Utah State University conducted a state-wide needs assessment of refugees in Utah for the Utah
Department of Workforce Services. Using the data collected for this project, I analyzed the interview transcripts of twenty-four participants in the study including eight employers of refugees, eight Iraqi refugees, and eight Burmese refugees. I looked at the skills, education, finances, personal connections, personal attitudes, and cultural knowledge of the refugees and compared those to the desires of the employers of
refugees.

I found that the employers favored refugee employees because they work hard and do not …

The Ideal Educator: Investigating Teaching Culture And Teaching Styles Through Teacher Self-Efficacy And Social Acceptance, Jared R. Glenn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Previously collected data from the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS 2013) is utilized to examine two hypotheses. First, I investigated whether teachers who perform well in their jobs also tend to be popular friend choices among colleagues and administrators. Second, if there were evidence to support the first hypothesis, I examined whether these popular teachers also had a particular style of managing their classrooms.

While popular opinion often suggests that education is a one-size-fits-all method of sharing knowledge, actual educational methods actually change from place to place and country to country (Ho and Hau, 2004; Malinen et al, 2013). …

Interpreting Risk: Variations And Explanations Of Resident Perceptions Of Hydraulic Fracturing Impacts, Adrian B. Uzunian

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Hydraulic fracturing has increasingly become a global phenomenon that has induced the public to be suspicious of the impacts of this process. As this new process has been fraught with controversy, it is important to gain further understanding of how different people perceive the risks associated with oil and gas development. Focusing on the Eagle Ford Shale region, located in South Texas, I examine how social position and source of information is related to perception of environmental and health risks. I do this by conducting a qualitative analysis of interviews from two counties experiencing hydraulic fracturing development, examining the most …

A Light In The Dark: Luminescence Dating Intermountain Ware Ceramics From Four Archaeological Sites In Northwestern Wyoming, Carlie J. Ideker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The chronology of high-altitude archaeological sites in northwestern Wyoming is poorly understood due to limited reliable age constraints. While temporally diagnostic artifacts provide relative age control, fluctuations in atmospheric radiocarbon produce radiocarbon age results with multiple calibrated age-range intercepts that prove difficult to interpret. Age overestimates associated with the 'old wood' problem can be especially prominent at high-altitude sites where cold and semi-arid environments promote the presence of long-living trees and prolong the preservation of organic material. Moreover, regional droughts coupled with a pine beetle epidemic have resulted in increasing wildfire frequency and intensities that serve both as a benefit …

The Association Between Shared Values And Well-Being Among Married Couples, Travis G. Parry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The primary objective of this research study was to examine the shared values and marital well-being of married couples and to see if there was a relationship between these variables. A secondary purpose of this study was to examine the marital well-being variables (financial stability, marital happiness, individual well-being) and see if there were relationships between these variables when analyzed simultaneously.

This study found a positive relationship between several shared values and the marital happiness and individual well-being variables of material well-being. However, no shared values were related to financial stability. The study did find positive relationships between all martial …

Bringing The States Back In: Institutional Determinants Of State Level Immigration Policies, Paul D. Jacobs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

For the record 42 million immigrants residing in the U.S., the ease with which they can integrate into society is heavily determined by what state they reside in. While immigration policy formation at the state level is new due to the historical supremacy that the federal government has had on this issue, the federal stalemate at the federal level has led the states to pass more than 1,500 immigration laws since 2005. How states come to enact inclusive or exclusionary immigration policies is not well understood. Previous scholarship has examined many important predictors of these inclusive or exclusionary laws, but …

Effects Of Watching Feature Films In English Learning For Chinese College Students, Chun Wang

Multidisciplinary Studies Theses

As the world is experiencing language globalization, English has been playing an important role in this transition. It is important to master English as a language skill in many non- English speaking countries. These learners, have limited authentic English language environment, and Chinese learners face particular challenges because of the differences of cultural and thinking modes. Feature films have been used to help English Language learners to get the opportunities into authentic English environment. This study aims to investigate how watching English feature films impact Chinese college students’ perception on English language learning. 131 Chinese college students from different majors …

Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist In Twelfth-Century Literature, Lindsey Zachary Panxhi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In “Hoc Est Corpus Meum: The Eucharist in Twelfth-Century Literature,” I analyze the appearance of the Eucharist as a sacred motif in secular lais, romances, and chronicles. The Eucharist became one of the most controversial intellectual topics of the High Middle Ages. While medieval historians and religious scholars have long recognized that the twelfth century was a critical period in which many eucharistic doctrines were debated and affirmed, literary scholars have given very little attention to the concurrent emergence of eucharistic themes in twelfth-century literature. This is unfortunate, since the Eucharist emerges as an intriguing motif, appearing in fantastic encounters …

Not Saul's Armor : Introversion And Effective Pastoral Leadership, David E. York

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Music-Play And Communication In Children With Autism And Their Families: An Ethnographic Study, Melanie Makovsky

Masters Theses

This is an ethnographic research study regarding the nature of commun-, ication, musical behavior, emotional expression, and social relationships in children with autism. Four children completed the study by participating in at least three private music-play sessions attended by the child, his or her mother, and the researcher. All music-play sessions were person-centered and child-led. A local public elementary school hosted the music-play sessions in the music classroom after school hours. In addition, the school supplied all the musical instruments used in the study. The researcher utilized the SCERTS Model assessment tool to examine each child’s abilities in socio-musical communication …

Differential Maya Economies: A Comparative Zooarchaeological Study Of Political Economies At The Postclassic Site Of Mayapán, Katarina Spero

Anthropology

Previous research on the archaeological site of Mayapán , the las t political capital of the Maya, located in the N orthwest of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula , has focused mainly on urban life and the monumental architecture of the city center. In the 1950s the Carnegie Institution of Washington initially mapped and investigated Mayapán but the more recent contributions of both the Mexican government’s National Institute of Anthrop ology and History (INAH) and the Economic Foundations of Mayapán Project (PEMY) have greatly expanded current knowledge regarding the social, political, and economic organization of the population that once inhabited the metropolis …

The Investigation Of Dna And Rna Structural Differences Using Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Evanna Lerouge, Maria Basanta-Sanchez, Srivathsan V. Ranganathan

Anthropology

DNA and RNA chromatography is extensively used for nucleic acid analysis. To better understand the chromatographic mechanisms by which DNA and RNA oligonucleotides are separated, ion pair reverse-pair ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (IP RP UHPLC) methods were developed. 11mer and 12mer DNA and RNA oligonucleotides of various compositions were used during this study. The first part of this study analyzed 11mer DNA and RNA oligonucleotides to better understand the chromatographic separations of DNA and RNA. The results gathered through the IP RP UHPLC analysis of these oligonucleotides demonstrated the existence of structural features that affect the chromatographic separations of DNA …

Sex Differences In Calbindin-D28k Expressing Cells In The Brains Of Progesterone Receptor Knock Out Mice, Alexandria Sarenski

Anthropology

No abstract provided.

Commingled Tombs And Arcgis: Analyzing The Mortuary Context And Taphonomy At Bronze Age Tell Abraq, Maryann Calleja

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The use of global positioning systems (GPS) and mapping software are commonplace in today’s archaeology. Artifacts and human remains can be plotted on maps and digitized immediately on sites allowing for instant analysis. Yet, the use of GPS in some locations may not be feasible due to natural or human-made terrain features such as canopy cover, densely built urban environments, caves, or other environments where satellite access may be limited. Additionally, prior to the widespread use of GPS, field archaeologists had to rely solely upon systematic, detailed notes and sketches. Such was the case at the Bronze Age tomb at …

Tearing Up The Tallgrass, Brett Salsbury

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This creative thesis project is a culmination of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree at UNLV. The thesis—currently titled Tearing up the Tallgrass—was composed entirely during my graduate semesters at UNLV. As a book of poetry, it explores the dynamics of humans in nature, white privilege, objectivity, fact- and myth-making, and artistic practice. Written under the supervision of Claudia Keelan (committee chair) and Donald Revell (committee member), my committee further includes P. Jane Hafen (English) and Pierre Lienard (Anthropology). Their disparate subject and genre interests are meant to diversify the feedback received during this project’s composition. Some …