Digital Commons Network^™

Tommy Atkins, War Office Reform And The Social And Cultural Presence Of The Late-Victorian Army In Britain, C.1868-1899, Edward Peter Joshua Gosling

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the development of the soldier in late-Victorian Britain in light of the movement to rehabilitate the public image of the ordinary ranks initiated by the Cardwell-Childers Reforms. Venerated in popular culture, Tommy Atkins became a symbol of British imperial strength and heroism. Socially, however, attitudes to the rank-and-file were defined by a pragmatic realism purged of such sentiments, the likes of which would characterise the British public’s relationship with their army for over thirty years. Scholars of both imperial culture and the Victorian military have identified this dual persona of Tommy Atkins, however, a dedicated study into …

Immigration Policy And The Role Of Political Discourses In The Relationship Between Foreign Nationals And Crime In England And Wales, Khamael Hasan Naji Al-Faris

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Significant criminological attention has been given to the relationship between immigration and crime. However, this relationship has not been researched in the UK to any great extent, and consequently the information on the UK context is limited. This research investigates how the criminality of foreign nationals have been constructed by examining the nature of immigration policy, foreign criminality discourses, and the media in the UK to understand how crime in particular has been used to define, refine, and inform control of immigrants. This study refers to the legislative, policy, and political factors that underpin this process, and particularly explains how …

Visual Narrative: A Theory And Model For Image-Driven Digital Historiography Based On A Case Study Of China’S Boxer Uprising (C. 1900), Ellen Irene Sebring

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Digitization that has enabled instant access to vast numbers of archival, historical images, demands a new paradigm for the use of visual imagery in historical research. This thesis proposes a new form of historiography in the digital medium, an image-based narrative mode for authoring and reading history. I propose a digital model for conveying history through the visual record, as an alternative to the printed book. Unlike the quantitative “big data” approach to digital humanities, this research explores visuality itself. In a practice-led approach, the research addresses both aspects of historiography: (1) a method of historical representation; and (2) original …

Theōria: The Veneration Of Icons Via The Technoetic Process, Ekaterini Karoussos

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The Second Council of Nicaea, in 787 AD, marked the end of iconoclasm, while in 843 the Treaty of Verdun laid the foundations of Europe. With these agreements, a sustained period of imageless iconolatry was initiated. However, the veneration of icons was based on the absolute worship of matter and form, which replaced the prime spiritual concept of ‘image and likeness’. Millennia of research and thought resulted in imageless representations of natural phenomena. Pushing aside the topology of the image and its sign, the intelligent man, from the Age of Reason and onward, considered himself as an auto-authorised and teleological-free …

Duchamp Meets Turing: Art, Modernism, Posthuman, Gabriela Galati

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

In her book How We Became Posthuman (1999), Katherine Hayles analysed the process through which the conception of the liberal humanist subject led the way to the posthuman subject, a subject who lives in complete entwinement with the digital. This process, however, was not innocuous: it made the (fallacious) perception that information could do without material instantiation pervasive within many fields of knowledge, a process that Hayles contends originates in the Macy Conferences and the evolution of cybernetic theory. This research identifies an analogous process within the artistic realm: when Clement Greenberg delineated the concepts of opticality and colour field …

Performing Lgbt Pride In Plymouth 1950 - 2012, Alan Butler

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis considers how the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered communities of Plymouth have performed and signified their own culture and identities during the period 1950 to 2012. Its source materials were largely generated by conducting oral history interviews with members of Plymouth’s LGB and T communities. This resulted in the creation of an archive which included thirty-seven interviews conducted with twenty-four individuals. These interviews, in conjunction with other uncovered archival memorabilia, now form a specific LGBT collection with Plymouth and West Devon Record Office. This PhD thesis interrogates this newly created community archive accession, using theories of performance as …

Social Exclusion, Resort Decline And The English Seaside, Steven Jakes

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Traditionally seaside resorts have been one of the least understood of Britain’s ‘problem areas’. This thesis breaks new ground by reporting on an exploratory data analysis to probe the influence of resort decline on social exclusion in England’s seaside resorts. Drawing on a wide range of socio-economic datasets and quantitative methods of data analysis and GIS software, the study investigates the scale, nature and extent of multiple deprivation in English seaside resorts, differences in socio-economic structure between deprived and non-deprived resorts and the factors that may explain these differences, and the nature and incidence of localised problem complexes. A combination …

A Theoretical Model For The Design Of A Transcultural Visual Communication System In A Posthuman Condition, Haytham Nawar

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This dissertation follows an interdisciplinary approach that weaves practice and theory in the disciplines of visual communication, semiotics, cultural studies, linguistics, and new media art. The research methodology is practice-based located within a historical and contemporary context that allows for artistic experimentation and new knowledge to be generated through reflected creative practice This research proposes a context within which society can develop a transcultural means of communication with the objective of gaining completely unambiguous forms of understanding. This research explores the possibility of an open source scaffold for pictorial language that fosters self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and …

Towards A Cinema Of Imperfection: Participatory Film As Research, Allister Gall

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This PhD is a practice as research interrogation of the emancipatory potential of the idea of imperfection. It is framed around the key leading question: ‘How can the generation of imperfect praxis – cultural production in and through social dialogues challenging notions of technical expertise – affirm emancipatory value in a film practice? The thesis documents the development of a participatory film practice, operating in-between d.i.y subcultural activity and practice as research. The film component of the submission engages with the problems involved in representing and authenticating the collective dimension of participatory filmmaking. The emancipatory potential of imperfection has been …

Reciprocal Technologies: Enabling The Reciprocal Exchange Of Voice In Small-Scale Farming Communities Through The Transformation Of Information And Communications Technologies, Eugenio Tisselli

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This dissertation claims that the reciprocal exchange of voice—an element for constructing community and strengthening political recognition—may be fostered in small-scale farming communities by (1) the appropriation and transformation of information and communications technologies, (2) artistic intervention, and (3) cross-community research. This study contributes to participatory research methodologies, particularly those that seek to tackle the diverse challenges faced by small-scale farmers from a broad, complex perspective. The main issue identified in this dissertation is as follows: The hegemony of economic behaviors, which stands as a cornerstone of neoliberal capitalism, constitutes the latest stage of a historical process in which the …

Flow. Interactive Sonic Art: The Creation And Use Of Responsive Strategies To Re-Imagine The Performer/Spectator Relationship And Create Visitor Inclusive Sonic Environments., Peter Shepherd

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

FLOW operates on two levels, firstly as an engaging live performance environment and secondly as a vehicle to discuss a number of philosophical ideas relating to sound as art. As a performance piece FLOW exists to provide an inclusive interactive environment for musicians and casual visitors alike. A series of sensors allow those who enter the arena to make interventions in an immersive soundscape through their movements, opening up possibilities for the exploration of sound and gestural action within the space. The piece challenges the conventional roles of performer and spectator and offers interactive technology as a means of uniting …

Opportunities And Risks In Online Gaming Environments, Benjamin George Sanders

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have evolved from traditional video games in that they embrace both the technology of the Internet and video games. The massive “exodus” from the physical offline world to online gaming communities brings with it not only a number of unique and exciting opportunities, but also a number of emerging and serious risks. This research set out to examine the unique opportunities and risks to vulnerable individuals, namely, young adults, teenagers and young children; all of whom are considered by many to be priority groups in the protection from harm. The purpose was to …

Understand The Environmental Fate, Behaviour, Effects And Risks Associated With Contaminants Of Emerging Concern (Cecs) With The Goal Of Protecting Environmental And Human Health, Kevin Victor Thomas

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Each and every one of us is exposed to chemicals on a daily basis and contributes to the global issue of chemical pollution. Humankind has become heavily dependent on the use of man-made chemicals in order to sustain the increased quality of life that is generally seen globally. There is however a price to pay in that we generally live in a world that is polluted by anthropogenic chemicals. From the water we drink to the food we eat there will be some trace of chemical residues; you just need to look closely enough and/or know what you’re looking for. …

Poems To The Sea And Painterly Poetics: Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Cole Swensen, Peter Gillies

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Poems to the Sea: Rather than narrating or describing a work of visual art, the poems that form this collection show an accumulation, juxtaposition and realignment of material ranging from art historical detail and critique to a more personal, location specific response to works viewed in galleries and museums. Many of the poems engage with non-representational artworks and question how best to reflect, translate or expand upon their transformative effects. The first section, ‘Museum Notes’, explores Charles Olson’s open field poetics by giving artists and writers a conversational voice. ‘Sound Fields’, the second section, responds to individual works of art …

Defining New Knowledge Produced By Collaborative Art-Science Research, Juanita Schlaepfer-Miller

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis takes a theoretical framework constructed for transdisciplinary research within different natural science disciplines and investigates what kind of new knowledge is produced when this framework is applied to projects at the interface of art and natural science. The main case study is “Sauti ya Wakulima – The Voice of the Farmers”, which involves collaboration with another intervention artist, and with natural scientists and farmers. This is a collaborative knowledge project with small-scale urban as well as rural farmers in Tanzania who have created an online community archive of their farming practices by using mobile phones to upload images …

“Nobody's Ever Asked Me What It's Like”: The Role Of Family Networks In The Transitions Of Injured Soldiers Engaging With Higher Education., Wendy Lambert-Heggs

Plymouth Institute of Education Theses

An increasing number of injured service personnel returning from active combat duty will not be redeployed and many of them face discharge from military service. A number of these men and women have sustained life-threatening injuries which may, if the individual survives, result in reduced physical and mental health functioning. This research is focused on the transitions and processes that injured personnel go through when contemplating a new career through engagement with a higher education programme of study. An in-depth qualitative case study of networks of intimacy was used, an approach developed by Heath and Fuller (2007) to explore how, …

Protocol For Care After Lymphoma (Caly) Trial: A Phase Ii Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial Of A Lymphoma Nurse-Led Model Of Survivorship Care, K Taylor, D Joske, M Bulsara, C Bulsara, L Monterosso

Nursing Papers and Journal Articles

Introduction: Lymphoma is the sixth most common cancer diagnosed in Australia and internationally. Owing to the aggressive nature of the disease and intensity of treatment, survivors face long-term effects that impact on quality of life. Current models of follow-up post-treatment fail to address these complex issues. Given that 74% of patients with lymphoma cancer now survive 5 years beyond diagnosis and treatment, it is important to address this gap in care.

Aim: To determine self-reported informational and practical needs, anxiety, depression, stress, coping and empowerment at baseline, 3 and 6 months.

Methods and analysis: A pilot randomised controlled trial will …

City Of Washington: Downtown Revitalization Swot Analysis, Uniquequa Wilcher, Austin Goolsby, Kimberly Thomas, Devince Bokins, Skye Mainer

Georgia Municipal Association Practicum (2013-2022)

No abstract provided.

An Qualitative Study Of The Meaning High School Students Ascribe To Occult Media Consumption, Jalisha Tolbert

Master's Theses

This qualitative research design explored how high school students ascribe meaning to occult media in pop culture, and it explore possible effects of occult consumption impacting their life aspirations. The research conducted at a high school located on the west side of Chicago, Illinois with a sample size of 10 students from the eleventh grade. First, an exploratory assessment will show how youth ascribe meaning to occult media consumption, and in turn, qualitative interviews presented whether it imposed any effects on life aspirations. The qualitative methods included a qualitative interview, where the researcher asked each participant to explore the meaning …

Role Of Pkc Delta In Uv Radiation Dna Damage Repair, Gargi Patil

Master's Theses

DNA damage caused by ultraviolet radiation (UV), such as cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD), is repaired by the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway. When NER is defective, DNA damage is not repaired, leading to mutations and skin cancer. After DNA damage, the cell cycle is halted at various checkpoints to allow time for repair of the damage and maintain genomic integrity, however little is known about the coordination between NER DNA damage repair and cell cycle halting at checkpoints after DNA damage. Protein kinase C δ (PKCδ) plays major role in apoptosis and maintains the G2/M checkpoint in response to UV …

Lactobacillus Crispatus Produces A Bacteridical Molecule That Kills Uropathogenic E. Coli, Katherine Diebel

Master's Theses

As many as 1 in 2 women will have at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime. UTIs can cause complications in pregnancy and decrease quality of life, and their treatment and prevention are expensive. Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) is the primary cause of UTI. The probiotic and bactericidal capacities of gut and vaginal Lactobacillus isolates have been studied, but the same attention has not been paid to urinary strains. These urinary isolates of L. crispatus appear to have a greater killing capacity against UPEC and this bactericidal activity does not depend on the cells themselves, consistent with …

Cellular Consequences Of Lysosomal Rupture Induced By Alpha Synuclein, Zachary Carpenter Green

Master's Theses

Misfolded, toxic forms of amyloid alpha synuclein (α-syn) have been implicated in Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathology and have been shown to spread throughout the brain in a prion-like manner, explaining the progressive loss of neurons in PD. The mechanisms of spread and cell death are unknown, however, evidence from previous studies suggests that neurons may undergo apoptosis due to the uptake of exogenous α-syn aggregate through the endocytic pathway and subsequent lysosomal rupture.

This study aimed to corroborate previous evidence of α-syn induced lysosomal rupture and investigate the cellular repercussions of rupture with respect to cell death and α-syn transfer. …

The Church And The Body, Kristina Russie

Master's Theses

An inquiry into the dominant messages surrounding bodies in mainstream protestant church discourse, "The Church and the Body" discusses where these messages come from, critically evaluates them, and considers alternative theological messages.

Music And Aggression: Effects Of Lyrics And Background Music On Aggressive Behavior, Andrew Triplett

Master's Theses

Given the ever-growing popularity of music in daily life, it is of the utmost

importance to understand how it influences affect, cognition, and behavior, especially given the violence of certain genres of music. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between music and behavior, specifically to examine how the lyrics and background music interact to influence affective hostility and aggressive behavior. Data were collected from a sample of 168 students (61% Female; MAge = 19.24, SD = 2.470) at a large, private, Midwestern university to investigate this relationship. The music was manipulated by randomly assigning the participant to …

In Plain Sight: How Social Images In Education Shape The Social Identity Of Black Students, Kandyce Cabacar

Master's Theses

This thesis will postulate social identity development in Black students is shaped by their school experience. Reviewing how racial grouping is a critical factor in how we engage with others socially, this study will curate the variables of society that assembles the Black image. Social construction influenced by media messages and the neighborhoods that determine our respective schools will also be analyzed. By borrowing from the research of social psychology and contributions of sociologists on race relations, this thesis will demonstrate how expectations influenced by racial stereotypes of Black students create a correlation to social identity. These findings are discussed …

Haitian Representation In The Media: A Comparative Analysis Between An African American Owned Newspaper And A Mainstream Newspaper, Stephanie Jean-Baptiste

Master's Theses

Are the portrayals of Haitian immigrants in an African-American owned newspaper, different from their portrayal in a white owned newspaper? In this paper I examine newspaper articles covering Haitian immigrants and refugees. The articles selected were published in 2004 and sampled from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender. Although the journals have distinctive goals and market reach, there were similarities in their portrayal of Haitian immigrants. Both journals referred to Haitian immigrants as victims of Haiti’s failed democracy. However, each journal advertised the reception of this migrant group differently. The African American owned newspaper advertised inclusion, while the white-owned …

What’S To Argue? A Comparison Of Opposing Viewpoints In Context To The Updated Points Of View Reference Center, With A Nod To The Original Points Of View Reference Center, Harry D. Nuttall

Research, Publications & Creative Work

As one of the traditional rhetorical modes – along with narration, description, exposition, etc. – argument, or persuasion, has long been a staple in the curricula of speech and English at the secondary and higher education levels. Students are given an assignment in which they must select an issue or topic and argue in support of or opposition to it, marshaling evidence to support their position. While it has always been possible for students to locate evidence through standard searches in library catalogs for books and print periodical indexes for magazine and journal articles, such searches can be unwieldy. Some …

China-Taiwan Relations: The Persistent Deadlock Amid Cycles Of Stability And Change, Jordan E. Shremshock

Senior Independent Study Theses

Why does the deadlock that has defined China-Taiwan relations for 65 years persist despite periods of extreme tension and change? I use the Model of Punctuated Equilibrium from evolutionary biology as a framework to answer this question. The PE Model is comprised of two parts, positive and negative feedback. A positive feedback mechanism, or punctuation, is a self-reinforcing process in which rapid change occurs as a result of attention-shift and mimicking. A negative feedback cycle, or equilibrium, is a self-correcting mechanism, which equalizes any outside force to create a stable output. According to this model, if China and Taiwan increase …

Beyond The Binary, Petr Wiese

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Attempted Identification Of The Calcium-Dependent Sodium Channel Gene In Paramecium Tetraurelia Using Rnai, Gwendolyn Kuzmishin

Senior Independent Study Theses

Ion channels play an important role in the swimming behavior of Paramecium tetraurelia. Electrophysiological experiments indicate that a calcium-dependent sodium channel exists in Paramecium, but a gene has not been identified for this channel. It is hypothesized that this channel evolved from a voltage-dependent sodium channel after a whole genome duplication event. In this paper, 13 candidate genes were identified from the Paramecium genome based on their similarity to a reference human voltage-dependent sodium channel. Bioinformatics analysis of the selectivity filter of these putative ion channel genes suggested that at least 8 of the candidate genes were sodium channels …