Digital Commons Network^™

Obligations Of Grace, Mark E. Roberts

Empowered21 Global Network of Spirit-Empowered Scholars

Grace obliges recipients to respond in gratitude and obedience to God, the giver of grace. While the New Testament emphasizes God's grace given through Jesus Christ in a New Covenant with believers, the Old Testament emphasizes grace more than many Christians recognize. Grace is expressed in the Old Testament especially through God's free choosing of Abraham as the "father of the faithful," through divine covenants with Abraham, with the divinely constituted nation of Israel, and with the governing house of David. Such grace abounds when God's covenanted people fail to keep their covenant, yet God, after disciplining the covenant people …

From The Classical School To Today: The Evolution Of Stagnation Theories, Francis J. Lukacovic Ii

Applied Economics Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to study the theory of secular stagnation, which was made famous by the American Keynesian economist Alvin Hansen in his book Full Recovery or Stagnation. The theory of secular stagnation has reappeared in economic circles today due to recent economic conditions since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The thesis will analyze the history of the stagnation theory dating back to Classical economists in the 19^th century. The concept of a stagnating economy has been talked about for centuries with many economists adding important thoughts. Furthermore, the thesis will address the current questions and …

An Examination In The Evolution Of Iroquois Lacrosse, Christopher P. Root

History Theses

Once a niche sport to Canada and the northeastern United States, lacrosse has become the fastest growing sport in North America. Though it was played for hundreds of years by the indigenous peoples of this continent prior to the arrival of Europeans, the native roots of the game have not been truly appreciated on a wide scale until recent years. After the adaption and modernization of the game in the mid nineteenth century by Victorian Canadians, the inventors of lacrosse would see over a century of exclusion and discrimination. Native Americans were the victims of rules that were designed to …

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury With Associated Visual System Dysfunction: Investigating Histopathology, Functional Correlates, And A Novel Therapeutic Immune Modulator, Natalie M. Guley

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Background. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant source of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Injuries associated with moderate to severe TBI can be profound, and have historically overshadowed the significant impact mild TBI (mTBI) can have on the lives of affected individuals. Mild TBI can manifest in a number of different ways, but one of the most significant and often debilitating is its impact on the visual system. In order to further investigate the underlying pathology of mTBI and test potential therapeutics, we developed a mouse model of mTBI induced by blast overpressure. In this model, a 50-60 psi …

Refocusing The Frontier: Recalling The Photography Of Robert Adams And Mark Klett, Christian W. Olsson

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis argues that the American West is a melting pot unprecedented by anything else in the North American continent. The natural beauty observed by the nineteenth-century photographers still prevails. The land is shaped not only by new peoples and cultures, and by those already inhabiting the land, but also by political ideas about how the land should be used. The works of Robert Adams and Mark Klett examine these agendas through their respective works. They illustrate ideas of how the land should be used--from national parks, to cities, to energy and environmental projects. Both photographers focus on different areas …

Graphic Design And The Cinema: An Application Of Graphic Design To The Art Of Filmmaking, Kacey B. Holifield

Honors Theses

When the public considers different art forms such as painting, drawing and sculpture, it is easy to understand the common elements that unite them. Each is a non-moving art form that begins at the drawing board. Using line, color and shape to evoke a particular response from audiences is what ties these fine arts together. Graphic design, however, tends to separate itself from the fine arts. Because of its later development in the art world, as well as, its operation within modern technological developments, graphic design is driven by the idea of communicating to large audiences. In this way, although …

Moving Into The Neighborhood: The Incarnational Ministry Of Mary Slessor, Carys Parker

History of Christianity II: TH 314

No abstract provided.

At Risk: Conflict Resources And The Right To Water In Sub-Saharan Africa, Madeleine Durbin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper examines the relationship between water and natural resource extraction to expand the understanding of conflict resources to include water stress as a human rights violation. My research question asks how the human right to water can further our conceptualization of conflict resources and conflict risk. If we understand conflict resources broadly as those whose exploitation leads to human rights violations, then any resource extraction resulting in water stress should be considered a conflict resource, as it violates the human right to water and could lead to increased conflict risk. I examine diamonds and coltan as “widely accepted” conflict …

An Ethics Of Economic Sanctions, Macallee N. Goldman

Honors Theses

This paper provides an ethical analysis of smart sanctions under the combined framework of the categorical imperative and utilitarianism. Developing an ethical model that also encompasses sanction effectiveness as a means of evaluation, this paper argues that smart sanctions should not be used by countries and legislative bodies as tools of expression or of achieving goals without efficiency considerations grounded in this ethical framework. Only when they clearly meet the criteria of utilitarianism and the categorical imperative should smart sanctions be used. By doing so sanction effectiveness is argued to be maximized, in both ethical and empirical context.

The Meaning Of The Soldier: In The Year Of The Pig And Hearts And Minds, Laura Browder

English Faculty Publications

In the Year of the Pig (1968) and Hearts and Minds (1974)—the first an Academy Award nominee, the second an Academy Award winner—are the two best-known Vietnam War documentaries of their time. They are works that could hardly be more different—one a cool, intellectual take on the origins and then-current state of the war, and the second a highly emotional appeal to end the war. By viewing them together it is possible not only to connect the dots between the contrasting intellectual and filmic traditions from which each emerged, but also to see, through the viewpoints of each film, how …

A Chemical Sensor For Cyanide, Rachel E. Lambert

Honors Theses

The cyanide ion and its gaseous form, hydrogen cyanide, are extremely toxic. Cyanide impairs cellular respiration by inhibiting cytochrome c oxidase, an enzyme in the electron transport chain, leading to cell death.

In a previous study, we synthesized an optical sensor that detects cyanide selectively. The aim of this project is to increase the sensitivity of this sensor. This can be achieved by utilizing the unique spectroscopic properties of lanthanide ions.

The lanthanide metal (europium or terbium) was added to a coumarin-glycine chemodosimeter in a DMSO solvent system. The sensor was titrated with several monodentate analytes including, nitrate, octylamine, 1-pentanethiol, …

The Once And Future Superpower: Why China Won't Overtake The United States, Stephen G. Brooks, William C. Wohlforth

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Evidence-Based Cybersecurity: Data-Driven And Abstract Models, Benjamin Edwards

Computer Science ETDs

Achieving computer security requires both rigorous empirical measurement and models to understand cybersecurity phenomena and the effectiveness of defenses and interventions. To address the growing scale of cyber-insecurity, my approach to protecting users employs principled and rigorous measurements and models. In this dissertation, I examine four cybersecurity phenomena. I show that data-driven and abstract modeling can reveal surprising conclusions about longterm, persistent problems, like spam and malware, and growing threats like data-breaches and cyber conflict. I present two data-driven statistical models and two abstract models. Both of the data-driven models show that the presence of heavy-tailed distributions can make naive …

Conflict Beyond Borders: The International Dimensions Of Nicaragua's Violent Twentieth-Century, 1909–1990, Andrew William Wilson

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this research is to identify the importance of Nicaraguan political contests in the global twentieth century. The goal is to demonstrate that, despite its relatively small size, Nicaragua significantly influenced the course of modern history. This has been done by examining the international contestations between Nicaragua’s revolutionary and counterrevolutionary currents from Augusto Sandino’s resistance to U.S. imperialism, to the machinations of the Somoza family, and the Contra War of the 1980s. Upon examination of these events, it becomes clear that Nicaraguans on both sides of the conflict proved adept at cultivating and utilizing transnational networks of material …

“The World Broke In Two”: The Gendered Experience Of Trauma And Fractured Civilian Identity In Post-World War I Literature, Erin Cheatham

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis examines the complexities of civilian identity and the crisis of gender in twentieth century fiction produced after World War I. Of central concern are four novels written by prominent women authors, novels that deal with themes of trauma, violence, and shifting gender roles in a post-war society: Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Jacob’s Room. Although these novels do not directly portray the battlefield experiences of war, I argue that, at their core, they are “war novels” in the fullest sense, concerned with the …

Development Of An Efficient Ad Hoc Broadcasting Scheme For Critical Networking Environments, Ahmed Ghulam Mustafa Saber Karam

Theses

Mobile ad hoc network has been widely deployed in support of the communications in hostile environment without conventional networking infrastructure, especially in the environments with critical conditions such as emergency rescue activities in burning building or earth quick evacuation. However, most of the existing ad hoc based broadcasting schemes either rely on GPS location or topology information or angle-of-arrival (AoA) calculation or combination of some or all to achieve high reachability. Therefore, these broadcasting schemes cannot be directly used in critical environments such as battlefield, sensor networks and natural disasters due to lack of node location and topology information in …

Policy Recommendations For Economically And Socially Valuable Asteroid Mineral Resource Exploitation Activities, Anthony Hennig

Theses

Asteroids are quickly moving from a speculative resource to potentially economically valuable deposits of a variety of mineral resources. There is a potential for a large scale disruptive innovation within the fundamental resource base, and at the same time policy does little to ensure that asteroid resource exploitation is socially and economically valuable. Existing international policies were put into place to prevent militarization of space and related basic risks, and the first national policies focusing on basic ownership rights are only now being put into place.

We identify five major technology, policy, and social issues that must be addressed: surveying …

The Ecological Crisis: Questioning Christianity’S Contribution, Jessica Bolak

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"Introduction

Distinguished academic, Lynn White, claims that the Judeo-Christian religions are to blame for the ecological crisis and uses interpretations from the Bible to support his argument. He believes these religions have a harmful impact on the relationship between humans and nature. In this paper I will examine White’s claims specifically against Christianity, and refute them by providing multiple perspectives from varying scholars to substantiate my argument."

“Mere Supplicants At The Gate”: Northeast Tennessee Politics In The Antebellum Era, O.J. Early

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Antebellum political historians have long studied the era between Andrew Jackson’s election and the secession crisis through the colored knowledge of the Civil War. This project is an effort to reverse that trend. It explores northeast Tennessee’s political culture from the late 1830s through the start of the Civil War. It reveals that the Second American Party System, a wave of new enfranchised voters, and the area’s demographics mixed together to lay a foundation for the aggressive and populist political style that permeated the region from the 1830s through the 1850s. At the heart of these issues was the transition …

Effects Of Video Game Streaming On Consumer Attitudes And Behaviors, Lisa B. Foster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Video game streaming has introduced to consumers a new method of creating branded content. Popular streaming platforms receive millions of broadcasters and viewers every month, and the current examines the influence of this type user-generated content on consumer attitudes and behaviors. The goal of this study is to understand how video game streams function as a marketing tool. To investigate this, a quantitative survey was designed and measured participants’ video gaming habits and their perceptions of credibility, usefulness of content, group identification, and purchase intention. Heavier gaming habits were found to be positively related to perceived credibility in a user-generated …

Animated Film Production Process: The Creation Of Lighting For Gear Up, Kevin Andrew Boggs

All Theses

The following thesis details the creation of a shot for an animated production titled Gear Up. The process for creating this shot was patterned after professional animated productions and included the following steps: pre-visualization, story boarding, modeling and asset creation, UV layouts, texturing and surfacing, scene assembly and camera layout, character and prop rigging, character animation, lighting, rendering, and compositing. The motivation for this project was to create a product that artistically has a darker aesthetic than many previous Clemson DPA animations, but still enjoyed high quality visuals. One of the goals was to create a large-scale scene centered in …

Assimilationist Language In Cherokee Women's Petitions: A Political Call To Reclaim Traditional Cherokee Culture, Jillian Moore Bennion

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Twenty-one years before the forced-removal of Cherokee people from their native lands east of the Mississippi, Cherokee people fought peacefully to maintain ownership of Cherokee-owned lands and attempted to preserve, at least in part, traditional Cherokee culture. Through the drafting of petitions, specifically written between 1817-19, Cherokee women pushed back against pressure to assimilate to Anglo-American culture and to cede Cherokee land to the United States Government. The five petitions that are present in this analysis were drafted in response to an ongoing Cherokee- United States land crisis.

This article looks at petitions written by female Cherokee and male Cherokee …

Exploring Intercessory Prayer As It Relates To Spiritual Warfare Preaching At Mount Zion Christian Church, Vernon Langley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The focus of this thesis is exploring the influence of intercessory prayer; from the standpoint of spiritual warfare preaching. Present day homiletics concentrates on the method of sermons by applying information within the message to a great story and powerful scriptural passages which is imperative to make the sermon thought provoking and applicable to contemporary congregations. However, there is another element to preaching the gospel, which has gotten considerably less attention in modern day study. How the evaluations of Divine powers of intercessory prayer operate behind the discourse, and spiritual powers of darkness that endeavor to obstruct the reception of …

China’S “Asia Dream”: The Belt Road Initiative And The New Regional Order, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since Xi Jinping became leader in 2012, he has redirected Chinese foreign policy. This article examines the role of peripheral diplomacy in Xi’s emerging grand strategy. While it is popular to look to theories of the international system – offensive realism and liberal institutionalism – to explore this issue, this article follows constructivism to take seriously the role of ideas and domestic politics in foreign policy-making. Through an analysis of official and unofficial sources, it traces linkages between ideas, institutions, and behavior in Chinese foreign policy. In particular, it argues that Beijing is combining new ideas (China Dream, Asia Dream), …

The Apoptotic And Inhibitory Effects Of Phylloquinone In The U937 Cell Line, Tesha E. Blair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Phylloquinone is a natural analog of vitamin K that has been shown to both inhibit cancer cell growth and induce apoptosis in several cancer cell lines. This study examined these effects in a non-Hodgkin lymphoma cell line, known as U937. Cell growth inhibition and apoptosis were assessed through the quantification of cell density and area, following treatment with several concentrations of phylloquinone. In addition, apoptosis was detected and quantified using immunofluorescent markers of apoptosis (i.e. annexin V, APO-BrdU). Treatment with phylloquinone resulted in reduced overall cell density, increased overall cell area, and an increased frequency of apoptosis in U937 cells. …

The Indulgence And Restraint Cultural Dimension: A Cross-Cultural Study Of Mongolia And The United States, Rentsenkhand Enkh-Amgalan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research focuses on one of the least studied cultural dimension, “indulgence versus restraint” (IVR) and how it affects consumer behavior, international marketing, and global business operations in the U.S. and Mongolia. This project is the first research on IVR in Mongolia since the country is rarely studied and there is no available data for this cultural dimension. Samples of undergraduate business students (as consumers) from both countries were studied through surveys. The findings support that Mongolians and Americans are different regarding the “indulgence” cultural dimension. This paper has a significant contribution to the cross-cultural literature regarding the indulgence cultural …

Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation Pbfortune, And The Transnational Counter-Revolution Against The Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952, Aaron Coy Moulton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When U.S. officials in 1952 approved the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation to overthrow Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, they unknowingly stepped into a regional conflict that, for nearly ten years, included dissident Guatemalan exiles, Caribbean Basin dictators, and the Guatemalan governments of Arbenz and his predecessor Juan José Arévalo. Since the mid-1940s, exiles and dictators had denounced the Guatemalan Revolution as the product of Mexican, Soviet, and international communism. The anti-communist ideology of Guatemalan exiles, Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Honduran dictator Tiburcio Carías, and Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo facilitated various conspiracies aimed to destabilize Arévalo and Arbenz’s governments throughout …

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 …

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 …

Ism S-Band Cubesat Radio Designed For The Polysat System Board, Craig Lee Francis

Master's Theses

Cal Poly’s PolySat CubeSat satellites have begun to conduct more complex and scientifically significant experiments. The large data products generated by these missions demonstrate the necessity for higher data rate communication than currently provided by the PolySat UHF radio. This thesis leverages the proliferation of consumer wireless monolithic transceivers to develop a 250kbps to 2000kbps, 2W CubeSat radio operating within the 2.45GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) radio band.

Estimating a link budget for a realistic CubeSat leads to the conclusion that this system will require a large deployable CubeSat antenna, large earth station satellite dish, and a fine-pointing attitude …