Digital Commons Network^™

Becoming Queer In The 20 Th Century: An Analysis Of Print Literature And Changing Queer Identity, Keith Plummer

Sociology Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sacral Variability In Tailless Species: Homo Sapiens And Ochotona Princeps, Robert G. Tague

Faculty Publications

Homo sapiens is variable in number of sacral vertebrae, and this variability can lead to obstetrical complication. This study uses the comparative method to test the hypothesis that sacral variability in H. sapiens is associated with absence of a tail. Three species of lagomorphs are studied: Ochotona princeps (N = 271), which is tailless, and Lepus californicus (N = 212) and Sylvilagus audubonii (N = 206), which have tails. Results show that O. princeps has (1) higher diversity index for number of sacral vertebrae (0.49) compared to L. californicus (0.25) and S. audubonii (0.26) and (2) significantly higher percentage of …

Smuggling On Lopez Farm, Jonah Delasanta

Senior Honors Projects

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the issue of illegal trade exacerbated tensions between the American colonies and the British government. Many Rhode Islanders, including wealthy merchants, smuggled goods like Madeira wine or French West Indian sugar into the colony in contravention of British trade laws. British warships patrolled Narragansett Bay in an attempt to interdict illegal trade, but many of the ships they intercepted were trading legally. Colonial resentment of British enforcement was exacerbated each time an innocent merchant captain suffered humiliation and financial loss at the hands of a British naval officer. While smuggling appears …

Stochastic Improvisation Of Jazz Solos, Tevin Rouse

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

We propose using stochastic methods to generate new Jazz solos in the style of an artist of interest. To accomplish this, we implement several Markov models that use an artist’s known solos in order to mimic their pitch selection tendencies. Construction of two unique solos were generated for each artist considered as well as analysis of the characteristics the solos possessed in comparison to the artist’s original solo. This software implementation seeks to offer a new method for creating computer music compositions.

Space, Time, And Historical Injustice: A Feminist Conflict-Of-Laws Approach To The Comfort Women Agreement, Karen Knop, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Assessment Of Théologie Totale, Vincent P. Williams

Yale Divinity School Theses

This thesis critically assesses Sarah Coakley’s proposed “théologie totale,” especially as articulated in God, Sexuality, and the Self and her 2015 Warfield Lectures. It advances four aims: (1) to analyze how Coakley’s privileging of contemplative prayer and her broad interdisciplinarity work together; (2) to situate and contextualize her claims by placing them in dialogue with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s theological method, noting convergences in experience-based starting points; (3) to evaluate contemplation as a methodological locus using Jean-Yves Lacoste’s phenomenology of prayer and Miranda Fricker’s account of epistemic injustice; and (4) to reflect on the implications of Coakley’s method for future systematic work. …

Effects Of An Impaired Sonic Hedgehog Signaling Pathway And A Nonfunctional Gli3 Protein On Gnrh-1 Neuronal Migration In Gli3xt/Xt Mutants, Elizabet Aleks Genis

Computer Science

Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) is the master regulatory hormone for sexual development. During embryonic development, gonadotropin releasing hormone-1 neurons (GnRH-1ns) form in the olfactory pit and migrate, along axonal Peripherin positive fibers, from the nasal area to the pre-optic area of the basal forebrain. Upon migration into the brain, GnRH-1ns release GnRH. Defective migration of GnRH-1ns can result in hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH), a condition that results in lack of sexual development and infertility. When HH appears associated with reduced or absent sense of smell, it is clinically defined as Kallmann Syndrome (KS) (Paolo E Forni & Wray, 2015). The neurons …

2016-17 Faculty Senate Xxi - May 1, 2017 Minutes Summary, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas & Minutes

No abstract provided.

Predatory Nature And Food Preferences Among Captive Otolemur Garnettii, Morgan N. Ruby

Honors Theses

Observing the predatory nature in primates has yielded knowledge pertaining to their biology and evolutionary pathways; however, not many studies have focused on the complexities of their food preferences. This thesis focuses on food preferences among Garnett’s Greater Bushbaby (Otolemur garnettii): a small-bodied nocturnal primate native to Central and Southern Africa. Presented food options were raisins: dried mealworms and raisins: live mealworms. The population consists of fifteen bushbabies housed in The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Primate Behavior Research Facility. Ten trials of three different experiments were performed to identify the dominant hand and food preferences among the …

A Study Of Object Play In Captive Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Victoria L. Johnson

Honors Theses

Behaviors related to play are positively reinforcing as they promote the continued exhibition of play behaviors in a variety of animal species. Play in animals is thought to contribute to the development and practice of skills animals require across their lifespan (i.e., foraging, mating, etc.). In bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), several categories of play can be observed such as solitary play, social play, locomotor play, predatory play, and object play. The aim of the present study was to observe how variables of age-class, sex, object type, and play sociality influenced dolphin object play by utilizing video data from a …

Stefano Harney: In Conversation With The Co-Author Of The Undercommons’ With Michael Schapira And Jesse Montgomery, Michael Schapira, Jesse Montgomery Montgomery, Stephen Matthias Harney

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

‘In Conversation with the Co-author of The Undercommons’ with Michael Schapira and Jesse Montgomery, Full-Stop Quarterly, May 2017 http://www.full-stop.net/quarterly/

Acculturation And Ethnic-Identification Of American Chinese Restaurant, Ting Shi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Immigration reform in 1965 enabled a large number of Chinese immigrants to settle in the United States. Chinese restaurants expanded quickly both quantitatively and geographically. This thesis researches the interactions between Chinese restaurant employers and employees and their customers. I focus on several Chinese restaurants in a mid-size Southeast U.S. city with a university and I analyze their methods for attracting culturally distinct groups of customers—local Americans and Chinese students or immigrants. I conducted participant observation in two Chinese restaurants and in-person interviews with 14 people from four restaurants whose roles are owners, managers, or servers. I found that Chinese …

Dissertation Experiences Of Faculty Members: Individual, Relational And Structural Factors Of Success, Tanika R. Mitchell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological research study explored the dissertation experiences of individuals working as faculty members across disciplines at regionally accredited four year universities. Research questions utilized the constructs of social development theory to explore dissertation experiences from an individual, relational and structural perspective. Prior scholars have used social development theory as a framework to explore the individualities of the student, the relationship with faculty advisors and mentors, and the resources provided by the department and institution when evaluating the dissertation process (Liechty, Liao, & Schull, 2009).

A purposeful, criterion sampling strategy and maximum variation sampling were employed to select a wide …

"Some Things Grew No Less With Time:" Tracing Atu 510b From The Thirteenth To The Twentieth Century, Rachel L. Maynard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of seven different variants of the fairy tale commonly known as “Donkeyskin,” classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale motif index as ATU 510B. By comparing so many different iterations of one fairy tale, it is easier to recognize the inherent attitudes concerning women and their place in society contained in this tale. Additionally, reading multiple variants from different centuries lends a perspective on the way that these attitudes changed over the centuries. Each of the thirteenth century texts considered end with their heroines trapped in loveless marriages, much like the seventeenth-century fairy tale, “Donkeyskin,” their …

The Old Deery Inn & Museum: An Ethnographic Case Study, Rebecca J. Proffitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses qualitative ethnographic research methods to present a case study that explores the multiplicity of meanings and representations that are attached to the Old Deery Inn & Museum in Blountville, Tennessee. Within the community, the Inn functions as a center for cultural memory, with the physical structure itself acting as an artifact that holds community identity. This community narrative contrasts with the official narrative used by tourism entities that markets the Inn as a part of the Appalachian region, situating the Inn within a complex and intricately constructed identity of place that is shaped by lived experiences as …

Impact Of High-Resolution Topographic Mapping On Beach Morphological Analyses Based On Terrestrial Lidar And Object-Oriented Beach Evolution, Xuelian Meng, Xukai Zhang, Rodolfo Silva, Chunyan Li, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

This research applied terrestrial LiDAR for laboratory beach evolution experiments to quantify the impact of resolution on topographic mapping and change analyses. The multi-site registration and multi-Temporal scanning processes produced high accuracy (-0.002 - 0.003 m) topographic models in a wave tank environment. Morphological analyses based on surface change and profiles showed that models of all resolutions were capable of capturing major sediment changes in relatively smooth areas. However, higher resolution models were necessary in areas with rough surfaces and sudden elevation changes, while coarser resolution models smoothed the roughness and underestimated feature height (e.g., peaks and troughs). Decreasing resolutions …

Emphasizing Colonization In Modern Environmental And Women’S Activist Movements In India And The Future Of Ecofeminist Movements For Creating A More Just And Sustainable Future, Alea M. Tveit

Honors Theses

This research discusses the extent of colonial acknowledgement in modern women’s rights and environmental movements in India. British colonization profoundly altered the ecological landscape and social norms of the societies it affected while leaving behind institutional structures that encouraged and perpetuated discrimination, oppression, and environmental degradation. In the case of India, I illustrate pre-colonial norms surrounding environmental stewardship and women’s rights and compare it to post-colonial ideology to make a connection of modern human rights and environmental problems to a colonial past. Today’s popular environmental and women’s activist movements are analyzed to determine if colonial acknowledgment or a decolonial framework …

Full Issue 11.1

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Multivariate Statistical Methods, A Primer, C. R. Rao

Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods

Multivariate Statistical Methods, A Primer, 4th Ed. Bryan F. J. Manly and Jorge A. Navarro Alberto. NY: Chapman & Hall / CRC Press. 2016. 264 p. ISBN 10: 1498728960 / ISBN 13: 978-1498728966

Professional Identity Formation Throughout The Curriculum: Lessons From Clergy Education, Larry A. Golemon

Mercer Law Review

Clergy education is undergoing radical transformation in the United States due to changes in the profession, the religious communities served, and the larger landscape of higher education. Many reformers of theological education question whether the education of pastors, priests, and rabbis should be considered "professional" education at all. Some call for less competence training and more formation of theological habits of interpretation and reflection; others advocate for more practical and contextual training of skills and role-formation; and others emphasize the formation of personal character and religious piety. Yet most of these reformers agree that the formation of pastoral and professional …

The Art Of Self And Becoming A Professional, Jack L. Sammons

Mercer Law Review

This talk about the self originated in comments made by Joshua Bishop. Josh was executed by the People of the State of Georgia on March 31, 2016. Now I have long puzzled over questions of the self, especially in the context as here of students and practitioners who are in the process of becoming professionals; so the issues were not new to me although I had never gotten very far with them. But Josh's comments, when I first heard them, seemed to me to be a uniquely reliable resource for returning to these issues again. He spent most of his …

The Contribution Of Technology To An Undergraduate International Learning Partnership: The Ritual Perspective, Liene Ločmele, Barbara R. Burke

Communication, Media, and Rhetoric Publications

This study is part of a research project on a learning partnership between undergraduates of ViA, Latvia and UMM, USA. During the joint media course in Spring 2016, students participated in Skype discussions, completed shared assignments and reflected upon their learning experience. The transcripts of these activities form the body of qualitative data. We employ the perspective of Ethnography of Communication (Hymes, 1962; Philipsen, 1997) and Cultural Discourse Analysis (Carbaugh, 2007) in order to answer the following research questions: (1) what is the nature of the studied technology-mediated learning discourse, and (2) how dot he constructed meanings around the use …

Research & Strategic Partnerships: Quarterly Review, Volume 4, Issue 1, Portland State University. Research & Strategic Partnerships

Portland State Research Magazine

This issue focuses on international research and scholarship, and highlights faculty and students from a number of our colleges and schools. Included in this issue are stories of PSU faculty working to better understand how the relationships between society, culture, and the environment affected disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery in the wake of the devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal in 2015. Stories about how PSU researchers are working with collaborators in China, Israel, and New Zealand to improve water management practices and protect some of the world’s most stunning landscapes. And stories about PSU faculty, students, and alumni working in …

The Glocalist: The Creation Of An Online Cultural-Travel Guide To The City Of Havana, Cuba, Jaye Harris

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Glo-cal-ist: one who is a local of several cities or regions.

Locally sourced and globally spread, The Glocalist takes the world and transforms it into your neighborhood.

The Glocalist is an online, interactive cultural-travel guide tailored to young adult travelers. This series of guides offers authoritative information for those looking to dive into the world’s cultural scenes and emerge a local.

Much like the farm-to-table movement, this digital publication seeks to give you locally sourced, nitty-gritty travel information seasoned with cultural flavor. Glocalist readers can ride the local transportation like a pro commuter; sip on the signature drink at …

A Call For Developing A Field Of Positive Legal Methodology, William Baude, Adam S. Chilton, Anup Malani

University of Chicago Law Review

This issue of The University of Chicago Law Review brings together leading scholars to discuss developing best practices for legal analysis. The goal of its organizers, however, is somewhat less modest: to encourage a movement that develops a positive legal methodology. Years of reading legal scholarship have convinced us that scholars ought to devote more attention to positive methodology— figuring out how to tell what the law is—something that may seem like second nature to most lawyers, but that often relies on intuition and armchair persuasion. To be sure, legal scholars have over time imported theory and methods from other …

Qualitative Methods For Law Review Writing, Katerina Linos, Melissa Carlson

University of Chicago Law Review

Typical law review articles not only clarify what the law is, but also examine the history of the current rules, assess the status quo, and present reform proposals. To make theoretical arguments more plausible, legal scholars frequently use examples: they draw on cases, statutes, political debates, and other sources. But legal scholars often pick their examples unsystematically and explore them armed with only the tools for doctrinal analysis. Unsystematically chosen examples can help develop plausible theories, but they rarely suffice to convince readers that these theories are true, especially when plausible alternative explanations exist. This project presents methodological insights from …

Before Interpretation, Anya Bernstein

University of Chicago Law Review

What is it that a judge interprets in a statutory interpretation case? This Article shows that the answer to this question is surprisingly complex. First, the text that a judge interprets is not simply given. Rather, judges must select texts to interpret. Second, the background against which a judge views that text is also not given. Rather, judges situate the texts they interpret within unique, case-specific contexts that they construct from a diverse and unpredictable variety of factors. Selecting and situating: these form the infrastructure of interpretation. Each requires judges to exercise creativity and choice. But opinions tend to present …

Detecting Cognitive Load During Working Memory Tasks Utilizing A Digitizer Tablet, Cassandra K. Ward, Pradyumn Srivastava

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this line of research is to determine whether the ‘Digitizer’ is a reliable and valid way to measure cognitive load during dual working memory-drawing tasks. A quasi-experimental study was conducted at the University of Arkansas in a research laboratory, and participants included seven right-handed healthy adults with normal or corrected vision and no reading difficulty. The participants were selected on a volunteer basis. The study required participants to draw circles while continuously performing in three conditions – one baseline and two working memory experimental tasks, administered in counterbalanced order. The baseline task was to read an 8 …

Adopting Children With Down Syndrome: A Qualitative Study Of Family Experiences, Emily L. Richter

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively investigate and compare the family beliefs, values, and perceptions of parenting of families who have adopted children with Down syndrome (DS) to parents who have biological children with DS. Participants in the study included 27 parents of biological children with DS and six parents of adopted children with DS. Participants were interviewed through a digital survey that was distributed through Qualtrics Online Survey Software. Quantitative analysis placed the participants into groups and qualitative analysis was used to identify beliefs, values, and perceptions. Results showed that while both adoptive and biological parents indicated …

Harvest For The World: A Practice In Strategic Non-Profit Communication In Multicultural Communities, Avery Allen

All Theses

Feed & Seed is a food justice organization located in Greenville, South Carolina. Recently, the organization partnered with Spinx Corporation, a South Carolina based gas station and convenience store chain, to form the Spinx Market Garden. Spinx Market Garden is the latest Feed & Seed project designed to bring fresh and affordable nutrition options to an area in West Greenville that is considered a food desert. Feed & Seed has expressed a desire to increase outreach and engagement with multicultural community stakeholders in the West Greenville area. The purpose of this thesis project was to utilize strategic health communication theory …