Digital Commons Network^™

Examining Partisan Advantage In Congressional Maps Using Simulations Based On Election Data, Zachary James Morgan

Online Theses and Dissertations

Partisan gerrymandering has been and will continue to be a topic of interest in the coming years. States will soon begin their redistricting process following the 2020 Census. We introduce a method of simulating Congressional elections which provides a new way of examining and visualizing the votes-to-seats relationship for a state Congressional map using past election data. We are able to build upon Mira Bernstein's method of uniformly simulating elections by injecting a data-driven component of variation into the simulations. Additionally, we are able to directly evaluate the accuracy of our simulations using a type of cross-validation. We compare our …

The Danger Of ‘No’: Rejection Violence, Toxic Masculinity And Violence Against Women, Lily Katherine Thacker

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study illuminates the relationship between toxic masculinity and rejection violence, here defined as instances where men react violently toward women who reject their expressions of romantic or sexual interest. It begins with an analysis of the definition and construction of toxic masculinity and, through the analysis of different cases as reported in the media, expands into a discussion on how toxic masculinity contributes directly to cases of rejection violence. The study analyzes over 40 cases of rejection violence to present a clear picture of the relationship between these occurrences and toxic masculinity.

Occupational Therapists' Perceptions And Clinical Reasoning Of Splints Used In Adults With Neurological Conditions, Yichen Jiang

Online Theses and Dissertations

Using splints for upper extremity functional improvement in neurologically impaired patients is a common practice among occupational therapists despite inadequate evidence to support this intervention. This mixed-method study aims to address the gap in research regarding occupational therapists’ perceptions of current neurological splinting trends, perceived effectiveness of splinting, their rationale for splinting, and confidence in splinting. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four occupational therapists across the United States. A 37-item online survey was then developed and administered to 129 occupational therapists who practice with neurologically impaired populations. Three themes were developed from the qualitative data: clinical reasoning guides decision-making and …

An Examination Of Clery Crime Statistics At Four Year Public Institutions Of Higher Education Served By Or Without Dedicated University Police Departments, Bryan Makinen

Online Theses and Dissertations

This paper was written to examine the impact of dedicated university police departments relative to reporting Clery statistics, fundamental information that prospective students and their parents can use in selecting an institution of higher education. The prospect of gaining knowledge and bettering one’s life occurs best when taking place in a safe and transparent environment. While college and university campuses are not immune to crime, similar to society as a whole, they are statistically safer places by which learning can occur.

The college years are instrumental in shaping the lives and mindset of America’s youth by exposing them to a …

Editorial, Andrea Vianello, Robert T. Tykot, Maria Clara Martinelli

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Work Of The Living, D'Addario, Thomas J. D'Addario

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Using Metacognitive Reflection To Improve Student Learning, Eric Howe

Education Dissertations

The study of art, especially perspective, involves the use of specialized vocabulary words. Vocabulary words can be difficult to comprehend, but when students learn to use the specialized vocabulary or academic language of a subject, the learner is better able to think about the content. While academic language is only a part of a visual art curriculum, students need support from the teacher to learn it. Metacognitive reflection (MR) offers a method to increase student learning of academic language in art specifically, and other subjects in general. Teacher feedback naturally occurs in response to students’ reflections and gives the learner …

Genome Size Variation Among Natural Populations Of Brachypodium Distachyon And B. Hybridum Collected From Different Regions Of Turkey, Gülsemi̇n Savaş Tuna, İsmet Başer, Meti̇n Tuna

Turkish Journal of Botany

Brachypodium distachyon (L.) P.Beauv. is a model grass species that is useful for studying temperate cereal, forage, and energy crops. In this study we aimed to determine the genome size and species identity in the collections of the B. distachyon complex that included samples from 56 different locations in Turkey, applying chromosome counting and nuclear genome size evaluation by flow cytometry method (FCM). Moreover, the study examined whether diverse geographical conditions at the collecting sites influence the genome size. Chromosomal analysis revealed that the number of B. distachyon (x = 5, 2n = 10) genotypes was 48 and the number …

Syntaxonomic Analysis Of Forests, Shrubs, And Steppes Of Tavşan Mountain(Amasya, Turkey), Cengi̇z Yildirim, Erkan Yalçin, Arzu Cansaran, Hasan Korkmaz

Turkish Journal of Botany

The aim of this study is to reveal the syntaxonomical structure of Tavşan Mountain in the Euxinian transition area in northern Turkey. Eight plant associations were determined and classified using the Braun?Blanquet phytosociological approach. Detrended correspondence analysis was also used to reveal the environmental heterogeneity among the plant associations. Raunkiaer life form ratios of syntaxa were calculated. Shannon?Wiener index values also were determined for each plant association. The results of this study suggested that which environmental factors could be decisive in community diversity and syntaxonomical status.

Today And Yesterday, Vol. 43, 2019, Illinois State University, Department Of History

Today and Yesterday

Newsletter of the Illinois State University Department of History

A Case For Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

In January 2018, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Holley, announced his decision to close all of the diocese’s Jubilee Schools — a network of Catholic schools serving primarily disadvantaged urban children — at the end of the 2018-19 school year. The decision, which affects nearly 1,500 students, rocked the Catholic school world. For decades, the Jubilee network — often dubbed the “Miracle in Memphis” — had been a counterfactual bright spot set apart from the otherwise bleak reality of decline facing urban Catholic schools. While nearly 3,000 Catholic schools, most of them located in urban centers, have …

Crown-Level Mapping Of Tree Species And Health From Remote Sensing Of Rural And Urban Forests, Fang Fang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Tree species composition and health are key attributes for rural and urban forest biodiversity, and ecosystem services preservation. Remote sensing has facilitated extraordinary advances in estimating and mapping tree species composition and health. Yet previous sensors and algorithms were largely unable to resolve individual tree crowns and discriminate tree species or health classes at this essential spatial scale due to the low image spectral and spatial resolution. However, current available very high spatial resolution (VHR) remote sensing data can begin to resolve individual tree crowns and measure their spectral and structural qualities with unprecedented precision. Moreover, various machine learning algorithms …

Using Lidar To Approximate Keystone Structure And Evaluate Management Practices In Potential Habitats Of The Endangered Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides Melissa Samuelis), Brandyn Balch

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Keystone structure is the spatial structure required by a given species, at a scale that is determined by that species’ needs and mobility. The endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis, hereafter KBB) has a keystone structure that incorporates trees and bushes to provide the mixture of sun and shade required to fulfil its life functions. Airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) is a potentially invaluable tool for characterizing keystone structures. However, lidar has yet to be utilized to evaluate structural suitability of KBB habitats. Therefore, I investigated the use of lidar for characterizing critical attributes of KBB habitat structure, …

Accessible Design In Rural Health Care: Usability Profile Of Outpatient Health Care Facilities In Rural West Virginia., Jordan E. Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law in 1990. Since then, research has shown that people with disabilities continue to experience environmental, systematic, and structural barriers to health care. The purpose of this research is to explore the prevalence of barriers in rural West Virginia health facilities and the relationship between building characteristics (like age and purpose) and accessibility. The researcher evaluated ten rural outpatient member-sites of the West Virginia Practice-Based Research Network using a survey to understand building characteristics and a tool to measure essential features for a facility to be considered ‘usable’. Findings included a negative correlation …

Compound-Specific Isotope Analysis Of Amino Acids In Biological Tissues: Applications In Forensic Entomology, Food Authentication And Soft-Biometrics In Humans, Mayara Patricia Viana De Matos

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this work we demonstrate the power of compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) to analyze proteinaceous biological materials in three distinct forensic applications, including: 1) linking necrophagous blow flies in different life stages to their primary carrion diet; 2) identifying the harvesting area of oysters for food authentication purposes; and 3) the ability to predict biometric traits about humans from their hair.

In the first application, we measured the amino-acid-level fractionation that occurs at each major life stage of Calliphora vicina (Robineau-Desvoidy) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) blow flies. Adult blow flies oviposited on raw pork muscle, beef muscle, or chicken liver. Larvae, pupae …

An Assessment Of Farmer Participation In The United States Department Of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Services’ Conservation Technical Assistance Program In West Virginia, Matt D. Oliver

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Food and fiber production on America’s farmlands have a major influence on the environment, therefore, soil and water conservation practices are critical. NRCS has provided no-fee technical assistance for nearly 100 years through the Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) program. The CTA program is essential because it provides technical knowledge directly to farmers for planning and implementing conservation practices that are proven to benefit environmental health and on-farm production. CTA program funds support NRCS staff and training and are thereby the local service delivery vehicle for all NRCS programs. However, in recent years, funding for CTA has remained relatively constant while …

The Food Bank Fix: Hunger, Capitalism And Humanitarian Reason, Joshua David Lohnes

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Drawing on a five-year institutional ethnography of Humanitarian Food Networks (HFNs) in West Virginia, this dissertation explores the moral, political and economic place of the food bank in the corporate environmental food regime. I develop the concept of the food bank fix to theorize the paradoxical relationships between the state, the shadow state, food corporations, local charities and food banks that tie HFNs across the United States together through humanitarian reason. I argue that food banks damp the grinding contradictions of a society awash in food surpluses even as a significant proportion of the population remains at risk of hunger. …

Early Childhood Development And The Replication Of Poverty, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Antipoverty efforts must begin early because abundant evidence demonstrates that experiences during the first five years of life lay a foundation for future learning and the acquisition of skills. Public investments can help foster early childhood development, but these efforts must begin early and must involve both parents and children. This chapter describes the patterns of convergence and divergence in state approaches to supporting early childhood development. For the prenatal period until age three, the federal government is the primary source of funds, and there is fairly limited variation in how this money is spent across the states. For the …

Immigrant Sanctuary As The 'Old Normal': A Brief History Of Police Federalism, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

Three successive presidential administrations have opposed immigrant sanctuary policy, at various intervals characterizing state and local government restrictions on police participation in federal immigration enforcement as reckless, aberrant, and unpatriotic. This Article finds these claims to be ahistorical in light of the long and singular history of a field this Article identifies as “police federalism.” For nearly all of U.S. history, Americans within and outside of the political and juridical fields flatly rejected federal policies that would make state and local police subordinate to the federal executive. Drawing from Bourdieusian social theory, this Article conceptualizes the sentiment driving this longstanding …

Right At Home: Modeling Sub-Federal Resistance As Criminal Justice Reform, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

Over the past two decades, state and local governments have crippled the federal war on marijuana as well as a series of federal initiatives designed to enforce federal immigration law through city and county police departments. This Article characterizes these and similar events as sub-federal government resistance in service of criminal justice reform. In keeping with recent sub-federal criminal reform movements, it prescribes a process model of reform consisting of four stages: enforcement abstinence, enforcement nullification, mimicry, and enforcement abolition. The state and local governments that pass through each of these stages can frustrate the enforcement of federal criminal law …

Bridging The Gap Between Public Opinion Research And Consumer Marketing Research: Insights Into U.S. Shoppers Of Organic Foods, Marilena O. Vilceanu, Olivia Grasso, Kristine Johnson

AMTP Proceedings 2019

The primary goal of this study embraces Hughner and team’s (2007) directive to focus new research on the growing segment of occasional consumers of organic and natural foods, rather than limit the search for consumer insights to the small, elitist groups of deeply committed consumers. Research questions address the demographics, attitudinal, and behavioral characteristics that identify organic foods as a premium product. Primary recommendations for marketing practitioners include focusing on higher income consumers, especially married individuals, who live in highly populated areas; creating a pleasant shopping experience; promoting non-food related organic items, and investing in brand presence and salience.

A Vernacular Haven, Karita N. Lipdo

Architecture Theses and Projects

This architecture project aims to address issues of livelihood displaced people in Northern Nigeria. Life aftrer a traumtic experience is by no means an easy task to undertake. With a lot of loss, grief and uncertainty towards their respective future as individuals and a people group, my project seeks to aid the situation by providing a halfway settlement to undertake refugees and provide a system that helps them respond more favorably to the tragedy of loss. My architectural project aims to reduce human suffering, give back their sense of dignity and elevate their value as future members of the Nigerian …

Saving Face: Adaptive Reuse Of A Twentieth-Century Psychiatric Center, Taylor M. Hughes

Architecture Theses and Projects

As humans, architects have their own prejudices and beliefs, and often times, those can affect their work, particularly when designing such facilities that were historically stigmatized. My thesis looks at one typology in particular - psychiatric centers, formerly known as asylums and mental hospitals. The life cycles of their architecture can be looked at in three parts: their uses, their abandonment and their futures.

The psychiatric centers of the nineteenth century were designed to be comfortable and humane, offering fresh air and sunlight to all residents, sometimes even teaching skills and trades to the residents. However, the layout of such …

Chinese Graduate Student Understandings And Struggles With Critical Thinking: A Narrative-Case Study, Kyle J. Lucas

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Qualitative research offers the potential to inform an ongoing issue concerning why international students struggle with critical thinking. This article approaches the issue by examining how international graduate students understand critical thinking as well as the challenges they have faced with critical thinking. The study used a narrative-case study framework to collect data from 4 Chinese international graduate students at a large mid-Western research university in the United States. The results showed that the participants had diverse conceptions of critical thinking and that they tended to focus on dispositions related to critical thinking rather than skills. These results suggest that …

Perceptions Of Teacher-Writers: Initial Influences To Write, Shari L. Daniels, Pamela Beck

Teaching, Leadership & Professional Practice Faculty Publications

This qualitative case study explores perceptions of teacher-writers’ early writing histories and examines their initial influences to write. Interviews and writing artifacts of ten K-12 teacher-writers serve as the primary data source. Findings indicate that teachers with strong identities as readers and/or writers in their K-12 experiences often received positive feedback which encouraged them to develop as writers, while teachers challenged with mechanics often received negative feedback which discouraged them from writing. Revisiting negative writing histories reshaped writing beliefs to influence a positive writing identities. The authors suggest practices for pre-service literacy courses to examine writing histories and to develop …

Leaves Of The Bodhi Tree From East To West: The Symbol Of The Sacred Fig Tree In Ancient India, Southeast Asia And Contemporary Contexts, Amanda J. Spradling

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the depiction of the Bodhi Tree, a common Buddhist symbol. Bodhi tree simply means tree of enlightenment and Buddha Shakyamuni reached enlightenment while in meditation beneath the particular tree species of ficus religiosa, or sacred fig. Though the sacred fig tree, as a native tree to India, has historically held significance, today it is principally known for its association with the Buddha, particularly his single most important life event, his enlightenment.

Tree worship and its universal practice is well understood and many studies of the Bodhi Tree explore its associated pilgrimage site, Bodh Gaya, and monument, the …

"We Were At Our Journey's End" : Settler Sovereignty Formation In Oregon, Katrine Barber

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

For too long, Oregon history has been captive to the mid-nineteenth-century’s rambling wagon trains. Settler stories of motivations, hardships, and achievements, preserved in diaries, letters, and memoirs, are compelling and deserving of the attention lavished on them. But more is necessary. Oregon’s Euro-Americans were intimately tied to national and international events that saw the rise of White, European colonial expansion into the colored word. Alongside that expansion was the development of a framework of domination, justified by claims of superiority and destiny, that conflated the ability to control with the right to do so. Placing Oregon history in this larger …

Respect The Hustle: Necessity Entrepreneurship, Returning Citizens, And Social Enterprise Strategies, Priya Baskaran

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article addresses a pervasive and growing problem for returning citizens – high rates of economic insecurity – and as a novel solution, proposes the creation of Economic Justice Incubators a new municipally led social enterprise strategy.

Mass incarceration is a national problem and requires comprehensive criminal justice reform. In contrast, the process of reentry is locally focused thanks to a complex web of collateral consequences. An estimated 641,000 people return home from prison each year, many to a limited number of economically distressed communities. Once released, their mobility is limited by the terms of their parole and the collateral …

Urban Mission

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Subsistence Marketplaces: Challenges And Opportunities, Madhu Viswanathan

Marketing & Business Law Faculty Works

This introductory article is a biennial exercise to reflect on the stream of subsistence marketplaces as a prelude to the special section on this topic following the Sixth Subsistence Marketplaces Conference in 2016. The call for papers was not restricted to conference presentations. At the end of the review process, the special section contained four articles spanning a diverse set of topics. The authors provide an overview of the subsistence marketplaces stream and a background of the conference series. This is followed by a brief introduction to the special issue. They then discuss the what, how, and why for past …