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2023

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The New Insular Cases, Willie Santana Jan 2023

The New Insular Cases, Willie Santana

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The Insular Cases is a name given to a series of cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with the status of the territories the United States acquired at the turn of the twentieth century. The Insular Cases rely on outmoded assumptions about the peoples who live in those islands, ninety-eight percent of whom belong to racial and ethnic minorities, and extend the extraconstitutional doctrine of territorial incorporation, a Plessy-style doctrine of separate governance for these territories that is different than the territories that preceded them. These cases, and the doctrine they announced, have been universally decried as …

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3-Dimensional Muscle Constructs: Using Hydrogels In Order To Model The Effects Of Exercise In Disease Conditions, Mark Mchargue Jan 2023

3-Dimensional Muscle Constructs: Using Hydrogels In Order To Model The Effects Of Exercise In Disease Conditions, Mark Mchargue

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Currently, there is no standard in vitro model for studying the effects of mechanical stimulation on muscle in type II diabetes. Existing models primarily utilize electrical stimulation, which does not fully recapitulate the effects of exercise. In this thesis, we create a standardized in vitro model of murine muscle that can recapitulate the benefits seen in exercise when mechanically stimulated. Moreover, we show that a type II diabetes environment has similar effects on the muscle in vitro as well as in vivo.

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Multiscale And Multimodality Optical Imaging Of Brain Hemodynamics And Function, Mehrana Mohtasebi Jan 2023

Multiscale And Multimodality Optical Imaging Of Brain Hemodynamics And Function, Mehrana Mohtasebi

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Frequent measurement of cerebral hemodynamics is crucial for continuous assessment of brain function and health. Low-frequency oscillations (LFOs; < 0.1 Hz) have shown promise as an indicator of altered neurologic activity in the abnormal brain. Moreover, quantification of temporal correlations in LFOs across distinct brain regions enables mapping of regional neurovascular disorders. Portable diffuse optical techniques such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) enable noninvasive and continuous measurements of cerebral oxygenation and cerebral blood flow (CBF), respectively. However, most NIRS/DCS systems use limited numbers of discrete light sources and detectors and thus lack combinations of high temporal/spatial resolution and large field-of-view (FOV) for brain imaging. Recent development of an innovative noncontact speckle contrast diffuse correlation tomography (scDCT) in our lab provides a low-cost and portable tool for high-density imaging of CBF distributions over large FOVs. The scDCT uses a galvo-mirror to remotely deliver coherent point near-infrared light to multiple source positions and a CMOS camera as a high-density 2-D detector array to quantify spatial fluctuations of diffuse laser speckles, resulting from movement of red blood cells. Boundary CBF data were input to a unique finite-element-method (FEM)-based reconstruction algorithm for 3-D imaging of CBF distributions. However, scDCT was hindered for extracting LFOs due to its low sampling rate. In this study, scDCT was optimized to achieve high sampling rates and fast image reconstructions by use of moving window algorithms with parallel computations (Project 1). Power spectral density (PSD) analysis was performed to investigate altered LFOs during transient cerebral ischemia in neonatal piglets. Transient cerebral ischemia caused reductions in both CBF and PSD, supporting inclusion of scDCT in the growing field of LFO analysis. One remaining limitation was the long computational time required for 3-D reconstruction, which prohibited real-time applications. To overcome this limitation, a depth-sensitive diffuse speckle contrast topography (DSCT) method was developed for analyzing scDCT data to achieve fast and high-density 2-D mapping of CBF distribution without the need of complex and time-consuming 3-D reconstructions (Project 2). New head-simulating phantoms with known optical/geometric properties were designed and fabricated to evaluate the spatial resolution and depth sensitivity of DSCT method. In-vivo experiments verified the capability of DSCT in tracking dynamic changes in CBF at different depths during CO2 inhalation and transient cerebral ischemia in rats. In addition to preclinical studies, a low-cost, wearable, fluorescence eye loupe (FLoupe) device was invented for intraoperative visualization of brain tumor margin in the clinic (Project 3). Consistent results were observed against an expensive, large, standard fluorescence operative microscope for the guidance of tumor resection. Overall, through 3 projects this dissertation demonstrated a variety of noninvasive noncontact optical technologies (scDCT, DSCT, and FLoupe) that enabled multiscale (rodents, piglets, and humans) and …

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A Wearable Fiber-Free Optical Sensor For Continuous Measurements Of Cerebral Blood Flow And Oxygenation, Xuhui Liu Jan 2023

A Wearable Fiber-Free Optical Sensor For Continuous Measurements Of Cerebral Blood Flow And Oxygenation, Xuhui Liu

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Wearable technologies for continuous monitoring of cerebral hemodynamics in freely behaving subjects not only advance our understanding of cognitive processing and adaptive behavior, but also provide vital information for diagnosis and therapeutic assessment of cerebral diseases associated with hypoxia/ischemia. Wearable near-infrared diffuse optical techniques have been used at the bedside to probe deep cerebral hemodynamics, including near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for cerebral oxygenation measurement and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) for cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurement, respectively. However, most systems are relatively large and expensive, and use rigid fiber-optic probes that significantly constrain subject’s movement. A novel, wearable, fiber-free diffuse speckle contrast …

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Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (Qmra) For Urban Stormwater Reuse After Treatment Through A Bioretention System, Isaac Oluk Jan 2023

Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (Qmra) For Urban Stormwater Reuse After Treatment Through A Bioretention System, Isaac Oluk

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Bioretention, also referred to as a stormwater biofilter, is an extensively used low-impact development technology for both stormwater management and water quality gains. However, little attention has been paid to the acceptability and uncertainty of human health risks associated with the treatment performance of bioretention filter media, and non-potable water reuse scenarios to guide decision-making and system design. This study uses bioretention mechanistic modeling paired with quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) under uncertainty to evaluate human health risks from two reference pathogens – Campylobacter jejuni and Cryptosporidium. Consumption of irrigated green salad, consumption of raw green salad washed with effluent, …

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Prediction Of Chlorine And Disinfection Byproduct Concentration In Water Distribution Systems Using Kypipe And Tthm Regression Models: Application To Two Systems In Kentucky, Yogesh Gautam Jan 2023

Prediction Of Chlorine And Disinfection Byproduct Concentration In Water Distribution Systems Using Kypipe And Tthm Regression Models: Application To Two Systems In Kentucky, Yogesh Gautam

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The main objective of this research is to study if the hydraulic and water quality models can be used for water quality analysis of chlorine decay and TTHM formation at various locations across a water distribution system. This is particularly important because it is not always easy or economical to take multiple field samples and analyze them in the laboratory. In this study, models of two different water distribution systems (one more urban and efficiently managed system located in a relative flat topography, and other more rural and less efficiently managed system located in a mountainous topography) were developed in …

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Together Now, Alfonso Zapata Jan 2023

Together Now, Alfonso Zapata

Theses and Dissertations--English

Together Now is a collection of poems by Alfonso Zapata, with work written between 2021 and 2023 at the University of Kentucky. This thesis contains poems which examine the close relationship between families, art, and the histories each contain. These poems use these subjects in order to illustrate the emotional and physical impact communities have upon those who live in them; art can evolve a person, shape them in beautiful ways, and give us the ability to process tragedy together; on the other end of the spectrum, societal neglect, environmental crisis, and food insecurity can rip these communities apart potentially …

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Kill On The Left Foot, Daniel Collins Jan 2023

Kill On The Left Foot, Daniel Collins

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection of essays and short stories represents experiences during and related to my military service as a Tactical Air Control Partyman in the United States Air Force. Recurrent themes in this collection involve patriotism, fatherhood, masculinity, trauma, and recovery. The work itself represents the study and practice of the elements of fiction and foundational concepts related to creative nonfiction.

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Emerging Hues: Essays From The Teneral Stage, Lucy Jayes Jan 2023

Emerging Hues: Essays From The Teneral Stage, Lucy Jayes

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection of essays features work created and revised over two years in the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. They reflect a period of intense evolution in the author’s life and delve into topics of modern-day motherhood and cycles of intimate partner violence.

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Conceive And Control: Cultural-Legal Narratives Of American Privacy And Reproductive Politics, Emily Naser-Hall Jan 2023

Conceive And Control: Cultural-Legal Narratives Of American Privacy And Reproductive Politics, Emily Naser-Hall

Theses and Dissertations--English

Law and literature share a foundation in narrative. The literary turn in legal scholarship recognizes that the law itself is a form of narrative, one that simultaneously reflects socio-cultural norms and creates social and political regulations with a complex matrix of power. Cultural narratives from the 1950s to the mid-1970s pertaining to reproductive politics, domesticity, and national identity both produce and are productive of legal rulings that govern and restrict private acts of sexuality and speech. The Supreme Court used cases concerning sex and reproduction to enumerate, explicate, and complicate the right to privacy, which appears nowhere in the U.S. …

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Stick With Me: Essays, Clay Shields Jan 2023

Stick With Me: Essays, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

A small-town Appalachian deviant confronts the frequent, recurrent grief of the opioid crisis and its mortal, psychological, and communal consequences. This collection endeavors to explore substance use, addiction, geopolitical exploitation of Kentucky, central Appalachia, and surrounding areas, while also celebrating the lives of individual loved ones lost to deaths by suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism. Here, the common narrative of depravity surrounding addiction is challenged through the rendering of full characters capable of love, trust, friendship, humor, mental health management, and personal growth. Time and place factor fundamentally into the stories told here—whether based in central Kentucky or central Appalachia, …

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Ovid's Caeneus As A Queer Hero: Understanding Gender And Gender Variance In The Ancient Mediterranean., Rj Palmer Jan 2023

Ovid's Caeneus As A Queer Hero: Understanding Gender And Gender Variance In The Ancient Mediterranean., Rj Palmer

Theses and Dissertations--Modern and Classical Languages, Literature and Cultures

Caeneus, as written in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is a notable blend of ancient and Hellenistic versions of the myth. Ovid’s Caeneus can be understood as a transgender man, since he was assigned female at birth, but asks for his gender to be changed by the god Neptune, and goes on to live the rest of his life with the body, appearance, and social roles of a man. Ovid incorporates Caeneus’ trans identity with his use of grammatical gender endings for Caeneus, using masculine gender for Caeneus except when discussing his pre-transition childhood, or when the centaurs address him mockingly while fighting. …

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Exploring The Molecular Basis Of Touch: A Comparative Analysis Of Gene Expression In Sensory Corpuscle-Rich And Corpuscle-Poor Skin Regions In The Duck, Thomas Hart Jan 2023

Exploring The Molecular Basis Of Touch: A Comparative Analysis Of Gene Expression In Sensory Corpuscle-Rich And Corpuscle-Poor Skin Regions In The Duck, Thomas Hart

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Cutaneous touch is facilitated by discrete cellular complexes composed of non-neuronal cells associated with mechanoreceptor neuron endings. The non-neuronal cells of these cutaneous end organ complexes (CEOCs) are believed to contribute to touch, but their role in touch sensation remains unclear. To better understand the function of CEOC cells, we sought to characterize the transcriptional profile of CEOC-rich tissue and identify genes expressed in CEOC cells. Bill skin of the tactile foraging Pekin duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is dense with CEOCs, specifically the avian analogs of mammalian Pacinian and Meissner corpuscles, while corpuscles in duck foot skin are scarce. Using RNA …

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Hypogene Speleogenesis In The Grand Canyon; Observational, Mineralogical, And Geochemical Investigations From The Bopper Cave System, Sierra Heimel Jan 2023

Hypogene Speleogenesis In The Grand Canyon; Observational, Mineralogical, And Geochemical Investigations From The Bopper Cave System, Sierra Heimel

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

One of the most prominent features of the Grand Canyon is the iron-stained Redwall Limestone, which has been documented to contain extensive cave systems with significant storage potential in the karstic Redwall-Muav (R-M) aquifer. The hydrogeologic relationships between the R-M aquifer and cave formation in the Grand Canyon via descending (epigenic) surface waters have been well documented. However; the potentially large role of deeply sourced (hypogenic) waters rising from depth in relation to cave formation is poorly understood. The Bopper Cave System (BCS) is a relict feature of the ancient abandoned hydrologic system at Grand Canyon and displays unique network …

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Variation In Behavioral Strategies For Coping With Environmental Uncertainty, Allison Mclaughlin Jan 2023

Variation In Behavioral Strategies For Coping With Environmental Uncertainty, Allison Mclaughlin

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

My dissertation investigates how animals behaviorally respond to environmental change, especially when there is limited information about that change. Uncertainty about the environment comes in various forms, including food resources which vary unpredictably and novel cues which present an unknown level of potential risk or benefit. Various behavioral strategies help animals cope with such uncertainty. Tactics to manage unpredictable variation in food include gathering information to reduce uncertainty (sampling) and strategically adjusting preference or aversion to variation in resources (variance-sensitivity). To manage the uncertainty of a novel cue, animals may generalize their previous experience with similar cues, or they may …

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Picturing The Future City: Digital Mediation And Creative Placemaking, Jessica Mccallum Breen Jan 2023

Picturing The Future City: Digital Mediation And Creative Placemaking, Jessica Mccallum Breen

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Creative placemaking is an arts-oriented community development policy that focuses on the potential for art, artists, and cultural organizations to generate social, economic, and cultural vibrancy in their communities and is a primary tool of culture-led (re)development practices (Markusen & Gwada, 2010). Despite the focus of creative placemakers on the local impacts of their work, creative placemaking is more than local, it is both translocal and transcalar. In this dissertation, I examine the role that digital mediation plays in creative placemaking and how it makes visible these translocal and transcalar connections. I begin by outlining a methodology for tracing replicated …

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‘A Category Of Their Own’: Quantitative Methods In The Use Of Pile-Sort Data In Perceptual Dialectology, Zachary Ty Gill Jan 2023

‘A Category Of Their Own’: Quantitative Methods In The Use Of Pile-Sort Data In Perceptual Dialectology, Zachary Ty Gill

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Mississippi Gulf Coast Creoles perceive language differences in their home area. A pile-sort task was carried out in which respondents were given stacks of cards with local communities written on them and instructed to stack together the regions where people “talk the same.” Once the piles were made, the fieldworker discussed their sortings with the respondents. The stacks were analyzed by means of a hierarchal agglomerative cluster analysis and non-parametric multidimensional scaling with k-means cluster analysis overlays to extract the perceived dialect areas. The groupings reveal that respondent strategies are based …

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Perceptual Dialectology Of Tulsan Speakers Of English, Andrew Carter Jan 2023

Perceptual Dialectology Of Tulsan Speakers Of English, Andrew Carter

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

The present study analyzes new interviews from fifteen Tulsan speakers of English and maps produced by draw-a-map tasks. The interviews and subsequent map tasks were conducted over the course of the winter of 2021 for the purpose of this thesis and have been analyzed for folk linguistic information about the perceptions of Tulsa and the rest of the state. The study finds that Tulsan speakers hold similar dialectal perceptions about both their own city and other locations as their fellow Oklahomans, and also provides evidence of a deteriorating faith among Tulsans in the existence of the northern-southern dialectal divide compared …

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Taken: Slavery, Forced Migration, And Environment In The Early United States, Christopher L. Leadingham Jan 2023

Taken: Slavery, Forced Migration, And Environment In The Early United States, Christopher L. Leadingham

Theses and Dissertations--History

This work examines the development and collapse of the slave trade in Kentucky. It pushes readers to think about the slave trade in an environmental context. The development of the slave trade in the state depended on the violent acquisition of Indigenous lands. The networks of credit and capital that settler colonists established—wealth concentrated in land, stock, crops, and people—fueled the development of a slave system west of the southern mountains. That system increasingly relied on the forced movement of enslaved people in and through Kentucky. The state’s legal system and other institutions worked to support slave trading companies especially …

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Enduring The Elements: Civil War Soldiers’ Struggles Against The Weather, Cameron Boutin Jan 2023

Enduring The Elements: Civil War Soldiers’ Struggles Against The Weather, Cameron Boutin

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation is an environmental history that studies the variety of ways that soldiers in the American Civil War experienced the pressures of weather over the course of their military service. For the troops of the U.S. and Confederacy, the weather was more than simply a passive backdrop to their time in the military, but a central preoccupation. This dissertation analyzes how weather intersected with some of the most central experiences of soldiering – tent camping and winter quarters, marching, bivouacking, manning sentry posts and field fortifications, and fighting in battles. Life in Civil War armies consisted of all of …

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From Displaced To Displacers: Scottish Crofters, First Nation Peoples And Commons Enclosure From The 1700s To The 1800s, Anna Herrington Jan 2023

From Displaced To Displacers: Scottish Crofters, First Nation Peoples And Commons Enclosure From The 1700s To The 1800s, Anna Herrington

Theses and Dissertations--History

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the enclosure of common systems shaped the displacement of people on a global scale whilst bringing the people---Scottish Highland crofters and Mi’kmaq First Nation Canadians from the margins where they have dwelled for centuries in historical scholarship to of the centre of not just their history, but our collective history. Both populations experienced attacks on their ties to their lands, resources, and culture through enclosure. The enclosure process lasted over two centuries and was interspersed with violent protest, proactive resistance, interspersed with periods of acceptance and determination against their forced removals. Investigating …

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Normalization Techniques For Sequential And Graphical Data, Cole Pospisil Jan 2023

Normalization Techniques For Sequential And Graphical Data, Cole Pospisil

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

Normalization methods have proven to be an invaluable tool in the training of deep neural networks. In particular, Layer and Batch Normalization are commonly used to mitigate the risks of exploding and vanishing gradients. This work presents two methods which are related to these normalization techniques. The first method is Batch Normalized Preconditioning (BNP) for recurrent neural networks (RNN) and graph convolutional networks (GCN). BNP has been suggested as a technique for Fully Connected and Convolutional networks for achieving similar performance benefits to Batch Normalization by controlling the condition number of the Hessian through preconditioning on the gradients. We extend …

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Novel Architectures And Optimization Algorithms For Training Neural Networks And Applications, Vasily I. Zadorozhnyy Jan 2023

Novel Architectures And Optimization Algorithms For Training Neural Networks And Applications, Vasily I. Zadorozhnyy

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

The two main areas of Deep Learning are Unsupervised and Supervised Learning. Unsupervised Learning studies a class of data processing problems in which only descriptions of objects are known, without label information. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have become among the most widely used unsupervised neural net models. GAN combines two neural nets, generative and discriminative, that work simultaneously. We introduce a new family of discriminator loss functions that adopts a weighted sum of real and fake parts, which we call adaptive weighted loss functions. Using the gradient information, we can adaptively choose weights to train a discriminator in the direction …

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Investigation Of Key Mechanisms Of Contact Dependent Growth Inhibition Systems In Burkholderia Cepacia Complex Species, Zaria K. Elery Jan 2023

Investigation Of Key Mechanisms Of Contact Dependent Growth Inhibition Systems In Burkholderia Cepacia Complex Species, Zaria K. Elery

Theses and Dissertations--Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics

Burkholderia cepacia complex is a group of closely related environmental bacteria that can exacerbate disease in immunocompromised individuals. B. cepacia bacteria are equipped with an arsenal of mechanisms to cooperate and compete for nutrients in various polymicrobial environments. Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) systems are antagonistic mechanisms widespread among proteobacteria. CDI systems consist of Two Partner Secretion pathway proteins that function to deliver the toxic C-terminal portion of the large effector exoprotein (termed ‘BcpA’ in Burkholderia-type CDI systems) to the cytoplasm of a compatible recipient bacterial cell upon direct cell to cell contact. The translocation of BcpA out of the …

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Substrate Selection And Effector Gating In The Helicobacter Pylori Cag Type Iv Secretion System, Mackenzie E. Ryan Jan 2023

Substrate Selection And Effector Gating In The Helicobacter Pylori Cag Type Iv Secretion System, Mackenzie E. Ryan

Theses and Dissertations--Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics

Helicobacter pylori is a recognized carcinogen and gastric colonization by strains that harbor the cag type IV secretion system (1) is the strongest known risk factor for stomach malignancy. Gastric adenocarcinoma is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths world-wide ( > 700,000 deaths annually), with H. pylori directly contributing to the development of more than one million new cases of cancer per year accounting for 5.5% of all malignancies. H. pylori exploits cag T4SS activity to alter the mucosal microenvironment by delivering diverse immunostimulatory cargo into target gastric epithelial cells. Currently, the mechanisms by which the cag T4SS …

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Therapeutic Implications Of The Gut-Cns Axis In Promoting Recovery Following Cervical Spinal Cord Injury, Jessica Wilson Jan 2023

Therapeutic Implications Of The Gut-Cns Axis In Promoting Recovery Following Cervical Spinal Cord Injury, Jessica Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Nearly 60% of all spinal cord injuries (SCI) occur at the cervical level. These high-level injuries can interrupt the descending respiratory pathways required for breathing. Indeed, therapies in animal studies have been successful at restoring breathing after SCI; however, these interventions appear to be more effective at chronic time points. One potential cause for this observation is the impact of the injury on the gut microbiome. Neurotrauma can induce gut dysbiosis, an imbalance of pathogenic and beneficial gut microbiota, which has previously been shown to negatively impact the central nervous system (CNS) and impair recovery. We aimed to build upon …

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Consumers’ Responses To New Technologies In The Marketplace, Umair Usman Jan 2023

Consumers’ Responses To New Technologies In The Marketplace, Umair Usman

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

Chapter 1. This research examines whether the use of blockchain technology to back a brand’s claims (i.e., blockchain augmented claims) influences consumer preference for sustainable products. Consumers are demanding higher levels of transparency from brands and are also showing keen interest in consuming sustainable products, which includes products that promote social, environmental and economic sustainability. Recent advancement in digital technology, specifically blockchain, is offering an opportunity for brands to meet both these consumer demands. In five laboratory studies, I demonstrate that blockchain augmented claims, as compared to traditional industry practices (i.e., use of third-party labels and brand’s self-made claims), increases …

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Sensory Marketing For Consumer Wellbeing, Josh Lundberg Jan 2023

Sensory Marketing For Consumer Wellbeing, Josh Lundberg

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

Chapter 1. Many consumer decisions – from trying a new brand to trying a new recipe – involve some risk. However, although consumers’ appetite for risk has received over fifty years of investigation, the impact of situational variables (e.g., atmospherics) on consumer decision making involving risk remains relatively unexplored. To address this gap, the current work examines the influence of temperature, a ubiquitous situational influence, on consumers’ inclination toward risk. Across four studies, we find evidence for a positive relationship between temperature and risk taking, using multiple manipulations of temperature and measurements of risk. Evidence suggests that this effect is …

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When The Past Comes Knocking: An Alter-Centric Perspective On Network Mobilization In Prosocial Occupations, Jason Ross Jan 2023

When The Past Comes Knocking: An Alter-Centric Perspective On Network Mobilization In Prosocial Occupations, Jason Ross

Theses and Dissertations--Management

Networks are vital to our ability to access resources. However, scholars have often overlooked just how social networks are mobilized. Underexplored in the literature is how individuals think and feel about mobilizing networks with little attention directed towards the person (alter) being reached out to. In this dissertation, I use a basic, interpretive design to better understand how people think and feel about receiving requests for task-related help, paying particular attention to when those requests originate from people from one’s past. To do so, I conducted interviews with 40 animal rescuers given their passion for helping, but their inability to …

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Placing Rural Poverty In The Political Economy: Farm Policy In The American Midwest, Aimee Imlay Jan 2023

Placing Rural Poverty In The Political Economy: Farm Policy In The American Midwest, Aimee Imlay

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Approaches to explaining rural poverty highlight the social, economic, and political processes that contribute to poverty in rural communities, yet the political economy of agriculture has rarely been considered a determinant of rural poverty. Within rural sociology, peasant studies, and rural poverty are distinct subdisciplines; thus, farm and nonfarm poverty are viewed as mutually exclusive. This dissertation uses a three-paper format to: 1) examine the impact of changes to commodity programs on rural poverty rates in the Midwest; 2) investigate the impact of direct payments on rural poverty rates in the Midwest; and 3) explore the linkages between peasant studies, …

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