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Peptides And Metalloproteins: Evolution, Catalysis And Material Design, Dona Imanga Upamadi Edirisinghe

Dissertations - ALL

Peptide hydrogels are an important class of biomaterials that have gained significant attention in recent years. The stimuli responsive materials change their properties in response to pH, redox, temperature and enzymes and this property allowed us to design the materials with tunable properties based on their end application. This dissertation reports the de novo design, synthesis and characterization of short chain peptide sequences and optimizations of those in order to develop them into potential candidates in wound care and drug delivery applications. The investigation of these novel peptide sequences will open up new possibilities to tailor the properties through simple …

Re-Indigenizing And Collaboratively Tending Urban Greenspaces, Divinity Nnenne Adewale

University Honors Theses

This work details the active process of land tending with the intention of re-Indigenization in the Pacific Northwest at several Portland sites; The Native American Student Community Center, PSU Oak Savanna, and the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. Land tending is an intuitive process, one rooted in love and respect for life of all forms as well as becoming the perpetual student; land tending is not a skill to be mastered, only practiced. Unlike environmental management, tending cannot be done separate from the earth, in a classroom or otherwise. Connections are what tending is built on top of: the foundation; effort …

Cmsi Translations #11: Mid-Life Overhaul And Upgrade Of The Type 052c Guided Missile Destroyer, Ju Lang

CMSI Translations

The construction of the Type 052C guided missile destroyer took a long time, and it was experimental in the sense of "taking small steps for rapid progress" (xiao bu kuai pao). In fact, it was also the engineering prototype of the standard fleet destroyer Type 052D. The first and second Type 052C ships were launched in April and October 2003, respectively. They were the most advanced guided missile destroyers of the PLAN at that time, but the subsequent four ships of the same type were launched in October 2010, July 2011, and January and July 2012, respectively.

Rethinking Total Body Wellness: Physical, Financial, Spiritual, Mental, Social, And Nutritional Health In Adults For Graceful Aging, Pierre Devoseur Elzie

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This phenomenological study aims to describe the lived experiences of participants’ graceful aging journey in West Tennessee, USA. This study is grounded in wellness theories such as Wellness and Lifespan Development, drawing on insights from theorists like Halbert Dunn, Bill Hettler, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erickson (globalwellnessinstitute.org, 2022; Kornadt et al., 2020; Meyers & Sweeney, 2007). Notably, their work is instrumental in understanding how health encompasses more than nutrition and exercise alone and involves a connection within the community (Clark, 2015; Meyers & Sweeney, 2007). The data for this research will be gathered from fifteen questions during the semi-structured interviews …

Eve And Her Feminist Descendants: The Power And Agency Of Serpentine Women In Art, Literature, And Popular Culture, Emma Sandra Shanley

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

The Other War: The Evolution Of United States Psychological Warfare In The Vietnam War From 14 May 1965 To 11 September 1966, Brandon J. Libro

Masters Theses

The creation of the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) on 14 May 1965 revitalized the psychological warfare (PSYWAR) campaign in Vietnam after decades of post-World War II drawdown and initiated a more targeted and efficient employment of psychological operations (PSYOP) throughout the American war effort. To understand the evolution of Vietnam-era PSYOP, it is imperative to explore the United States military’s implementation of PSYWAR and analyze how it changed throughout the conflict. The challenges the United States faced conducting the “other war” in Vietnam were evident from the start of its involvement in Vietnam, and the PSYWAR effort, …

Son Of A Preacher Man: There Is Something Beautiful Waiting To Be Born Within You, Georgia Peddie

Masters Theses

In moments where we feel that there is nowhere to go, to turn…in the aftermath of a personal storm, there is One who is always there. Open your heart to discover, dare to surrender…

Are second chances meant for everyone?

A woman who has lost her only son, lost her marriage…

A man who lost a best friend and then his father…

A God of second chances introduces the two

A story of grief and love…

A story of letting God in to move forward…

Son of a Preacher Man is a love story exploring loss, love, and surrender.

Set …

The Coalition Development Of Allied Close Air Support Doctrine During World War Ii, David S. Stieghan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research aims to discover how the American and British air forces worked collaboratively to provide ground support to their armies in Europe during World War II. While the official histories and scholars of the two countries concentrate on their unique national efforts, they analyze little of their cooperative efforts. By examining primary and secondary research sources to discover the experiments, doctrine development, and combat experience of both air forces, an understanding emerges that both nations combined their efforts in World War II in separate directions until beginning to work together on planning for the D-Day invasion.

By discovering the …

The Power And Purpose Of Intercessory Prayer: Equipping And Educating The Leaders Of Divine Providence Ministries Through An Intercessory Prayer Course, Tammanica S. Muse

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Intercessory prayer is a selfless act where believers pray to God on behalf of others, asking for His intervention. This type of prayer is a vital part of Christian life rooted in the example of Jesus, who intercedes between God and humanity. Jesus models the role of intercessor, reconciling mankind to God through His sacrifice. Believers are called to follow this example and pray for others regularly. This DMin research project examines the issue of leaders lacking a comprehensive understanding of prayer's purpose, power, and connection to intimacy with God. It also investigates why some leaders abandon prayer when faced …

A Study Of Thomas Oord’S Open Theism And Theodicy, Olaoluwa Apata

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Open theism’s opposition to the traditional Christian view and its rejection of the classical definitions of God’s attributes, character, and divine impassibility continually creates a point of contention between the two worldviews. As one of the leading voices in this movement, Thomas Oord offers what can be described as a refined argument in support of Open theism in contemporary theological and philosophical studies. His open theism holds that due to God’s kenotic act and uncontrolling love, his ability to know the future is limited and he cannot prevent evil. Oord introduces his version of open theism with the goal of …

"In But Not Of": John's Theology Of Separation From The World, David E. Forbes

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

John’s theology of separation from the world is an underdeveloped aspect of the perennial question of the believer’s relationship to the world. John’s view of separation leads believers to prioritize living a holy life that is influenced by an inherent distrust in the world. This perspective argues against a common assumed neutrality of the culture of the world. While the root idea of the κόσμος is “order,” John expresses that idea of order by describing the world as the kingdom of Satan. This kingdom is composed of people and their values as a unified entity that is in opposition to …

Integrating Criminological Theories In Cybersecurity Risk Assessment: A Study Of The Traci Framework's Application To Critical Infrastructure, Connor S. Martin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation explores the application of the Taxonomy for Risk Assessment of Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure (TRACI) framework, a tool designed to systematically evaluate cybersecurity threats against critical infrastructure. TRACI integrates principles from Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories to provide a detailed and comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity risks. This integration facilitates an in-depth analysis not only of how cyberattacks occur but also of the underlying reasons they are initiated, by categorizing and assessing risks based on factors such as attacker motivations and systemic vulnerabilities. By employing ANOVA to assess variations in risk assessment scores across TRACI's designated categories—Assets, Risk …

Chaotic Waters And Well-Tempered Specters: The Philippnes As Source Of Overseas Labor, Joel David

Kritika Kultura

The precolonial territory that became the Philippines was a participant in maritime Asian politics and warfare that made the Southeast Asian region appear unstable and undefined to newly arrived Western observers. In truth, regional network-building amid labor shortages was a constant concern of the various peoples, with their interdependent arrangements occasionally readjusted because of piratical raids conducted by more capable or determined centers in order to increase their working populations. The Western occupation forces (themselves also subject to limitations in their number) sought to stabilize the communities they subjugated in order to more effectively bankroll their colonial projects, an arrangement …

Mobility Necropolitics And Harmless Islanders, Jinhyoung Lee

Kritika Kultura

This article critically discusses the wartime mobilization policies implemented by the Japanese Empire on the Korean peninsula during the Pacific War (1941-1945) in terms of mobility necropolitics, a framework that combines mobility studies and Achile Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics. In particular, by examining the lives of the Korean islanders on the imaginary Julan island in Kim Sa-ryang’s novel Bada-ui Norae [Songs of the Sea] (1943-1944) through Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of “harmless” and “desubjectivation,” this paper seeks to excavate a postcolonial moment in colonial Korea. In the “death worlds” of the dead and those who will die on the battlefields, “harmless …

The Forest As Sight, The Forest As Narration: Alvin Yapan's Sandali Ng Mga Mata, Glenn Diaz

Kritika Kultura

Fredric Jameson argues that the passage from monopoly to late capitalism or globalization has resulted in a “bewildering new world space” marked by a “weakening of historicity,” if not the outright “suppression of history.” As a result, this dizzying, dehistoricized totality has become unrepresentable. If this foreclosure is premised on the capture of social life by the “interpenetration of government and big business” under late capitalism, this paper argues that the forest, as a historically and narratively illegible space, may offer an escape. Drawing on a Marxist tradition of ecocriticism, in particular Robert Spencer’s work on “forest literature,” and notions …

Cry For Me, Argentina!: Taiwanese Soap Opera Diplomacy In Latin America, Adam Lifshey

Kritika Kultura

This essay examines the intersections of Taiwanese soap operas and foreign policy in Latin America, the one area of the world where Taiwan has retained some degree of formal diplomatic recognition despite the pressures of China. Yet has the decline in official Taiwanese power even in this region been compensated by a new kind of cultural power? The distribution of Taiwanese soap operas dubbed into Spanish from the mid-2010s to the early 2020s marks the first time that Taiwan tried to cultivate favor among Latin American publics at large. This was an explicitly diplomatic maneuver. But was it perceived as …

Transhistorical Connectivities Around The Indian Ocean: Western Colonialism And Climate Change In Amtav Ghosh's The Nutmeg's Curse, Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru

Kritika Kultura

This article argues that Amitav Ghosh’s non-fiction book The Nutmeg’s Curse illustrates the ways in which the proto-global entanglement of chaotic colonial forces, which proliferates across space and time, has played an important part in the current climate change. Ghosh imagines the Indian Ocean as a melting pot of rhizomatic energies of imperial aggression and local resistance, but also of new emerging life, with the agency of nature playing a very important part in the latter. I aim to show this in a combined Deleuzian, postcolonial, and ecocritical reading, with elements of chaos theory meant to provide possible interpretations to …

Righting In The Novel Form: Memories Of The State Of Exception And Non-Juridical Rights In Ruth Firmeza's Gera, José Duke Bagulaya

Kritika Kultura

This monograph1 explores the relationship between human rights and literature through a reading of Ruth Firmeza’s novel Gera [War], which depicts the early years of the world’s longest non-international armed conflict: the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The monograph reads Gera as a literary representation of the state of exception and its corollary, righting—the people’s resistance under such juridical order. Through its discontinuous and episodic narrative consisting of short memories of the martial law years in the Philippines, the novel recalls the chaotic world of the state of exception. This is a world where law and time are suspended, rights …

Assertions Of Truth Through Modes Of Fact And Fiction: Texts, Paratexts, And The "Autobiographical Pact" In Lualhati Abreu's Agaw-Dilim, Agaw-Liwanag And Mila Aguilar's The Nine Deaths Of M, Mary Grace R. Concepcion

Kritika Kultura

Autobiographical narratives may resemble fictional narratives in textual form. Yet, autobiography differentiates itself from other literary genres through its truth-telling function. Autobiographies may be controversial as they expose contested historical events and reveal the private life of the author, who is established as the narrator. This paper examines the assertions of truth through modes of fact and fiction in Lualhati M. Abreu’s Agaw-dilim, Agaw-liwanag (2009) and Mila D. Aguilar’s The Nine Deaths of M (2013). They address sensitive events within the Philippine Left. Abreu recounts her own torture during the communist killings in Southern Tagalog under the Oplan Missing Link. …

The Ecological Terrain Of Class War In The Cadre Poetry Of Mayamor / Maya Daniel / Roger Felix Salditos, Jose Monfred C. Sy

Kritika Kultura

In his cultural criticism, Edel Garcellano protests that literature is a politically partisan act in a “terrain of class war.” Cadre writings from “liberated” or “red” zones, Garcellano writes, demonstrate a clear partisanship with the peasants, workers, and other participants of the liberation struggle waged by the National Democratic movement in the Philippines. His commentary on the ideologization of writers invites us to investigate works produced in the context of the protracted people’s war to better understand the so-called “liberated consciousness” of cadre writers. Mobilizing Garcellano’s interpretive model of partisan symmetry between author and text, this paper critiques poems written …

The Place Of Literary Criticism In The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Praxis Of The Philippine National Democratic Movement, Lance Espejo

Kritika Kultura

For Marx, “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force” (“A Contribution To The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”). Marx also says, “theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” It is this materialization of critical thought as theory which this paper expounds on. Marx says that this materialization happens in man himself, hence theory—or thought—is embodied. This paper, first, strives to expose the underlying class struggle which helps shape the discourse, which in this case, is literary criticism. Second, it …

Reclaiming The Indigenous Body: Discourse, Social Media, And The Aesthetic Of Igorot Activism, Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias

Kritika Kultura

This essay analyzes online activist media addressing the red-tagging and trumped-up criminal charges against members of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in the wake of the Anti-Terror Law in 2020. Engaging with critical scholarship on the archiving, colonial discourse, and representation of the Igorot body, I argue that these online activist media published on the organization’s official Facebook account deploy strategic essentialism by subverting the colonially othered and criminalized marker of the savage-terrorist. The Igorot body is rendered as a quasi-heroic figure of the Igorot warrior who invokes and appropriates traditional bodily customs on warfare and gender relations to embody a …

Models Of Revolutionary Action: The Kasama In Ang Bayan During The Anti-Dictatorship Struggle (1982-1985), Karlo Mikhail I. Mongaya

Kritika Kultura

This article discusses the concept of the kasama, or comrade, as articulated in Ang Bayan, the central organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), in the years 1982 to 1985. Critically reading Ang Bayan articles and related archival material, I look into the concrete articulation of comradeship in the Philippine experience during the height of the anti-dictatorship struggle against the Marcos dictatorship. I underscore the way kasama becomes fully intelligible as a collective subjectivity among those engaged in revolutionary struggle in juxtaposition to the figures of the masses, allies, and enemies of the people. I contemplate how this …

Brain Text In Graphic Form: Ethical Identity And Ethical Choices In David Small's Stitches, Yun Lan

Kritika Kultura

In the conceptual system of ethical literary criticism, “brain text” mainly accounts for literary production, reception, and circulation in connection with the moral dimension of literature. This paper1 attempts to broaden the application of brain text as well as ethical literary criticism through a detailed analysis of David Small’s graphic memoir Stitches. Comparing the life stories of David and his mother, we may find striking similarities: both fall victim to mental and physical violence inflicted by their family at a young age; however, their lives meet different ends. David eventually sets out on a promising journey towards becoming a writer …

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Teenager: Ethical Literary Criticism And David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, Jiayi Chen

Kritika Kultura

Inspired by ethical literary criticism, this article1 attempts to bring to critical attention the ethical dimensions of Mitchell’s war writing in Black Swan Green. By analyzing the way in which Jason’s brain text in relation to war formulates and develops, this article tries to throw light on Mitchell’s strategy of approaching and reconsidering the causes and consequences of war from the perspective of a teenager. It is argued that Mitchell has exploited diverse expressive resources—the art of the fragmentary, for example—to break new ground for rethinking the wars that fade into history. Instead of portraying violent scenes where bloody battles …

A Tropical Traumaturgy: Rereading The Folk In "May Bagyo Ma't May Rilim", Christian Jil R. Benitez

Kritika Kultura

As a counterpoint to the foremost understanding of the poem dubbed as “May Bagyo Ma’t May Rilim” (lit. “There may be storm and dark”) (1605) as an articulation of an unnamed native’s submission to Catholicism, as well as a testament to their then unwavering faith, the present essay attempts to reconsider the poem through a comparative reading alongside folk poetry wagered to have come from earlier times. In other words, the poem is reread through a temporal realignment of it in the conventional periodization of Philippine (literary) history, moving it from its frequent grouping among texts from (early) Spanish colonization …

Playwright As Guerilla Warlord: Robert Serumaga's Art, Activism, Revolt, And A Performance Of Uganda's Political Deficits, Niyi Akingbe

Kritika Kultura

This paper outlines the maturation of Robert Serumaga’s art, politics, and activism as he confronted the dilemma of totalitarianism unleashed by Idi Amin’s dictatorship on postcolonial Uganda. The paper establishes a direct link between literature, resistance, and performance of Uganda’s political failure within the context of the playwright’s individualistic disposition to art as his complicated inclination to revolt. Most obviously, the association between art and politics in Serumaga’s lifestyle is embedded in his undeniable prosecution of rebellion through guerilla warfare against Amin in 1979. The striking tenets of reactance and resistance theories are appropriated to contextualize the struggle, resistance, and …

"Don't Be Sorry. We Didn't Do This.": Narrating Diaspora And Problematizing Choice In V.V. Ganeshananthan's Love Marriage, Isabel Alonso-Breto

Kritika Kultura

Second Generation, Politics of Choice, Tamil, Tamil-Canadian, Sri Lankan Conflict

Enmeshing Class, Gender, And Ethnicity Of "Family" In Selected Fiction By Women Writers, Sri Mulyani

Kritika Kultura

In a Marxist framework, class struggle is prioritized while gender struggle is only secondary. This debate on class over gender priority and vice versa has dominated Anglo-American critical scholarship. Meanwhile, in Asia, Mao Zedong claims that China’s Cultural Revolution has freed women from both class and Confucian patriarchal domination. His claim, however, is far from the truth since Chinese women still have to fight for their equality. Likewise, there are still ongoing struggles for women’s rights and equality in today’s Western societies. This article argues that various revolutionary social changes in Eastern or Western contexts imply a hierarchical relation where …

Historical Dialogues, Collective Memory Work, And The (Dis)Continuation Of Conflicts, Sara Dybris Mcquaid, Henrik Sonne Petersen, Johnston Price

Kritika Kultura

This article is at once about historical dialogues and itself a dialogue: In an effort to discuss historical dialogues in the intersection between the academic field of memory studies and the practical field of peace-building, the article offers a semi-structured conversation between an academic and two practitioners. It is on the one hand an exploratory dialogue aimed at identifying and observing potential entry points for analysis and practice in conflict transformations, whilst on the other a discussion of how historical dialogues themselves are framed as open and exploratory or principled and tied to preconditions. The first conversation is between an …