Digital Commons Network^™

Warriors, Mothers, And Queens: Weighty Women Of Myths And Legends, Betsy Packard

Theses and Dissertations--English

Because traditional stories, myths, and legends have a patriarchal orientation, often portraying women as negative or weak characters, post-modern literary criticism calls for a feminist response. These poems are written in the genre of feminist revisionist mythology. Through the medium of poetry, women in these stories are provided with voices outside of the previously accepted patriarchal framework and challenge the exclusionary theories of Joseph Campbell. The stories are told through a perspective informed by feminist theory.

The Reflective Age: Nostalgia At The End Of History, Zachary Griffith

Theses and Dissertations--English

This project investigates the ways in which nostalgic American media of the last decade reflects the sociopolitical conditions of the end of history. It begins with the assertion that the end of history represents a confounded, contradictory moment in which large-scale political change is relatively scarce, and belief in a progressive future has largely been abandoned, while cultural change has also accelerated at a pace never before seen––spurred on, in particular, by the constant return of dead styles and dormant IP. In other words, it seems as if nothing is changing and everything is changing simultaneously. The recent boom in …

Fantasies Of Race And Place: White Nationalist And Alt-Right Undercurrents In Fantasy Roleplaying Games, Mark Hines

Theses and Dissertations--English

Representations of fantasy settings in roleplaying games often draw upon understandings of the medieval and early Renaissance world. This dynamic often extends to racial politics in such worlds. For the contemporary roleplaying game, this often means that game mechanics are built around race, species, or gender. Often, players interpret such mechanics as a means of bioessentializing race or practicing stereotypes rooted in Eurocentric morality and values.

This thesis examines the underlying rhetoric and implicit stakes by which race in fantasy worlds overlaps with the rhetoric and proposed stakes of White Nationalist and Alt-right actors. As fantasy roleplaying games, and especially …

Fleshcrawl, Shanita Jackson

Theses and Dissertations--English

I am fascinated with the spiritual, physical, and psychological experiences that occur when one’s flesh crawls. The experiences, akin to inverted goosebumps, result from provocations of the senses or of the mind. James Blake’s latest album, for example, triggers my flesh to crawl. The art on the album cover depicts a decaying body turned into a canyon-like labyrinth. In undergrad, attempts to conceptualize slave-deck diagrams disturbed my flesh to crawl. I am intrigued by how anxiety, epigenetics, and superstition all factor into the subjective intensities of this collective experience. As it seems, circumstance heightens the severity and frequency of the …

Investigating The Role Of Chd7 And Sox11 In Retinal Cell Development And The Ocular Complications Of Charge Syndrome, Laura Krueger

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Proper formation of the visual system requires the precise interaction of several embryonic cell lineages, including the neuroectoderm (forms the retina and retinal pigment epithelium), surface ectoderm (forms the lens), mesoderm and cranial neural crest cells (form the ocular blood vessels and anterior ocular structures). When this process is disrupted structural birth defects such as coloboma result, leading to pediatric visual deficits. Ocular developmental defects are often present in larger syndromic disorders. One example is CHARGE syndrome, a genetic disorder characterized by coloboma, heart defects, choanal atresia, growth retardation, genital abnormalities, and ear abnormalities. Pathogenic variants in CHD7 have been …

Metabolic Diversity Among Fibroblasts From Regenerating And Non-Regenerating Mammals, Ebenezer Aryee

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Regeneration is a wound repair process that terminates in the restoration of tissue function and structure. Fibroblasts play pivotal roles in regenerative and fibrotic wound repair. Reports of extensive regenerative ability in mammals have been historically rare, but more recently spiny mice (Acomys) have emerged as a bona fide model of complex tissue regeneration. Recent work has indicated that fibroblasts from regenerators (Acomys and Oryctolagus) are more resistant to reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced senescence compared to non-regenerating species, suggesting the influence of intrinsic cellular states on the fate of wound repair. Determining the basal metabolic signature …

Estrogen Regulation Of Daily Metabolic Rhythms In Female Mice, Oluwabukola Omotola

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Circadian rhythms are approximately 24-hour cycles of behavior, physiology, and gene expression. In mammals, these circadian rhythms are generated by clocks located in nearly every tissue in the body. The function of circadian clocks is to synchronize physiology and behavior with environmental cycles such as the light-dark cycle. After menopause, when circulating levels of estrogens are very low, women are more susceptible to obesity comorbidities such as metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, suggesting that estrogens regulate these processes. Estrogens could protect females from metabolic dysfunction by regulating circadian rhythms. Consumption of diets that are high in fat contribute to obesity. …

The Revised Systematics And Paleoecology Of The Devonian Stemless Crinoid Genus Edriocrinus Hall, 1858, Catherine E. Herbert

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

New morphological observations of Edriocrinus Hall, 1858, enable a modern, holistic view of this unusual crinoid genus, previously included in the Superorder Flexibilia (Zittel, 1895) Wright et al., 2017. Re-analysis of Edriocrinus suggests that the genus should now be assigned to the Order ‘Dendrocrinida’ within the Magnorder Eucladida Wright, 2017 based on the five infrabasals, single radianal in the cup, absent anal sac, and non-pinnulate arms with rectangular uniserial brachials. Moreover, examination of the slight variations separating the current 14 Edriocrinus species indicates that these “species” are likely ecophenotypes. The current Edriocrinus species are revised based on firmly bound calyx …

Tryptophan-Like Fluorescence And Non-Point Source Pollution In Karst Basins, Inner Bluegrass Region, Kentucky, Ryan Dapkus

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Typically, the degree of fecal contamination of water is assessed by the concentration of thermotolerant coliforms, like E. coli. This method is time-consuming, taking > 18 hours between the start of incubation and subsequent enumeration. The current study examines the utility of monitoring tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF) using in-situ fluorometers as a proxy for fecal contamination, particularly E. coli. Relative timing of discharge peaks and TLF peaks is considered, as well as differences in E. coli concentrations and major anion concentrations between two different basins that were monitored weekly. Results indicate that TLF is somewhat useful in the prediction of …

The Role Of Sox4 In Ocular Morphogenesis And Retinal Differentiation, Rebecca Petersen

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Visual impairment ranges from mild forms that can be corrected with glasses to more severe cases that result in permanent loss of vision. Microphthalmia, anophthalmia, and coloboma (collectively referred to as MAC) account for 11% of cases of pediatric blindness and are a result of improper ocular morphogenesis. Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a retinal degenerative disease that affects 1 in 3000 people worldwide. It is a progressive disorder that initially begins with loss of vision in low light settings due to rod photoreceptor degeneration but progresses to complete blindness upon loss of cone photoreceptors. Currently, there is no cure for …

Gender And Remittances: Lived Experiences Of Women In Oaxaca, Mexico, Araby Smyth

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation project analyzes the ways that migration and remittances, the money that migrants send to people in their place of origin, intersect with the political and social dynamics in an Indigenous community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Drawing on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, which included semi-structured interviews and participant observation alongside historical archival investigation, this dissertation examines the following questions: What international organizations, national government, and private sector policies govern remittances? How does Indigenous collective work and communal governance shape remittance management? How do the responsibilities of family members shift with migration and how …

"It's Not Rainbows And Unicorns": Regulated Commodity And Waste Production In The Alberta Oilsands, Hugh Deaner

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines the regulated oilsands mining industry of Alberta, Canada, widely considered the world’s largest surface mining project. The industrial processes of oilsands mining produce well over one million barrels of petroleum commodities daily, plus even larger quantities of airborne and semisolid waste. The project argues for a critical account of production concretized in the co-constitutional relations of obdurate materiality and labor activity within a framework of regulated petro-capitalism. This pursuit requires multiple methods that combine archives, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews to understand workers’ shift-to-shift relations inside the “black box” of regulated oilsands mining production where materiality co-constitutes …

Affective Registers Of Displacement: Eviction And Gentrification In Post-Earthquake Mexico City, Jess Linz

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation contributes to understandings of the affective and emotional register of urban politics by analyzing how affective dynamics influence struggles over displacement in Mexico City amid rapid gentrification and in the wake of the 2017 earthquake. Drawing primarily on feminist and queer/cuir theory and trauma studies, I aim to show the relevance of an often-overlooked dimension of urban political struggles. This dissertation is based on data collected through ethnographic methods over the course of 2018-2021. The primary source of data is long-form semi-structured interviews, supported by participant observation in meetings, protests, and WhatsApp groups. The dissertation studies the following …

Elephants In The Room: Covid-19 Pandemic Political Ecologies Of Tourism In Tanzania, Helen C. Richardson

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The COVID-19 pandemic brought forth unprecedented and ever-changing crisis and disruption to societies and economies around the globe.[1] As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to interrupt travel worldwide, the tourism industry, and the countries who rely on it as a major source of income, are in crisis. These processes have reconfigured economic capital flows and foreign investment in the global south. This is particularly the case in Tanzania, as tourism was Tanzania’s highest foreign exchange earner and accounted for 17% of Tanzania’s gross domestic product in 2019.[2] This project draws upon a political ecology framework to examine the Tanzanian …

Short Story Collection, Kevin Bond

Theses and Dissertations--English

This thesis consists of four pieces of short fiction workshopped as part of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the University of Kentucky. Themes and topics explored include familial dynamics, depictions of childhood and coming of age, solitude, adverse psychological effects of toxic masculinity, natural sphere as sanctuary and source of spiritual renewal, and sense of place.

A Corpus Study Of The Development Of The Adjective Phrase In French Children, Avery Elizabeth Baggett

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

In this thesis I attempt to answer three questions:

H1) Do children use proportionally more prenominal or post-nominal placement of adjectives than adults?

H2) Are children more conservative or more creative in their behavior in alternating prenominal and post-nominal placement of adjectives?

H3) If colored terms are more frequent in child speech will they pattern more like prenominal adjectives or more like post nominal adjectives, as in adult speech?

To do this, I examine two general semantic viewpoints, opting to use Scontras & Goodman (2017) subjectivity hypothesis. Next, I provide a general overview of First Language Acquisition research and then …

Fighting 'Stance': The Role Of Conversational Positioning In League Of Legends (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) Discourse, William Breslove

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

For researchers, the study of video game players - how they behave, interact, and cooperate in a virtual world – presents a challenge: what methodologies are best suited to approaching these interactions? From a sociolinguistic approach, how do gamers converse, and what do these conversations reveal about epistemic, affective, and political relationships? This study uses John DuBois’ Stance Theory (2007) and recent modifications of it (Kiesling 2022), to analyze data gathered from the popular multiplayer online battle-arena (MOBA) game League of Legends. It focuses on in-game interlocutors’ conversation samples to show their positioning, intersubjective alignment, and evaluation of a …

The Role Of Sexual Difference In Plato's Timaeus, Mary Cunningham

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

My dissertation is a reading of Plato’s Timaeus that centers sexual difference and in particular femininity. I analyze the role of sexual difference in the framing of the dialogue as well as its accounts of body in the first and second discourse and its account of health in the third discourse. I argue that sexual difference, and, in particular, sexual reproduction, serves as a guiding paradigm of Timaeus’ entire project. I argue in each part of my dissertation that various aspects of the Timaeus depend on a certain notion of sexual difference—even aspects which are seemingly causally prior to the …

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: An Evaluation Of Secondary Agricultural Textbooks, Tara Elizabeth Rojas

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Students are impacted by representation present within their lives in the media they consume, organizations in which they participate, and school interactions. Among school interactions with primarily White school staff, students interact with textbooks to learn about industry norms and concepts. Missing representation can harm students’ sense of belonging which can lead to feelings like solo-status or isolation. Using both critical race theory and social semiotics, this work explores the representation present within secondary agricultural textbooks. The first study utilizes photos and case studies, observing both gender and race as mutually exclusive variables and compares data to the current public-school …

Membrane Palmitoylated Protein Magu-3 Regulates The C. Elegans Locomotor Circuit Via Modulation Of Cholinergic Activity, Henry Richburg

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Precise coordination of the activity and transmission in excitatory and inhibitory neural circuits is essential for healthy information flow. Synaptic scaffolding proteins play a key role in the regulation of circuit activity through the localization and organization of receptors, channels, and other synaptic machinery to facilitate signal transduction. Using the C. elegans motor circuit which has both cholinergic (excitatory) and GABAergic (inhibitory) inputs onto muscles, we revealed an unexplored role of a family of scaffolding molecules known as membrane palmitoylated proteins (MPPs). Here, we examined magu-3, a C. elegans ortholog within the membrane palmitoylated protein family, using GFP tagging …

Investigating The Effects Of In-Vivo Therapeutics Hypoxia Treatment Paradigms In Neurite Outgrowth Patterns, Jae Hyun Yoo

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Spinal cord injury, specifically in the cervical C3-C4 region of the cervical spine, contributes to impaired breathing and a diminished quality of life. Therefore it is important to find effective and safe therapeutics to restore breathing function. Indeed, there are a myriad of research being performed in addition to valuable collaboration amongst different institutions. As such, inspired by a previous experiment, we decided to test our hypothesis that an enriching environment consisting of different hypoxic environments - sustained and intermittent hypoxia alongside normoxia - would result in neurite outgrowth. Moreover, we hypothesized that sustained hypoxia would result in the greatest …

Mammalian Target Of Rapamycin Cell Signaling Pathway In Phosphatase And Tensin Homolog Induced Kinase 1 Knockout Rat Model Of Familial Parkinson's Disease, Martha Helena Mortell

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

More than 10 million people are living with Parkinson’s disease (PD), one million of which are people in the United States. PD is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder, after Alzheimer’s disease, and is characterized by the accumulation of a-synuclein aggregates and the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. The loss of endogenous dopamine in PD brain accounts for the motor decline presented clinically in PD patients. Etiological factors of PD include oxidative damage and inflammation, although the detailed mechanisms remain unknown. Risk factors for PD include gender, age, environmental factors, and gene mutations.

The current thesis research employed phosphatase and …

Apoe Genotype And Sex Modulate Ketogenic Diet Enhancements To Metabolism And Gut Microbiome In Young Mice, Andrew T. Yackzan

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

The apolipoprotein ε (APOE) allele in humans has been associated with risk for development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There are predominately three variations of the allele – ε2 (E2), ε3 (E3), and ε4 (E4) – with E4 contributing the greatest risk of AD development. Recent research has unveiled evidence of neurometabolic and neurovascular deficits in E4 carriers present decades before the onset of dementia; it is believed these chronic defects play a major role in the development of AD, thus making them a potential target for preventative intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a …

Classification And Effect Of Correctors On Sitosterolemia-Associated Mutants In Abcg8, Brittney Poole

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Objective: To classify mutants of ABCG8 identified in subjects with clinically confirmed Sitosterolemia, a rare form of Familial Hypercholesterolemia distinguished by the accumulation of phytosterols in plasma and tissues and determine the effects of correctors and/or regulators of proteostasis on maturation of the ABCG5/ABCG8 sterol transporter.

Methods: Disease-causing missense mutants within the cytosolic domain of ABCG8 were generated through site-directed mutagenesis. Normal and mutant proteins were expressed in human hepatocytes. Cellular proteins were prepared, and maturation was assessed by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting. Formation of the higher molecular weight, mature form of glycoproteins was used as a bioassay for trafficking the …

Evaluating The Microbiome To Boost Recovery From Stroke: The Embrs Study, Tyler Hammond

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Accumulating evidence suggests that gut microbes modulate brain plasticity via the bidirectional gut-brain axis and may play a role in stroke rehabilitation. A severely imbalanced microbial community has been shown to occur following stroke, causing a systemic flood of neuro- and immunomodulatory substances due to increased gut permeability and decreased gut motility. Here we measure post-stroke increased gut dysbiosis and how it correlates with gut permeability and subsequent cognitive impairment.

We recruited 12 participants with acute stroke, 12 healthy control participants, and 18 participants who had risk factors for stroke, but had not had a stroke. We measured the gut …

Evaluating The Role Of Mmp9 In Hyperhomocysteinemia Induced Cerebrovascular Pathology, Alexandria Linton

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) is one of the leading causes of dementia, along with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and often manifests as a comorbidity of AD. Elevated plasma homocysteine, known as hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy), is a risk factor for VCID; however, the mechanism underlying the connection between HHcy and development of VCID pathology remains elusive. Understanding this mechanism would reveal novel therapeutic targets with the potential to be disease modifying, which are a critical need for a disease that lacks any approved treatment. Previous studies from our lab have strongly associated neuroinflammation and blood brain barrier (BBB) dysregulation …

Peripheral And Central Glucose Flux In Type I Diabetes, Jelena Anna Juras

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder, of which high blood glucose concentration is the primary hallmark. Type I diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is characterized by the lack of insulin production, due to a poorly understood autoinflammatory cascade. In the words of historian Barnett “Diabetes may no longer be a death sentence, but for more and more people in the 21st century, it will become a life sentence”, making it the focal point of many research groups. It is estimated that around 20 million individuals worldwide live with T1DM.

Effects of long-term chronically elevated blood glucose are not only seen in micro/macro-vascular …

Interleukin-1 Receptor 1 Signaling In Mild Tbi: Do Endothelial Cells Play A Major Role?, Colleen N. Bodnar

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Across the world, over 69 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) per year making TBI a major health concern worldwide. Of all the TBIs that occur each year, it is suggested that up to 90 percent are mild in nature. Even a mild TBI causes both physical damages to the cells of the brain and activation of a variety of biochemical cascades. Inflammation is an extremely common pathology seen in the brains of TBI survivors of all severities. Chronic inflammation can cause detrimental effects within the brain including neurodegeneration. A major pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-1 (IL-1), is upregulated within …

Conceptualizing Attorney Motivation: A Study Of The Representatives For Parents And Children In The Child Welfare System, Shannon Moody

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

Background. Attorneys who represent parents and children in dependency, neglect, and abuse (DNA) proceedings are key in influencing the outcomes of the cases they carry. These influences include the length of time a child spends in the custody of the state or the necessity for foster care, visitation with family members, length of time to reunification, and recommended services for the child and parents (Courtney & Hook, 2012; Goldman, 1993; Thornton & Gwin, 2012; Zinn & Peters, 2015). The American Bar Association’s analysis is that there are “four constants: high caseloads, low compensation, inadequate training, and lack of supervision” …

Building Tools For Improved Modulation Of The Human Gabaa Receptor, A Central Nervous System Target For The Treatment Of Anxiety, Garrett Edward Zinck

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

In the U.S., anxiety is recognized as an increasing range of mentally and physically debilitating psychiatric health disorders with significant economic repercussions. Over the last 20 years, several novel anti-anxiety therapies have entered the drug development pipeline, but none have made it to market.

The work in this dissertation focused on structurally modifying valerenic acid (VA), a structurally unique carboxylated sesquiterpene acid found in Valeriana officinalis. VA is putatively reported to have allosteric modulatory activity of the human GABA_A receptor, a ligand-gated ion channel responsible for attenuating neurotransmissions. Structural modeling of VA’s GABA_A receptor interaction suggests that …