Digital Commons Network^™

White Snake:A Representative Story Of The West Lake, Zhiying Chen

Theses - ALL

As one of the Four Classic Folktales of China, The Legend of the White Snake, which happened in Hangzhou, is a representative folktale of Chinese culture. The story has been developed for thousands of years and we see it as a reflection of Chinese history and culture.

The first part of the thesis is going to trace the development of this story back to its origin and analyze the changes in the content of each story version of The Legend of the White Snake with respect to its cultural, religious, and social backgrounds. Secondly, it will focus on contemporary writer …

The Heartman: The Impact Of Its Evolution On The Barbadian Cultural Landscape, Kelsia Kellman

Theses - ALL

The Heartman: The Impact of its Evolution on the Barbadian Cultural Landscape, examines the impact of cultural evolution on the Barbadian cultural landscape, using the folkloric belief of the Heartman as the point of focus. This thesis seeks through the analysis of newspaper articles, novels, graphic novels, short stories, and informal interviews to provide the historical and cultural backgrounds of Barbados, and to provide insight into the evolution that has taken place within society and how it is reflected within the minds of the Barbadian populace. In other words, how has the evolution of the Heartman affected the ways in …

Spanning The Auditory System: Subcortical And Cortical Auditory Processing Of Speech Sounds In Autistic And Typically Developing Children, Erin Stephanie Misato Matsuba

Theses - ALL

Autistic individuals often report atypical sensory processing, particularly in the auditory domain. However, the neural mechanisms that produce such symptoms are poorly understood. The Speech Auditory Brainstem Response (speech-ABR) and the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) are neurophysiological measures that capture different levels of auditory processing, such that the speech-ABR reflects processing at the subcortical level and the MMN measures cortical processing. The present study integrated both techniques in a multimethod approach, which spans both subcortical and cortical processing of speech sounds in a group of autistic children (n = 11) matched on chronological age and non-verbal IQ to their typically developing …

Between Homeland And Hostland: Imagining Diasporic Indigeneity With The Center For Babaylan Studies, Elizabeth Rae Herrick

Theses - ALL

This thesis proposes "diasporic indigeneity" as a new heuristic tool for Religious Studies to capture how diasporic subjects evoke indigeneity through processes of religious/spiritual (re)indigenization. By reconnecting to lost homeland heritages while learning new hostland responsibilities, diasporic indigeneity begins to articulate how diasporic people can "belong to place(s)." Through textual analysis and ethnographic methods, the Center for Babaylan Studies (CfBS) serves as my case study. They represent an organization for Filipinx-Americans who grapple with colonial mentality from the historical colonization of the Philippines and their imbrication in ongoing Turtle Island settler colonialism. To heal from these intergenerational wounds, the CfBS …

Searching For The Good Vibes: Examining The Relationship Between Self-Transcendent Social Media And Social Isolation, David P. Peters

Theses - ALL

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health and well-being have been a serious concern for researchers. Studies have shown that social isolation brought on by lockdowns and social distancing have led to increased feelings of loneliness and disconnectedness (Giallonardo et al., 2020; Pancani et al., 2021). Researchers have also discovered that self-transcendent media and eudaimonic media experiences generate positive feelings of inspiration, relatedness, awe, and connectedness (Oliver et al., 2019). The purpose of this mixed methods study is to explore the relationship between self-transcendent social media video consumption and feelings of loneliness and social disconnectedness attributed to social …

Fear Of Failure, Mindfulness, And Procrastination, Jose M. Parlade

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Procrastination is a complex behavior with often negative consequences. Prior studies have found a positive correlation between procrastination and various negative emotional states, such as fear of failure. Conversely, specific mindfulness techniques, have been negatively associated with procrastination in prior research. The current study set out to examine the correlations of fear of failure and procrastination as well as those of mindfulness and procrastination. A sample of university students (n=310) were assessed using three scales: the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI), the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS), and the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS). Results indicated a significant positive correlation …

Saint Jude's, May 15, 2022

Saint Jude's

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Waltham, MA

Saint Jude's Finding Aid

Aerodynamics And Turbulent Wake-Flow Characteristics Of Owls During Flapping Flight, Krishnamoorthy Krishnan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Owls exhibit unique flight capabilities in the low Reynolds number flow regime which is prone to complex viscous flow phenomena. They possess unique feather features and flexible wing structures which are postulated to help them fly nearly silently and stably at low speeds in a complex flow setting. Understanding the aerodynamics of owls could pave the way to enhance the future designs of small flying vehicles. Though it has been a focus of research over multiple decades, no conclusive agreement has been attained on the aerodynamic mechanisms associated with owl flight. Particularly, the aerodynamics of flapping owl flight is severely …

Loggerhead Shrike Detectability And Occurrence In Coastal South Carolina Urban Areas, Michelle Krauser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Grassland birds, such as the loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus), are threatened by extensive land-use change, including urbanization. Loggerhead shrikes have been declining since the early 1900s and are rare or extirpated in portions of their former range. Obtaining reliable population estimates of loggerhead shrikes is important to identify demographic trends and ensure conservation decisions are based on an accurate assessment of their current status. Imperfect detection, or the inability to detect every shrike during a survey, can result in biased population estimates. Estimating detection probability is labor-intensive and requires assumptions that are difficult to satisfy in most field studies. Understanding …

Partial Automation Of Data Analysis In A Z Prime Boson Search, Ethan Colbert

Undergraduate Theses

Analysis of data from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC has been a research focus in the Department of Physics at Bellarmine University (BU). At BU, analysis has largely been focused on Z boson decays and searching for evidence of a Z’ (Z Prime) boson. The data are stored in the form of .xml files, with one file representing one collision event inside the ATLAS detector. Previous analyses have been conducted on an event-by-event basis, using the Hypatia software package. While this allows for high-quality visualization and effective event analysis, it is highly time-consuming. I propose and implement a piece …

The Nature Of Phenotypes: Provoking And Measuring The Dynamic Processes Of Swarm Expansion, Predation, And Antibiotic Resistance In Myxococcus Xanthus, Linnea Judith Ritchie

Dissertations - ALL

The question of how genotype affects phenotype has fascinated and puzzled scientists for generations. Regardless of organism, the correlation between observation and underlying condition is necessary for scientists to understand the world around us. Myxococcus xanthus, a fascinating organism with a large genome (7,314 genes), is known for complex social behaviors and is an excellent model system for the study of this relationship. Upon starvation, M. xanthus cells condense into large multicellular aggregates to await renewed nutrient availability. M. xanthus cells swarm together on surfaces as a predatory biofilm, lysing and killing prey as a singular unit. During predation, swarms …

Understanding And Hardening Blockchain Network Security Against Denial Of Service Attacks, Kai Li

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis aims to examine the security of a blockchain's communication network. A blockchain relies on a communication network to deliver transactions. Understanding and hardening the security of the communication network against Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks are thus critical to the well-being of blockchain participants. Existing research has examined blockchain system security in various system components, including mining incentives, consensus protocols, and applications such as smart contracts. However, the security of a blockchain's communication network remains understudied.

In practice, a blockchain's communication network typically consists of three services: RPC service, P2P network, and mempool. This thesis examines each service's designs and …

Learning-Based Decision Making In Wireless Communications, Chen Zhong

Dissertations - ALL

Fueled by emerging applications and exponential increase in data traffic, wireless networks have recently grown significantly and become more complex. In such large-scale complex wireless networks, it is challenging and, oftentimes, infeasible for conventional optimization methods to quickly solve critical decision-making problems. With this motivation, in this thesis, machine learning methods are developed and utilized for obtaining optimal/near-optimal solutions for timely decision making in wireless networks.

Content caching at the edge nodes is a promising technique to reduce the data traffic in next-generation wireless networks. In this context, we in the first part of the thesis study content caching at …

Atomistic Investigation Of Nucleosomal H3 Histone Tail In Unmodified And Epigenetically Modified States, Kathryn Piston

Dissertations - ALL

Epigenetics is a growing area of research that could potentially unlock the understanding of questions like how and why we develop certain diseases, how we age, how we inherit certain traits and even how our species evolves. Epi is a prefix meaning above, referring to chemical tags that sit above your genetics and dictate gene expression. Although there are many known links between certain epigenetic tags and diseases like cancer, the molecular mechanisms behind these links remains elusive. Gaining a novel understanding of the behavior of key biological targets for cancer like the histone H3 tail motivated this work. Histone …

An Exploration Of Self-Identity Experiences Within The Lives Of Afro-Caribbean Women Undergraduate College Students: A Feminist Phenomenological Study, Shana J. Gelin

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this feminist phenomenological dissertation was to explore the self-identity experiences of Afro-Caribbean women undergraduate college students. In doing so, self-identity experiences, ethnic marginalization, and counseling experiences were explored for six participants. Data was collected and analyzed using Simone De Beauvoir's feminist framework of self-discovery/ rediscovery where two semi-structured interviews were conducted for each participant. This study resulted in six individual profiles illuminating the voices of each participant as well as collective themes. Findings from this study show that Afro-Caribbean women undergraduate college students filter their self-identity experiences through their ethnicity; meaning that participants understand other pieces of …

Toward Extended Situational Crisis Communication Theory: Include Visuals, Prior Performance, And Framing Devices, Mohammad Ali

Dissertations - ALL

Human brains are inherently capable of receiving and processing visual messages faster than written text messages. The recent proliferation of internet use, social media platforms, smartphones, and online news media sites facilitated the spread of visual content (e.g., pictures, videos, and data visualizations) online much higher than before. However, visual contents have been largely ignored in crisis communication research, leaving the crisis managers to devise strategic crisis responses and deal with a crisis without sufficient research evidence. Responding to a recent research call to fill the gap, this dissertation conducts a 2 (picture: action vs. damage) × 3 (distinctiveness: high …

Enhancing Grid Reliability With Phasor Measurement Units, Rui Ma

Dissertations - ALL

Over the last decades, great efforts and investments have been made to increase the integration level of renewable energy resources in power grids. The New York State has set the goal to achieve 70% renewable generations by 2030, and realize carbon neutrality by 2040 eventually. However, the increased level of uncertainty brought about by renewables makes it more challenging to maintain stable and robust power grid operation. In addition to renewable energy resources, the ever-increasing number of electric vehicles and active loads have further increased the uncertainties in power systems. All these factors challenge the way the power grids are …

Matrix Factorizations With More Than Two Factors, Tim Tribone

Dissertations - ALL

Let $S$ be a regular local ring and $f$ a non-zero non-invertible element of $S$. In this thesis, we study the notion of a matrix factorization of $f$ with $d\ge 2$ factors, that is, we consider tuples of square matrices $(\phi_1,\phi_2,\dots,\phi_d)$, with entries in $S$, such that their product is $f$ times an identity matrix of the appropriate size. These objects have been studied thoroughly in the case $d=2$ and were originally introduced by Eisenbud in his study of free resolutions of modules over hypersurface rings. Many of the results given in this thesis are extensions of well-known results in …

Metaphysical Coherentism, Jan Swiderski

Dissertations - ALL

I defend metaphysical coherentism, according to which reality is an interdependent network, system, or web, held together by a relation philosophers call "metaphysical explanation" or "grounding". If coherentism is true, nothing is ungrounded, things ground each other, and understanding what it is to be any given thing – a tree, a house, or a person – is grasping how it fits in: how it grounds and is grounded by its environment.

Coherentism is inconsistent with a widely-accepted, orthodox view of grounding, according to which certain fundamental facts about reality asymmetrically determine everything else. In Chapter 1, I argue that this …

Fairness In Social Networks, Zeinab Saghati Jalali

Dissertations - ALL

In professional and other social settings, networks play an important role in people's lives. The communication between individuals and their positions in the network, may have a large impact on many aspects of their lives.In this work, I evaluate fairness from different perspectives.First,tomeasurefairnessfromgroupperspective,Iproposethenovelinformation unfairness criterion, which measures whether information spreads fairly to different groups in a network. Using this criterion, I perform a case study and measure fairness in information flow in different computer science co-authorship networks with respect to gender. Then, I consider two applications and show how to increase fairness with respect to a fairness metric. The first …

Mental Health Service Use Disparities Among Latinx Communities: An Intersectional Examination Of The Role Of Skin Color, Acculturative Stress, Racial Discrimination, And Mental Health Literacy, Kirsis Allennys Dipre Montes De Oca

Dissertations - ALL

This study utilized logistic and hierarchical regression to examine the impact of skin color, acculturative stress, mental health literacy, and experiences of racial discrimination on the lifetime use of mental health services through an intersectional lens. More specifically, the current study examined the Latinx ethnic identity, US-born status, across the skin color spectrum to better understand mental health service use disparities. Participants' (n = 173) mental health service use was measured at two levels, first, the overall number of hours of sessions attended and second overall hours of sessions of specific types of mental health services attended. Results indicated skin …

Receiving A Queen: A Queer And Trans Feminist Classical Reception Rhetorical Historiography Of Elagabalus, Thomas William Passwater

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies representations of Elagabalus, the sovereign of Rome who ruled between 218–222ce, after her assassination to examine how depictions and historical accounts of Elagabalus's life make rhetorical decisions about Elagabalus's identity and being that can foreground the composer's relationship to history and the function of history as a rhetorical force. Thus, this project, through studying Elagabalus's composers, raises questions about the nature of figure studies and history. The project draws on trans, queer, and feminist theories and rhetorics which help highlight the contingent and conflicting nature of Elagabalus's identities across representations without settling them into a singular narrative …

Three Essays On Partial Identification For Applied Health Economics, Giuseppe Germinario

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation consists of three chapters which explore the usefulness of partial identification methods for estimating treatment effects in applied health economics research. Each one applies the methodology to different settings in which establishing causality has traditionally been difficult, and seeks to demonstrate when a bounding approach can—and cannot—aid researchers in learning about causal relationships.The first chapter studies the Housing Choice Voucher program in the United States and estimates bounds on the effect that receiving this form of housing assistance has on self-reported health status and the likelihood of hospitalization within the eligible population of renters. The second chapter aims …

Synthesis, Characterization And Cellular Uptake Of Magnesium Complexes Of Pyrones And Amino Acids, Derek Robert Case

Dissertations - ALL

This thesis focuses on the treatment of micronutrient deficiency, specifically hypomagnesemia, through the synthesis and solution- and solid-state characterization of "pharma grade", biorelevant magnesium complexes (nutraceuticals) utilizing short-chain peptides (di- and tri-), pyrones, and amino acids. There is further emphasis placed on determining the in vitro uptake of all produced complexes. This work aims to mitigate the shortcomings of current magnesium supplements and better illustrate an understanding of the factors impacting magnesium uptake. Specifically, 1) There is a paucity of information regarding the coordination of biorelevant ligands to magnesium, most of which was investigated between the 1950s and 1980s, and …

Fragmented Landscapes: An Archaeology Of Transformations In The Pra River Basin, Southern Ghana, Sean Hamilton Reid

Dissertations - ALL

This doctoral archaeological research examines the Pra River Basin in southern Ghana through lenses of landscape, temporality, and transformation. Drawing on the Annales school and the writings of Tim Ingold, this study moves away from binary constructions of natural and cultural landscape features toward a more integrated view of the landscape's long human history. The primary temporal focus of this research is the past three millennia but evidence recovered of even more ancient eras is also examined. The artifacts and features documented while surveying this landscape allow us to glimpse pre-Atlantic (pre-1450 CE) settlement patterns, subsistence, and technology, as well …

The Problem Of The "Virtual": Virtual Reality, Digital Dualism, And Religious Experience, Jordan Brady Loewen

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation uses resources from religious studies to critique the problem of digital dualism haunting notions of the "virtual" in the discourse of contemporary virtual reality technologies (VR). Digital dualism is the idea that digital or "virtual" worlds are fundamentally distinct from the "real" or physical world. Digital dualism is a problem because it mischaracterizes how we experience the spatial and temporal connections to our body in digital-virtual worlds and contributes to a false sense of subjective singularity rather than multiplicity that destabilizes how we relate to ourselves and others. Using the study of religion, philosophy, and aesthetics, we can …

Chem 244-141: Organic Chemistry Ii, Andrew Naughton

Chemistry, Environmental and Forensic Science Syllabi

No abstract provided.

How Do The Functions That School Business Officials Perform Affect Teaching And Learning, And Do School Business Officials Take These Effects Into Account In Performing Their Work, Oliver Blaise

Dissertations - ALL

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to investigate the work that school business leaders perform in four different school districts in New York State, and to find what the impact of this work is on instruction. The research is titled, "How Do the Functions That School Business Officials Perform Affect Teaching and Learning, and Do School Business Officials Take These Effects Into Account in Performing Their Work? The method of study is a comparative case study. It requires that the researcher collect data by reviewing documents of the school districts, interviewing district personnel, and by observation of the district's practices …

An Overheated Debate: The Influence Of Premillennial Apocalyptic Rhetoric On Climate Reform Discourse In The United States, David Charles Gall-Maynard

Dissertations - ALL

Despite decades of scientific research and increased civil and governmental calls for reform, the United States continues to spiral toward climate catastrophe. Apocalyptic rhetoric helps us understand how even the most pressing environmental and societal threats are perceived differently according to audiences' rhetorical and ideological frameworks. Drawing on the work of Barry Brummett and Kenneth Burke, I argue that the premillennial sub-genre of apocalyptic rhetoric constitutes a rhetorical frame through which many secular climate reformers and evangelical Christians make sense of the environmental and societal impacts of climate change. In chapters that analyze secular and Christian climate reform discourse and …

Coparenting Quality In Separated American Parents Of Children Ages 1½ To 5: Anxiety, Social Support, Self-Efficacy, And The Associations With Coparenting And Child Outcomes, Greg Kovacs

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this research was to examine the mechanisms determining coparenting processes in parents following divorce or separation and the implications for the emotional and behavioral outcomes for their young children. The complex associations between parental anxiety, parental self-efficacy, social support, coparent relationship quality, and child problem behaviors were examined. Participants were recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk and completed a survey regarding their coparenting dynamics. The sample consisted of 322 residents of the United States who had a child between 18 months and 5 years of age and who were no longer living with the child's other parent. Results …