Alumni Dissertations

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  • A COMPARISON OF CONTINUOUS VERSUS SEGMENTED SPEECH PRODUCTION IN TEACHING DECODING AND SPELLING TO CHILDREN AT RISK FOR READING DIFFICULTY

    Author:
    Catherine Constable
    Year of Dissertation:
    2010
    Program:
    Speech & Hearing Sciences
    Advisor:
    Linnea Ehri
    Abstract:

    A COMPARISON OF CONTINUOUS VERSUS SEGMENTED

  • "A Spectacle to the World": The Performance of Christian Virgins and Monks in Late Antiquity

    Author:
    William Conte
    Year of Dissertation:
    2010
    Program:
    Theatre
    Advisor:
    Pamela Sheingorn
    Abstract:

    A commonplace in the history of western theatre is the antipathy of the Church towards the "theatrum," long evident in the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers. In this dissertation I argue that although "theatre" was anathema to Orthodox Christianity, the idea of performance was embraced, albeit covertly, as a means by which late-ancient Christians could express a new kind of subjectivity, of which the first exemplum is Paul. Activated by their "Christian subjectivity," the Fathers of the early Church constructed Christian identity in terms of behaviors and habits that would make orthodoxy "visible," and thus performative. The practices of virginity and monastic asceticism represent the border of the performance of Christian identity as live, embodied praxis during this period. Based on my close reading from a performance-theoretical perspective of select early Christian apologetics, polemics, and vitae, the dissertation demonstrates that performance was essential to the formation, expansion, and "triumph" of orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.

  • THE GREATER ANTILLEAN PLATYRRHINES: BIOGEOGRAPHY AND PALEOBIOLOGY

    Author:
    Siobhan Cooke
    Year of Dissertation:
    2011
    Program:
    Anthropology
    Advisor:
    Alfred Rosenberger
    Abstract:

    The Greater Antilles were once home to an endemic radiation of platyrrhine primates including five species, Xenothrix mcgregori from Jamaica, Paralouatta varonai and P. marianae from Cuba, the Hispaniolan species Antillothrix bernensis, and Insulacebus toussaintiana from Haiti. This dissertation seeks to expand our knowledge of this group through the analysis of biogeographical patterns, paleobiology with a particular focus on paleodietary reconstruction, and through the description of new fossil material.

  • Woolf Play: The Art of Science in Between the Acts

    Author:
    Barbara Coppus
    Year of Dissertation:
    2009
    Program:
    English
    Advisor:
    Joan Richardson
    Abstract:

    In recent decades much has been written about Virginia Woolf and science. It is my contention that Between the Acts, what was to be Woolf's final novel, is her most subtle, most fully nuanced expression of scientific theory. Her interweaving of ideas concerning the primordial, history, the role of the observer, space, matter and time all come together to make this book her most radical and innovative. While extensive studies have been done involving Woolf's entire oeuvre, no in-depth reading has focused exclusively on Between the Acts as it reflects the theories of Charles Darwin, Sir James Jeans, Sir Arthur Eddington, Albert Einstein, and quantum mechanics.

  • Effect of Tau Hyperphosphorylation on Cellular Pathology

    Author:
    Christopher Corbo
    Year of Dissertation:
    2012
    Program:
    Biology
    Advisor:
    Alejandra Alonso
    Abstract:

    Hyperphosphorylation of the microtubule associated protein tau is shown to be involved in several dementias that classify as tauopathies. In these diseases, tau is known to bind to itself rather than associate with microtubules. When CHO cells express wild type tau, the microtubule network is healthy and shows normal microtubule movement and tau associated with the microtubules. When expressing pathological human tau (PH-tau, pseudophosphorylated at T212, T231, S262),however, PH-tau is present throughout the cytoplasm, rather than associated with microtubules. The cells exhibit excessive membrane blebbing in order to remove PH-tau. This blebbing leads to a shrinkage of PH-tau expressing cells. Internally the presence of excessive cytoplasmic vacuoles and aggregated PH-tau in the form of filaments are found. The exposure of wild type expressing cells to okadaic acid shows the same pathologies. Additionally, all three sites used in the PH-tau construct are phosphorylated when wild type tau is exposed to okadaic acid.

  • The Impact of Context on Learning and Epistemology in Physics

    Author:
    Sebastien Cormier
    Year of Dissertation:
    2009
    Program:
    Physics
    Advisor:
    Richard Steinberg
    Abstract:

    This dissertation investigates the impact that various contexts have on student

  • Keeping Fear at Bay: Twentieth Century Ecuador and the Eradication of Plague

    Author:
    Edward Cornejo
    Year of Dissertation:
    2010
    Program:
    History
    Advisor:
    Alfonso Quiroz
    Abstract:

    Until plague's reappearance in China in the latter nineteenth century, plague had often been thought of as belonging to a distant continent and even more distant time in history. Turn-of-the-century maritime and technological advances, however, exponentially increased the fear, the panic, and the power that plague had over people throughout the globe. Ecuador fell victim to this scourge in 1903 and had to find ways to confront a disease with which it had minimal experience.

  • Pain is Not a Natural Kind

    Author:
    Jennifer Corns
    Year of Dissertation:
    2012
    Program:
    Philosophy
    Advisor:
    Jesse Prinz
    Abstract:

    Pain is central to our lives. Despite that, I argue, pain is not a natural kind. Chapter 1 identifies a kind as natural insofar as it is usefully referred to in the generalizations of the relevant science(s). Following Boyd, I take the best indicator of this to be causally interlinked clusters of properties, and I update Boyd's approach by relating it to recent work on mechanistic explanation. Chapter 2 employs clinical observations to argue that philosophical, unitary accounts of pain are inadequate. Pain is a multidimensional experience that paradigmatically includes sensation, perception, emotion, cognition, and motivational responses. This multidimensionality is included in the dominant scientific models of pain to which I turn in Chapter 3, but none identify a mechanism (neurobiological or otherwise) underlying the usual co-occurrence of pain's clustering properties. Chapter 4 argues that recent research attempting mechanism-based classifications of pain types allows us to conclude that each token pain is determined by an idiosyncratic convergence of the activity of multiple mechanisms. Neither pain nor any type of pain is a natural kind.

  • The Graying of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Organizational Efforts of Community Service Providers in Adapting Facilities and Programming to Meet the Needs of Older Adults

    Author:
    Donna Corrado
    Year of Dissertation:
    2013
    Program:
    Social Welfare
    Advisor:
    Michael Smith
    Abstract:

    Abstract

  • Synesthetic Landscapes in Harold Pinter's Theatre: A Symbolist Legacy

    Author:
    Graca Correa
    Year of Dissertation:
    2010
    Program:
    Theatre
    Advisor:
    Daniel Gerould
    Abstract:

    In the light of recent interdisciplinary critical approaches to landscape and space, and adopting phenomenological methods of sensory analysis, this dissertation explores interconnected or synesthetic sensory "scapes" in contemporary British playwright Harold Pinter's theatre. By studying its dramatic landscapes and probing into their multi-sensory manifestations in line with Symbolist theory and aesthetics, I argue that Pinter's theatre articulates an ecocritical stance and a micropolitical critique.