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Title: What does it mean to be literate? Designing and implementing a framework of inclusive literacy practices in a rural context
Creator: Mehta, Rohit
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "Written as two interconnected articles, this dissertation study is about identifying literacy practices that are inclusive of multiple ways of being, knowing, and doing. Using these, the purpose of this study is to create a framework of inclusive literacy practices that teachers and researchers can use--implement and refine--based on their contextual needs and expectations. Driven by the rhetorical question of 'What does it means to be literate?' I use three lenses of culturally sustaining...
Show more"Written as two interconnected articles, this dissertation study is about identifying literacy practices that are inclusive of multiple ways of being, knowing, and doing. Using these, the purpose of this study is to create a framework of inclusive literacy practices that teachers and researchers can use--implement and refine--based on their contextual needs and expectations. Driven by the rhetorical question of 'What does it means to be literate?' I use three lenses of culturally sustaining pedagogy, transdisciplinary thinking, and multiliteracies to challenge normative practices that dominate acceptable ways of being, knowing, and doing in the world. To achieve this, I conducted a two-part study. In this first part, I reviewed 170 highly cited articles to compile a framework of ten literacy practices--five for learners and five for teachers--that I call Culturally sustaining, Transdisciplinary, Multiliteracies (CTM) Practices. Using this preliminary framework, I offered a set of guidelines for teachers to implement it in their classrooms. In the second part, to test the feasibility of the framework, I situated myself in an underrepresented context in multicultural education--a predominantly white rural school, and studied the affordances and constraints of the framework. I designed an embedded case study and used ethnographic methods and critical discourse analysis to analyze the framework. I found that CTM Practices framework faced four major challenges: forms of marginalization disguised in practices of social networking, distancing from experiences of other people and places, conflict between discourses of school and self, and siloed practices and definitions of literacies. I offered resolutions for each of the challenges, and found the framework to be adaptable to the rural contexts. I call for further implementation of this framework across new contexts to test its feasibility"--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: What counts and why? : assessment in teacher education
Creator: Ellis, Rebecca
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In this dissertation I consider the ways that pre-service teachers are assessed in the middle of their program. I conducted my research at Galaxy University, a large, Midwestern university that had just completed its CAEP accreditation. Here, I collected syllabi, core assignment task descriptions and rubrics, and de-identified pre-service data submissions, as well as interviewed course instructors. I then analyzed my data to look for trends and themes, as well as with the goal to better...
Show moreIn this dissertation I consider the ways that pre-service teachers are assessed in the middle of their program. I conducted my research at Galaxy University, a large, Midwestern university that had just completed its CAEP accreditation. Here, I collected syllabi, core assignment task descriptions and rubrics, and de-identified pre-service data submissions, as well as interviewed course instructors. I then analyzed my data to look for trends and themes, as well as with the goal to better understand the choices made around assessment decisions. Throughout my research, I paid special attention to issues of fairness and how this led to tensions in the decision making process.
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Title: Weighting in multilevel models
Creator: Tong, Bing
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Large-scale survey programs usually use complex sampling designs such as unequal probabilities of selection, stratifications, and/or clustering to collect data to save time and money. This leads to the necessity to incorporate sampling weights into multilevel models in order to obtain accurate estimates and valid inferences. However, the weighted multilevel estimators have been lately developed and minimal guidance is left on how to use sampling weights in multilevel models and which...
Show moreLarge-scale survey programs usually use complex sampling designs such as unequal probabilities of selection, stratifications, and/or clustering to collect data to save time and money. This leads to the necessity to incorporate sampling weights into multilevel models in order to obtain accurate estimates and valid inferences. However, the weighted multilevel estimators have been lately developed and minimal guidance is left on how to use sampling weights in multilevel models and which estimator is most appropriate.The goal of this study is to examine the performance of multilevel pseudo maximum likelihood (MPML) estimation methods using different scaling techniques under the informative and non-informative condition in the context of a two-stage sampling design with unequal probabilities of selection. Monte Carlo simulation methods are used to evaluate the impact of three factors, including informativeness of the sampling design, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and estimation methods. Simulation results indicate that including sampling weights in the model still produce biased estimates for the school-level variance. In general, the weighted methods outperform the unweighted method in estimating intercept and student-level variance while the unweighted method outperforms the weighted methods for school-level variance estimation in the informative condition. In general, the cluster scaling estimation method is recommended in the informative sampling design. Under the non-informative condition, the unweighted method can be considered a better choice than the weighted methods for all the parameter estimates. Besides, the ICC has obvious effects on school-level variance estimates in the informative condition, but in the noninformative condition, it also affects intercept estimates. An empirical study is included to illustrate the model.
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Title: Webbed space : online feminist discourse in the fourth wave
Creator: Sweo, Naomi
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "This thesis examines the feminist online discourse community 'A Practical Wedding' and identifies four characteristics that make it a model for feminist online interaction: 1. the connection of users' online identities with their real-life selves; 2. the non-hierarchical structure of the community; 3. the productive exchanges between members; and 4. the site- and Internet-wide intertextuality. Technofeminist threads in rhetoric and composition in the late 1990's and early 2000's were mostly...
Show more"This thesis examines the feminist online discourse community 'A Practical Wedding' and identifies four characteristics that make it a model for feminist online interaction: 1. the connection of users' online identities with their real-life selves; 2. the non-hierarchical structure of the community; 3. the productive exchanges between members; and 4. the site- and Internet-wide intertextuality. Technofeminist threads in rhetoric and composition in the late 1990's and early 2000's were mostly abandoned. They deserve renewed attention, with updating based on the existence and necessity of fourth-wave feminism today. The author first describes her own origin story that led to her interest in this research. She then applies a system of virtual critical discourse analysis and resultant coding schema to four representative posts and their comment sections. This thesis concludes with a call for the creation of more communitarian, feminist spaces on the Internet with similar models of engagement to those used in 'A Practical Wedding.'"--Page ii.
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Title: Ways and methods of hastening the growth of plants by small cold frames and protectors
Creator: Mogge, Norton William
Date: 1914
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Water supply & sewerage, for Akron, Michigan
Creator: Jackson, Truman L.
Date: 1916
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Water content effect on nutrient removal in stormwater bioretention systems
Creator: Bender, Rebecca Marian
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "Bioretention cells and constructed wetlands are both established best management practices (BMPs) for stormwater quality improvement. These systems vary in terms of hydraulic loading where processes such as retention, sedimentation, absorption, infiltration, filtration, phytoremediation, nitrification and denitrification remove waterborne pollutants. However, the boundary between bioretention and wetlands can be blurred when it comes to design and operational parameters, and it is therefore...
Show more"Bioretention cells and constructed wetlands are both established best management practices (BMPs) for stormwater quality improvement. These systems vary in terms of hydraulic loading where processes such as retention, sedimentation, absorption, infiltration, filtration, phytoremediation, nitrification and denitrification remove waterborne pollutants. However, the boundary between bioretention and wetlands can be blurred when it comes to design and operational parameters, and it is therefore important to explore the causes and consequences of performance variability in these systems. In an experiment to observe optimum water content for treatment pathways for ecological pollutants, five bioretention bays (2-22% water content) and fifteen bioretention columns (7-47% water content, as much as complete pore space saturation) were used to run parallel tests. Pollutant concentrations were reduced in field bays for COD, TN, and total solids (TS), although there was no difference between treatment groups in terms of any pollutant concentrations. Asclepias incarnata, Carex vulpinoidea, Scirpus validus, and Juncus effusus grew slightly taller in wetter bays, although survival of Sagittaria latifolia was uniformly poor in all treatment groups. No net pollutant removal occurred in columns, although effluent concentrations and mass export were significantly lower for near-saturation treatment groups for chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrate, and total nitrogen (TN). There was no soil moisture level in which COD, nitrate, TN, phosphate, and TS were simultaneously improved."--Page ii.
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Title: WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW WHAT WE SEE : MODEST MEDIATION OF BISTABLE PERCEPTION BY KNOWLEDGE
Creator: Zhang, Bobicheng
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: When faced with ambiguous visual input, an observer may have various perceptual interpre- tations even when the input remains unchanged. Indeed, such ambiguous displays can cause the observer to experience distinct perceptual interpretations in turn, unpredictably switching between them over time. Theories of such so-called multistable perception broadly fall into two categories: top-down theories that hold that perception in these cases depends strongly on higher-level cogni- tive factors...
Show moreWhen faced with ambiguous visual input, an observer may have various perceptual interpre- tations even when the input remains unchanged. Indeed, such ambiguous displays can cause the observer to experience distinct perceptual interpretations in turn, unpredictably switching between them over time. Theories of such so-called multistable perception broadly fall into two categories: top-down theories that hold that perception in these cases depends strongly on higher-level cogni- tive factors such as knowledge, and bottom-up theories which suggests more vital involvement of aspects of lower-order information processing such as local adaptation in the visual system. We evaluated whether the occurrence of perceptual reversals in the face of ambiguous input is related to the observer’s knowledge that the input is, indeed, ambiguous. We used an ambiguous animation that was designed such that subjects could report perceptual reversals without realizing the ambigu- ity. Subjects observed the animation, reported their perception, and filled out a questionnaire that assessed their knowledge of the animation’s ambiguity. We found that informed subjects reported slightly more perceptual switches than the other subjects, but that this between-group difference was very small compared to the lack of variability within each group between subjects who were aware of the ambiguity and those who were not. These findings suggests that knowledge of ambiguity can influence perception of ambiguous stimuli, but that this influence is relatively minor. This discrepancy between current findings and past work is discussed.
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Title: Volumes, determinants, and meridian lengths of hyperbolic links
Creator: Burton, Stephan D., 1987-
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: We study relationships between link diagrams and link invariants arising from hyperbolic geometry. The volume density of a hyperbolic link K is defined to be the ratio of the hyperbolic volume of K to the crossing number of K. We show that there are sequences of non-alternating links with volume density approaching v_8, where v_8 is the volume of the regular ideal hyperbolic octahedron. We show that the set of volume densities is dense in [0,v_8]. The determinant density of a link K is 2 pi...
Show moreWe study relationships between link diagrams and link invariants arising from hyperbolic geometry. The volume density of a hyperbolic link K is defined to be the ratio of the hyperbolic volume of K to the crossing number of K. We show that there are sequences of non-alternating links with volume density approaching v_8, where v_8 is the volume of the regular ideal hyperbolic octahedron. We show that the set of volume densities is dense in [0,v_8]. The determinant density of a link K is 2 pi log det(K)/c(K). We prove that the closure of the set of determinant densities contains the set [0, v_8]. We examine the conjecture, due to Champanerkar, Kofman, and Purcell that vol(K) < 2 pi log det (K) for alternating hyperbolic links, where vol(K) = vol(S^3\ K) is the hyperbolic volume and det(K) is the determinant of K. We prove that the conjecture holds for 2-bridge links, alternating 3-braids, and various other infinite families. We show the conjecture holds for highly twisted links and quantify this by showing the conjecture holds when the crossing number of K exceeds some function of the twist number of K.We derive bounds on the length of the meridian and the cusp volumeof hyperbolic knots in terms of the topology of essential surfaces spanned by the knot.We provide an algorithmically checkable criterion that guarantees that the meridian length of a hyperbolic knot is below a given bound.As applications we find knot diagrammatic upper bounds on the meridian length and the cusp volume of hyperbolic adequate knots and we obtain new large families of knots withmeridian lengths bounded above by four. We also discuss applications of our results to Dehn surgery.
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Title: Voices of Mayan Women in Plaza Comunitaria : poetica y educacion desde Yucatan
Creator: Ceballos Zapata, Abraham
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study took place in a village in Yucatan, Mexico in the context of two adult education programs in Yucatan [Plaza Comunitaria and Preparatoria Abierta]. I interacted in convivencia with bilingual (Mayan-Spanish) Yucatec Mayan women who took on the challenge of completing their formal schooling through those adult education programs. Over 3 summers (2013, 2014, 2015) I immersed myself in the community and witnessed their educational efforts. Ethnographic and convivencia methodologies ...
Show moreThis study took place in a village in Yucatan, Mexico in the context of two adult education programs in Yucatan [Plaza Comunitaria and Preparatoria Abierta]. I interacted in convivencia with bilingual (Mayan-Spanish) Yucatec Mayan women who took on the challenge of completing their formal schooling through those adult education programs. Over 3 summers (2013, 2014, 2015) I immersed myself in the community and witnessed their educational efforts. Ethnographic and convivencia methodologies (Galvan, 2015) helped generate data. I analyzed data with methodologies stemming from the humanities, in narrative (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004) and poetic analysis (Görlich, 2016; Prendergast, Leggo, & Sameshima, 2009). Through my discussion, I explore how the efforts of Yucatec Mayan women prompt educators imagine possibilities for decolonial education and inform our pedagogical practices across multiple educational settings. By focusing on the voices of rural women as poetry, I evoke the rhythms and memories of their lives in indigenous communities and in educational settings. This emerging research has taught me life and professional lessons of education on the margins. I witnessed their ethos of familia, and solidaridad as they studied together. Most importantly, they showed me how studying and being in community are inseparable. -- Abstract.
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Title: Vitamin E analogs exhibit antioxidative functions and inhibit production of a cytochrome P450 derived oxylipid
Creator: Kuhn, Matthew Joseph
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Preventing and controlling disease during the transition period in cattle is the most significant health challenge facing veterinarians and farm managers. In initial studies, it was found that cattle have increased biomarkers of oxidative stress around the time of calving in addition to significant shifts in the abundance of pro-inflammatory lipid inflammatory mediators, known as oxylipids, compared to other stages of lactation. These factors, brought upon by the intense physiological shifts...
Show morePreventing and controlling disease during the transition period in cattle is the most significant health challenge facing veterinarians and farm managers. In initial studies, it was found that cattle have increased biomarkers of oxidative stress around the time of calving in addition to significant shifts in the abundance of pro-inflammatory lipid inflammatory mediators, known as oxylipids, compared to other stages of lactation. These factors, brought upon by the intense physiological shifts around the time of calving, can become detrimental and contribute to disease predisposition during the transition period in animals that do not properly adapt to such physiological changes. There is a significant need to find means to reduce oxidative stress and the production of pro-inflammatory lipid mediators at this time. One potential way is by augmenting the well-known effects of [alpha]-tocopherol with other analogs of vitamin E which have been shown in other species to have antioxidant functions and share a metabolic pathway with the pro-inflammatory oxylipid 20-HETE. Little is known about this shared metabolic pathway, specially the cytochrome P450 family 4 sub-family F member 2 enzyme, in dairy cattle. Additionally, many other cytochrome P450 enzymes which are involved in the production of other oxylipids and metabolism of fat-soluble vitamins essential to appropriate immune regulation remain mostly unexplored in cattle. A range of such cytochrome P450 enzymes was explored in both bovine tissues and common cell culture models used for oxidative stress and inflammation modeling. These data revealed which models may best represent specific cytochrome P450 metabolic pathways in vivo. A bovine mammary endothelial cell model of oxidative stress was utilized to determine the antioxidative effects of vitamin E analogs in vitro. Gamma-tocopherol was found to not only reduce the accumulation of reactive metabolites but protected cellular health by reducing apoptosis and protecting the endothelial barrier integrity. Further, [gamma]-tocopherol reduced the production of 20-HETE produced from human and bovine-kidney cytochrome P450 microsomes, likely by competitive inhibition. These data provide credence to further explore the functions of [gamma]-tocopherol and other non-[alpha]-tocopherol analogs of vitamin E in cattle. Overall, this dissertation underscores the challenges faced by dairy cattle during the transition period and highlights gaps in knowledge left to be explored regarding the production of inflammatory mediators, especially those from the cytochrome P450 pathway. Given the relative safety of feeding mixed tocopherols to dairy cattle, further efforts should be undertaken to confirm these initial safety assessments and aim to understand their potential contributions to the prevention of oxidative stress and dysfunctional inflammation during the transition period.
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Title: Views of the valley of despair : the photography of Jack Corn and Milton Rogovin in Appalachian coal communities (1956-1979)
Creator: Cepak, Anthony J.
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Through extensive archival research, oral history and ethnography, this dissertation examines the coal mining photographs of photojournalist Jack Corn, repositioning his work alongside the work of noted social documentarian Milton Rogovin as being important in reshaping the visual discourse of mining in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. This dissertation argues that Corn's and Rogovin's work in Appalachia disrupted coal mining discourses popular throughout the first half of the 20th-century by...
Show moreThrough extensive archival research, oral history and ethnography, this dissertation examines the coal mining photographs of photojournalist Jack Corn, repositioning his work alongside the work of noted social documentarian Milton Rogovin as being important in reshaping the visual discourse of mining in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. This dissertation argues that Corn's and Rogovin's work in Appalachia disrupted coal mining discourses popular throughout the first half of the 20th-century by repositioning their subjects in a way that changed how society thought about mining. For Corn, the disruption in discourse came from repositioning his subjects from a perspective of celebrating the heroics of mining in the context of empire building to illustrating the devastating consequences of extracting coal from the Earth. Corn's work was generated through a combination of assigned, commissioned and independent projects that led to the creation of a significant body of work. For Rogovin, his work repositioned miners from being a faceless commodity to the coal companies, anonymously working to support the nation's vast industrial complex, to being individuals with unique identities that existed outside the confines of the mines in which they worked. By exploring the ways Corn and Rogovin disrupted popular mining discourse, this dissertation also challenges conventional notions that widespread documentation of the state of the environment in the United States began in the 1970s. Across the literature, the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the agency's Documerica project are often discussed as being the pivotal moment when photographic documentation of the environment began to illustrate the widespread effect of human activity on our physical world. This dissertation argues, however that, while Documerica was significant in creating a large and diverse archive of photographic evidence showing the effect industry was having on workers, family, public heath, and community, photographers such as Corn and Rogovin were approaching documentation from a similar perspective more than a decade before the project launched in 1971. While working at The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, Corn departed from documenting traditional narratives of miners at work to explore the socio-economic, environmental and public health aspects of mining while covering coal communities in Appalachia beginning in the 1950s. Heavily influenced by newspaper coverage of the struggles of miners, including coverage from Corn and The Tennessean, Rogovin headed to Appalachia in 1962 and commenced what would become one of his longest and most prolific projects: documenting miners, their families and their communities. Finally, this dissertation argues that through their photography Corn and Rogovin were participating in a form of activism with the images they made being more than just documentation, but a type of visual protest against the social and environmental conditions they encountered in Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. In much the same way Margaret Bourke-White, for example, gave LIFE magazine readers their first glimpses of Apartheid through her photographs of South African gold miners in the 1950s, Corn and Rogovin gave Americans living outside Appalachia a visual introduction to the human cost of a nation's growing energy consumption.
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Title: Video games in the present moment : flow, mind-wandering, and interoception
Creator: Day, Tom
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Flow theory of optimal experiences was first introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975. It has been debated whether an individual's attention is focused or unfocused while in the flow state. Newer research suggests that attention is intensely focused during the flow state. This coincides nicely with another thread of attentional research: interoception. Interoception is the process of listening, understanding, and interpreting signals coming from the body. The opposite of interoception is mind...
Show moreFlow theory of optimal experiences was first introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975. It has been debated whether an individual's attention is focused or unfocused while in the flow state. Newer research suggests that attention is intensely focused during the flow state. This coincides nicely with another thread of attentional research: interoception. Interoception is the process of listening, understanding, and interpreting signals coming from the body. The opposite of interoception is mind-wandering. Together, interoception and mind-wandering are ways of characterizing quality of attention. This manuscript looks to link quality of attention (interoceptive awareness and mind-wandering) while playing a video game with quality of experience (flow and spatial presence). Specifically, the study links classic flow theory and virtual worlds presence (another construct associated with optimal experiences in virtual worlds) with neuroscience research on interoception and mind-wandering. The study consists of a 2 (primed for interoceptive awareness or primed for mind-wandering) by 2 (virtual reality or high-definition television) between subject design. Gaming performance and virtual reality (VR) technologies are stereotypically masculine, while interoceptive awareness is stereotypically feminine. Interaction effects of gender were considered throughout the analysis.Results confirm relationships between quality of attention and quality of experience. Specifically, interoceptive awareness while playing a video game had a positive relationship with both flow and spatial presence. The numerous significant interaction effects of gender illuminate more detailed, complex understandings. Among males, using a virtual reality headset strongly resulted in much higher performance. But among females, display modality did not appear to impact game performance. Priming for interoceptive awareness was linked to higher performance among female players and lower performance among male players. Among females, priming interoceptive awareness increased mind-wandering during gameplay in VR and decreased mind-wandering during gameplay in HDTV. This study served as a first step towards understanding relationships between quality of attention with quality of experience, indicating that the relationships may be moderated by gender.
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Title: Viability of Pseudomonas radiciocola under aerobic & partial anaerobic conditions
Creator: Ockerblad, F. O.
Date: 1916
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Variety test of sweet corn & peas
Creator: Haven, Clare W.
Date: 1901
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Variations of variety characteristics in tomato production
Creator: Olney, Albert J.
Date: 1920
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Variations in radish types
Creator: Henderson, Harry
Date: 1902
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Variation in percent of fat in milk
Creator: Yebina, Shoichi Frank
Date: 1895
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Validation and application of experimental framework for the study of vocal fatigue
Creator: Berardi, Mark Leslie
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In recent years, vocal fatigue research has been increasingly studied particularly with application to the reduction of its impact on schoolteachers and other occupational voice users. However, the concept of vocal fatigue is complex and neither well defined or well understood. Vocal fatigue seems to be highly individualized and dependent on several underlying factors or concepts. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose and support through experimentation a framework that can identify...
Show moreIn recent years, vocal fatigue research has been increasingly studied particularly with application to the reduction of its impact on schoolteachers and other occupational voice users. However, the concept of vocal fatigue is complex and neither well defined or well understood. Vocal fatigue seems to be highly individualized and dependent on several underlying factors or concepts. The purpose of this dissertation is to propose and support through experimentation a framework that can identify the factors contributing to vocal fatigue. The main hypothesis is that the change in vocal effort, vocal performance, and/or their interaction through a vocal demand (load) will implicate vocal fatigue. To test this hypothesis, three primary research questions and experiments were developed. For all three experiments vocal effort was rated using the Borg CR-100 scale and vocal performance was evaluated with five speech acoustic parameters (fundamental frequency mean and standard deviation, speech level mean and standard deviation, and smoothed cepstral peak prominence).The first research question tests whether perceived vocal effort can be measured reliably and if so, how vocal performance in terms of vocal intensity changes with a vocal effort goal. Participants performed various speech tasks at cued effort levels from the Borg CR-100 scale. Speech acoustic parameters were calculated and compared across the specific vocal effort levels. Additionally, the test-retest reliability across the effort levels for speech level was measured. Building from that experiment, the second research question was to what degree are vocal performance and vocal effort related given talker exposure to three equivalent vocal load levels. This experiment had participants performing speech tasks when presented with three different equivalent vocal load scenarios (communication distance, loudness goal, and background noise); for a given load scenario, participants rated their vocal effort associated with these tasks. Vocal effort ratings and measures of vocal performance were compared across the vocal load levels. The last research question built on the previous two and asked to what degree do vocal performance, vocal effort, and/or their interaction change given a vocal load of excess background noise (noise load) over a prolonged speaking task (temporal load). To test this, participants described routes on maps for thirty minutes in the presence of loud (75 dBA) background noise. Vocal effort ratings and measures of vocal performance were compared throughout the vocal loading task.The results indicate that elicited vocal effort levels from the BORG CR-100 scale are distinct in vocal performance and reliable across the participants. Additionally, a relationship between changes in vocal effort and vocal performance across the various vocal load levels was quantified. Finally, these findings support the individual nature of the complex relationship between vocal fatigue, vocal effort, and vocal performance due to vocal loads (via cluster and subgroup analysis); the theoretical framework captures this complexity and provides insights into these relationships. Future vocal fatigue research should benefit from using the framework as an underlying model of these relationships.
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Title: VISIONING THE AGRICULTURE BLOCKCHAIN : THE ROLE AND RISE OF BLOCKCHAIN IN THE COMMERCIAL POULTRY INDUSTRY
Creator: Fennell, Chris
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Blockchain is an emerging technology that is being explored by technologists and industry leaders as a way to revolutionize the agriculture supply chain. The problem is that human and ecological insights are needed to understand the complexities of how blockchain could fulfill these visions. In this work, I assert how the blockchain's promising vision of traceability, immutability and distributed properties presents advancements and challenges to rural farming. This work wrestles with the...
Show moreBlockchain is an emerging technology that is being explored by technologists and industry leaders as a way to revolutionize the agriculture supply chain. The problem is that human and ecological insights are needed to understand the complexities of how blockchain could fulfill these visions. In this work, I assert how the blockchain's promising vision of traceability, immutability and distributed properties presents advancements and challenges to rural farming. This work wrestles with the more subtle ways the blockchain technology would be integrated into the existing infrastructure. Through interviews and participatory design workshops, I talked with an expansive set of stakeholders including Amish farmers, contract growers, senior leadership and field supervisors. This research illuminates that commercial poultry farming is such a complex and diffuse system that any overhaul of its core infrastructure will be difficult to ``roll back'' once blockchain is ``rolled out.'' Through an HCI and sociotechnical system perspective, drawing particular insights from Science and Technology Studies theories of infrastructure and breakdown, this dissertation asserts three main concerns. First, this dissertation uncovers the dominant narratives on the farm around revision and ``roll back'' of blockchain, connecting to theories of version control from computer science. Second, this work uncovers that a core concern of the poultry supply chain is death and I reveal the sociotechnical and material implications for the integration of blockchain. Finally, this dissertation discusses the meaning of ``security’’ for the poultry supply chain in which biosecurity is prioritized over cybersecurity and how blockchain impacts these concerns. Together these findings point to significant implications for designers of blockchain infrastructure and how rural workers will integrate the technology into the supply chain.
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