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Title: Assembling relational systems : a cultural rhetorics model for building, enacting, and sustaining service-learning partnerships
Creator: Green, McKinley
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This paper describes a partnership between an academic service-learning course at Michigan State University and a public elementary school in East Lansing, Michigan. The course—Writing Center Theory and Practice—connects students with community partners to practice theories associated with writing center consultation. I will describe my experiences developing the partnership between Writing Center Theory and Practice and a local school, Glenhills Elementary. To build, enact, and sustain this...
Show moreThis paper describes a partnership between an academic service-learning course at Michigan State University and a public elementary school in East Lansing, Michigan. The course—Writing Center Theory and Practice—connects students with community partners to practice theories associated with writing center consultation. I will describe my experiences developing the partnership between Writing Center Theory and Practice and a local school, Glenhills Elementary. To build, enact, and sustain this partnership, I integrated perspectives associated with both service learning and Cultural Rhetorics.Cultural Rhetorics scholarship and the responses of my research participants moved me toward three central findings: (a) To establish this service-learning partnership, I practiced a methodology of listening grounded in feminist and rhetorical scholarship. This perspective encouraged me to listen to the teachers, staff, and administration in East Lansing Public Schools as they self-identified the assets, knowledge practices, and needs that circulate within their communities. Such a perspective works against civic engagement models that only configure community partners in terms of deficits. (b) Enacting this partnership centered on assembling relationships. I suggest that those of us who participated in the partnership cultivated not only interpersonal relationships, but also relationships that connected ideas, concepts, practices, and theories. (c) I conclude by arguing that these networks of relationships are structures that contributed to the partnership’s sustainability.
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Title: Sexual (dys)function and benign prostate disease : implications for health care decision-making
Creator: Kelly-Blake, Karen Denise
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Engaging the foreign language learner : using hybrid instruction to bridge the language-literature gap
Creator: Kraemer, Angelika Natascha
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: "Give me the worst of them, and I'll make them the best" : an ethnographic study of a successful alternative school for at-risk African American children
Creator: Khalifa, Muhammad A.
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Single-sex middle school science classrooms : separate but equal?
Creator: Glasser, Howard M.
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Does the standardization of advertising for a global brand significantly improve its consumer-based brand equity?
Creator: Carassi, Mark
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This experimental research investigates the impact of the standardization of color, visual and graphic ad elements on consumer-based brand equity. The research examines the degrees of standardization on the basis of the number, type and combination of ad-element components and its effect on brand equity ratings. In this study, standardization is treated as an independent variable, as opposed to most other related research in international advertising, that have explored standardization as a...
Show moreThis experimental research investigates the impact of the standardization of color, visual and graphic ad elements on consumer-based brand equity. The research examines the degrees of standardization on the basis of the number, type and combination of ad-element components and its effect on brand equity ratings. In this study, standardization is treated as an independent variable, as opposed to most other related research in international advertising, that have explored standardization as a dependent variable. The proposed statistical and research design provides a conceptual and theoretical framework for the implementation of standardization as a means and ways of globalizing ad campaigns to strengthen brand equity of global brands. The findings demonstrate that the more ad elements are standardized, the higher are the brand equity ratings. The study revealed that standardization of the number, type and combination of ad elements, have varying effects on brand equity. It was demonstrated that visual standardization moderates most positively in conjunction with either color standardization or graphic standardization to improve brand equity ratings for an ad campaign and the product. This dissertation establishes that the effect of the standardization of ad elements on brand equity ratings is positively moderated by the prior cognitive and affective reactions toward ‘globality of brands’. The findings provide a robust standardization guideline for optimizing the development of global ad campaigns to build strong brand equity in global markets.
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Title: Examining the presence and prevalence of key human enteric viruses in environmental samples using cultivation, molecular and array-based tools for detection
Creator: Wong, Mark Vee-Meng
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Considering race and gender in the classroom : the role of teacher perceptions in referral for special education
Creator: Eiland, Daniele Annette
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Between African writers and Heinemann educational publishers : the political economy of a culture industry
Creator: Ibironke, Olabode
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The dissertation undertakes a new approach to the study of African literature, which it derives from the interdisciplinary field of enquiry associated first and foremost with Lucien Febvre and his l'histoire du livre (The History of the Book). It examines the role of media production technology, the impact of the printing industry, editorial theory and practice, the socio-economic dynamics of publishing, and the survival of books in relation to changes in social structure. It argues that we...
Show more"The dissertation undertakes a new approach to the study of African literature, which it derives from the interdisciplinary field of enquiry associated first and foremost with Lucien Febvre and his l'histoire du livre (The History of the Book). It examines the role of media production technology, the impact of the printing industry, editorial theory and practice, the socio-economic dynamics of publishing, and the survival of books in relation to changes in social structure. It argues that we can understand the historical changes in the African world by reading those changes primarily through the prism of the history of literary production. By exploring the historical context for the emergence and decline of the African Writers Series, a series dedicated to the publication of African authors by the British publishing house of Heinemann Educational Books, the dissertation formulates a paradigm for understanding socio-historical changes in Africa. It demonstrates how knowledge of the historical and political contexts of the production of literature, the material life that publishers, authors and products inhabit, and the international and transcultural dynamics of production and transmission necessarily challenge the conventional understanding of literary texts"--Abstract.
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Title: Synthesis, characterization, and applications of functionalized polyglycolides
Creator: Vogel, Erin B.
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Mechanisms of N-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid inhibition of mycotoxin deoxynivalenol-induced immune response
Creator: Shi, Yuhui
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Damping higher order modes in the PEP-II B-factory storage ring collider
Creator: Weathersby, Stephen
Date: 2007
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Hypermedia and learning : contrasting interfaces to hypermedia systems
Creator: Wells, Amy Tracy
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Using multiple lenses to analyze a case of teaching a child academic self-regulation
Creator: Vassallo, Stephen
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Structure-function relationship of boron-doped diamond thin-film electrodes and application for in vitro amperometric measurements
Creator: Wang, Shihua
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Connecting school science and students' everyday lives
Creator: Tsurusaki, Blakely Katelin
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Translational biomarker studies of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment
Creator: Korolev, Igor O.
Date: 2013
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia, affecting more than 5 million Americans and 30 million people worldwide. In this dissertation, I describe two studies investigating imaging and non-imaging biomarkers for the diagnosis of AD. Two groups of patients were studied: individuals with a clinical diagnosis of AD and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an intermediate state between normal cognitive aging and AD. Patients...
Show moreAlzheimer's disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia, affecting more than 5 million Americans and 30 million people worldwide. In this dissertation, I describe two studies investigating imaging and non-imaging biomarkers for the diagnosis of AD. Two groups of patients were studied: individuals with a clinical diagnosis of AD and individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an intermediate state between normal cognitive aging and AD. Patients with MCI have an increased risk of developing AD-type dementia. Although many MCI patients develop dementia, other individuals with MCI stay cognitively stable or even regain normal cognitive status. In the first study, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to study the effects of AD and MCI on the integrity of limbic white matter pathways. Declines in the integrity of the fornix and the descending cingulum were detectable in both AD and MCI patients. Decreased integrity of the descending cingulum was associated with decreased glucose metabolism in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), the earliest detectable sign of AD on positron emission tomography scans. These findings suggest that the integrity of limbic white matter pathways, as measured by DTI, may serve as a useful biomarker for the diagnosis of AD. These findings also support the "disconnection hypothesis" as a mechanism for the PCC hypometabolism observed in patients with incipient AD. In the second study, we used statistical pattern classification methods and data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative to develop a prognostic model of dementia for patients with MCI. More than 750 variables spanning clinical, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and plasma proteomic data were considered as potential predictors of progression from MCI to dementia. A model based on a small number of clinical and MRI predictors was found to have good predictive performance. I describe the characteristics of the model, including its advantages and limitations. The prognostic model of dementia developed here provides a non-invasive, cost-effective approach that can be used to improve the selection of MCI patients in clinical trials and identify high-risk MCI patients for early anti-AD treatment.
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Title: The role of mycorrhizal fungi and soil nutrients in tropical reforestation
Creator: Holste, Ellen K.
Date: 2016
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: With increasing awareness of large scale tropical deforestation and the ecological importance of mycorrhizae, incorporating fungal-plant symbioses into tropical restoration strategies has attracted considerable attention in recent years. In nutrient-poor landscapes, mycorrhizal fungi can help trees alleviate soil nutrient constraints to growth, and in particular, ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) may be more advantageous for nutrient capture than arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) due to EMF’s...
Show moreWith increasing awareness of large scale tropical deforestation and the ecological importance of mycorrhizae, incorporating fungal-plant symbioses into tropical restoration strategies has attracted considerable attention in recent years. In nutrient-poor landscapes, mycorrhizal fungi can help trees alleviate soil nutrient constraints to growth, and in particular, ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) may be more advantageous for nutrient capture than arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) due to EMF’s saprophytic capabilities and potential for increased nutrient uptake for their host trees. Establishing diverse mycorrhizal fungal communities is considered to be important to forest recovery, yet mycorrhizae may have complex effects on tree growth depending on the fungal composition of species present. Thus, the relative benefits that mycorrhizal fungi confer to host trees may be sensitive to changes in fungal type, fungal diversity and/or composition, and the soil nutrient environment. In this dissertation, I combined field and greenhouse-based experiments to examine fungal-tree-soil interactions and test the role of mycorrhizal fungi in restoring tropical trees in nutrient poor soils in southern Costa Rica. I tested: (1) the importance of fungal type (AMF vs. EMF) on tree growth, (2) the role of fungal type in nutrient acquisition (as reflected in tissue nutrient concentrations) under different soil nutrient availabilities, and (3) the effect of AMF diversity and fungal composition on tree growth in multiple reforested sites. My results showed variation in tree responses to fungal symbionts, depending on tree species, fungal type, and soil nutrient status. In the field, I found that differences in growth and tissue nutrient concentrations among four tree species were greater than fungal type differences (AMF vs. EMF) after two years of growth, highlighting the importance of tree species selection in reforestation. Soil nutrient availability via site variation (i.e., initial base cation availability) and nutrient treatments also were associated with differences in tree growth. After isolating fungal from tree species effects in the greenhouse, I did not find consistent effects of fungal type on plant growth and tissue nutrient content; AMF had greater tissue nutrient content compared to EMF- or non-inoculated plants in one tree species whereas another tree species’ growth responded more to EMF symbioses. In reforested agricultural lands, I found that increasing AMF diversity and spore numbers negatively correlated with reduced tree growth after 5 to 7 years, suggesting that more diverse and productive fungal communities could consume more tree carbon. In general, this dissertation provided greenhouse and field-based support for both positive and negative tree growth responses to mycorrhizal fungal community and demonstrated the importance of mycorrhizal fungi in reforestation efforts. This research also highlights that understanding specific fungal-tree symbioses, soil nutrient status, and site effects are crucial to making broader management recommendations for reforestation success.
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Title: Organofunctional silica mesostructures with improved accessibility and applications as heavy metal ion adsorbents
Creator: Sun, Xin
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Title: Urban school principal leadership preparation : perspective of urban school principals
Creator: Smith, James David
Date: 2008
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations

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