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Title: Forgotten Families of the Sea and the Sun : An ethnography of autism in Puerto Rico
Creator: Anderson-Chavarria, Melissa
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In biomedical terms, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder impacting several core areas of an individual’s development including the socio-communicative, the behavioral, and the sensory. A broader conceptualization of autism has emerged, spurred in large part by the contemporary Neurodiversity Movement, expanding our considerations of autism beyond the biomedical towards an understanding of autism as a lived, neurodiverse social phenomenon. However,...
Show moreIn biomedical terms, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder impacting several core areas of an individual’s development including the socio-communicative, the behavioral, and the sensory. A broader conceptualization of autism has emerged, spurred in large part by the contemporary Neurodiversity Movement, expanding our considerations of autism beyond the biomedical towards an understanding of autism as a lived, neurodiverse social phenomenon. However, despite this conceptual expansion, the current autism literature continues to be disproportionately dominated by the small subset of autistic lived experiences of majority White North American and European autistic individuals and families living in high-income, resource-rich settings. Therefore, there is a need for a diversification of autism studies to include experiences of minority/marginalized autistic individuals and autism families living in relatively low-income, resource-deficit areas. This dissertation contributes towards addressing this gap in the literature by focusing on the perspectives and experiences of Puerto Rican autism families attempting to navigate the island nation’s challenging medical and educational infrastructure to access scarce, but much-needed resources and services for their autistic children. This dissertation presents findings from ethnographic research conducted from 2017 to 2019 examining the autism community of Puerto Rico. Data collection consisted of over 350 hours of participant-observation conducted at autism-related settings such as health care facilities, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and autism family homes; and 73 semi-structured interviews (67 primary, 6 follow-up) were conducted between two cohorts: 1) parents of autistic children (n=35) and 2) autism treatment/care providers (n=32). Analysis of this data sheds light on various aspects of the Puerto Rican autism family experience, including conceptualizations of autism, theories of causation and their impact on parental vaccination decision-making, language practices and ideologies, and family resource navigation. By exploring each of these individual aspects, this study elucidates how the holistic experience of the Puerto Rican autism family extends far beyond strictly biomedical delineations of an autism diagnosis. Rather, this dissertation argues that the lived reality of the autism family experience is fundamentally informed by the historical, politico-economic, sociocultural, and structural contexts in which it is lived. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the importance of including a diversity of autism family experiences, especially those in low-income, resource-deficit settings, within the autism literature. It is hoped that this will lead to the development of appropriate autism screening, diagnostic, treatment/interventional, and family support protocols that are applicable and accessible not only to those autism families that have the most access and representation, but also to those who may have the least.
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Title: Keeping the Tradition Alive : Irish Traditional Music Sessions During COVID-19
Creator: Bobker, Andrew
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In the spring of 2020, performers of traditional Irish music responded to pandemicinducedsocial distancing by creating a new variant of an old tradition: the virtual Irish session. Unlike conventional pub sessions, virtual sessions occur entirely in virtual space, facilitated by conferencing applications like Zoom or YouTube livestreaming. The move to virtual sessions presents numerous challenges to the traditional structure and norms of Irish traditional music. This thesis will explore the...
Show moreIn the spring of 2020, performers of traditional Irish music responded to pandemicinducedsocial distancing by creating a new variant of an old tradition: the virtual Irish session. Unlike conventional pub sessions, virtual sessions occur entirely in virtual space, facilitated by conferencing applications like Zoom or YouTube livestreaming. The move to virtual sessions presents numerous challenges to the traditional structure and norms of Irish traditional music. This thesis will explore the strategies and motivations of Irish musicians as they have adapted to the conditions of COVID-19 and isolation. Maintaining an authentic practice within the auspices of technological innovation involves the negotiation of geography, ethnicity, and selective tradition in a complex social space. This work is based in large part on ethnographic research conducted between March and December of 2020, including both in-person interviews and Internet ethnography. Interviews were conducted with musicians in Austin, Texas; Portland, Maine; Seattle, Washington; and Boston, Massachusetts.
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Title: ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING FOR RAPID PROTOTYPING OF MM-WAVE CIRCUITS
Creator: Crump, Cameron Austin
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Additive manufacturing (AM) has recently attracted significant interest to meet the need of nextgeneration of wireless systems, and the growing demand for customization and rapid prototyping of electronic systems. In addition, AM is being investigated to supplement and in some cases replace traditional microelectronic fabrication techniques. This is to lessen the ecological impact of electronics manufacturing as well as to reduce cleanroom facility costs. This research work focuses on the use...
Show moreAdditive manufacturing (AM) has recently attracted significant interest to meet the need of nextgeneration of wireless systems, and the growing demand for customization and rapid prototyping of electronic systems. In addition, AM is being investigated to supplement and in some cases replace traditional microelectronic fabrication techniques. This is to lessen the ecological impact of electronics manufacturing as well as to reduce cleanroom facility costs. This research work focuses on the use of AM for the design and fabrication of microwave and millimeter wave components and systems, leading to heterogeneous integration. For systems integration, two major challenges to tackle are: (1) rapid printing of conductive regions with high precision and high conductivity; (2) selective deposition of dielectrics with varying geometries surrounding active and passive components. In this work, printing of both conductors and dielectrics was carried out using aerosol jet printing (AJP). AJP allows for high resolution printing (~10 μm) at a large standoff distance (~10 mm). Silver (Ag) based inks were investigated to achieve high conductivity and polymers (benzocyclobutene, BCB and Polyimide, PI) as low-loss dielectric materials.
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Title: Alignment Control for Optical Communication between Underwater Robots
Creator: Solanki, Pratap Bhanu
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Light-emitting diode (LED)-based optical communication is emerging as a promising low-power, low-cost, and high-data-rate alternative to acoustic communication for underwater applications. However, it requires a close-to-line-of-sight (LOS) link between the communicating parties.Achieving and maintaining the LOS is challenging due to the constant movement of underlying mobile platforms caused by propulsion and unwanted disturbances. In this dissertation, a novel, compact LED-based wireless...
Show moreLight-emitting diode (LED)-based optical communication is emerging as a promising low-power, low-cost, and high-data-rate alternative to acoustic communication for underwater applications. However, it requires a close-to-line-of-sight (LOS) link between the communicating parties.Achieving and maintaining the LOS is challenging due to the constant movement of underlying mobile platforms caused by propulsion and unwanted disturbances. In this dissertation, a novel, compact LED-based wireless communication system with active alignment control is presented that maintains the LOS despite the movement of the underlying platform. Multiple alignment control algorithms are developed for scenarios that range from a simple one-way two-dimensional (2D) setting to a practical three-dimensional (3D) bi-directional underwater setting. An extended Kalman filter (EKF)-based approach is first proposed to estimate the relative orientation between the heading angle and the LOS direction, which is subsequently used for alignment control. The EKF uses only the measurement of light intensity from a single photo-diode, where successive measurements are obtained via a scanning technique that ensures the full observability of the underlying system. The approach is first examined in a 2D setting, and then extended to the 3D scenario with improvements in both the hardware and the algorithm. The amplitude of the scanning is modulated according to the alignment performance to achieve a sound trade-off between estimation accuracy, signal strength, and energy consumption. The efficacy of the approach is tested and verified via simulation and on an experimental setup involving two robots with relative 3D motion. The EKF approach uses an assumption that the relative motion between the robots is small, and consequently, requires the communicating robots to take the scanning in an alternating fashion for the convergence of the estimator. An alternative approach, first explored in the 2D setting, is developed that allows simultaneous, bi-directional alignment control for both parties. Because of the convex nature of the measured intensity functions, model-free approaches, including both hill-climbing (HC) and extremum-seeking (ES), are explored. The hill-climbing approach is found to be superior to the ES approach in terms of convergence time and computational efficiency. Theoretical analysis is provided for the hill-climbing approach that guarantees finite time convergence to an $O(\delta)$ neighborhood of the LOS, for control step size $\delta$.Finally, a model-free approach for the 3D setting is proposed that maximizes light intensity based on three consecutive intensity measurements from an equilateral triangle configuration. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated experimentally, first with an underwater robot controlled by a joystick via LED communication and then with two robots performing bi-directional communication and tracking in an underwater setting.
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Title: Environments Effect on Mood : A Comparative Analysis of Environments on Mood Enhancement
Creator: Hayes, Jonah
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Mental health is an issue that millions of people are suffering and struggling with, reconnecting with natural environments could be part of the solution to this problem. Although research demonstrated the significance of the healing properties of natural environments, little research compared natural environments to each other. This research explores which aspects of different natural environments have a positive impact on mood. Using survey questionnaires, two environments were tested. The...
Show moreMental health is an issue that millions of people are suffering and struggling with, reconnecting with natural environments could be part of the solution to this problem. Although research demonstrated the significance of the healing properties of natural environments, little research compared natural environments to each other. This research explores which aspects of different natural environments have a positive impact on mood. Using survey questionnaires, two environments were tested. The first being natural environments, where participant exposure to man-made or urban elements is limited and they are surrounded by natural elements. The second environment, urban environments, are spaces such as parks that are not separated from the urban environment. While in the urban environments’ participants were still able to perceive the urban elements that surrounds the space, such as cars, buildings, and roads. Participants were surveyed before and after using the spaces to allow the measuring and analysis of the change the participants experienced. Both the change in mental restoration, but also of the perceived variables of the space. Statistical analysis of the survey responses showed that a greater amount of change to the perceived variables, and mental restoration happened in natural environments, but both environments were restorative. This supports the idea that accessibility to a diverse set of environments and recreational elements will increase mental restoration. Therefore, policy practitioners, and designers should work to increase park space accessibility to a diverse set of environments and recreation amenities.
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Title: IDEOLOGICAL RECKONING & TRANSLANGUAGING REIMAGINING : AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATOR’S CRITICAL AUTOETHNOGRAPHY
Creator: Ponzio, Christina M.
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: A limited body of research has investigated English language teacher educators’ positionalities and pedagogies (Peercy & Sharkey, 2018; Yazan, 2019), particularly with respect to translanguaging. To that end, the purpose of this critical autoethnography, or what I will later describe as a nos/otras autoethnography (Anzaldúa, 2015), is for me to examine my ideological reckoning and translanguaging reimagining as a language teacher (LT) and language teacher educator (LTE) based on the following...
Show moreA limited body of research has investigated English language teacher educators’ positionalities and pedagogies (Peercy & Sharkey, 2018; Yazan, 2019), particularly with respect to translanguaging. To that end, the purpose of this critical autoethnography, or what I will later describe as a nos/otras autoethnography (Anzaldúa, 2015), is for me to examine my ideological reckoning and translanguaging reimagining as a language teacher (LT) and language teacher educator (LTE) based on the following questions:1. How did my ideological stance as a language educator shift across my pre-service and in-service LT experiences as well as my first years as an LTE? 2. How did my interactions in a nepantla contact zone catalyze and sustain my ideological reckoning and translanguaging reimagining as a White, English-dominant speaking, U.S.-born, beginning LTE? I frame this study within the narrative traditions of Gloria Anzaldúa (2012, 2015), whose work consistently defied linguistic conventions and critiqued the U.S. history of linguistic terrorism and settler-colonization. I draw upon her theorization of (des)conocimientos, nos/otras, and nepantla (Anzaldúa, 2015) in order to (1) reckon with the influence of assimilationist language ideologies (Irvine, 1989; Wollard, 1998) on my own language learning and teaching, and (2) to reimaging my language pedagogy through more heteroglossic (Bakhtin, 1981; García, 2009) and translanguaging (Williams, 1994, 1996; García & Li Wei, 2014) perspectives. Specifically, I bring together Anzaldúa’s (2015) theorization of nepantla with the notion of contact zones (Pratt, 1991; Canagarajah, 2013) to describe the collision, fracturing and transformation that emerged through the intentional juxtaposition of beliefs, identities, language practices, and experiences as a part of my participation in a collaborative self-study group named Transnetworking for TESOL Teachers (TTT. I begin by tracing my “Ideological Starting Point,” narrating my language and educational history from childhood through my undergraduate teacher preparation program; I also provide a brief account of my eight years as an LT and my first two years as an LTE (1985-2018). Next, I narrate my “Ideological Reckoning” through consideration of data generated during my early experiences as a LTE before zooming into my experience as a part of TTT, a collaborative self-study group committed to exploring translanguaging. In the final findings chapter, I describe my “Bodymindsoul Transformation,” which overlaps with and extends beyond my interactions with TTT to more closely explore my personal self-study as a LTE. This study illustrates that the overlapping and iterative self-study conducted as a part of TTT emboldened me to contend with my complicity in perpetuating English language education as white supremacist settler-colonial enterprise and to pursue new opportunities to expand my own translanguaging capacity. Hence, this study suggests critical self-reflexivity and collaborative inquiry in what I am calling nepantla contact zones (Pratt, 1991; Canagarajah, 2013; Anzaldúa, 2015) can galvanize white, English-dominant LTs and LTEs to reckon with their own positionalities and reimagine English language education. I conclude with implications for translanguaging, autoethnographic approaches to research, and language teacher education.
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Title: Exploring the potential of the biological control agent Hypena opulenta (Christoph) (Lepidoptera : Erebidae) at controlling invasive swallow-wort vines in Michigan and its indirect effects on monarch butterflies
Creator: Alred, Brianna Joy
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This thesis focuses on swallow-wort, an invasive vine related to milkweeds, and the potential of Hypena opulenta for providing biological control in Michigan, as well as the indirect effects that the introduction of H. opulenta may have on the monarch butterfly. The first chapter covers the background of swallow-wort in its invasive range and outlines previous research done with H. opulenta in the United States and Canada.In the second chapter, the impact and the phenology of H. opulenta on...
Show moreThis thesis focuses on swallow-wort, an invasive vine related to milkweeds, and the potential of Hypena opulenta for providing biological control in Michigan, as well as the indirect effects that the introduction of H. opulenta may have on the monarch butterfly. The first chapter covers the background of swallow-wort in its invasive range and outlines previous research done with H. opulenta in the United States and Canada.In the second chapter, the impact and the phenology of H. opulenta on black swallow-worts in Michigan is examined in common garden experiments. Swallow-wort survival and reproductive output are measured and compared when different adult densities are released in one study. The second study assessed the phenology of H. opulenta when releases took place at different dates either in sunny or shaded sites. In southern Michigan, H. opulenta is found to produce two generations per season, though overwintering could not be confirmed. Damage caused by larval feeding was higher in the shade but was not enough to reduce plant fitness regardless of release size or light availability. Swallow-worts can serve as oviposition sinks for monarchs, however, the presence of H. opulenta larvae may serve as an oviposition deterrent. Examination of the indirect effects of H. opulenta on monarch butterflies in the third chapter found no evidence that H. opulenta deters monarch oviposition. In addition, the utilization of swallow-wort by wild monarch butterflies as an oviposition host in Michigan was confirmed.
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Title: EPIDEMIC MODELS UNDER MOBILITY ON MULTI-LAYER NETWORKS
Creator: Abhishek, Vishal
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: We study epidemic spreading models namely, SIS and SIR models, under mobility on multilayer networks. In particular, we consider a patchy environment in which each patch comprises individuals belonging the different classes, e.g., individuals in different socio-economic strata. We model the mobility of individuals of each class across different patches through an associated Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC). The topology of these multiple CTMCs constitute the multi-layer network of mobility...
Show moreWe study epidemic spreading models namely, SIS and SIR models, under mobility on multilayer networks. In particular, we consider a patchy environment in which each patch comprises individuals belonging the different classes, e.g., individuals in different socio-economic strata. We model the mobility of individuals of each class across different patches through an associated Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC). The topology of these multiple CTMCs constitute the multi-layer network of mobility. At each time, individuals in the multi-layer network of spatially-distributed patches move according to their CTMC and subsequently interact with the local individuals in the patch according to SIS or SIR models. We establish the existence of various equilibria under different parameter regimes and establish their (almost) global asymptotic stability using Lyapunov techniques. We also derive simple conditions that highlight the influence of the multi layer network on the stability of these equilibria. We numerically illustrate that the derived model provides a good approximation to the stochastic model with a finite population and also demonstrate the influence of the multi-layer network structure.Next, we extend some of the results to the case of weakly connected networks. Here, we use the notion of strongly connected components and input to state stability to study the stability of equilibria. Finally, we consider a resource allocation problem to maximize the rate of convergence to an equilibrium. We show that under certain assumptions the problem can be formulated as a geometric program. We provide numerical illustrations to corroborate the results.
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Title: ROBUST HYSTERESIS COMPENSATION FOR NANOPOSITIONING CONTROL
Creator: Al-Nadawi, Yasir Khudhair
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Piezoelectric and other smart material-based actuators are widely used in micro- and nano positioning applications. However, the intrinsic hysteretic behavior of these actuators deteriorates their tracking performance. This dissertation, composed of three parts, is focused on nonlinear control methods for compensating the hysteresis and achieving high-precision control in the presence of model uncertainties. An inversion-based adaptive conditional servocompensator (ACS) is first proposed,...
Show morePiezoelectric and other smart material-based actuators are widely used in micro- and nano positioning applications. However, the intrinsic hysteretic behavior of these actuators deteriorates their tracking performance. This dissertation, composed of three parts, is focused on nonlinear control methods for compensating the hysteresis and achieving high-precision control in the presence of model uncertainties. An inversion-based adaptive conditional servocompensator (ACS) is first proposed, where a nanopositioning system represented as a linear system preceded with a hysteresis nonlinearity modeled with a Modified Prandtl-Ishlinskii (MPI) operator. With an approximate inverse MPI operator as a compensator, the resulting system takes a semi-affine form. The proposed controller consists of two parts, a continuously-implemented sliding mode control (SMC) law followed by an ASC. The hysteresis inversion error is treated as a matched disturbance and its analytical bound is used to minimize the conservativeness of the SMC design. Under mild assumptions, the well-posedness and periodic stability of the closed-loop system are established. The second part of the dissertation focuses on designing an inversion-free ACS to achieve precise tracking control of systems with hysteresis, without requiring explicit inversion of the hysteresis. To facilitate the control design, the MPI operator is rearranged into a form comprised of three parts: a linear term, a nominal hysteretic term represented by a classical Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) operator, and a hysteretic perturbation. The bound on the hysteretic perturbation is further derived based on the parameter uncertainty of the MPI operator. To properly ``cancel'' the nominal hysteresis effect without inversion, a technique involving a low-pass filter is introduced. It is shown that, with persistent excitation, the closed-loop variables are ultimately bounded and the tracking error approaches a neighborhood of zero, where the neighborhood can be made arbitrarily small via the choice of the SMC boundary layer width parameter and the servocompensator order. In the third part, an output feedback-based hysteresis compensation approach is used using dynamic inversion and extended high-gain observers. With mild assumptions on the properties of the hysteresis nonlinearity, the system can be represented as an uncertain, non-affine, nonlinear system containing a hysteretic perturbation. Dynamic inversion is used to deal with the non-affine input, uncertainties, and the hysteretic perturbation, where the latter two are estimated using an extended high-gain observer. Analysis of the closed-loop system under output feedback shows that the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood near the origin, which can be made arbitrarily small via proper choice of time-scale parameters of dynamic inversion and the observer, respectively. The efficacy of the three proposed controllers is verified experimentally on a commercial nanopositioning device under different types of periodic reference inputs, via comparison with multiple inversion-based and inversion-free approaches.
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Title: Semiotic Remediation and Composing in an Environmental Nonprofit
Creator: Hennes, Jack
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This project examines the public-facing communication products and processes of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC), an environmental advocacy group located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Using a social constructivist and transformative approach, this project involved an artifact analysis of digital products surrounding two environmental cases: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) contamination and the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, two major environmental issues impacting...
Show moreThis project examines the public-facing communication products and processes of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC), an environmental advocacy group located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Using a social constructivist and transformative approach, this project involved an artifact analysis of digital products surrounding two environmental cases: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) contamination and the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, two major environmental issues impacting citizens of West Michigan. This project also entailed an interview with a full-time communications professional working for WMEAC. This project analyzed the success of these products and processes using a semiotic remediation framework, which allows one to understand how artifacts travel to different audiences and contexts. It was found that the organization, while using an ad hoc approach to digital communications, successfully served as a trusted source for information regarding the environment and public health. The organization accomplished this by using a subtle, yet present employment of semiotic remediation to create an important chain of information between original sources of information and citizens. However, this project suggests that, while the nonprofit organization was active and keen to provide routine digital content for their audiences, citizen engagement was oftentimes overlooked. This project is an important contribution to scholarship in technical and professional communication, where scholarship examining the rhetorical practices of nonprofit organizations is relatively scarce. The outcomes of this project are also useful to instructors preparing communicators for future roles and to nonprofit communicators seeking insight on their own digital, public-facing communication practices.
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Title: Cross-Cultural Comparison of Public Attitudes and Adverse Impact of Stuttering
Creator: Wozniak, Angelica
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore potential links between public perceptions ofstuttering and the adverse impact of these perceptions on the experiences of individuals who stutter. This was completed by analyzing data from a demographic survey, the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA), the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES), and the Stuttering Perception Scale (4S). Data was collected from the United States and Australia. Methods:...
Show morePurpose: The purpose of this study was to explore potential links between public perceptions ofstuttering and the adverse impact of these perceptions on the experiences of individuals who stutter. This was completed by analyzing data from a demographic survey, the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA), the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (OASES), and the Stuttering Perception Scale (4S). Data was collected from the United States and Australia. Methods: This was a qualitative study that involved 24 people who stutter from the United States and 22 people who stutter from Australia, as well as 45 people who do not stutter from the United States and 48 people who do not stutter from Australia (aged 18+) who were recruited via research registries, personal contacts, stuttering associations, and by word of mouth. A descriptive analysis was completed using the student’s t-test, the Chi Square test, and percentage ‘yes’ to determine the presence of significant differences in the data. Results: No significant differences were found regarding adverse impact and self-stigma between respondents from the United States and Australia. No significant differences were also found regarding public perceptions of stuttering between respondents from the United States and Australia. Conclusions: The following results can be interpreted as indicating that there are minimal differences cross-culturally for adverse impact and self-stigma in respondents who stutter, as well as minimal differences cross-culturally for public perceptions of stuttering in respondents who do not stutter.
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Title: SQUATTING TO MAKE ENDS MEET : SOUTHERN ITALIAN MIGRANTS AND THE RIGHT TO A HOME IN 1970S ITALY AND WEST GERMANY
Creator: Jacobson, Sarah Bryanne
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This comparative study examines how southern Italian migrants faced social and political exclusion within and outside of their nation-state in the decades following the Second World War. Using Turin, Italy and Frankfurt am Main, West Germany as case studies, I investigate how urban renewal plans and discriminatory rental practices exacerbated housing shortages and induced migrants to live in precarious housing conditions. Taking inspiration from recent conceptualizations of citizenship put...
Show moreThis comparative study examines how southern Italian migrants faced social and political exclusion within and outside of their nation-state in the decades following the Second World War. Using Turin, Italy and Frankfurt am Main, West Germany as case studies, I investigate how urban renewal plans and discriminatory rental practices exacerbated housing shortages and induced migrants to live in precarious housing conditions. Taking inspiration from recent conceptualizations of citizenship put forth by historians Geoff Eley, Jan Palmowski, and Kathleen Canning, I show citizenship to be a contingent and contested category. By articulating housing claims and engaging in contest, southern Italian migrants and other disadvantaged residents pushed for an expansion and more equitable administration of institutionalized social service practices. By marching in the streets, going on rent strike, and occupying apartment buildings, migrants’ collective actions highlighted governing bodies’ failed promises to deliver a baseline standard of living. Southern Italians, allies, and news media channels frequently used women’s and children’s voices to amplify migrants’ claims to safe and affordable housing, portraying their motivations as apolitical and need-based in a time when internal security grew in importance. As extraparliamentary groups and domestic and international terrorist organizations threatened the existing sociopolitical order in both Italy and West Germany, city council debates became embroiled in questions of legality and whether to evict or accommodate housing occupiers. I complicate dominant narratives that center on tensions between self-identifying activists and police, as emblemized by conflict over housing in the streets, to show how city administrations began to differentiate between housing occupations conducted out of social need and those they perceived as part of more radical political movements. In turn, migrants and other socioeconomically disadvantaged occupiers were more amenable to negotiations with city officials, pushing for reforms within existing systems rather than more revolutionary changes. Overall, I argue that migrants challenged the socioeconomic and political practices that treated them as temporary residents or second-class citizens. By occupying the very spaces that had previously symbolized their marginalization, they exerted a right to state aid and assistance while subsequently reconfiguring the social fabric of their neighborhoods and communities. As local administrations reluctantly responded to their claims, they shifted definitions of urban citizenship and enacted reforms that had ramifications for housing and migration policies.
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Title: Grouping Patterns and Decisions for School-Age Children Who Stutter
Creator: Zukowski, Danielle
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Background. In the United States, the school system is one of the most common settings for stuttering intervention, yet adults who stutter report significant dissatisfaction with their prior school-based therapy experiences. In the schools, group therapy is the predominant service-delivery model for all students, but limited research is available regarding grouping practices, grouping decisions, or the impact of service-delivery models and group composition on students who stutter. Method....
Show moreBackground. In the United States, the school system is one of the most common settings for stuttering intervention, yet adults who stutter report significant dissatisfaction with their prior school-based therapy experiences. In the schools, group therapy is the predominant service-delivery model for all students, but limited research is available regarding grouping practices, grouping decisions, or the impact of service-delivery models and group composition on students who stutter. Method. The current study collected data on the factors clinicians consider when determining whether to use groups and how to form groups in therapy. The method involved the distribution of a questionnaire to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in public schools. Results. Analyses indicated that the choice of service-delivery model and group composition were influenced by student factors, such as stuttering characteristics, progress in therapy, and social dynamics, and clinician/workplace factors, including caseload size, workload, and scheduling restrictions. Discussion. Excess job expectations and limited time impact clinicians’ ability to implement individualized decision-making when choosing whether to use and how to form groups for students who stutter. By reducing barriers, school SLPs will be better able to align their clinical judgment with their grouping practices and more adequately meet the needs of students.
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Title: SOLIDARITY & RESISTANCE : WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVES ON EMPOWERMENT THROUGH SELF HELP GROUPS
Creator: Mishra, Manasi
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Development interventions mostly aim to ‘empower’ rural women by increasing their income and livelihood but rarely consider the voices of their beneficiaries. I study the meanings and experiences of empowerment or nari shakti as understood and described by rural women who lead self-help groups (SHGs) engaged in savings, micro-credit and income generation. I conducted the research in the central Himalayan region of rural India in Uttarakhand State using in-depth interviews with 11 SHG leaders....
Show moreDevelopment interventions mostly aim to ‘empower’ rural women by increasing their income and livelihood but rarely consider the voices of their beneficiaries. I study the meanings and experiences of empowerment or nari shakti as understood and described by rural women who lead self-help groups (SHGs) engaged in savings, micro-credit and income generation. I conducted the research in the central Himalayan region of rural India in Uttarakhand State using in-depth interviews with 11 SHG leaders. The findings indicate that the participants experience empowerment as solidarity and collective power that manifest in the form of self-reliance, courage, and independence. The participants associate their self-reliance with courage and inner strength which they have built as a means to survive the pain and struggle. Their stories of nari shakti are also stories of pain and struggle.This research implies the need to examine perspectives of feminists on empowerment related interventions. Further research is needed on how micro-credit SHGs help build collective action that can challenge patriarchal power structures and bring about social change. Such research can help provide solutions on how non-profits can utilize feminist strategies of consciousness raising while still meeting donor expectations for the SHG programs.
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Title: MULTIPACTOR DISCHARGE WITH TWO-FREQUENCY RF FIELDS
Creator: Iqbal, Asif
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Multipactor is a nonlinear ac discharge in which a high frequency rf field creates an electron avalanche sustained through secondary electron emission from metallic or dielectric surfaces. Multipactor discharge can adversely affect various rf systems, such as telecommunications systems, high power electromagnetic sources, and accelerator structures. The restricted frequency spectrum and the cluttered satellite orbits require a single spacecraft to perform the same or enhanced functions which...
Show moreMultipactor is a nonlinear ac discharge in which a high frequency rf field creates an electron avalanche sustained through secondary electron emission from metallic or dielectric surfaces. Multipactor discharge can adversely affect various rf systems, such as telecommunications systems, high power electromagnetic sources, and accelerator structures. The restricted frequency spectrum and the cluttered satellite orbits require a single spacecraft to perform the same or enhanced functions which previously required several satellites. This necessitates complex multi-frequency operation for a much-enlarged orbital capacity and mission, where the requirement of high power rf payload significantly increases the threat of multipactor. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of multipactor discharge driven by two-frequency rf fields. The study provides important results on single and two-surface multipactor, including multipactor mitigation, migration of electron trajectory, and frequency domain analysis.We use Monte Carlo simulations and analytical calculations to obtain single surface multipactor susceptibility diagrams with two-frequency rf fields. We present a novel multiparticle Monte Carlo simulation model with adaptive time steps to investigate the time dependent physics of the single surface multipactor. The effects of the relative strength and phase of the second carrier mode as well as the frequency separation between the two carrier modes are studied. It is found that two-frequency operation can reduce the multipactor strength compared to single-frequency operation with the same total rf power. Migration of the multipactor trajectory is demonstrated for different configurations of the two-frequency rf fields. Formation of beat waves is observed in the temporal profiles of the surface charging electric field with small frequency separation between the two carrier modes. We study the amplitude spectrum of the surface charging field due to multipactor in the frequency domain. It is found that for the single-frequency rf operation, the normal electric field consists of pronounced even harmonics of the driving rf frequency. For two-frequency rf operation, spectral peaks are observed at various frequencies of intermodulation product of the rf carrier frequencies. Pronounced peaks are observed at the sum and difference frequencies of the carrier frequencies, at multiples of those frequencies, and at multiples of the carrier frequencies. We also study two surface multipactor with single- and two-frequency rf fields using Monte Carlo simulations and CST. The effects of the relative strength and phase of the second carrier mode, and the frequency separation between the two carrier modes on multipactor susceptibility are studied. Regions of single and mixed multipactor modes are observed in the susceptibility chart. The effect of space charge on multipactor susceptibility and the time dependent physics is also studied.
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Title: Operating Decisions in the Afterglow of a Spike in Business Activities : Evidence from Banks
Creator: Ramasubramanian, Hariharan
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Firms are required to make resource adjustments and product mix changes in response to an unexpected change in the operating environment. Despite the ubiquitous nature of such changes, little is known about the nature of such resource adjustments and product mix decisions when firms move from one steady state to another but face an intermediate period of uncertainty. Using shale oil and natural gas extraction as an exogenous positive economic shock to the operations of local banks, I find...
Show moreFirms are required to make resource adjustments and product mix changes in response to an unexpected change in the operating environment. Despite the ubiquitous nature of such changes, little is known about the nature of such resource adjustments and product mix decisions when firms move from one steady state to another but face an intermediate period of uncertainty. Using shale oil and natural gas extraction as an exogenous positive economic shock to the operations of local banks, I find that banks reduce labor cost elasticity and increase labor employee elasticity in response to an unexpected positive change to their operating environment. Further, labor employee elasticity increases during the later periods of the shale development when there is lower uncertainty regarding the persistence of the positive economic shock. Banks with higher forecasting ability undertake labor adjustments earlier than banks with lower forecasting ability, highlighting the importance of the internal information environment in resolving uncertainty in the operating environment. During the later periods of the shale boom, banks reduce product diversity when their downside demand risk reduces reliably. Overall, results suggest that managers make dynamic adjustments to their operations in response to an unexpected change in the operating environment.
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Title: “IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF African CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICA
Creator: George III, Clarence
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan...
Show moreABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan-Africanism, structural pedagogy, and culturally relevant pedagogy. This research project evaluated and observed African-centered education in South Africa at the Kara Heritage institute in Pretoria South Africa. Over 4 years of data collected has yielded a great deal of information about South Africa's unique approach to education, culture, and heritage restoration.
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Title: Measurement of 34Ar(α,p)37K using the JENSA Gas Jet Target
Creator: Browne, Justin Edward
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: X-ray bursts are very luminous thermonuclear explosions that occur in binary star systems. In these systems, a neutron star accreting matter from a companion star undergoes a runaway thermonuclear explosion, caused by a breakout from the CNO-cycle into the αp-process. The αp-process consists of a series of (α,p) and (p,γ) reactions. In this process, there are “waiting point” nuclei at which the nuclear burning pauses until the stellar conditions change so that the (α,p) reaction rate...
Show moreX-ray bursts are very luminous thermonuclear explosions that occur in binary star systems. In these systems, a neutron star accreting matter from a companion star undergoes a runaway thermonuclear explosion, caused by a breakout from the CNO-cycle into the αp-process. The αp-process consists of a series of (α,p) and (p,γ) reactions. In this process, there are “waiting point” nuclei at which the nuclear burning pauses until the stellar conditions change so that the (α,p) reaction rate increases and burning continues. 34Ar is one of these waiting point nuclei, and sensitivity studies have found that varying the 34Ar(α,p)37K reaction rate significantly impacts the light curve of x-ray bursts.Because the 34Ar(α,p)37K cross section had never been directly measured before, the reaction rates used in simulations are based on Hauser-Feshbach predictions. These predictions are hypothesized to be inaccurate because the Hauser-Feshbach statistical model requires a high level density in the compound nucleus and assumes there are no dominant resonances.This thesis describes an experiment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) designed to test Hauser-Feshbach predictions by directly measuring the 34Ar(α,p)37K cross section. A radioactive ion beam of 34Ar15+ with energies of 57.04 MeV and 54.19 MeV was delivered to a (5–8) × 10^18 atoms/cm^2 thick He target, created by the Jet Experiments in Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics (JENSA) gas jet target. The recoils and beam were detected by the ANASEN position-sensitive ionization chamber, and the ejectiles were detected by an array of silicon detectors combining SuperORRUBA and SIDAR. The beam included contamination from the decay products of 34Ar, namely 34Cl and 34S. While the contribution from 34S(α,p)37Cl could be subtracted because the cross section had be previously measured, the contributions from 34Cl(α,p)37Ar and 34Ar(α,p)37K could not be separated, so a combined cross section for the two was derived from the data.The combined 34Cl(α,p)37Ar and 34Ar(α,p)37K cross sections were determined to be (70 ± 21) mb at (5.91 ± 0.08) MeV and (52 ± 13) mb at (5.51 ± 0.08) MeV in the center of mass frame. Comparison with Hauser-Feshbach theory indicates that the experimental cross sections are lower by 37 % and 20 %, for the two energies, respectively. This suggests that the hypothesis that the Hauser-Feshbach model overestimates the 34Ar(α,p)37K cross section by 2 orders of magnitude is unlikely to be true at these energies.
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Title: FOREST RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RURAL LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT IN GHANA : THE PROMISE OF A MODIFIED TAUNGYA SYSTEM
Creator: Adovor, Doe
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This dissertation addressed four questions: 1) What landcover changes have occurred in Yaya, Nsemre, and Sawsaw forest reserves in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region before and after Ghana’s MTS program was launched in 2002? 2) What factors influenced the community and household selection into the MTS program? 3) What changes in livelihood assets have occurred among MTS participants and non-participant households since the launching of the program in 2002? And 4) To what extent are the changes in...
Show moreThis dissertation addressed four questions: 1) What landcover changes have occurred in Yaya, Nsemre, and Sawsaw forest reserves in Ghana’s Brong Ahafo region before and after Ghana’s MTS program was launched in 2002? 2) What factors influenced the community and household selection into the MTS program? 3) What changes in livelihood assets have occurred among MTS participants and non-participant households since the launching of the program in 2002? And 4) To what extent are the changes in household livelihood assets attributable to the MTS program? An unsupervised landcover classification of January 1990 and 2000 LANSAT images and January 2012 DMC satellite images of the three reserves suggest an initial growth of 0.26 Km2/year in forest cover in Yaya between 1990 and 2000 and then a doubling of growth to about 0.52 Km2/year between 2000 and 2012. Unlike Yaya, forests cover in Nsemre declined by -0.37 Km2/year during the pre-MTS period and then increased sharply at an annual rate of 0.45 Km2 during the post-MTS era. Similar to the trends in Nsemre, Sawsaw likewise experienced an initial decline of -0.73 Km2 in forest cover before increasing annually at a rate of 0.31 Km2 post-MTS. To address research questions two and three, 878 households were surveyed in 19 communities in Yaya, Nsemre, and Sawsaw. Included in the Yaya survey were 406 MTS participants and 240 non-participant households. Also surveyed were another 232 non-participating households in nine communities around Nsemre (4) and Sawsaw (5) where the MTS program did not exist. A Binomial Probit Model (BPM) generated from the survey data, suggests that cash, farm inputs, and labor assistance from local religious organizations, migrant work, type of roof, and proximity to paved roads significantly (p<0.001) increased the expected probability of MTS community selection. Average land ownership exceeding two acres had a significantly (p<0.001) negative influence on MTS community selection. A GIS community mapping exercise conducted in the 19 research communities produced 1,446 household data points used in generating another BPM used to determine the extent to which proximity of households to communal physical assets influenced MTS selection. According to BPM, seven factors significantly increased the predicted probability of MTS community selection, while nine significantly reduced the chance of selection. Also, five factors positively influenced selection while two negatively impacted selection. In order to track changes in livelihood assets post-MTS, five livelihood indexes were constructed and compared for two time periods before and after MTS. The result suggests that the aggregate household physical capital index increased by 17% while social and financial capital both increased by 2% between 1999 and 2009. Also, the human capital index increased by 3% while the natural capital index decreased by 5%. To address question four, a Difference in Difference (DID) model was used to isolate changes in the livelihood indexes between 1999 and 2009 that may be directly attributed to the MTS project or spillover. The DID results indicate that on average, MTS resulted in a 6.8% increase in annual household income and income sufficiency index, a 2.3% increase in the combined household natural capital index, and a 4.8% increase in cropland ownership index. The DID also suggests that MTS participation may be directly responsible for the 2.5% increase in combined household physical capital index and the 1.5% aggregate household social capital index among project participants between 1999 to 2009. Of the DID livelihood indexes, the combined household human capital index (CHCI) was the least impacted by the MTS (0.4%).
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Title: SOCIOECOLOGICAL PREDICTORS OF MICROBIOME VARIATION IN WILD POPULATIONS OF AFRICAN MAMMALS
Creator: Rojas, Connie A.
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Host-associated microbial communities (e.g. microbiomes) influence multiple aspects of their host’s phenotype. Over a decade of research shows that the microbiome can vary with both host factors and environmental factors. However, much of the existing literature has been limited to intestinal microbiomes and to laboratory and domesticated animals. Multi-body site and longitudinal analyses of the microbiomes of wild mammals are lacking. Here, I address these gaps in knowledge and use DNA...
Show moreHost-associated microbial communities (e.g. microbiomes) influence multiple aspects of their host’s phenotype. Over a decade of research shows that the microbiome can vary with both host factors and environmental factors. However, much of the existing literature has been limited to intestinal microbiomes and to laboratory and domesticated animals. Multi-body site and longitudinal analyses of the microbiomes of wild mammals are lacking. Here, I address these gaps in knowledge and use DNA sequencing to survey the microbiomes of a highly gregarious carnivore, the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Due to their complex societies, spotted hyenas offer an excellent model system for investigating how host physiology and ecology interact with the microbiome, and for elucidating the contributions of the microbiome to host function. In this dissertation, I leverage over three decades of data and samples collected by my adviser from wild hyenas residing in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya (MMNR). Because this dissertation involved many collaborations with other scientists, I use the first person plural throughout this dissertation. In Chapter 1, I evaluate whether the microbiomes at six body-sites vary with host age, sex, and social rank in spotted hyenas, and find that the microbiome is distinct among body sites, and that this differentiation in microbiomes occurs early in life. For Chapter 2, I conduct a longitudinal analysis of the gut microbiome across 3 generations of spotted hyenas from 4 lineages, and elucidate the potential ways gut microbes may be contributing to their host’s digestion of animal carcasses. Findings show that the composition of the gut microbiome is highly variable across time, but its functional repertoire of genes is highly consistent. Furthermore, our analyses reveal that the abundances of bacterial taxa are associated with long-term ecological changes in livestock grazing, anthropogenic disturbance, and herbivore densities that occurred in the Masai Mara reserve. Chapter 3 inquires whether host social interactions and close associations between individuals shape gut microbiota similarity and diversity in a social group of spotted hyenas, which exhibit fission-fusion dynamics. Consistent with our hypothesis, close hyena affiliates share a greater number of bacterial types than hyena dyads that rarely encountered one another, but contrary to our hypothesis, more socially connected individuals do not harbor more diverse gut microbiotas than more isolated individuals. Chapter 4 compares the gut microbiomes of 11 species of sympatric African herbivores from the MMNR and Laikipia region in Kenya, and determines the relative influence of host diet and host phylogenetic relatedness in structuring the microbiome. My findings indicate that across distantly related hosts, herbivore gut microbiotas are strongly shaped by host phylogenetic relatedness and taxonomy, but among closely related hosts, host diet explains the most variation in the gut microbiota. Findings suggest that the gut microbiota is species-specific, but can be further modified by host ecology, including host diet and geography, especially among closely related host species. Overall, my dissertation provides novel insight regarding the factors shaping the gut microbiome in wild carnivores and herbivores, at individual, group-level, and ecosystem-wide scales.
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