Distribution and abundance of sardine (Sardina pilchardus) eggs in the English Channel from Continuous Plankton Recorder sampling

Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) samples from the English Channel and adjacent Celtic shelf, taken over the period 1958-1980, were analysed for sardine (Sardina pilchardus) eggs. Results showed the progression of sardine spawning along the English Channel from west to east from March to August and a return from east to west from September to November. This corresponds with the two seasonal peaks of sardine egg abundance in the western Channel: the main summer peak being in May/June, with a smaller autumn peak in October/November. Long-term changes in sardine egg abundance in CPR samples showed a decline in summer spawning from the late 1960s, but no clear trend in autumn-spawned egg abundance. Similar patterns were observed in the numbers of sardine eggs sampled by conventional plankton net tows at the time-series Station L5 off Plymouth. This supports the use of the longer time-series of sardine egg data at L5 as being representative of a wider area and emphasizes the importance in continuation of the L5 time-series

“Charged with resistance”: An Ecocritical Reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer and Flight Behavior

This thesis analyzes Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer and Flight Behavior through an ecofeminist lens. The women in these novels understand that human and nonhuman lives, including plants and animals, intersect in real and meaningful ways. This realization allows the female characters to move past the dualistic or hegemonic culture they inhabit

The Re-Invention Of Ingenium: Gloria Anzaldúa As A Modern Enactment Of The Grassian “Poet As Orator”

Ernesto Grassi is an Italian born philosopher whose primary scholarly focus was Italian Renaissance Humanist (IRH) theory. Part of this study caused him to begin analyzing the principles of rhetoric, wherein he wrote two books discussing the connection between rhetoric and philosophy. In these texts, Grassi posits IRH as a valid form of rhetorical theory, providing thoughts on the philosophers and theorists who contributed to this understanding of Humanism. This project attempts to further Grassi’s work by utilizing his ideas as a framework to analyze the way Gloria Anzaldúa constructs community in her text Borderlands.Specifically, this project isolates three key concepts of IRH theory—“work,” ingenium, and the poet as orator—in order to analyze the effectiveness of Anzaldúa’s method of community cultivation and to understand the rhetorical moves she made in this process of cultivating community. This project also examines the way Anzaldúa’s idea of mestiza consciousness expounds upon the Grassian poet as orator figure

Southern Appalachian Peatlands Sustain Unique Assemblages of Archaea

Numerous aspects of three peatlands (Pineola Bog, NC, Sugar Mountain Bog, NC, and Tater Hill Bog, NC) located along the Southern Appalachian highlands of western North Carolina were analyzed to elucidate the impact on future climatic warming events via the release of the greenhouse gas methane. Quantitative analyses demonstrated a methanogenic community comprising roughly 50% of the Archaeal. A hydrogenotrophic Methanobacterium sp. was enriched for from Pineola Bog using culture-based techniques, corroborating molecular data and indicating the presence of Methanobacteriales species (0.4%) in this peatland. In addition to the methanogenic population, many non-methanogenic species were also found among the peatlands both from DNA and cDNA analyses. Members of the deep-branching Euryarchaeota, represented 5-18% of the sequences retrieved from each of the three sites. Crenarchaeota numbers were found to significantly contribute to the overall Archaeal community across sites. Methane emission studies revealed the peak methane production to be just below (0-25 cm) the surface of the water table in each site, as was expected. Nutrient analysis of the study sites indicated a strong signature from the underlying bedrock of the area as concentrations of Fe, Al, and Na were at the high end of normal compared to other peatlands globally

Southern Appalachian Peatlands Support High Archaeal Diversity

Mid-latitude peatlands with a temperate cli- mate are sparsely studied and as such represent a gap in the current knowledge base regarding archaeal popu- lations present and their roles in these environments. Phylogenetic analysis of the archaeal populations among three peatlands in the Southern Appalachians reveal not only methanogenic species but also significant popula- tions of thaumarchaeal and crenarchaeal-related organ- isms of the uncultured miscellaneous crenarchaeotal group (MCG) and the terrestrial group 1.1c, as well as deep-branching Euryarchaeota primarily within the Lake Dagow sediment and rice cluster V lineages. The Thaum/Crenarchaea and deep-branching Euryarchaea represented approximately 24–83 % and 2–18 %, re- spectively, of the total SSU rRNA clones retrieved in each library, and methanogens represented approximate- ly 14–72 % of the clones retrieved. Several taxa that are either rare or novel to acidic peatlands were detected including the euryarchaeal SM1K20 cluster and thaumarchaeal/crenarchaeal-related clusters 1.1a, C3, SAGMCG-1, pSL12, and AK59. All three major groups (methanogens, Thaumarchaea/Crenarchaea, and deep- branching Euryarchaea) were detected in the RNA li- brary, suggesting at least a minimum level of mainte- nance activity. Compared to their northern counterparts, Southern Appalachian peatlands appear to harbor a rel- atively high diversity of Archaea and exhibit a high level of intra-site heterogeneity

Creepy and other stories

The three stories in this manuscript "Creepy," "Elegantly," and "Bad Romance" interrogate the complexities, joys, and struggles of female friendship. In "Creepy," the first person narrator, Annie, develops a friendship with her neighbor, Ms. Jacobs, while she cleans out Ms. Jacobs's cat's litter box during Ms. Jacobs' pregnancy. The story tracks Annie's relationship to her sexuality and her relationship to her mother. "Elegantly" follows Julia's desire to adopt a Chinese daughter, and "Bad Romance" is a sister story, following Melanie's relationship to Annesley, her younger sister who finds fame on Youtube

The praxis of disrupting educational spaces: culturally relevant pedagogy in a school-based mentoring program

This qualitative research study examines the Successful Team Aimed at Reaching Student Success (STARSS) mentoring program at Excellence High School (EHS). The STARSS mentoring program purports to address the academic, social, and emotional needs of African American young men at EHS. Hence, the purpose of this study is to settle my curiosity by examining the effectiveness of the STARSS mentoring program through the lens of the participants in the program over a six-year period, 2012–2018. The participants in STARSS consist of African American young men as well as teachers, counselors, and administrators, who actively serve as mentors and student advocates. In the research, the focus is on current and former teachers and administrators and former graduates from EHS who actively participated in the STARSS mentoring program. I define active participation as mentors, advocates, and mentees who participated in the activities and learning opportunities designed for the program. The activities and learning opportunities include, but were not limited to, the HistoryMakers celebration at the beginning of each program year, Breakfast for Champions, the STARSS Honors Academy, one-on-one mentor and mentee sessions, field trips, professional development opportunities, etc. To determine the effectiveness of the program, I gravitate towards Effectiveness Theory, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) to frame the study and to answer the research questions that ground the study. I use Participatory Action Research (PAR) to frame the methodology, and I use semi-structured interviews as a research method to collect the data. I place these theories and research methods within the same space and within the same context as specialty programs. I define specialty programs as any program that intentionally works to enhance the academic, social, or emotional well-being of school-aged children outside of their classroom spaces (e.g., comprehensive school counseling programs). I reference comprehensive school counseling programs as an example, due to the commitment of the advisors in STARSS willingness to address the mentees’ social and emotional well-being. I also reference these programs due to the advisors’ commitment to bring attention to the idea of culturally relevant learning, inequitable school practices, and their commitment to disrupt social practices that marginalize and dehumanize students within our spaces of learning. Therefore, the benefits of this study could potentially add to critical discourse pertaining to education in the United States, best practices for implementing and examining school-based mentoring programs, and the academic achievement and social and emotional growth of African American males

Clay

The work I am showing is traditional ceramics, and is intended to be viewed on two different levels of understanding: the perceptual and the conceptual. On the perceptual level it is seen as a pot or ceramic container. When dealing with the utilitarian aspect of these pieces, I as striving for a strong statement through the use of organic form and utilitarian function. These pieces are meant to function in a domestic situation. The function might be to contain a tree, to hold a clump of dry weeds, or to serve food on, but each piece is meant to be a thing of beauty and is made to be used in someone's home. They are intended to be appreciated in both respects. On the conceptual level my work deals with the less obvious, and sometimes the ambiguous. These concepts deal with the use of line, color and surface texture on a three dimensional form. When speaking of line as it relates to this body of work, I must also speak of color, for I feel here they are in a symbiotic existence. Color is used with and for line; line is used with and for color. I am using color and line to define areas of surface. When color is used, it is meant to work in harmony with the form, and at no point do I try to oppose the ceramic form with line or color

Coastal progress: eastern North Carolina's war on poverty, 1963-1972

This dissertation puts forward a new and broader understanding of the factors that contributed to greater economic opportunity and declining poverty rates during the Great Society years and beyond through a study of the nation's first rural Community Action Agency (CAA) to receive federal funds as a part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Craven Operation Progress, Inc. (COP), located in mostly rural Eastern North Carolina, also was one of the eleven sites funded by the private non-profit North Carolina Fund, whose antipoverty programs both predated and served as models for the national War on Poverty. Aside from just the timing and source of its funding, the experiences of COP reveal a refreshingly different and far more encompassing story than has been told. In addition to focusing primarily on the fight to eradicate poverty in America's largest urban centers (many of which, like Mayor Daley's Chicago, were exceptional cases), scholarship on the War on Poverty has generally assumed that middle-class whites on CAA boards were either uninterested or unable to truly meet the needs of the poor, biracial agreement and cooperation was essentially impossible, and that confrontation and direct protest led by the poor and their liberal advocates was the primary and the most consistently effective means behind social change. "Coastal Progress: Eastern North Carolina's War on Poverty, 1963-1972" challenges these assumptions. With few exceptions, scholars have not looked beyond episodic conflicts and controversies to assess the wide-ranging interactions between whites and non-whites and between the poor and non-poor in their evaluations of CAAs. The research conducted for this study, which relies heavily on several untapped primary sources including 1960s and 1970s-era oral interviews of antipoverty workers and local citizens, records from the U.S. Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), and written communications between COP and the North Carolina Fund as well as the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), confirms that negotiation and moderate white and black leadership in combination with manpower and economic development were key to the creation of economic opportunities for poor people in Eastern North Carolina and also to making those opportunities accessible to the poor, blacks in particular

Factors related to the election or non-election of Home Economics at Page High School, Greensboro, North Carolina

The purposes of this study were as follows: (1) to identify some of the factors that related to the election or nonelection of home economics by tenth and eleventh grade girls at Page High School, Greensboro, North Carolina, and (2) to compare the factors that influence tenth and eleventh grade students in the election and non-election of home economics. The study was designed to obtain general background information and identify the degree of influence specific factors had on the students in their election or non-election of home economics. A questionnaire was developed to obtain the desired information. It was administered by the homeroom teachers to all of the tenth and eleventh grade girls who were present at Page High School on March 16, 1967. It was assumed that students at Page High School, Greensboro, North Carolina had some choice in the election of the subjects in which they enrolled