The Diary of Mary Saxton

A chance discovery propels a Furman student back to the Civil War era -- and into the life of a young Connecticut woman

To Follow the New Rule or Way": Hmong Refugee Resettlement and the Practice of American Religious Pluralism

This dissertation explores the impact of refugee migration and American refugee resettlement policies on the religious lives of Hmong refugees resettled in the in the United States between 1976 and 1990. Despite efforts to make refugee assistance a secular and religiously neutral enterprise, resettlement placed pressure for religious conformity on Hmong refugees and set in motion several changes in Hmong religious life. First, refugee resettlement imposed pressures on the practice of indigenous Hmong religion. Second, refugee resettlement facilitated Hmong adoption of Christianity, which Hmong people incorporated into their religious lives for their own purposes and in their own ways. Finally, Hmong people adapted and reinvented their indigenous beliefs and practices, as well as its institutions and identifications, in order to preserve their indigenous religious traditions

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe valleys of northern Utah, where most of Utah’s population resides, experience episodic air pollution events well in excess of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Most of the events are due to an accumulation of particulate matter during persistent cold air pools in winter from both direct emissions and secondary chemical reactions in the atmosphere. High wintertime ozone concentrations are occasionally observed in the Uintah Basin, in addition to particulate matter. At other times of the year, blowing dust, wildland fires, fireworks, and summertime ozone formation contribute to local air pollution. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate one facet of the health effects of Utah’s air pollution on its residents: the acute impacts of air pollution on gastrointestinal (GI) disease. To study the health effects of these episodic pollution events, some measure of air pollution exposure must be matched to the health data. Time and place are used to link the health data for a person with the pollution data. This dissertation describes the method of kriging data from the sparse pollution monitoring network to estimate personal air pollution history based on the zip code of residence. This dissertation then describes the application of these exposure estimates to a health study on GI disease. The purpose of the GI study is to retrospectively look at two groups of patients during 2000-2014: those with autoimmune disease of the GI tract (inflammatory bowel disease, IBD) and those with allergic disease of the GI tract (eosinophilic esophagitis, EoE) to determine whether disease exacerbations occur more commonly during and following periods of poor air quality compared to periods of good air quality. The primary analysis method is case crossover design. In addition to using the kriged air pollution estimates, the analysis was repeated using simpler empirical estimation methods to assess whether the odds ratios are sensitive to the air pollution estimation method. The data suggests an association between particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns and prednisone prescriptions, gastrointestinal infections in general, clostridium difficile infections specifically, and hospitalizations among people who have at least five entries of IBD diagnosis codes in their medical records. EoE exacerbations appear to be associated with high concentrations of particulate matter as well as ozone

Master of Science

thesisTwo years of speciated atmospheric mercury data in the Intermountain West are examined for annual, seasonal, and diurnal patterns, as well as influences of precipitation. Mercury is a pollutant in the atmosphere that occurs as three species: gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), particulate-bound mercury (PBM), and gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM). Mercury can enter ecosystems from the atmosphere via wet and dry deposition. In aquatic ecosystems, it can convert to the neurotoxin methylmercury, which has prompted consumption advisories for both fish and waterfowl. A Tekran ambient air mercury monitor was deployed at a site (UT96) near the Great Salt Lake, Utah as part of the Atmospheric Mercury Network (AMNet). UT96 has the only such detector in continuous operation in Utah with two years of data (July 2009 - June 2011). All three mercury species exhibit right-skewed distributions and vary in concentration over multiple orders of magnitude. GEM is the dominant species with a median concentration of 1.58 ng m-3 (range 0.25 - 64.47 ng m-3). PBM has a median concentration of 5.7 pg m-3 (range 0 - 803.2 pg m-3), while GOM has a median concentration of 2.6 pg m-3 (range 0 - 225.6 pg m-3). The sporadic nature of the extremely high GEM and PBM events suggest that they primarily result from local/regional emissions. In contrast, extremely high GOM events depend strongly on time of day and season, suggesting a connection to meteorological conditions. All three species exhibit statistically significant seasonal and diurnal patterns. GOM exhibits the strongest seasonal pattern, peaking during summer with median summer concentrations a factor of six greater than median winter concentrations. GEM and PBM peak during winter. All three species exhibit statistically significant diurnal patterns for at least part of the year. GOM has the most pronounced diurnal cycle, particularly during summer.Median concentrations of GOM during the afternoons of summer months are greater than 20 pg m-3, while median concentrations overnight are below 5 pg m-3. GEM and PBM both exhibit minima in concentrations during the afternoons, and both exhibit the largest diurnal variation amplitude during summer. Neither GEM nor PBM exhibit a statistically significant diurnal pattern during winter. An examination of the influences of precipitation on mercury concentrations indicates that precipitation scavenges GOM more efficiently than PBM, and that the scavenging increases as the amount of precipitation increases. Mixed precipitation scavenges PBM better than either rain or snow alone. The median GOM concentration during rain, snow, and mixed precipitation were all below the method detection limit (MDL), and could not be distinguished. There are some indications in the data that rain may promote slightly elevated concentrations of GEM

An examination of the issues of non-string teachers teaching strings

The purpose of this study was to examine the training of non-string teachers who teach strings in Nevada secondary schools, as well as their approach to first-year string teaching issues. Sixty current string and non-string teachers across Nevada voluntarily responded to the survey portion of this study. Two non-string teachers teaching strings in Nevada and two string professors were chosen for the interview portion of this study. Results found that fewer non-string teachers were required to take string methods class than string teachers. Fewer non-string teachers compared to string teachers thought their string methods class was applicable to their first year of teaching strings. String professors expected that non-string music education majors possess skills that would enable them to play well enough to get them through a typical first year. Data from this study also showed that non-string teachers can become successful string teachers if they pursue assistance experienced string teachers

Assessing the Cultural Effects of Neoliberalism on Empathy

The current study examined the effect of neoliberalism on the expression of empathy among 40 undergraduate college students. Participants were divided across three groups: two treatment groups who were exposed to either a neoliberal or critical primer and a control group with no exposure to a primer. Individuals were randomly assigned to each condition prior to completing three empathy measures: The Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. Mean scores were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and revealed no significant differences between groups, indicating the primers did not impact empathy scores. Similarly, demographic factors of age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and religious or political affiliation had no impact on empathy scores. The findings suggest that with this sample population, the cultural effects of neoliberalism did not negatively affect empathy. As these findings contradict a pattern of data present in two pilot studies that informed it, as well as other studies aimed at assessing the effects of discrete components of neoliberalism, further research is indicated

Writing and the Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles of Ideology, Administration, and the Institution

In this dissertation,Writing and the Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles of Ideology, Administration, and the Institution, I examine one private institution, Syracuse University, for how it has approached internationalization (both currently and in historical efforts), how it has dealt with the increased presence of English language learners (ELLs), and how both realities may affect the research and practice of writing program administrators (WPAs). I use scholarship from Second Language Writing and Writing Program Administration as frameworks for examining some of the sociopolitics involved in addressing the new needs of an internationalized higher education institution, including the politics and ideologies that may impede WPA work but may not always be readily apparent. I draw on institutional research in the forms of archival research, interviews with university administrators, and an administrative case study of one graduate-level writing course for ELLs. This dissertation project can be seen as culminating in two separate but intermingling qualitative studies. First, based on interviews with fourteen university administrators, I illustrate that some the most pressing concerns currently perceived at SU include cross-cultural conflict, a lack of resources for ELLs, and the need for increased and different kinds of institutional support, particularly since the effects of internationalization at SU have typically been handled after the fact rather than preemptively through strategic systemic planning. Then, based on rhetorical analysis of historical institutional data and archival materials, I exemplify how past efforts to internationalize were infused with separatist, colonialist, and ethnocentric points of view. I argue that applying institutional research to WPAs\u27 local university contexts for the purposes of revealing current materialities and longstanding ideologies can enhance WPAs\u27 abilities to locate opportunities for rhetorically negotiating change that is needed. In my second qualitative study that informs this dissertation, I investigate the administrative practices and politics involved when implementing new writing resources on behalf of ELLs in higher education institutions. I provide an administrative praxis narrative describing my development and piloting of a graduate-level writing course for ELL students wherein I analyze the departmental and institutional constraints traversed. This situated and site-specific study--which is informed by participant-observations, field notes, course materials, and interviews with fourteen student participants and one writing instructor--further exemplifies some of the benefits and challenges of institutional research. I catalog many issues and obstacles WPAs may need to consider as they navigate the often opaque and power-infused institutional spaces in which they participate and seek to change, including issues of sustainability, institutional backing, and the politics of remediation. To conclude this dissertation, I offer suggestions for future inquiry and propose a transdirectional model for institutional research and administrative practice. This model aims to account for a wider range of institutional realities as sites for determining transformational possibilities that better respond to linguistic and cultural diversity in higher education

Divergent Responses of Larval and Juvenile Blue Mussels to Low Salinity Exposure

In this study, we compared the osmotic stress response of larval and juvenile blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) at the transcriptomic, metabolomic, and whole organism levels. Blue mussels inhabit coastal areas, where they face climate-induced reductions in nearshore salinity. Despite their ecological and economic importance, scientists do not fully understand the underlying transcriptomic and cellular mechanisms of the osmotic stress response in blue mussels or how the ability to respond to stress changes throughout development. Blue mussels spend the first weeks of life developing through several larval stages in the plankton. These early life history stages are more vulnerable to environmental stress than juvenile or adult mussels, yet these stages are grossly understudied. Thus, an increased knowledge of how mussels at all developmental stages cope with low salinity is imperative for predicting how climate change will affect the distribution of M. edulis. In a series of experiments, we evaluated adjustments of molecular, cellular, and physiological processes in larval and juvenile blue mussels during short-term, low salinity exposure to elucidate stage-specific divergence in the osmotic stress response. We found that larval mussels differ from juveniles in the composition of their metabolome and in the differential expression of genes involved in the stress response. These differences in the larval response to low salinity exposure likely play a role in the increased susceptibility of these stages to stress and suggest that larvae may need to expend more energy relative to juvenile or adult mussels to mount a response. Additionally, we evaluated the effects of larval stress on later developmental stages and found that larval stress carries through metamorphosis and yields smaller juvenile mussels, potentially affecting the subsequent growth and size distributions of adult mussels. While larval exposure to low salinity generally had negative impacts on juvenile growth, there was evidence the previous exposure to stress may condition juvenile mussels for future low salinity events, depending on the timing of exposure. More studies on larval tolerance and the impacts of larval stress on juvenile fitness will be necessary for making accurate predictions of the effects of climate change on M. edulis distribution and abundance

USDA pesticide record-keeping requirements for certified private applicators of federally restricted-use pesticides (2017)

Revised 6/17/Web