Vocabulary and reading comprehension : instructional effects

Bibliography: leaves 32-34Supported by the National Institute of Educatio

A Contribution of the Trivial Connection to Jones Polynomial and Witten's Invariant of 3d Manifolds I

We use the Chern-Simons quantum field theory in order to prove a recently conjectured limitation on the 1/K expansion of the Jones polynomial of a knot and its relation to the Alexander polynomial. This limitation allows us to derive a surgery formula for the loop corrections to the contribution of the trivial connection to Witten's invariant. The 2-loop part of this formula coincides with Walker's surgery formula for Casson-Walker invariant. This proves a conjecture that Casson-Walker invariant is a 2-loop correction to the trivial connection contribution to Witten's invariant of a rational homology sphere. A contribution of the trivial connection to Witten's invariant of a manifold with nontrivial rational homology is calculated for the case of Seifert manifolds.Comment: 28 page

The Real Housewives of Ancient Rome: Evidence for the Economic Contributions of Women

The involvement of women in commerce has been a common feature of most economies. However, Roman authors tend to obscure the function of women within the Roman economy. This thesis seeks not only to understand the roles women played in commerce in ancient Rome but also the impact that their social status had on their ability to contribute in a meaningful way to the economy. Epigraphic and literary evidence is drawn on to provide a complete understanding of the roles women played. It is apparent that social status affected the way a female was able to interact with the economic culture of Roman society. Elite women were much more restricted in their ability to gain financial success. Ideological expectations for women in Roman society were more often upheld in order to preserve family prestige. Non-elite women had also internalized these traditions but were financially unable to abide by them and so they are often represented in commemorative inscriptions and reliefs engaging with the Roman workforce

Can the meniscus affect the nature of a chondrocyte?

It is well understood that proper joint kinematics and loading are important factors in maintaining the health of the articular cartilage of the knee. This state of normal, physiologic loading facilitates a balance between anabolic and catabolic processes resulting in low level, homeostatic cartilage matrix turn-over and remodeling. In this way articular cartilage can function throughout an entire lifetime without loss of its load bearing or lubricating characteristics. However, situations that dramatically alter knee joint biomechanics, such as chronic disuse or overuse[superscript 1-4], anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury[superscript 5,6], or damage to the fibrocartilaginous menisci[superscript 7-11], can result in progressive cartilage degradation and strongly correlate with the onset of osteoarthritis (OA)

Factors Influencing Pro-Environmental Behavior in Craft Businesses

Since the arts and crafts movement in the early twentieth century, discourse on craft revolves around the conflict over industrialization. The current craft movement builds on these same responses to the industrialized world while addressing environmental issues and sustainability. However, craft literature does not address the pro-environmental business practices of craft artisans or motivational drivers of such behaviors. Therefore, this study attempts to expand the understanding of value and belief drivers of pro-environmental behaviors by identifying the pro-environmental behaviors of craft artisan business owners and by determining the factors that influence those behaviors. The value-belief-norm (VBN) theory of environmentalism (Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano & Kalof, 1999) was used to outline the causal influences of pro-environmental behaviors in craft businesses and structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the relationships proposed in the theory

Neural Underpinnings of Aesthetic Experience: What Can We Learn from Neuroaesthetics?

The purpose of this research is to provide an overview of neuroaesthetics that enhances our understanding of consumer responses to the aesthetics of fashion products.The present research focused on addressing principles of neuroaesthetics and why some design elements are objectively more attractive and aesthetically pleasing to human brains than others. This study\u27s findings will help build a bridge between neuroaesthetics and fashion studies and offer a potential guide for future fashion research

The Role of the Creative Director in Sustaining the Luxury Fashion Brand

The findings of this study show recent examples of creative directors who have successfully managed four components of Kapferer and Bastien\u27s (2012) model. We also addressed issues creative directors face while attempting to balance luxury status with modernization and accessibility. In addition, specific strategies that creative directors have employed in response to the increasingly fast-paced and technology-influenced industry were discussed. The results of this study highlight examples of strategies creative directors use that have proven to be either successful or unsuccessful, providing an extensive guide for creative directors, brand managers, and marketers. Because there is limited scholarly research regarding the role of creative directors of luxury brands, the present study attempts to fill this gap

Diet and Prey Selection of Alewives in Lake Michigan: Seasonal, Depth, and Interannual Patterns

To evaluate the current diet of alewives Alosa pseudoharengus and interactions with their prey in light of recent changes in Lake Michigan, we determined the seasonal diet and prey selectivity of large (>100 mm total length) and small (<100 mm) alewives in southeastern Lake Michigan. Selectivity and diet were evaluated on a biomass basis for alewives collected near Muskegon, Michigan, during June, July−August, and October 1999–2001. Fish were sampled from three depth zones: shallow (15–25 m), transitional (35–55 m), and deep (65–90 m). Prey selectivity and diet patterns indicated that alewives had considerable flexibility in adjusting to prey availability, which varied by season, depth zone, and year. Although small copepods were an abundant prey item throughout the year and in all depth zones, they were mainly important in the diet (large and small alewives) in June and at the shallow stations, where many of the other prey types were not available. Despite declining numbers, Diporeia continued to be important for large alewives in spring, particularly at the transitional and deep stations, where their biomass was many times higher than that of other prey. During summer, large alewives selected either Bythotrephes longimanus or Mysis relicta in all depth zones and years. The diet of large alewives consisted mainly of Mysis in July 1999 and August 2001, whereas in August 2000 mainly Bosmina were eaten. During October, Mysis and Bythotrephes, along with large zooplankters (Daphnia spp. and large calanoid copepods), were selected and were most important in the diet of large alewives. In contrast, only the large zooplankton were selected and were important prey for the small alewives in fall. Annual, seasonal, and depth differences in prey biomass as well as differences in alewife size all influenced diet and selectivity patterns.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141716/1/tafs1068.pd

The Neurocentric View on Consumers of Cotton: An Application of Consumer Neuroscience

The purpose of this project was to provide students opportunities to recognize and identify the new knowledge of consumer neuroscience, which offers a different perspective that could contribute to a deeper understanding of consumers of cotton. Consumer neuroscience refers to the study of the neural conditions and processes underlying consumption, their psychological meaning, and their behavioral consequences. The online certificate workshop was developed on the topic of the Neurocentric View on Consumers of Cotton: An Application of Consumer Neuroscience. The thirteen interactive learning modules included various aspects of consumer neuroscience related to cotton consumption, such as neuroaesthetics (neural aspects of perception of beauty), neuroeconomics (neural aspects of consumer decision making), and neuromarketing (neural aspects of consumer responses to marketing stimuli). Due to the inherent complexity of neuroscience knowledge, the focus of content development was on explaining the various aspects of consumer neuroscience in layman\u27s terms and applying those terms to a cotton-consumption context in anecdotal form. Each learning module also included a multiple-choice quiz to assess student comprehension of the content