Recent Submissions

  • Balk: A Geographic Analysis of the Impact of a New Professional Sports Stadium on Residential Real Estate Values in Minneapolis

    Luna, Marcos; Ratner, Keith; Krebs, Lorri; LaVerde, Anthony (2018-05)
    The City of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Hennepin County, Minnesota are among the many government entities that have committed taxpayer funds to finance a professional sports stadium. Both the city and county approved the financing of Target Field in 2007. The new stadium is now the home of the Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball franchise. Previous empirical studies have offered differing opinions on whether a new professional sports stadium has an effect on residential real estate values in the surrounding area. This thesis uses a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze the effect that Target Field had on residential real estate values in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Using GWR analysis of a hedonic real estate price model, this thesis concludes that being close to Target Field had a significantly positive effect on residential real estate values in Minneapolis in 2016. However, when applying the same model to real estate sales data from a year prior to the approval of Target Field, properties in the vicinity of the location of the ballpark may have been more valuable before the ballpark was built then they were in the years that followed its opening.
  • Using Remote Sensing and GIS to Identify Magmatic Strain Accommodation: The Case Study of Mt Marsabit, Kenya

    Mana, Sara; Muirhead, James; Van Hazinga, Cora (2023)
    Previous research has demonstrated that the morphology and linear arrays of extrusive volcanic features indicate the presence and orientations of the magmatic constructs that feed them. In extensional tectonic environments, like the East African Rift (EAR), trends of these subsurface dikes can be controlled by inherited lithospheric structures or by the direction of applied stress. Mapping extrusive volcanic features with remote sensing allows for detailed geo-spatial analysis that can reveal valuable data regarding the state of stress in the region or the presence of pre-existing fractures and other lithospheric structures. Mt Marsabit, Kenya (2.32°N, 37.97°E) is a basaltic shield volcano located on the eastern edge of the Turkana Depression in Northern Kenya. The Turkana Depression is a topographical low area of extensional deformation linking the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) and the Kenya Rift, characterized by a very thin rifted lithosphere (50-60 km; Fishwick, 2010; Kounoudis et al., 2021). While there is typically a predominant north-south orientation of structural and volcanic features in the EAR, some features in east Turkana (e.g. the Dilo-Durkana, Mega, and Hurri Hills volcanic fields) demonstrate superficial NE-SW trends, oblique to the main rift trend. The monogenetic volcanic field situated on Mt Marsabit is no exception and hosts hundreds of tuff cones and maar craters exhibiting an apparent NE-SW trend. The cause of these trends is so far unknown. Here we present data from the mapping and analysis of extrusive volcanic features on Mt Marsabit in an effort to improve our understanding of the tectonic and structural controls on crustal magma transport in this off-axis region of rifting. Analysis of the morphology of these features is performed in ArcGIS Pro while alignments of these features are analyzed in MATLAB. Previously published geological maps are also examined. This volcanic field exhibits a strong northeast-southwest trend in both morphology and linear arrays. Similar trends are observed in other volcanic fields in the eastern extent of the Turkana Depression. The obliquely oriented dikes in these fields may be a result of a combination of controls: en-echelon deformation zones associated with a component of strike-slip deformation; and a rotation of the local stress field.
  • Smoke Follows Beauty

    Scrimgeour, J.D.; Wright, Heather (2023-05-01)
    “Smoke Follows Beauty” is a poetry collection reflecting childhood experiences in the US South with a positionality concretely in the present. With a concise style, the collection considers racial and class divisions by engaging with family conflict and personal memory.
  • The Dog Star: A Collection Of Stories

    Peary, Alexandria; Perry, Matthew (2022-05)
  • From Inexperienced To Passion-Driven: Navigating The Working World

    Carey, Kevin; Perez, Sofia (2022-05)
    This thesis follows the adolescent life of Sofia Perez, who acquires a job for the first time at 15 years old. She documents her first experience within the working world in this piece, and also discusses relationships she has made along the way. Over the course of seven years, she blossoms from a shy introvert, to an outgoing and positive spirit. She dives into the good and bad of the workplace, as well as how her strong work ethic has made her the person she is today. From hyperventilating on the first day, to leading a team with ease, Sofia is at the beginning of her career, and ready to find her place in the working world. Her journey started at a retirement community called Bayview, and the six years she spent there were transformative. She hopes for every young teen getting a job for the first time to experience a job that they love, even if it may challenge them or not be in their desired field.
  • Scar Of Nox

    Carey, Kevin; Scrimgeour, J.D.; Hughes, Miranda (2021-12)
    After witnessing her Papa's soul ripped from his body by the Unhallowed worshippers of the underGod, Nox has undergone the rigorous training of the Divine Shadows, an elite and secret force run by the Church of Adonex, god of Afterlifes. Fueled by the desire to free him, she prepares for the Rite of Death, the ritual that will give her incredible power. Before she can do that, she must overcome two obstacles--balancing her mistrust and fear of Adonex, the god who scarred her face the night Papa was taken, and learning to get along with her Tomas, her newest and most stubborn scholar-in-training yet. Follow Nox into the darkness as she hunts the Unhallowed, their Desecrated victims, and the truth behind the events that changed her life forever. This thesis is an exercise in writing for young adult audiences and exploring the use of fantasy as a way of discussing deeper topics. Nox herself is an exploration into the mind of a young woman facing trauma and pursuing closure that forces her to constantly choose between giving respite to the dead or saving the living, representing the often-difficult battle of attempting to overcome the past and plan for the future at the same time, a struggle I believe many readers can relate to.
  • A Key Without A Lock

    Carey, Kevin; DeCiccio, Albert; Quackenbush, William (2021)
    The first five chapters from the book A Key Without A Lock.
  • Emotional Flashbacks

    Scrimgeour, J.D.; Hughes, Courtney (2022)
    A collection of non-fiction poetry and prose that focuses on enduring and overcoming emotional trauma.
  • Journeying Through The In-Between: An Exploration Of Liminality In José Saramago’sblindness, All The Names, And The Cave

    Valens, Keja; Miller, Evan (2022-05)
    This thesis focuses on the concept of liminality and the presence of liminal states in José Saramago’s trilogy of novels, Blindness, All the Names, and The Cave. Defined by qualities of disorientation and ambiguity, liminality speaks to being in a state of “in-between,” which, I argue, is applicable to the central characters in each of these texts. Specifically, I examine how Saramago’s characters experience these liminal states, as well the qualities of the liminal states themselves, which share many - though not all - of the same characteristics as labyrinths and caves. To that end, I trace the liminal journeys of the central characters in each novel, the actions required to successfully complete their journeys, and how the culmination of these journeys manifest as an achievement of change engendered by realization, epiphany, and clarity of consciousness. This thesis is divided into three chapters, bookended by introduction and conclusion. In the first chapter, I detail the history of liminality and define the “liminal state” and “liminal subject.” I also discuss how Saramago’s characters can be considered liminal subjects, and the events that precipitate the characters’ entrances into their respective liminal states. The second chapter features the analysis of the beginning stages of the characters’ liminal journeys - the “descents into darkness and the “confrontations with death” - and introduces the concept of “concentric liminality,” as well as the parallels between liminality and symbolic existence. The third chapter explores the final stage of the liminal journey, the “ascension to light,” and the processes by which the characters can achieve their transformations and exit their liminal states.
  • Exploratory Theatrics: Muriel Spark's Treatment Of A Woman's Absurd In The Driver's Seat, Memento Mori, And "The Portobello Road"

    Valens, Keja; Escobar-Leswell, Chantelle (2022-05)
    Muriel Spark is sharp in her wit and delivery. She has been known to ‘hold her own’ among male writers of the contemporaneous period -- no small feat. for a woman who came of age in the 1930s. She writes dark -- veering towards sinister -- novels, novellas, and short stories, but what is striking about each of them is her uncanny ability to portray the absurd, a field rarely penetrated by women at all. In the chosen texts, Spark creates at once a sense of agency for the women characters, and an overarching lack of control over the universe in which they exist. Using select feminist theory alongside critical analyses of the absurd, this thesis aims to illuminate the ways Spark’s unique storytelling creates space for women in male-dominated terrain. This includes both the arena in which she chose to write, and in the circumstances she sets up for her characters.
  • Mosaics Of Wholeness: Healing Through Queer Indigenous Self-Telling In Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History Of My Brief Body And Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad Indians

    Valens, Keja; Cook, Jessica (2022-05)
    This thesis examines texts by two queer Indigenous writers, Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree) and Deborah A. Miranda (Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen), to consider how writing about the self—what the Western literary canon commonly terms “memoir” or “autobiography”—is a form of healing in the afterlife of settler-colonialism. Through close readings of Belcourt’s essay collection A History of My Brief Body and Miranda’s Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, this thesis explores how Belcourt and Miranda both invent and reclaim the Indigenous self through the construction of metaphorical mosaics which, in their assembled wholeness, reflect a kind of “living through” of colonialism. Within this framework, this thesis goes on to argue that the stories of the self crafted by Belcourt and Miranda effectively reconstruct the queer Indigenous embodied self, writing against the colonial imagination with assertions of non-heteronormative sexual desire.
  • Studying Land Cover Change In The Goviefe Todzi Sacred Forest, Volta Region Ghana

    Young, Stephen; Bremer, Madden (2020)
    Sacred natural sites can be defined as any place in nature possessing a unique spiritual significance to peoples and communities. Throughout the world, sacred natural sites support ecological biodiversity, provide habitat stepping stones, and play a crucial role in the continuation of traditional spiritual practices. These variables in combination create a unique biocultural landscape that warrants conservation and conversely, sacred sites offer a mode of conservation. This research examines land cover change within the Goviefe Todzi sacred forest, located in Ghana’s Volta region, using satellite imagery. We utilized techniques in digital image processing to generate land cover classification maps of the study area for 2012 and 2015. Land cover classifications of high resolution QuickBird-2 and WorldView-2 imagery informed the hypothesis that closed forest cover within the sacred site decreased at a lesser rate than neighboring non-sacred closed forest cover. The Global Forest Change dataset from the University of Maryland framed our understanding of how forest cover changes within the study area and how it fits into the global context of forest cover change. Results demonstrated that the Goviefe Todzi sacred forest exhibited less closed forest loss when compared to non-sacred forest and closed forest was most often converted to open forest in the event of a land cover change. We recognized that other factors such as accessibility to nearby settlements, pre-existing agricultural fields, the time span of the study, as well as the topography of the sacred forest may also contribute to its lack of closed forest loss.
  • Selecting President Wilson's Army: The Draft And Immigration In Six Massachusetts Communities

    Darien, Andrew; Grimes, Charles (2013-05)
    In 2008, as I prepared for a travel-study trip led by Salem State University Professors Christopher E. Mauriello and Stephen Matchak to parts of France and Belgium where the Western Front of World War I had been, I found a list of the men from my hometown, Beverly, Massachusetts, who had died in military service during that war. I was struck by two things. First, the names on the list included many names that were on street corners, bridges, parks, and athletic fields that I had used and passed by nearly every day of my life, never knowing why those names were affixed. Second, judging by the surnames, the men represented a wide array of ethnic backgrounds. I knew that Beverly at the time of World War I had a diverse economic and ethnic composition. It was home to both a world-leading factory and to the residences of some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Old Yankee money shared the City with the immigrants and children of immigrants who mainly worked tended the great estates or in a gigantic factory. Those immigrants and children of immigrants were participants and descendants of the participants in the massive waves of immigration that the United States had received in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. For men of my generation, the heavy hand of the Vietnam War draft had not fallen equally on all, though I was among the lucky ones with a draft lottery number that guaranteed I would never be called. Like some of America’s earlier wars, Vietnam had seemed like a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight. I wondered how the diverse group of Beverly men had come to be in the World War I army; had they served willingly, by a draft, or both. That curiosity set me on the course that produced this thesis, which is an attempt to answer two questions: 1) Why did the United States adopt a draft, despite long-standing tradition of using mainly volunteer war-time forces and adverse experience with the draft? and 2) Did anti-immigrant feeling very strong at the time affect who was sent to war?
  • Need for Greater Access to Language Services in Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

    Luna, Marcos; Castonguay, Meghan E. (2020)
    This research assesses the geographic access to drug treatment centers providing interpretation services for limited- or non-English speakers seeking drug or alcohol treatment in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Only 68% of the available treatment centers serve languages other than English. A lack of language services may contribute to rates of relapse. This research uses rasterized surface distance analysis, also known as Euclidean distance analysis, to measure the average straight-line distance from each Census tract in Massachusetts to available treatment centers. The results of the Euclidean distance demonstrate how access to treatment services varies for those who speak English less than “very well.” This research may potentially impact healthcare policy in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by providing sound and necessary data for policymakers and other interested stakeholders to make practical decisions on providing language services for addiction treatment in the Commonwealth.
  • English Language Ideologies in ELT: Presence and Practices in Oaxaca, Mexico

    González, Melanie; Bustamante Martínez, Esaú Israel (2021-10)
    As the English language continues to expand globally, studies have found that socially constructed beliefs and ideological values around the role and status of English greatly influence the institutional policies and practices of English language teaching (ELT) programs. This study describes the findings of a phenomenological study conducted among EFL educators in Oaxaca, Mexico regarding the presence of English language ideologies in ELT programs. Findings revealed that sociocultural, linguistic, and economic ideologies affect institutional policies, access, and representation. Takeaways from this study suggest that English language ideologies impact institutional and programmatic practices in ways that relate to educational access, hiring practices, native speakerism, and an asymmetry between public and private educational systems.
  • Stories: Creating and Mirroring Community

    Valens, Keja; Eshelman, Sarah (2021-12)
    This is the portfolio of my work throughout my master’s program. I highlight five projects where I explored community as it is depicted or described in literature. I end with a final paper exploring how literature itself can be a connecting point for community in the real world through studying the work of Dawnland Voices. In my projects, I considered: community of a nation as formed by literature (examining Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” and Harjo’s American Sunrise; community as a source and subject of healing in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony; community formed over shared meals in young adult literature; community as found family in television shows; community and perspective in the classroom; and community seeking its own thriving through literature and social media.
  • Emotional Flashbacks

    Scrimgeour, J.D.; Hughes, Courtney (2022)
    A collection of non-fiction poetry and prose that focuses on enduring and overcoming emotional trauma.
  • From The Inside (A Collection of Personal Essays)

    Scrimgeour, J.D.; O'Day, Joseph (2021-12)
    I’ve always favored nonfiction stories that roused my emotions and curiosity, and compelled me to scrutinize every sentence and word for meaning. Such stories often awakened memories of my own that I’d treasured but had allowed to fade. In my own writing of essays, I’ve found myself reviewing old photos and mementos, taking trips to the local library, comparing my remembrances with those of relatives and friends. I hope readers will see in these essays something familiar and perhaps revive hidden, cherished memories from their own lives. Versions of these essays have appeared in the following publications: “Hallmark Moment” and “My Precious Stuff,” Biostories; “324 Bridge Street,” The Salem News; “Unrecognized” (under the title “Healthcare Unseen”), Focus on Faulkner; and “Rousing Bits of Assorted Wholes,” Adelaide Literary Magazine.
  • Is the Lewis (LEW) Rat an Appropriate Control for the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR)?

    Aparicio, Carlos; Hensley, Jason (2021)
    The Spontaneously Hypertensive rat (SHR), the most widely accepted rodent-model of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is compared with its normotensive control the Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat looking for between strains differences in impulsive choice. But the WKY is not a proper control for the SHR when the procedure requires locomotion to choose. The SHR has deficiencies in dopamine activity in nucleus accumbens causing lower tolerance to delayed outcomes than the WKY. Locomotion and anomalies in dopamine in the Lewis (LEW) rat are like those in the SHR, suggesting that the LEW is a good control for the SHR. This possibility was analyzed with SHRs and LEWs responding to concurrent-chains procedures. Choice was measured in the initial link where two random interval schedules arranged entries to two terminal links, one delivering 1-food pellet immediately and the other delaying 4-food pellets 0.1, 5, 10, 20, 40, or 80 s. Impulsive choice increased with training, but the SHRs showed faster changes in preference, making more impulsive choices than the LEWs. The hyperbolic-decay model and the generalized matching law fitted the data well. Positive correlations between discounting rate and sensitivity of choice to the immediacy of reinforcement suggests compatibility between the models of choice.

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