The work in this thesis involves the development of specimen preparation techniques for the observation with an electron microscope of alpha
particle tracks in cellulose nitrate plastic.
Both direct observation
using thin films and replica production techniques were investigated.
Direct observation of the alpha tracks was accomplished by cutting
thin...
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a genetic inborn metabolic disorder which inhibits the functional production of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). It currently affects one in 15,000 Americans and is the most common amino acid metabolism error found in newborns. Individuals affected with PKU are incapable of metabolizing the amino acid, phenylalanine...
This thesis situates a discussion of Thoreau's later natural history essays in the context of the author's other writings. Beginning with an examination of the writings of Thoreau's friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, this paper examines Thoreau's relation to and departure from Emerson's understanding of time, place, and pattern...
Zora Neale Hurston was a Black American writer
during the period of the Harlem Renaissance. The
purpose of this study is to show that three of her four
novels form a protracted discussion of a particular
type of freedom which was of especial interest to
Hurston. The study seeks to...
Recent conflicts in America concerning the environment (the harvesting of old growth timber in the Pacific Northwest, or the proposed opening of public lands in southern Utah to mining interests, for instance) have precipitated a personal examination of "historical others" (Jensen 64), individuals that possess very different sensibilities from a...
The protagonists in the fiction of Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, and Toni
Morrison illuminate American cultural perceptions of black women and illustrate how the
creators of these characters hope to change those perceptions. I studied Paule Marshall's
Daughters, Alice Walker's Meridian and The Color Purple, and Toni Morrison's The
Bluest...
This paper defends a reading of Hennan Melville's Moby-Dick that elevates Ishmael's status from mere narrator of Ahab's tragedy to that of protagonist of his own story, a novel of epistemological seafaring. As a metaphysical quester, Ishmael provides the novel's only reliable and complex vision of the condition of man...
Gadolinium is an important element to the Nuclear Fuel Industry. Two
of the seven naturally occurring isotopes of gadolinium have very large
absorption cross sections for thermal neutrons. The isotopes of
¹⁵⁵
Gd
and
¹⁵⁷ Gd readily absorb thermal neutrons and transmute to
¹⁵⁶
Gd and
¹⁵⁸
Gd which are...
A majority of eighteenth-century novels remain in regular print over two hundred years since their inception. Yet with the possible exception of Robinson Crusoe, they have largely fallen out of popularity, rarely appearing on "The Summer's Hottest Reading" lists or receiving celebrity endorsement. I consider Ian Watt's foundational study, The...
I studied developmental rates in a suite of temperate and tropical passerine bird species from the New World to test the hypothesis that tropical passerines exhibit slower patterns of growth and development than temperate birds. I also investigated how the expression of several developmental rates varied with life history traits...