• Finite Element Modeling of Reinforced Concrete Columns Subjected to Air and Underwater Explosions 

  Abyu, Getu Zewdie

  Ever since the tragic events of the 9/11 attacks in New York, global infrastructures have suffered significant damage caused by acts of terrorism, military strikes, and accidental explosions. Coastal regions and critical ...
• "A Great Uneasiness in Our County": Slavery and Its Influence on Family and Community Stability in Northern Virginia, 1782-1860 

  Huerta, Sheri A.

  Adopting a comparative approach, this dissertation examines the dynamics of control, resistance, and adaptation to enslavement along the borderlands of the enslaved South in northern Virginia from 1782 to 1860. The focus ...
• Barely Visible Inner Constructions 

  Keeney, Katherine

  This thesis is a culmination of the work I have done in my three years of this program. The first section is a complete chapbook, titled Barely Visible Inner Constructions. This book is an exploration of desire and the ...
• Does Preschool Executive Function Predict Social, Health and Behavioral Outcomes? A Meta-Analysis 

  Stucke, Nicole J

  Executive function is a widely studied psychological construct proposed to play a key role in healthy development and success in life. In children, executive function is often measured using particular behavioral laboratory ...
• The Brightening and the Darkening 

  Siebel, Elizabeth

  This thesis is a collection of short stories crafted to help readers escape the real world for a little while.
• Big Fun 

  Park, Jihoon

  This thesis comprises roughly the first half of the in-progress novel Big Fun. It is told from two perspectives: Minji Choi, a university drop-out hikikomori, and Simon Koo, a recently fired philosophy professor. When Simon ...
• The Monument 

  Johnson, Timothy

  This thesis is an excerpt of a novel in progress titled The Monument. The central narrative follows three characters on a quest for sanctuary at the southern border in a post-collapse United States. As these characters ...
• Beneath Our Feet, beyond the Grave 

  Ganus, Amanda

  This thesis is an exploration of cemeteries across the United States in the form of short essays that are hybrid personal, cultural, and historical. The project ranges from the burial grounds of family members to the ...
• Studying School Gardens as Habitat for Urban Butterflies and Outcomes of Involving Elementary School Students in Data Collection during a DC Summer Program 

  Pontarelli, Katherine

  Schoolyard gardens are increasing in cities to simultaneously provide students with experiential learning opportunities and local communities with increased food security. These gardens may also provide urban habitats ...
• Bridging the Gap: Rhetoric of Telecommunications Compliance Policies 

  Moorman, Tamara

  As the telecommunications industry expanded and grew since the invention of the telephone, the U.S. Congress has passed several privacy laws to protect consumer’s personally identifiable information that telecommunications ...
• Reducing Negative Social Boundaries: Utilizing Integrated Threat Theory 

  Martin, Emily

  The United States currently suffers from social division which has produced extreme polarity and a divisive social environment. There is a need to understand successful mechanisms that aid in the dissolution of negative ...
• The Operational Pains of Carceral Confinement: Prison Staff as Front-Line Arbiters of Punishment 

  Kushmerick-McCune, Bryce C

  Prisons are notoriously painful places that cause a great deal of harm to incarcerated people (Sykes, 1958). They are often dirty, dehumanizing, and can pose serious risks to both mental and physical health (Brinkley-Rubinstein, ...
• Assessing Thermal Imagery Integration into Object Detection Methods on Air-Based Collection Platforms 

  Gallagher, James

  Object detection models commonly focus on utilizing the visible spectrum via Red-Green-Blue (RGB) imagery. Due to various limitations with this approach in low visibility settings, there is growing interest in fusing RGB ...
• Optimization of the Placement of the Ultrasound Scanlines on the Forearm for an Upper Limb Prosthesis 

  De Marzi, Laura

  Sonomyography is an emerging technique that uses ultrasound to detect muscle deformation and is being explored as a real-time alternative to surface electromyography for deriving control signals from functional activity. ...
• Coach-Created Motivational Climate and Youth Soccer Player Self-Efficacy and Self-Talk 

  Ciampa, John Anthony

  Youth sports offer children a learning environment that can promote beneficial developmental experiences. Examples of these experiences include safe conditions for physical play with their peers, emotional maturation via ...
• The American Scream: Gender, Capitalism, and Power in Rural Haunted House Attractions 

  Aquino, Betty

  In the wake of industrialization many rural American farms embraced agritainment and learned they could commodify nostalgia and romanticized ideas of rural life. They evolved into Fall festivals featuring family-friendly ...
• The Sound of Religious Architecture: Using Sikh Musical Traditions and Postmodern Technologies to Produce Space in Northern Virginia 

  Carle, Alexander R

  This thesis explores kirtan as a musical practice that travels across a variety of geographically unbounded cultural landscapes (“-scapes”) with the aid of global social networks, postmodern transportation technologies, ...
• Anxiety Problems and Structural Amygdala Volume Differences in Autistic and Non- Autistic Youth 

  Boyle, Joseph Patrick

  Autism is a cluster of highly heterogenous neurodevelopmental conditions that impacts differences in socio-emotional information processing; however, to date, little work has focused on the relevant brain systems involved ...
• Echoes in the Forge 

  Trammell, Meagan

  On a future Earth ravaged by the fall of civilization, the descendants of the survivors are forced to scrape out a living amid a century-long ice age. Five years have passed since disgraced general Khess Lindhorne and her ...
• The Emergence of Relationality: The Ontology of Personhood and Age-Based Identity in the Mortuary Practices of Archaic Indian Knoll, Kentucky 

  Mehalko, Olivia

  This thesis examines the embodiment of biosocial age identity in the mortuary practices of the Late Archaic site, Indian Knoll (ca. 4600-3500 BP), in Kentucky. Utilizing bioarchaeological biosocial approaches and mortuary ...

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