UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item FACILITATING EASE AND EXPRESSIVITY IN LEFT-HAND BALANCE, FINGER ARTICULATION, AND NAVIGATING THE BOUTS ON THE VIOLA(2024) Burton, Tonya; Murdock, Katherine; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior to the emergence of the viola as a solo instrument in the twentieth century, the viola was often treated like a bigger violin. This has led to a lack of clear and consistent pedagogy for left-hand technique on the viola. The purpose of this project is to offer a resource for left-hand technique specifically for the viola, with an emphasis on areas which there is a lack of other written material. Violists often have preconceived notions about left-hand technique, stemming from ideals of violin technique which often use a different approach from what is needed or helpful on the viola. This can greatly hinder potential fluency and expressive freedom for violists and can even lead to physical harm. Additionally, the absence of a uniform size and shape for violas combined with the unique body of the player make standardization of left-hand technique nearly impossible, requiring violists to analyze technique in an individualized manner. In order to enable violists to discover healthy and fluid body motions in relation to particulars of their specific viola, the techniques will be primarily approached as movement. Part One equips the violist to take ownership of their technical journey with an exploratory mindset, a somatic viewpoint and discovering body balance with the viola. Part Two applies these concepts to left-hand balance, finger articulation, and navigating the shoulder bouts while dispelling common misconceptions and interweaving basic anatomical information alongside practical exercises and examples from the repertoire. My goal in this dissertation is to empower violists on a path towards greater technical ease and fuller expression by approaching left-hand technique as an individualized exploration of body movement and musculoskeletal understanding.Item Mortality and Movement of Adult Atlantic Menhaden During 1966-1969 Estimated from Mark-Recapture Models(2017) Liljestrand, Emily Morgan; Wilberg, Michael J; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Atlantic Menhaden Brevoortia tyrannus is an economically and ecologically important forage fish. I built a multi-state mark-recapture model to estimate movement, fishing mortality, and natural mortality rates during 1966-1969. Movement from mid-Atlantic regions to North and South Carolina in the winter was lower than previously described, and natural mortality was approximately three times greater than previously estimated. Fishing mortality was highest in North and South Carolina. We evaluated the model’s performance by generating mark-recapture data sets from known values of mortality and movement then fitting the mark-recapture model to those data. The model estimated movement rates > 0.05 to within 33% of the true value even under different scenarios of spatiotemporally distributed releases and fishing effort. Distributing the fishing effort more evenly across regions substantially improved the estimates of movement and fishing mortality, and increasing the number of marked fish released had a small positive effect on accuracy of estimates.Item LEATHERBACK TURTLE MOVEMENT AND DISPERSAL FROM NESTING BEACHES IN COSTA RICA WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION(2017) Hoover, Aimee Lynn; Bailey, Helen; Secor, David H; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Electronic tagging permits movement and distribution studies of sea turtles as they traverse large distances through a dynamic ocean environment. However, little is known about the movements of early life stages at sea, a period termed the 'lost years'. I developed and tested a method for attaching an acoustic tag suitable for use on leatherback turtles that was then applied to hatchlings in Costa Rica to obtain measures of speed and directionality. This was compared with ocean currents and revealed that the hatchlings actively swam against nearshore currents, although they were still advected by them. Finally, a Poisson generalized linear model in a continuous-time Markov chain model framework was used to predict adult, post-nesting Eastern Pacific leatherback movement based on environmental drivers, such as sea surface temperature. Monthly, near real-time predictions of leatherback movement were estimated using the most recent satellite-derived environmental information to help inform conservation management strategies.Item Architecture through Dance | The Movement Experience(2015) Levash, Marissa; Simon, Madlen; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What concepts about movement & the body can architects learn from the discipline of dance? By analyzing architecture through the lens of dance, much is to be learned from the way bodies move through and interact with space. I believe dancers are more in-tune with their bodies and context. Through a series of dance and movement related exercises, I will demonstrate how analyzing choreography in architecture can lead to a better understanding of human-spatial relationships. These findings will influence design in order to heighten architectural experiences. This thesis serves as a model for cross-disciplinary work in the dance and architecture fields; it uses architecture as a tool to improve the well-being of the bodyItem Brain function underlying adaptive sensorimotor control in children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder(2012) Pangelinan, Melissa Marie; Clark, Jane E; Neuroscience and Cognitive Science; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One child in every classroom (6% of children) suffers from Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Children with DCD exhibit marked impairments in movement planning and adaptive visuomotor behavior. However, few studies have investigated the brain functions that underlie behavioral difficulties exhibited by children with DCD. The overarching objective of this dissertation was to examine brain function using electroencephalography (EEG) both at rest and during the performance of visuomotor tasks of different levels of complexity (i.e. static vs. dynamic task environments) to determine if deficits in motor behavior are related to disrupted brain function in children with DCD. The first study revealed that the cortical activation patterns exhibited by children with DCD at rest were different than their typically developing (TD) peers, particularly for the left motor cortical region. Moreover, the activation patterns of children with DCD were similar to the patterns previously reported for young TD children, suggesting a "maturational lag" in brain activation specific to motor function. For the remaining studies, children performed line drawing movements on a computer tablet towards visual targets presented on a computer screen. These studies examined whether or not children with DCD exhibit different cortical activation patterns during the execution of goal-directed drawing movements. In Study 2, children performed simple drawing movements to stationary targets. The performance of children with DCD followed the same age-related developmental trajectory as TD children. However, children with DCD engaged motor planning and control brain areas to a greater extent throughout the movement compared to TD children, suggesting greater cortical effort to complete the task. For the last two studies, children performed drawing movements in dynamic environments in which visual stimuli cued participants to either abruptly stop ongoing movements (Study 3.1) or to modify movements online to displaced target locations (Study 3.2). Results from Study 3.1 demonstrated that children with DCD do not have difficulties inhibiting movements, a finding that may be attributed to similar cortical activation patterns as the TD children in response to stop signals. Study 3.2 revealed that children with DCD exhibit difficulties modifying movements online, which may be due to a lack of preparatory cortical activation in this group. Taken together, this dissertation provides evidence that disrupted cortical function both at rest and during movement planning may underlie differences in motor performance in DCD.Item Binding Phenomena Within A Reductionist Theory of Grammatical Dependencies(2011) Drummond, Alex; Hornstein, Norbert; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis investigates the implications of binding phenomena for the development of a reductionist theory of grammatical dependencies. The starting point is the analysis of binding and control in Hornstein (2001, 2009). A number of revisions are made to this framework in order to develop a simpler and empirically more successful account of binding phenomena. The major development is the rejection of economy-based accounts of Condition B effects. It is argued that Condition B effects derive directly from an anti-locality constraint on A-movement. Competition between different dependency types is crucial to the analysis, but is formulated in terms of a heavily revised version of Reinhart's (2006) "No Sneaking" principle, rather than in terms of a simple economy preference for local over non-local dependencies. In contrast to Reinhart's No Sneaking, the condition presented here ("Keeping Up Appearances") has a phonologically rather than semantically specified comparison set. A key claim of the thesis is that the morphology of pronouns and reflexives is of little direct grammatical import. It is argued that much of the complexity of the contemporary binding literature derives from the attempt to capture the distribution of pronouns and reflexives in largely, or purely, syntactic and semantic terms. The analysis presented in this dissertation assigns a larger role to language-specific "spellout" rules, and to general pragmatic/interpretative principles governing the choice between competing morphemes. Thus, a core assumption of binding theory from LGB onwards is rejected: there is no syntactic theory which accounts for the distribution of pronouns and reflexives. Rather, there is a core theory of grammatical dependencies which must be conjoined with with phonological, morphological and pragmatic principles to yield the distributional facts in any given language. In this respect, the approach of the thesis is strictly non-lexicalist: there are no special lexical items which trigger certain kinds of grammatical dependency. All non-strictly-local grammatical dependencies are formed via A- or A-chains, and copies in these chains are pronounced according to a mix of universal principles and language-specific rules. The broader goal of the thesis is to further the prospects for a "reductionist" approach to grammatical dependencies along these lines. The most detailed empirical component of the thesis is an investigation of the problem posed by binding out of prepositional phrases. Even in a framework incorporating sideward movement, the apparent lack of c-command in this configuration poses a problem. Chapter 3 attempts to revive a variant of the traditional "reanalysis" account of binding out of PP. This segues into an investigation of certain properties of pseudopassivization and preposition stranding. The analyses in this thesis are stated within an informal syntactic framework. However, in order to investigate the precise implications of a particular economy condition, Merge over Move, a partial formalization of this framework is developed in chapter 4. This permits the economy condition to be stated precisely, and in a manner which does not have adverse implications for computational complexity.Item Physical Health and Architecture: Architecture as a Catalyst for Sustained Health(2011) Norwood, James Wilson; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Obesity has quickly become the largest contributor to health issues in America. The issue facing society is not only how to combat and address the concerns of preventable chronic disease, but to also find ways to improve health for the individual and the collective. Through architecture, this thesis is intended to design a community health and physical wellness center that has a focus on sustaining improved health. By evaluating the spaces for physiological needs of eating and exercising along with education, this facility is intended to serve as a catalyst for fostering a system of evaluation to reflect an entire lifestyle condition and improve an understanding of health and wellness issues within the community. The program elements of eating, exercising and educating create the spaces that frame the program and the spaces between these functions are where the inadvertent experience with health and wellness takes place. Ultimately, this is a space of recovery and learning; recovering a healthy self-image and physical being through learning ways to sustain and maintain a healthy lifestyle and how to ultimately motivate people into engaging with the facility, whether actively or passively.Item (DIS)AGREE: MOVEMENT AND AGREEMENT RECONSIDERED(2007-04-25) Chandra, Pritha; Hornstein, Norbert; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines Agree, a narrow syntactic, long-distance operation underlying phi-agreement in the grammar. Taking the strong minimalist thesis (cf. Chomsky 2000) as my point of departure, I question Agree on both conceptual and empirical grounds. On the conceptual side, the operation is suspect first for its language-specific character. Second, it also fails to be justified on the grounds of general architectural constraints and legibility requirements. Further, evidences of various long-distance agreement from across languages examined here question the empirical basis for Agree built throughout the previous literature. As far as this is true, I contend that the faculty of language has nothing beyond Merge and Move/Internal Merge, the first being inevitable in any language-like system and the latter necessitated by interface exigencies. My purpose in this dissertation is to show that these two operations suffice to obtain phi-agreement in natural language.Item A DESCRIPTION OF MOVEMENT-BASED PROGRAMS FOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AGES 3-5(2004-05-05) Robertson, Martha Bratton; Ennis, Catherine D; KinesiologyThis research examined how movement companies serving children ages 3-5 implemented critical pedagogical components suggested in the NASPE Standards for Preschool programs. The participants were directors and teachers of three companies who traveled to daycare settings. Three data collection methods, observation, documentation analysis, and interviews, were used to describe program philosophy and content scope and sequence as implemented and compare them with current best practices for this age group. Data were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding. Findings suggested that none of the program directors or teachers was aware of the NASPE Standards. Programs varied according to type and degree of teacher training and beliefs. These two factors influenced teachers’ ability to provide effective programs and empower students to make decisions and solve problems creatively. Although all teachers reported feelings of empowerment, they varied in their willingness and ability to empower preschool children.