Many subjugated Asian women have been overwhelmed and expunged by their traumatic ordeals, and yet many have emerged triumphant despite inconceivable odds to proclaim their tragic narratives, even as they undergo great trials and suffering. Such desperate struggles beg the question: “What sustainable ideologies embraced by these women helped them to transcend the intensity of their perpetrators’ harshest and at times inhumane treatment?” This study investigates the nature of women oppression, at the intersections of racism and sexism represented by three respective Asian protagonists, and their corresponding narratives: Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s concubine, in This Earth of Mankind, Nora Okja Keller’s sex slave in Comfort Woman, and Maxine Hong Kingston’s depreciated daughter in The Woman Warrior. The investigation is two-fold: understanding the nature of oppressive systems and documenting these women’s evolving “survivor ideologies.” While the socio-historical methodology is employed to understand the machinations of repressive systems, the psychoanalytical approach is adopted to explore the psychology of patriarchy and trauma. Finally, the autobiographical process is used to understand evolving cultural hybridity. The investigation reveals resilient “survivor ideologies” of the concubine’s transforming accomplishments, the “comfort woman’s” affirming intersubjectivity, and the “woman warrior’s” defining selfhood. The study also implicates societies’ collusion with hegemonic powers and/or monolithic ideologies, and societies’ perpetuation of oppressive tyrannies. Although oppressive systems such as patriarchy are anachronistic in 21st century modern societies, yet vestiges of traditional repressions are metastasizing into such modern day cousins as pornography, illiteracy, and abject poverty that continue to perpetuate a woman’s subjugation. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English

Macrophomina phaseolina (M. phaseolina) is a soil-borne fungal pathogen that causes charcoal rot disease in many plant species. This disease causes many problems to the soy industry as no consistently effective control is available. Using Medicago truncatula as a model, we study the molecular interactions between the pathogen and its plant host. In a previous study, microarray was used to determine expression of M. truncatula genes that were affected by the pathogen at different time points after infection. Data analysis showed that some auxin-related genes were differentially expressed. Auxin is a phytohormone required for normal growth and development and recent research is unveiling the molecular mechanisms of its role in plant defense. Based on gene expression profiling results, we hypothesize that M. phaseolina attacks its hosts by modulating auxin homeostasis. To test this hypothesis, we investigated if exogenous auxin application affected the susceptibility of the plant to M. phaseolina. The results demonstrated that the auxin imparted a slight resistance to the fungus indicating a potential infection strategy of M. phaseolina. To further identify genes that have potential roles in regulating auxin homeostasis and may be affected by M. phaseolina infection, we focused on the GH3 gene family in M. truncatula. GH3 genes encode enzymes that covert active hormones such as jasmonic acid and auxin into inactive amino acid conjugates. Expression of a GH3 gene was modulated by M. phaseolina infection according to microarray data. Using real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), we investigated the expression of 7 annotated GH3 genes in response to auxin or to M. phaseolina infection. We hope that better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the infection process will help us to develop more effective management approaches and identify genes that could potentially be used to engineer disease-resistant plants in the future. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Biology

The way a reader comprehends a text is influenced by a number of factors; and one factor that may play a critical role is the reader’s mood. The extant literature documents that happy and sad moods elicit different processing styles, but the effects on reading comprehension processes, specifically inferential processing, are not completely understood. This study examined the effects happy, sad, and neutral moods had on the generation of bridging and predictive inferences. After a video mood induction, participants read texts that supported the generation of inferences but at varying constraint levels (strong, weak, control). Participants then completed a lexical decision task after each text. Response times for the lexical decision task were shortest for texts that were strongly constrained, followed by weakly constrained, and finally control texts. Accuracy for the lexical decision task was greatest for strongly constrained, followed by weakly constrained, and control texts. There was a marginally significant effect of mood, such that happy-induced readers generated more predictive inferences than sad-induced readers. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Counseling, Educational and School Psychology

Superoxide dismutases are ubiquitous enzymes that efficiently catalyze the disproportionation of superoxide radical anions to protect biological molecules from oxidative damage. Several SODs have been identified having different metals at their active sites. These include Mn SOD, Fe SOD, Cu/Zn SOD and, most recently, Ni SOD. The catalytic center of Ni SOD resides in the N-terminal active-site loop, where a Ni(II) is coordinated by the amine N of His-1, the amide N of Cys-2, and two thiolate S atoms of Cys-2 and Cys-6. In the oxidized form, Ni(III) adds the imidazole N of His-1 as an axial ligand. For the past decade, we have been developing methodology using 2, 2’-dithiodibenzaldehyde (DTDB) for the synthesis of metal complexes with mixed N/S coordination. We are reporting on the application of this methodology to the synthesis of model complexes for the active site of NiSOD, in which we have successfully synthesized and characterized three NiIIN2S2 complexes of imine/amine N donors: Ni(NNS)SPh (1), Ni(NNS)SPhNO2 (2) and Ni(NNS)StBu (3). These may be used as a model for reduced NiSOD, with future plans of comparing to complexes with amide/amine N donors, thus establishing the role of the amide. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Chemistry

This research examines three case studies involving four pregnant women facing capital punishment in seventeenth and eighteenth century colonial America. A relevant biography, background, and criminal history are given for each woman as well as a thorough overview of related legal proceedings. This work implements trial transcripts, letters, journals, and newspaper articles to fully portray each woman’s story as precisely as possible, as well as modern sources to help interpret laws and procedures. This work also includes an overview of the legal process a woman must go through if facing capital punishment when pregnant. The purpose of this work is to tell the women’s stories and explain why the courts made the decisions they did in each case. In order to understand the courts’ decisions, the role of women in crime is examined. By allowing the women to “plead their bellies,” the courts acknowledged motherhood as significant enough in women’s societal roles to override a death sentence. Although crime itself was seen as masculine, pregnancy allowed criminals to assume a feminine role once more. The aftermath of a plea when granted or denied is also examined, as each individual case differs. / Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History

The thesis documents the expansion of model reference adaptive control (MRAC) research previously developed at Wichita State University. This research was conducted in response to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Integrated Resilient Aircraft Control project. The project seeks to develop new types of flight control systems that have the ability to react to unforeseen changes in the aircraft or its environment. Desktop simulations conducted have shown the ability to meet the results desired from the project. A desktop simulation for a six degree of freedom model of a Hawker Beechcraft Bonanza is modified with multiple MRAC architectures. These architectures include a model follower and proportional derivative and proportional integral controllers. In addition, an artificial neural network is used to compensate for modeling error and changes in the aircraft or the environment. The adaptive elements within each artificial neural network range from simplified bias only neural networks to linear basis vectors with additional modification terms. Each architecture was simulated to determine the error between the desired and actual aircraft state. Further analysis was conducted to determine time delay margin within each control loop. Finally, a comparison of architectures was conducted to determine which controller would be suited for flight testing on the Hawker Beechcraft Bonanza testbed. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering

Recent technological advancements in electronics and telecommunications have provided more accessible quantitative methods of assessing balance. The latest smartphones have built-in motion sensors called tri-axial accelerometers, which are an ideal choice for evaluating variability of movement and balance providing a non-invasive, portable method of measurement. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare the balance assessment measures from a mobile device application (iPod) utilizing accelerometric motion sensors against the balance assessment measures of a clinically valid and reliable balance platform (BIODEX Balance System SD). METHODS: 75 healthy college-aged individuals (37 male, 38 female; average age = 24.2±6.8 yr) performed a series of balance tasks over two visits (Study 1 and Study 2). During Study 1, 8 balance tests were assessed, beginning with two feet on ground (baseline) and progressively becoming more difficult and repeating them over three trials. iPod Touches with a software application to measure balance was used to assess sway. During Study 2, participants completed 4 balance assessments using a clinically validated balance platform and the iPod Touches, at the same time. RESULTS: Data showed that the iPod Touches were consistent with expect outcomes, based off of normative data; the more unstable the assessment the higher the balance score compared to baseline or standing with feet together eyes open without foam. Analyses of the 3 trials suggest that a familiarization test should be performed when using the iPod Touch balance application and this is consistent with other devices. Results from Study 2 showed no significant difference between the two devices when measuring without foam, but a significant difference was found between the two while balancing on foam. CONCLUSION: Balance scores measured by accelerometers within an iPod appear to be a valid and consistent method of measuring human balance. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--Wichita State University, College of Education, Dept. of Human Performance Studies

Anonymity systems are designed in a way that hides the level of communication between senders and receivers of a message, and the goal of an attacker is to find that communication pattern. It is usually very difficult to completely de-anonymize a system if it presents a black box, in which case only a global adversary can observe all messages going in and out of the system and, based on some attack, can infer the feasibility of messages being sent and received by users. This thesis presents a method to calculate the amount of anonymity present in a system after a global adversary has conducted an attack. The base model considered in this thesis considers a black box system, which allows multiple senders to send multiple input messages and multiple receivers to receive multiple output messages. A couple of approaches taken by previous researches have been analyzed and compared to the method given in this thesis, which shows that one of the methods does not consider an attack, while the other method does not cover the full spectrum of the attack plane. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reports on aircraft accidents, 80 percent of all crashes occur on water and land. The research in this thesis used computational finite element modeling and analysis to study the effects of impacts on water and soft soil with respect to the structural integrity of an aircraft’s airframe during a crash. The effects of these impacts play a vital role in the design phase of an aircraft. The objective of this research was to compare the computational finite element technique for impact on water and soil, and to correlate it with the experiments. The nonlinear explicit finite element code together with the equation of state (EOS) and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) are used in the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) technique. A validation study of water and soft-soil properties on impact analyses was carried out in three different experimental phases using the following: a rigid spherical ball, a penetrometer, and a flask ball. Finally, an airframe structure study was conducted in water and soil. Initially, the impact simulations were carried out using Lagrangian analysis, followed by the ALE technique, and then the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method. Acceleration was observed as an important parameter to validate in the analysis. Both ALE and SPH methods showed more accurate results than those obtained using Lagrangian analysis and were similar to that of the experimental data. Comparing the results from analyzing water and soil impacts with a rotorcraft indicated that water impact produces 33% less g-value and around 90% deformation compared to soil impact, thus indicating that impact on a water surface might be safer than impact on a soil surface. The impact study on water and soil was intended to evaluate the general behavior of the deformation, or g-value, for structural analyses only, and results show that the Lagrangian approach is recommended, if the soil and water is of small interest. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

In this MS thesis, cytotoxicity tests of various nanomaterials, which have commercial applications and involve a contact with human body, were performed at different conditions. The nanomaterials used for the experiments included pristine 100 ply carbon nanowire, graphene nanoflakes, multiwall carbon nanotubes, nanoclay and C60 (buckyball or fullerene). The nanomaterials cytotoxicities were calculated and compared to each other using human and mice fibroblast cancerous cells (3T3 and L929 resp.). The in vitro MTT Assay was used as the testing method because of its simplicity and reliability. The results were analyzed by means of a spectrophotometer at 590 nm wavelength. From the optical density studies, the viabilities were calculated and the toxicities of those nanomaterials were compared. Pristine 100 ply carbon nanowire was the most viable nanomaterial with the average viability value of 86.9%. The effect of dilution on carbon nanowire was negligible which may have be due to its single dimensional threaded structure. This structure also reduced its toxicity values. However, with increase in time duration this structure became slightly weaker, and the nanowires unwound and dispersed into the media, leading to a slight increase in cytotoxicity. The concentration of the carbon nanowire at which the MTT test was conducted was 3 cm2/ml (external surface area) which weighed 18.52 mg/ml. The second most viable material after the carbon nanowire was fullerene with a viability of 75.2%. Its close packed 3D structure, negative charge and hydrophobicity may have contributed to the low cytotoxic behaviour of this nanomaterial. It was also observed that with the decrease in concentration there was a steep increase in the viability of the cells. By decreasing the concentration from 10.00 mg/ml to 2.00 mg/ml, the viability of fullerene was increased from 75% to 85%. The viabilities of other nanomaterials were in the order of multiwall carbon nanotubes (69.75%), graphene (67.48%) and nanoclay (61.34%). By decreasing the concentration from 1.10 mg/ml to 0.58 mg/ml, the viability was increased from 70% to 80%. / Thesis (M.S.)--Wichita State University, College of Engineering, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering