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abstract: This is a comparative study of two advanced ordination rituals, Daoist chuanshou (conferral of ordination rank) and Buddhist abhiṣeka (guanding) in the mid-late Tang and Five Dynasties (763-979). I analyzed a number of not-well-studied Daoist ritual protocols in the early medieval period, and revealed that rituals recast gender and fostered monastic relations. On the other hand, relying on both canonical materials and a manuscript preserved in Japan that recorded an abhiṣeka performed during the Tang dynasty in 839 C.E., I demonstrated how the canonical prescriptions of Indian origin, with modified actions and reinterpreted meaning, were transformed to respond to the Chinese religious and social environment. Having examined the language of the texts and the step of the rituals, I interpreted how these rituals were made sense in their own religious context, and compared their frame, structure, modality, symbol, and meaning. Ordination rite concerns the transmission of religious knowledge and authority, and the establishment of religious identity. It is in the relationship between the individual body and the community that Daoists and Buddhists found the form of apprenticeship that led to the embodiment of the community. The mastery of religious knowledge within the community––scriptures, register, mantras, and precepts, etc., was known only through the actual ritual practice. In other words, the ritual body became the locus for coordination of all levels of bodily, social, and cosmological experience via the dialectic of objectification and embodiment in the ordination rites. As the ritualized bodies, those who were ordained coherently comprised the community, which in turn remolded them with dynamically and diversely shaped identities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation East Asian Languages and Civilizations 2019

<p> Nationwide, teacher attrition is a steady and costly phenomenon. Teachers have left the field of education or have left urban schools for better teaching assignments. Although many studies delineated some factors for teacher attrition, namely urban teacher attrition, little has been done to reverse the cycle of teachers leaving prior to realizing their full potential as an educator. A gap in knowledge exists because researchers have not addressed if administrators of teacher preparation programs have included sufficient experiences and supports in the program to prepare teachers for the urban classroom. The implications for urban teacher attrition are far reaching. Urban attrition can force urban students to have an unsteady influx of beginning teachers with limited experience and skills who leave the schools after a few years. To assist with closing the achievement gap and making sure urban students are ready for the competitive job market, urban students need teachers with increased experience and skills. Teachers enter the teaching profession academically prepared but unprepared for the challenges and demands of the urban classroom. The findings from this phenomenological study produced five themes and one subtheme that teachers believe are important preparation experiences to for urban teacher preparation and reducing attrition. The themes were (a) comprehensive preparation, (b) subtheme support, (c) classroom management, (d) field experience, (e) necessary skills, and (f) multicultural preparation. The recommendations invite future studies that can include input from educational leaders, policy makers, and stakeholders to take a proactive role in reducing urban teacher attrition. </p>

<p> Current economic development policy is unevenly effective across Appalachia. At the root of this policy is the annual determination of County Economic Status, a metric intended to measure performance in relation to the rest of the nation. This designation, calculated from income, unemployment and poverty data, is deeply flawed. Understanding how public investment and economic accessibility interact can yield improved results when implementing development policies and funding initiatives aimed at the region. Failure to recognize the assets and challenges unique to the region, coupled with an imperfect understanding of the regional interactions between local economies, have led to mis-targeted programs and unsatisfactory results. </p><p> A comprehensive examination of how public and private facilities interact to improve the overall well-being of a region in terms of the spatial patterns of accessibility and investment can increase understanding of the role of public investment in Appalachia, and improve program targeting. An economic accessibility model is generated and evaluated at the community level, and evaluated in conjunction with public investment practices, to uncover important information about the effectiveness of development efforts and the evolution of economic regions.</p>

<p> The aims of this microhistory are to provide a narrative concerning the possession of Southern masculinities and to untangle the hegemonic, convergent, and divergent forms of these identities that played out on the plantation stages. As this essay will show, the plantation stages were the sites where Southern men engaged in their most heated and personal conflicts over what was theirs and why. This thesis brings gendered selves to the forefront of conflict: the Southern men at the top of the plantation system fought to maintain their power through continuous assertions and redefinitions of their hegemonic masculinities. Thus, any man, regardless of his class or his race, could rise to the top of this symbolic status quo&mdash;for even just an instant. What ensued was an increasingly unstable hierarchy imposed by the planter standing on top, the black slave chained to the bottom, and other white men fighting or subtly negotiating their way up. Though challenged daily by enslaved black men and women, as well as the white men in their employ, the success of planters' masculinities in possessing what opposed them kept their ideal alive.</p>

abstract: ABSTRACT The February 2008 study of a Snowflake, Arizona site measured changes in soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, extractable phosphorus, and soil moisture, to determine what affect One-seed Juniper (Juniperus monosperma) trees have on surrounding soil, thus affecting native grass growth. Increasing juniper densities in grasslands also decrease populations of some grassland bird species. Measurements were taken each meter along a twelve meter line transect, moving from juniper trees, through a bare soil area and into a grassland. Non-linear relationships were examined, in regard to distance from the tree and juniper root mass. Relationships were examined to determine any affect of the juniper tree on soil characteristics along the transect. Organic carbon decreased as distance increased from the trees (F=4.25, df=46, p=0.020). Soil moisture increased with distance from the trees (F=5.42, df=46, p=0.008), and juniper root mass, of roots less than 1 mm diameter, significantly decreased with distance away from the trees (F=11.29, df=46, p=0.0001). Total nitrogen and extractable phosphorus did not significantly change with distance from the tree, or presence of juniper roots. This data is important as grassland restoration projects rely on the availability of soil nutrients and water for reestablishment of native grass species. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Applied Biological Sciences 2010

abstract: Tłįchǫ, an indigenous Dene nation of subarctic Canada, maintain subsistence lifestyles based on what they consider traditional foods. Caribou are the primary Tłįchǫ food animal and their reliance on caribou culminates in a complex relationship of give and take. Tłįchǫ demonstrate reciprocity for the caribou to give their flesh to hunters. Caribou populations in Canada’s Northwest Territories have rapidly declined and the government of Canada’s Northwest Territories implemented hunting restrictions in 2010 to protect caribou herds from extinction. Some Tłįchǫ, however, maintain that caribou are in hiding, not decline, and that caribou have chosen to remain inaccessible to humans due to human disrespect toward them. Many Tłįchǫ have responded to hunting restrictions and the lack of caribou by calling for respectful hunting practices to demonstrate to caribou that they are needed and thus resulting in the animal continuing to give itself. I examine Tłįchǫ responses to contemporary caribou scarcity through three stages of Dene foodways: getting food, sharing food, and returning food and caribou remains back to the land. Analysis of Dene foodways stages reveals complex social relationships between hunters, animals, and other beings in the environment such as ancestors and the land that aids their exchange. Food is integral to many studies of indigenous religions and environmental relations yet the effects of dependence on the environment for food on social dynamics that include human and other beings have not been adequately addressed. Foodways as a component to theories of indigenous environmental relationships explain Tłįchǫ attitudes toward caribou. I draw from my ethnographic research, wherein I lived with Tłįchǫ families, studied the Tłįchǫ language, and participated in Tłįchǫ foodways such as hunting, fishing, and sharing food, to explicate Tłįchǫ foodways in relation to their worldviews and relationships with beings in the environment. I demonstrate how foodways, as an analytical category, offers a glimpse into Dene perceptions of non-human entities as something with which humans relate, while I simultaneously demonstrate the limits of environmental relations. My attention to foodways reveals the necessity of sustenance as a primary motivation for indigenous relationships to other beings, culminating in complex social dynamics. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2015

abstract: Current data indicates that a growing number of individuals in the English-speaking world are identifying as “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR). Using ethnographic data collected at two important sites of spiritual pilgrimage and tourism—Glastonbury, England and Sedona, Arizona—this project argues that seekers at these places produce spirituality as much as they consume it. Using the lens of economy, this project examines how seekers conceptualize the (super-) natural resources at these sites, the laborious practices they perform to transform these resources, and the valuation and exchange of the resultant products. In so doing, the project complicates prevailing notions, both among scholars and the public, that contemporary unaffiliated spirituality is predominantly an individualistic consumer process. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2018

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003. / Special Program of Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-145). / This thesis analyzes the perception gap between political risk assessments observed at the national level, and the different realities of sub-national city regions whose risk regime is not reflected by the national indicators, and its implication on foreign direct investment (FDI) location decisions. The purpose of this research is to understand how and why the national political risk assessments of countries with internal armed conflicts override the ability of regional investment promotion agencies to attract FDI into financially sound projects of high developmental value. This thesis complements the standard political risk underlying theories with geographical and behavioral economic theories, in order to propose a sub-national political-risk-assessment approach that could show the safer regions within riskier countries. It is based on the analysis of the Colombian Metallurgical Coke and Power Plant Project COLMECO, designed to be located in the Barranquilla Metropolitan Area, within the Atlantico Department, a region that has traditionally experienced no open internal armed conflict confrontation. The conclusions of this research prove and justify the sub-national risk assessment approach proposed. / by Alberto E. Blanco. / S.M.