Microbes, including fungi and bacteria, and insects are responsible for the consumption and subsequent degradation of plant materials into humus. These microbes directly and indirectly affect the physical and chemical characteristics of coal macerals. Efforts to understand and determine the origins of inertinite macerals are largely misrepresented in the literature, conforming to a single origin of fire. This study focuses on the variability of physical and inferred chemical differences observed petrographically between the different inertinite macerals and discusses the multiple pathways plant material may take to form and or degrade these macerals. Petrographic results show that fungal activity plays a fundamental role in the formation of inertinite macerals, specifically macrinite and non-fire derived semifusinite. Fungal activity chemically removes the structural framework of woody plant tissues, forming less structured to unstructured macerals. Insect activity within a mire also greatly influences the inertinite maceral composition. Wood-consuming insects directly degrade wood tissue leading to the formation of less structured inertinites, as well as producing large conglomerates of inert fecal pellets chemically similar to the original plant tissue that may be represented in the inertinite maceral composition.

The Eastern Kentucky Coal Field is located in the central portion of the Appalachian Basin. The Pennsylvanian Breathitt Formation in this region is characterized by numerous sequences of bituminous coal-bearing sedimentary rocks. These coals have distinct maceral compositions due to variations in depositional environments. Coal characterization is an important method for determining conditions that influenced peat accumulation and overall depositional settings of mires. This study focuses on the characterization of the maceral composition of the Middle Pennsylvanian-age Leatherwood coal bed. It utilizes petrographical, palynological, and geochemical analyses to describe specific depositional environments and associated peat accumulation conditions. Petrographic analyses indicate that these coals have relatively high liptinite and varying inertinite content, along with trace amounts of mineral matter. Vitrinite, mainly in the form of collotelinite, is the most dominant maceral group. Geochemical data reveal low ash and sulfur content. Ancillary palynological data shows the palynomorph assemblage to be dominated by tree fern and large lycopsid tree spores, with lesser amounts of small lycopsid tree, small fern, and cordaites and calamites spores. The petrographic, geochemical and palynological data indicate that both domed, ombrotrophic, and planar, rheotrophic mire conditions, with limited local detrital influx, contributed to the formation of the Leatherwood coal.

The main purpose of this study was to determine the differences in the energy commitments of two economically different groups of subjects. The two groups were selected poverty subjects and selected non poverty subjects in rural Appalachia. A second purpose was to determine the degree that the verbalized commitments became energy expenditures over a three months period. Thirdly, the study was concerned with the application of the Energy Commitment Theory, developed by Joseph and Lucile Hollis, which was the theoretical framework of this study.Energy commitments as defined in this study is the consigning of a person's energy to be expended in the future. Energy commitment is viewed as having three dimensions--direction, thrust, and flexibility. Each energy commitment has a direction which was classified as toward people, objects, or ideas. Thrust was sub-divided into three categories of priority, force, and amount.The subjects were selected for each group according to a previously established criteria. These criteria common to both groups were age, sex, marital and family status, education, physical and mental condition, geographic location of residence, and place of birth. Subjects in the poverty group were receiving Federal assistance in the form of food stamps. Subjects. in the non-poverty group were not receiving food stamps because of ineligibility due to family income.The study had six major hypotheses with a total of 24 sub-hypotheses. Four hypotheses were concerned with energy commitments and two hypotheses were concerned with energy expenditures.Reliability for classification of energy commitments was checked by tape recording all interviews. Energy commitments for one-half of the subjects were later classified by trained raters. Their rating was compared to the researcher's.In addition to tape recordings, the instruments used in this first interview to record energy commitments were the Interview Guidelines-1 and the Interview Rating Sheets -1. Each subject was interviewed again three months later to record his energy expenditures as they had been during the period of time between the two interviews. The instruments employed during the second interview were the Interview Guidelines-2 and the Interview Rating Sheet-2. The second interviews were not tape recorded.One treatment of the data was to derive the mean values for priority, force, amount and flexibility of the energy commitments. A second treatment of the data was a comparison of the two groups on a percentage basis and also to establish a ratio of the differences between the two groups.Based on the results from both the first and the second interviews the following indications were concluded:1. The poverty group had more energy commitments than non-poverty in regard to:A. direction toward objects B. priority toward objectsC. amount of energy and time slightly more committed toward objectsD. flexibility as to changing commitments to ideas and slightly more flexible in changing commitments to people, thus less flexible toward changing energy commitments toward objects2. The non-poverty group had more energy commitments than the poverty group in regard to:A. direction toward peopleB. priority toward people and ideasC. force toward people, objects, and ideasD. amount of energy and time more committed to people and ideasE. slightly more flexible as to changing commitments to objects than to people and ideas3. The total energy expenditures were in the same relative relationship. between the two groups as were the total energy commitments. The non-poverty group did follow through on energy commitments more than the poverty group.4. All data supported the propositions of the Energy Commitment Theory that were applicable.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2005 / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 108 p. Includes abstract.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 73 p. : col. maps. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-73).

Theories of deliberative democracy, which emphasize open-mindedness and cooperative dialogue, confront serious challenges in deeply divided political populations constituted by polarized citizens unwilling to work together on issues they collectively face. The case of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia makes this clear. In my thesis, I argue that such empirical challenges are serious, yet do not compromise the normative desirability of deliberative democracy because communicative mechanisms can help transform adversarial perspectives into workable, deliberative ones. To realize this potential in divided societies, mechanisms must focus on healing and reconciliation, a point under-theorized by deliberativists who do not take seriously enough the feminist critique of public-private dualisms that illuminates political dimensions of such embodied processes. Ultimately, only a distinctly two-stage process of public deliberation in divided populations, beginning with mechanisms for healing and trust building, will give rise to the self-transformation necessary for second-stage deliberation aimed at collectively binding decisions.

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