Purpose of the Study: This thesis tests the hypothesis that, in the absence of known descendants, modern-day merchant mariners can and ought to be considered a descendant community for those buried at a Nineteenth-century Merchant Marine Cemetery (MMC . . .

Purpose of the study: the purpose of my study was to conduct a qualitative inquiry into my own practice concerning formative assessment. I wanted to know how useful my students felt formative assessments were, how valuable they considered my feedback . . .

Purpose: Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Players have different skills for their positions; they must be able to maintain their physical performance at satisfactory levels to compete at elite levels. Although a large amount of data has . . .

Little research has been conducted on the somatosensory system of odontocete cetaceans and it remains uncertain how important the sense of touch is to their perception of the environment. In this study, tactile sensitivity to high-frequency displaceme . . .

This project examines the treatment of death in the late Medieval poem the Alliterative Morte Arthure through a political-ethical lens to better understand the role of evaluating the value of life within the politically charged atmosphere of the poem. . . .

Purpose of the Study: There are two main purposes to this study: The first is to bring academic attention to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series specifically using Carl Jung’s psychoanalytic methods. I use Jung’s language, paying special attention to h . . .

Waiting Wings follows the lives of three siblings who struggle to find the reason for their existence having been born and raised in the hood of Watts, California. The eldest of the Granados family is Hector Granados; a momma’s boy – devoted to his mo . . .

Tropical regions have been experiencing extreme seasonal heat, rapidly increasing temperatures and variability in precipitation due to climate change. In tropical dry forests, declines in tropical tree performance in response to variation in climate h . . .

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of widespread organic toxins released into the environment from a variety of anthropogenic and natural sources. Concern continues to grow for the increasing concentration of PAHs found in marine envi . . .

This project looks at three haunted house novels over a wide span of time: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. The investigation will seek to understand how the . . .

In 2000 the World Health Organization (WHO) rated the United States (US) health care system at 15th in overall performance and 1st in overall per capita expenditure. Combining the two ratings left the US ranked at 37th in the world. In 2010, a Commonw . . .

Sea turtles are mostly pelagic, air-breathing divers that can become neritic during nesting season. Sea turtles dive with a full lung of air and these O2 stores are supplemented by O2 stored in blood. Olive ridley sea turtles exhibit polymorphic nesti . . .

One neuropsychology theory proposes children with ADHD experience deficits in executive function, which can result in negligent and disruptive behaviors. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine the reduction of inattention and hyperac . . .

Purpose of the Study: As we move into the digital age of mapping, the use of technologies such as GIS are becoming common place. Yet critical assessment of mapping practices and associated technologies is lacking. The idea of taking a critical technol . . .

Insects are a diverse group of organisms found in most terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Because insects are ectotherms, they are frequently exposed to variation in environmental temperature and thus variation in body temperature, the latter of whic . . .

Purpose of the project: The purpose of this project is to create a children’s book on reading for pleasure. The book will be used to engage young children by acknowledging and developing their reading identities as students who read for pleasure. It i . . .

Purpose of the Study: The Individuals With Disabilities Act (IDEA) of 1997 requires that students in Special Education have an Individualized Transition Plan (ITP) included in the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) by the time they reach the age of 1 . . .

Female college athletes have always struggled with meeting the cultural norms of femininity and still performing as an elite athlete. Being strong and powerful comes with some aesthetic gains that not all females report being comfortable with. In this . . .

Purpose of the Study: Delayed onset muscle soreness can be an obstacle to many who would otherwise benefit from resistance training. It has been suggested that both mechanical and metabolic strain influence the extent of exercise induced muscle damage . . .

Background: The purpose of this study was to design and implement curriculum that would engage fifth grade students in critical conversations about equity and social justice issues. The goal was to examine their responses to determine if elementary st . . .

Persistence of the endangered Sonoma county population of the California tiger salamander (CTS) is dependent on constructive mitigation of lost vernal pool breeding habitat. Local climate, the hydrology, and the topography of natural and constructed v . . .

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether artificially constructed vernal pool habitats provide adequate pollination services to the three federally endangered vernal pool endemic plants: Sonoma sunshine (Blennosperma . . .

Despite the abundance of resources related to quicksilver mining in the Mayacamas Mountain Range, there is no research framework that deals specifically with this form of mining in this region. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a historic conte . . .

Much of the existing historical scholarship on AIDS is centered on the assumption that the AIDS epidemic existed solely within a national or urban context. These studies suggest that the social and cultural implications of the AIDS epidemic were inher . . .

Soft release techniques, whereby individuals are allowed to acclimate to an area while contained in protected enclosure prior to full release, are frequently employed with the intention of improving outcomes in introductions of species to parts of the . . .

This project looks at Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale and asks how it manages to safely express messages that threatened and destabilized established power structures in fourteenth century England, a time and place more than willing to mete out harsh punishme . . .

This paper seeks to discuss the representational objects of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic through Bill Brown’s idea of thing theory, which creates a distinction between an object and a thing based on the functionalities and relationshi . . .

Purpose of this study: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to try to understand the lived experiences of three Latina women who did not complete high school and the meanings they made from those experiences just before they ended up leaving . . .

Purpose of the Study: Students of color are disciplined at higher rates and more harshly than their White peers which creates an equity gap. Restorative justice practices are an approach to school discipline and school climate which offer an opportuni . . .

My intent with RE:fit was to explore a world that is rapidly becoming our own. Massively inter-connected electronic devices, artificial limbs capable of replicating or even exceeding human ability, massive numbers of unmanned drones in both civilian a . . .

White Lies is a novel permeated with the concept of “the multiplicity of self,” a theme commonly explored in the work of Virginia Woolf. While employing fictional devices and the vehicle of mystery, the novel is predicated on a universal question: How . . .

This project stands as a study analyzing the discourses of food to demonstrate the need for a stronger rhetorical literacy. Stylistically, the project weaves argument for rhetorical literacy, analysis of food industrialization, and narration of person . . .

Purpose: This study explores how the Kashaya Pomo village of Qowíšal became the industrial maritime landscape at Black Point that was transformed in less than a century into a vacation destination through careful management and a complex process of fo . . .

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to analyze different literary interpretations of the photographic sequence in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I explain the process of transforming a non-linguistic sign into language in order to interj . . .

Offspring of capital breeders, such as the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris), are nursed exclusively from maternal body reserves. Energy expenditure available for lactation is limited by the amount of body reserves females acquire prior . . .

Purpose: Doghole ports and related maritime townsites acted as integral centers of maritime trade, transportation, communication, and commerce in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, and form Sonoma’s maritime cultural landscape. Unfortunately, eval . . .

Despite growing interest in trait-based approaches to community assembly, little attention has been given to mammalian herbivores and their effects on trait distribution patterns. Large herbivores can play a key role in structuring communities, affect . . .

Purpose of Study: To examine J. Paul Getty’s ancient art collection that he acquired within in his life-time. The motivation behind Getty’s art collecting and philanthropy are examined and reassessed, as well as his inspiration for the founding of his . . .

Man Splay is a book of poems that observes and explores the current state of masculinity in America in order to open an uncomfortable dialogue between “masculine” men. Through exploring gender divides, socio-political states, and Deck’s personal exper . . .

Purpose of the Study: This study interprets how ethnic identity was negotiated through foodways by Chinese migrants and their American born children at the San Luis Obispo (SLO) Chinatown during the late 19th to early 20th Centuries. The interpretatio . . .

She’s Not There is a collection of short stories that will unsettle the reader. Each story is rounded in a theme of isolation and disconnection. It begins with a prologue that will set the tone of betrayal, the pursuit of something or someone lost, an . . .

Effects of food distribution and external factors on the activity budgets of captive sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) Thesis by Jessica Barber Abstract All free-ranging bears spend a large portion of their day on foraging activities. In captivity, many . . .

Case 99: The Literary Lady By Ernest J. Abeytia ABSTRACT This is a crime fiction novel. It is a confluence of the styles, settings, plot lines, and character development of such luminaries of detective storytelling as Raymond Chandler, Sir Arthur Cona . . .

The Beverage Hydration Index of enterade® in Comparison to Gatorade® and Pedialyte® Thesis by Matthew Tsurumoto, BS ABSTRACT Purpose of the Study: To examine the beverage hydration index (BHI) of enterade®, Gatorade® and Pedialyte® compared to water ( . . .

Purpose of the study: The Kashaya Pomo, also known as the Kashia Pomo, the Southwestern Pomo, the Stewart's Point Pomo, the Gualala Indians, and the Haupt Ranch Indians, moved from the Russian Fort Ross to the Haupt Ranch in approximately 1857-59 or 1 . . .

Organisms in natural populations are confronted with significant challenges posed by environmental change. In order for populations to persist, individuals must overcome these challenges; however, the physiological mechanisms that enable survival and . . .

Few studies have been able to evaluate foraging success and behaviors of top marine predators at the fine-scale spatial and temporal resolutions of their prey patches. Using a large, multi-year dataset of female northern elephant seal movement and div . . .

Purpose: The goal of this thesis research is to perform a geophysical survey at Sonoma State Historic Park (SSHP), in order to locate potential buried resources. This survey takes into consideration local knowledge and existing cultural resources to d . . .

The Antarctic notothenioids have evolved for millions of years in a cold stable environment and are found to have a narrow window for thermal tolerance. Global climate change is predicted to bring warmer ocean temperatures in polar regions thereby cha . . .