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This mixed-methods research study examined teacher perceptions of AAVE and the ways in which different factors influence how teachers value and use African American Vernacular English in the classroom. The results of the study found that there were no significant differences in AAVE perceptions when considering the highest degree earned, grade level taught, being a speaker of AAVE, taking a college course or professional development on diversity, race, and teaching tenure. However, results indicated that region of the country and being a teacher of record for AAVE-speaking students had a positive impact on perceptions of the use of AAVE. Implications of the research findings are discussed and future research topics are recommended. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In this thesis, Virginia Woolf's ecstatic 'moments of being' are placed at the heart of a close and contextualized critical reading of her writing. Woolf's three most experimental novels, written in the middle of her career, are the focus of this reading: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Woolf's writings suggest that embodied feeling - and in particular, ecstatic embodied feeling - is an integral part of how we make meaning. When Woolf's characters feel the ecstasy of a 'moment of being' this marks a profound experience of the 'other'. By engaging with this experience of otherness in an embodied manner, Woolf's characters are able to feel and think their way toward an understanding of themselves and/or their world that is wholly new to them. Woolf thereby models for the reader, through her fictional dramatisation of these ecstatic 'moments of being', her processes and ethics of making meaning. Each of the three novels is read alongside an ethical motif that Woolf foregrounds in the novel as central to a 'moment of being': Jacques Derrida's arrivant, Emmanuel Levinas's 'face', and Marcel Mauss's 'gift'. Woolf's philosophy and ethics are thereby thrown into relief as against the ethics of these thinkers. But also, by staging a comparison between Woolf's fiction and these philosophical writings, this thesis probes questions about literary expression and literary criticism. Woolf's thoughts on what literary form(s) can offer to philosophical and specifically ethical thinking are explored. This thesis is in conversation with scholarly criticism on Woolf that emphasises the phenomenological, 'ordinary', immanent, and material, as well as the mystical, epiphanic, and religious aspects of her fiction. The thesis also argues against Woolf critics who characterise Woolf's 'moments of being' as merely symptomatic of madness, trauma, or a deconstructive 'empty centre', anomalies of an otherwise rigorously rational mind. Instead it is suggested that the Woolfian moment models how to make meaning well, by combining feeling with thinking in a manner that gives privilege to feeling as an arbiter for making meaning. The anatomy of this process, and its various epistemological and ethical ramifications, form the subject of this thesis.

Aedes aegypti is the principle vector of dengue and yellow fever. This mosquito species is widely distributed throughout the tropics and international travel of goods and people have helped spread the mosquito and the diseases it transmits. Ae. aegypti has been recorded in the Cayman Islands four times in the past 45 years and each time efforts by the Mosquito Research and Control Unit have seemingly served to eliminate it. However, the current population of Ae. aegypti in Grand Cayman, believed to have been introduced in 2002, has proved refractory to control with current insecticide based methods. This study was conducted to assess the extent and potential causes of insecticide resistance in Ae. aegypti in Grand Cayman, investigate the likely origin of the 2002 introduction, and explore alternative methods of control. Ae. aegypti from Grand Cayman are highly resistant to DDT and pyrethroid insecticides but show only low level resistance to the organophosphate temephos. Glutathione-5- transferase, cytochrome P450 and esterase activities were elevated in adults of the Cayman Islands strains compared to a susceptible strain although use of the synergist piperonyl butoxide did not implicate increased insecticide detoxification as the major mechanism of resistance. Partial sequencing of the voltage gated sodium channel, the target site of DDT and pyrethroid insecticides, identified two single nucleotide polymorphisms, one within domain 11 56 region (V10161) and the other within domain III 56 (F1534C). A tetraplex PCR assay was designed to detect the latter mutation and its association with the insecticide resistance to permethrin and DDT was confirmed (Fisher's exact test P=O). Microsatellite analysis was employed to investigate the similarities between Cayman Islands Ae. aegypti and other populations collected from around the Caribbean. One hundred and fifty mosquitoes from three sites in the Cayman Islands and a total of 180 mosquitoes from four sites in neighbouring countries were genotyped at 12 loci. The allelic diversity suggests that the Cayman Islands population is well established, most likely receiving new introductions regularly. Fst analysis indicates closest comparative similarity to Jamaican populations of Ae. aegypti (Fst = 0.059-0.083). The high level of insecticide resistance prompted the search for alternative methods of Ae. aegypti control. The first field trial of a genetically modified sterile strain of mosquito (OX513A) was performed in collaboration with the company Oxitec Ltd. This strain carries a dominant lethal and mating with wild mosquitoes induces sterility. In the first field trial, this technology proved capable of significantly suppressing a wild Ae. aegypti population in a 16 Ha site in Grand Cayman (reduction in positive ovitraps in relation to control site, P

The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the effectiveness of graphic organizers, specifically flowcharts, as a tool to support decision-making during spelling for students identified with learning disabilities. This dissertation is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction about how graphic organizers support students with executive functioning difficulties, a common challenge for students with learning disabilities. The second chapter is a systematic literature review analyzing the current literature about the effects of reading, writing, and spelling interventions for students with learning disabilities. The third chapter is a research study that used single-case research methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of a spelling flowchart on outcomes for students with learning disabilities. The fourth chapter is a practitioner paper that provides educators with strategies for using flowcharts and multiple exemplars for incorporating them as decision-making tools in the classroom. Finally, the fifth chapter details my future career goals and research aims.

Humans shape species distributions and niches, causing them to shrink, shift or collapse. Despite increases in the area of land protected globally, population declines and species losses continue. A potential contributing factor to continuing declines is the restriction of species into marginal habitats where they experience poor performance. Range contraction restricts species into a limited subset of historic habitats and niche conditions. Marginalisation occurs when contraction constrains species to geographic or ecological extremes. In this thesis, I ask 1) how widespread is ecological and geographic marginalisation in terrestrial mammals and does it influence extinction risk; 2) what are the physiological and performance consequences of maintaining species in marginal habitats, 3) does marginality influence species in both fragmented and unfragmented landscapes and 4) how does marginalisation influence conservation planning. I begin this thesis with a general introduction and a critical evaluation of methods used in this thesis. In Chapter 3, I use a combination of phylogenetic and niche modelling to evaluate the intrinsic and extrinsic factors associated with range collapse and niche shift across 4785 mammal species. This chapter demonstrates ecological marginalisation is a common consequence of range contraction and increases extinction risk. In Chapter 4, I evaluate whether ecological and demographic factors drive glucocorticoid concentrations in Cape mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra, CMZ). This chapter highlights the importance of using validated assays and links elevated faecal glucocorticoid concentrations to poor population performance. In Chapter 5, I use DNA metabarcoding of diet, microbiome, and nemabiome to investigate the macrophysiological consequences of food limitation across the CMZ species range. This chapter finds dietary composition alters microbiome and nemabiome composition and links low grass diets, and associated physiological consequences, to poor performance. In Chapter 6, I use DNA metabarcoding of diet, microbiome, and nemabiome to investigate seasonal dietary switching and its macrophysiological consequences across an ecological gradient in the Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi). This chapter demonstrates animals in a relatively unfragmented landscape can become restricted to marginal habitats. I conclude by discussing the conservation implications of marginalisation and suggest potential solutions. Published materials available in Appendices 1, 2 and 3 expand on these ideas. This thesis argues ecological marginalisation is an unappreciated conservation threat across terrestrial mammals.

Rice is an important staple crop and significantly contributes to the dietary needs of the global population. From the African context, Nigeria and most sub-Saharan countries rely on rice importation to meet the rising consumption demands, mainly due to low yield returns. As such, monitoring rice yield and yield indicators (e.g. Leaf Area Index, biomass) in order to understand patterns and trends of rice growth is fundamental to improve yield outcomes. In this PhD rice yield and yield indicators were monitored using a combination of proximal, airborne and satellite sensors, across a range of spatial scales with the overall aim of furthering our understanding of the dynamics of irrigated rice yields. The first main objective of the thesis investigated the relative merits of structural and multispectral information for estimating centimetre scale rice above ground biomass from very high spatial resolution drone imagery. The focus was the reproductive and ripening stages of rice growth due to the strong relationship between biomass and yield at these stages. Results indicated that crop structural information, derived from a consumer-grade RGB camera, was of greater importance for rice biomass estimation than multispectral information. The second object of the thesis explored the potential of a hybrid gaussian process regression (GPR) - radiative transfer model (RTM) to estimate the phenological dynamics of rice Leaf Area Index (LAI). Sentinel-2 spectral bands were simulated from field spectroscopy data and combined with extensive in situ field measurement to develop and test a hybrid LAI prediction model. Results were also compared with the satellite-derived Sentinel-2 LAI standard. The findings demonstrated the potential of the proposed hybrid model for predicting within-season dynamics of rice LAI. The third objective of the thesis determined the relative importance of the spatial and spectral resolution of Sentinel-2 for estimating rice yield across a range of spatial extents. This section investigated the suitability of Sentinel-2 for predicting within and between field yield variability across varying spatial extents. The results demonstrated that the spatial resolution of Sentinel-2 data was more important than the spectral resolution for predicting within field yields. Results also demonstrated the potential of Sentinel-2 data for estimating rice yields across smallholder rice farms.

One of the most important challenges facing species conservation is the evaluation of habitat requirements and suitability. This is especially the case for those species which inhabit small portions of their former range. In the first part of this thesis, I focus on the eastern black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis michaeli) populations on three Kenyan rhino sanctuaries: Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Ol Jogi Conservancy and Ol Pejeta Conservancy. I use black rhinos to demonstrate how species-focused research can provide insights into basic biology and ecology and contribute to conservation. In chapter 3, I construct a population model and conduct a population viability analysis of the three populations. This identifies lower projected long-term growth rate for the Ol Jogi population. It also suggests that juvenile survival and female reproductive skew are key to the dynamics of large herbivore populations. In chapter 4, I use genetic metabarcoding, nutrient analysis and faecal egg counts in the first study to characterise the diets, microbiome and nemabiome of black rhinos concurrently. This demonstrates the seasonal and spatial variation in diets and microbiome, the stability of the nemabiome, and suggests diet composition drives microbiome and nemabiome composition. I find evidence that herbaceous plants are potentially more important to black rhinos than has been previously considered, and habitat which contains both woody and herbaceous cover may promote good health and breeding rates. In the second part of this thesis, I evaluate the role of species conservation in the modern world, which faces a daunting task given the vast number of threatened species on Earth in the 21st century. In chapter 5 I discuss the One Plan Approach, which promotes the production of integrated species conservation plans which take advantage of all available expertise. I evaluate the potential benefits and objections and posit that, for zoos to make significant contributions to the conservation of free-living populations, they should be willing to focus on species outside of their collections and projects should plan to build from conserving species to protecting and restoring ecosystems. In chapter 6 I assess the opinions of conservation professionals and the interested public on the importance of wildness in large herbivore conservation. Intensive management of free-living populations, and not the role of zoos, may cause objections to the implementation of frameworks such as the One Plan Approach. Finally, in chapter 7 I show how conservation is in danger of having its practice altered by the expectations of nature which are built through hyperreal representations. Species-focused work, and non-human approaches, can be part of the ensuring that conservation represents the interests of all life, and contributes to a future where life is diverse and abundant.

Coastal ecosystems around the world are commonly affected by frequent flood events, in particular during winter. This impact is expected to be exacerbated because of climate change. To address this issue, coastal defences are usually built to reduce or mitigate flooding using hard engineering techniques such as sea walls but they are significantly expensive to be created and maintained over time. Alternatively, nature-based strategies, known as soft engineering, are being adopted to recreate or restore natural features. In Europe, including the UK, there is an increasing trend of developing these strategies in coastal management such as managed realignments schemes to restore saltmarshes which are recognised to mainly provide wave attenuation due to their vegetation structure. However, permanent monitoring of this function is challenging due to the extensive data collection needed over time. This thesis takes into account the use of satellite data to retrieve leaf area index (LAI) as an alternative structural parameter of saltmarsh vegetation instead of the traditional frontal surface area (FSA) for wave attenuation purposes. The aim of this research is to assess how optical remote sensing can be used to assess vegetation structure in saltmarshes for wave attenuation. To accomplish this aim, the following objectives are presented: (1) to evaluate the potential of Sentinel-2 MSI imagery for characterising intra-seasonal variation in saltmarsh LAI, (2) to determine whether remotely-sensed LAI may be an alternative for field-based FSA as structural vegetation parameter for wave attenuation, and (3) to assess whether remote sensing-based LAI can effectively be used as an alternative for FSA in wave attenuation modelling. The Brancaster managed realignment scheme was selected as the main study area. The results of this thesis have shown the importance of seasonality to accurately characterise vegetation structure using remote sensing approaches. The remotely-sensed LAI is found to be a suitable descriptor of both saltmarsh vegetation structure and wave attenuation by vegetation. This thesis mainly contributes to improving monitoring of saltmarsh vegetation of managed realignment scheme to assess wave attenuation by developing a brown LAI model for the winter season when storm events are more frequent, highlighting the relationship between satellite-derived LAI and wave attenuation estimations, and incorporating LAI into wave numerical modelling. Remote sensing approaches potentially provide a rapid evaluation of coastal protection service by managed realignment schemes and monitor their performance over time.

Urbanisation poses a major challenge for global sustainability because urban areas drive environmental change and the global population of urban dwellers is expected to continue to grow rapidly. Vegetation phenology, which is the study of the timing and duration of plant development phases, is important for monitoring the effects of urbanisation and the spatial variability of urban vegetation ecosystem and provisioning functions. Moreover, studies on the impact of the urban heat island effect on phenology can be a useful way for understanding the impacts of climate change. However, although the drivers of phenology in cities in temperate climates are well understood, vegetation phenology in the tropical city context is less studied and poorly resolved. Phenology in tropical cities would particularly be useful because urban residents rely strongly on vegetation for ecosystem and provisioning functions such as urban agriculture and regulation of all year round high temperatures. Linked to this is the fact that tropical cities are expected to have a high risk of exposure to the impacts of climate change which vegetation cover could minimise. However, tropical developing cities are experiencing the fastest rates of urbanisation around the world characterised by high losses of vegetation cover. This creates an urgent need for empirical studies on vegetation dynamics in tropical cities that cover a wide range of tropical climate types and urbanisation practices, including sub-Saharan Africa that is largely underrepresented in the urban ecology literature. This study quantifies the effects of urbanisation and urban climate on vegetation phenology in the tropical city of Kampala, Uganda (sub-Saharan African) using a wholly empirical approach that assesses phenology at the landscape and tree species levels. The specific objectives of the study include the following: (1) examining the influence of the urban heat island effect on landscape phenology; (2) investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban climate during the wet-dry season transition; (3) investigating the sensitivity of canopy phenology to local environmental settings. This study showed that increase in surface temperature associated with the Urban Heat Island (UHI) resulted in shorter vegetation growing seasons at the landscape scale. Also, the magnitude of spatial variability in the UHI and Urban Dryness Island (UDI) was dependent on moisture availability and increased with the advancement of the dry season. Therefore, the influence of land cover composition on the UHI and UDI varied between seasons and was greatest during the dry season. With regard to the phenology of individual trees, a stronger UHI resulted in high leaf loss which equates to shorter growing seasons observed at the landscape scale. Moreover, the dynamics of canopy cover change varied between species. These findings about the effect of the UHI in tropical cities contrasts with the established knowledge in temperate cities were stronger UHIs lead to longer growing season lengths. Therefore, urban planning policies geared towards lengthening the vegetation growing season by minimising the UHI and UDI intensity ought to be adopted to maximise the benefits of vegetation for the attainment of sustainable urban development.

There is limited research on African-American college students and their participation in group psychotherapy in a university counseling center setting. This study examined the barriers to group psychotherapy for African-American college students. A 61 item survey was designed to obtain African-American college students’ views on their willingness to participate in group therapy, expectations of group psychotherapy, expectations of groupmembers, expectations of group leaders, coping skills when in distress, and multicultural considerations relating to group psychotherapy. Data collected from a sample (N = 108)was analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analyses. Results of the this study found that coping strategies for African-American college students were predominantly based around family and friends, facing their problems directly, faith and religion andgroup psychotherapy was seen as a method less desirable than many other coping methods. Results also found that barriers to group psychotherapy included fear of being judged, fear of being discriminated against, fear of being stereotyped and a number ofother salient factors. More should be learned about the barriers to group psychotherapy for African-American college students so as to identify effective ways to effectively recruit and retain African-American college to group psychotherapy.