Sewanee DSpace Repository
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Recent Submissions
Item mixtape(University of the South, 2024-04-23)I was advised to know why I wrote these stories during my defense. It doesn’t really matter what the answer is, but I should be prepared for questions. That’s fair. And I’ve already gotten these questions. My fiancée hates this collection. Earlier visitors to my bedroom have snooped and thought I was writing erotica. Exes think I want to make fun of them. Many others point out that the characters are gross, homophobic, misogynistic, and worse. And I’ll admit, when I read Lolita and even my beloved Catcher, I don’t really separate the authors from Humbert or Caulfield. Martin Amis has had this problem, I hear. If ever I am dually blessed and cursed with public exposure, I will have the same problem. The reason I write anything is to see if I can make x happen, to see if x could be made plausible, sympathetic, even likeable. I think of a bad idea, and I go for it! I say YES! That’s my answer, I guess. There’s a good part of me that’s nervous. I’m a child of the 90’s, and I’m still living there in a lot of ways. It was cool to push boundaries. It’s not right now. But the pendulum swings, and I’m not about to bother with such calculations to publish at the right moment that sales match the public collective consciousness. That’s not my job. My job is to write the stories. To make them the best I can. I did that, and now it’s your turn to read and decide. I do think you come out smarter and wiser for it. I really do think that. But it’s reasonable to disagree.Item Review of Literature of Small Dams with a Case Study on the South Cumberland Plateau(University of the South, 2024-05-01)Small dams (<5m high) are found abundantly across the world due to limited or absent regulation and a variety of uses including agriculture, flood-prevention, water control, drinking water, wildfire prevention, recreation, and aesthetics. Though often thought to have less of an impact downstream because of their size, they can acutely alter downstream habitat, and their frequency suggests that these impacts could accumulate to have larger effects. Small dams change abiotic dynamics like flow, water temperature, pH, geomorphology, chemical and nutrient transportation, and oxygenation based on their operation. The biotic communities respond to these shifts by altering behaviors and population dynamics around the physical structure of the dam. We investigated the frequency with which streams on the southern Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee are impacted and reviewed the literature to identify key questions about the environmental impacts of small dams. Although small dams can cause negative downstream change, their presence can also have positive environmental impacts, and we sought to identify characteristics that benefit or degrade the surrounding ecosystems. More research needs to be done to address the variations of small dams and propel regulation and monitoring accordingly by state and federal agencies. This includes research into the effects on specific species and regions, assessing different types of small dams, and cumulative effects on the biota.Item Diesel Particulate Matter Induces Toxicity Within Caenorhabditis elegans in a Manner Distinct from Protein Misfolding(University of the South, 2024-05-01)Neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by the age-dependent failure of the proteostasis network (PN)—a critical regulator of protein folding, trafficking, and degradation—leading to an inability to maintain protein folding homeostasis (proteostasis) and eventually resulting in accelerated loss of neurons. Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by a mutation within the huntingtin gene, encoding an expansion of a glutamine (polyQ) repeat. This polyQ expansion is prone to misfolding, perturbing proteostasis. While significant advances have been achieved in understanding risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases, the impact of air pollution on their progression represents a novel and emerging area of concern. Despite the global prevalence of pollutant exposure, our understanding of its effect on the progression of neurodegenerative diseases is limited. Previous work has demonstrated that nanoparticulate matter (nPM) exacerbates proteostasis failure, increasing polyQ protein toxicity in C. elegans. Yet, the variable composition of nPM, influenced by factors such as collection time and geographic location, can result in inconsistent bioactivity assessments for experimental reproduction. Therefore, we began focusing on the effect of a more refined particle, specifically, investigating the effect of commercially available diesel particulate matter (dPM) on proteostasis. To examine proteostasis integrity we employed a C. elegans model expressing a polyQ sequence, fused to a yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), as a sensor of the protein folding environment. Surprisingly, we found that dPM induces cellular toxicity in a manner that is independent of polyQ misfolding. Identifying the effect dPM has on proteostasis offers new insight into how nano pollutants may influence the progression of neurodegenerative diseases.Item The Man, The Whale, and The Judge: Tracking Violence and Knowledge in Moby-Dick and Blood Meridian(University of the South, 2013-05)Item Examining the impacts of regenerative agriculture on soil carbon: A community-based participatory study.(University of the South, 2024-05-01)Innovative farmers in the southeastern Cumberland Plateau region are stewarding their lands using regenerative practices, such as improved cover cropping and rotational grazing. These practices have been shown to increase and sequester soil carbon, offering an important tool for mitigating climate change caused by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. In partnership with the Southeast Tennessee Young Farmers (SeTNYF) Coalition, we initiated a pilot project to examine the impact of rotational grazing and cover cropping on soil carbon on seven local small farms. We employed a community-based participatory approach to design the research around the needs of the local community and to ensure that farmers were consulted at every step. We compared soil carbon at two depths (0-15 and 15-30 cm) between parcels managed with regenerative practices (rotational grazing or cover cropping) and adjacent non-regenerative plots on seven farms. Using the sampling protocol employed by the Soil Inventory Project, we sampled at a minimum density of 3 samples per acre, although on some farms we sampled more, for a total of 406 samples. We hypothesized that soils under rotational grazing or cover crops would have higher organic carbon than adjacent non-regeneratively managed land. Despite the fact that farms had been rotationally grazed for at least five years, we found no significant difference in soil carbon between rotational grazing and adjacent plots. Only on one farm did we find significantly higher carbon under soils that had been cover cropped. Our interviews with farmers suggested that the sampling density may not have been high enough to detect changes in carbon resulting from highly localized regenerative practices, especially given the inherent heterogeneity of soils, compounded by differing land use histories. More research on other factors influencing soil is crucial for future carbon studies to better understand the environmental benefits of regenerative agriculture. While we found no effect of rotational grazing on soil in this study, these data provide a baseline for continued research on small farms which has been enhanced through our use of the community-based participatory approach.
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