Academic Dissertations in the News

Based on their excellence in doctoral research, three University of Iowa graduate students have earned top honors for the best dissertation in their fields at the UI in 2014.

Read more at http://now.uiowa.edu/2014/09/graduate-college-announces-2014-dissertation-prize-winners

Two Kent State University professors frustrated by the lack of analytical data on the evolution of their discipline have compiled all of the field’s doctoral dissertations into a database to track growth and changes in the field.

Read more at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/16/geography-professors-compile-database-dissertations-analyze-changes-over-time

Claudio Sopranzetti, an Italian visiting researcher at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, on Monday delivered a presentation "Moving in the cracks: Motorcycle taxi drivers, street protests and the fragility of power in the Thai capital” based on his doctoral dissertation in anthropology at Harvard.

Read more at http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/4201

Yu Chen developed a novel way to fabricate superconducting nanocircuitry as part of his doctoral dissertation in the Goldman Superconductivity Research Group at the University of Minnesota.
 

Typically superconductivity and dissipation are thought to be mutually exclusive because dissipation, a process in thermodynamic systems whereby electric energy is transformed into heat, is a feature of a normal—versus a superconductive—state. Chen, along with his thesis adviser, Allen M. Goldman, and theoretical physicist Alex Kamenev, both of the University of Minnesota, spent years seeking an explanation for these extremely puzzling effects. "But we discovered that superconductivity and dissipation can coexist under rather generic conditions in what appears to be a universal manner," Chen said.

Read more at http://phys.org/news/2014-06-counterintuitive-phenomenon-coexistence-superconductivity-dissipation.html

Competition for graduate students, some of it inevitable, occurs frequently within and among graduate programs. They may vie with each other to attract the most desirable candidates for admission.

Most troubling, however, are the techniques some professors use to encourage students to choose themselves as dissertation director.

Top 10 steps that I took in order to successfully go from the stage of writing and defending my proposal in September of 2012, to completing the writing and defending my dissertation within two academic years.

000-288 070-442GB2312 310-502 P2070-055 070-218 PEGACLSA_6-2V2 000-963 1Y0-A18 000-061 200-120 650-331 250-401 CCBA 1Z1-559 HP0-M43 3001 70-323 00M-660 310-150 000-057 C2020-625 HP2-T19 1D0-532 000-101 000-079 000-969 642-980 GB0-283-ENGLISH PW0-250 MB7-225 74-132 350-060 M2020-622 920-544 642-279 HP0-J25 642-973 70-485 HP0-S15 920-246 074-343 LOT-412 000-635 70-549 650-663 000-448 HP5-K01D NS0-102 000-750 000-579

000-001 E20-850 3100-1 BAS-010 070-297 COG-615 070-181 C4070-604 C2040-928 1Z0-042 C2010-539 70-451 70-631 642-811 000-189 070-513 C_TBIT44_73 HP2-Z09 NS0-131 920-140 HP2-E53 1Z0-527 70-647 E20-891 SCNS 070-169 E20-532 CTAL-TM_Syll2012 000-N37 000-773 70-229 70-177 E20-870 060-DSF 1Z0-141 70-519 COG-185 070-262 C2180-175 M2080-241 A2010-577 6207-1 CTAL_TM_001 050-V60X-CSEDLPS 3300 920-192 1Z0-031 1Y0-A15 642-371 4H0-004

1) Shift from thinking about a dissertation to writing a dissertation. 2) Write every weekday. 3) Create layers of virtual accountability. 4) Monitor your mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health. 5) Research OR write vs. Research AND write. 6) Plan ahead for potential outside funding opportunities. 7) Following your bliss vs. your chapter outline. 8) Use conference deadlines to you keep a good pace of writing. 9) Create a feedback loop. 10) Network with scholars in your field.

Read more at http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/06/11/essay-how-finish-dissertation-two-years#sthash.vecWleNV.BSsAG7q5.dpbs

An almost life-long interest and passion was channeled into the hard work of writing a '300 and something'-page dissertation that was recently named 2014 Dissertation of the year by The Ohio Academy of History. Dodge City Community College Professor, Dr. Steven Haynes, who first learned of his nomination November of last year, said to win the award is a good feeling.

Read more at http://www.dodgeglobe.com/article/20140314/News/140319499

The story reported by BBC and picked up by others is about graffiti discovered inside St. Mary’s Church in Lidgate, England. Here, historians with the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey have possibly discovered the earliest known tag in English literature. John Lydgate, the elite tagger and Benedictine monk, is explored by Stanford University doctoral student Jennifer Eileen Floyd. She wrote her 2008 dissertation about Lydgate’s involvement in such “architectural verse.” The dissertation’s title? “Writing on the Wall.”

000-288 070-442GB2312 310-502 P2070-055 070-218 PEGACLSA_6-2V2 000-963 1Y0-A18 000-061 200-120 650-331 250-401 CCBA 1Z1-559 HP0-M43 3001 70-323 00M-660 310-150 000-057 C2020-625 HP2-T19 1D0-532 000-101 000-079 000-969 642-980 GB0-283-ENGLISH PW0-250 MB7-225 74-132 350-060 M2020-622 920-544 642-279 HP0-J25 642-973 70-485 HP0-S15 920-246 074-343 LOT-412 000-635 70-549 650-663 000-448 HP5-K01D NS0-102 000-750 000-579

000-001 E20-850 3100-1 BAS-010 070-297 COG-615 070-181 C4070-604 C2040-928 1Z0-042 C2010-539 70-451 70-631 642-811 000-189 070-513 C_TBIT44_73 HP2-Z09 NS0-131 920-140 HP2-E53 1Z0-527 70-647 E20-891 SCNS 070-169 E20-532 CTAL-TM_Syll2012 000-N37 000-773 70-229 70-177 E20-870 060-DSF 1Z0-141 70-519 COG-185 070-262 C2180-175 M2080-241 A2010-577 6207-1 CTAL_TM_001 050-V60X-CSEDLPS 3300 920-192 1Z0-031 1Y0-A15 642-371 4H0-004

See details at http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/04/the-earliest-known-graffiti-tagger-a-medieval-poet.html

Middle East Higher Academic Council announces thesis and dissertation publication obligatory for all Online Master's and PhD students currently based in the Middle East

In wake of their attempt to effectively combat the rise of degree fraud and improve the standard of education offered in the Middle East region by various regional and international online universities, MEHAC recently passed a new regulation that makes thesis and dissertation publishing mandatory for all online Master's and PhD students. Read more at https://www.zawya.com/story/MEHAC_Makes_Dissertation_Publishing_Mandatory_for_Masters_and_PhD_Students-ZAWYA20140326073658/

Over the past decade, Ryan Shapiro has become a leading freedom of information activist, unearthing tens of thousands of once-secret documents. His work focuses on how the government infiltrates and monitors political movements, in particular those for animal and environmental rights.

Today, he has around 700 Freedom of Information Act requests before the FBI, seeking around 350,000 documents. That tenacity has led the Justice Department to call him the "most prolific" requester there is — in one year, two requests per day. It has also led the FBI to claim his dissertation research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would "irreparably damage national security." Shapiro discusses his methodology in obtaining government documents through FOIA requests, and the details that have emerged therein about the crackdown on animal rights activists. Read more at http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/25/why_did_the_fbi_label_ryan