Digital Commons Network^™

Hospital Volunteers: A Study Of Motivation, Judith Blanchard

Master's Theses

This study was conducted using in-depth interviews of 21 hospital volunteers to determine what motivations were operative in their choice to volunteer in a hospital and to determine whether any significant differences with regard to their motivation could be ascertained on the basis of age or gender. The study further probed the satisfaction and needs of these volunteers relative to their choice and motivation.

The study found that a combination of altruistic concerns, personal interests, and needs were fundamental to the study participants' volunteer choices. No clear differences in motivation were found on the basis of gender. Retirement from employment …

Beyond Gender : The Pursuit Of Power In The Henriad And Coriolanus, James Aaron Beavers

Master's Theses

The feminine in Shakespeare's plays, like the Bakhtinian grotesque, often offers a critical perspective on patriarchal society. Shakespeare creates characters whose feminine perspective enables them to stand outside of the patriarchal paradigm and operate according to alternative modes of behavior. While the dominant system regards power solely as a masculine territory, Shakespeare suggests that true power can only be effectively pursued by those who are not bound to a particular gender identity, but are able to shift their personas in accordance with their ever-changing milieu. In Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, and Coriolanus, Shakespeare depicts …

Learning To Lead And To Serve On Their Own Terms As A Means Of Transforming The Reservation : Female American Indians At Hampton Institute, 1878-1923, Elaine Tzu-Hsing Chou

Master's Theses

Female American Indian students who attended Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute defined their level of empowerment, playing pertinent roles within tribal communities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the Institute left an important legacy in the cause for federally-funded American Indian education, student behavior further determined the lasting effects of vocational training and socializing efforts. Organized topically, Chapter One summarizes the Indian Program's philosophy. Chapters Two through Four investigate the academic curriculum and vocational training, while exploring the ways in which the youth experienced and interpreted extracurricular and personal relationships. Chapter Five analyzes activities of Hampton alumnae …

Exploring Memory As A Narrative Strategy For Enabling Black Consciousness In Ezekial Mphahlele's Down Second Avenue And Mongane Serote's To Every Birth Its Blood, Christina Leigh Buckland

Master's Theses

Ezekial Mphahlele in Down Second Avenue and Mongane Serote in To Every Birth Its Blood use the function of memory as a narrative strategy to illuminate the evolution of individual black consciousness. Mphahlele's novel is autobiographical, investigating the chronological memory of Zeke as his consciousness evolves. Serote's work is a collection of stories investigating several characters whose individual experiential memories create a collective consciousness. For Zeke in Down Second Avenue and the characters in To Every Birth Its Blood, memory is an active device which can recall apartheid experience in order to heighten black consciousness and analyze the current …

The Battle For Women's Suffrage In The Old Dominion, Amanda Garrett

Master's Theses

In 1909, twenty women launched an eleven-year campaign to win the vote in the Old Dominion. In 1920, the necessary number of states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. However, Virginia was not among these states; her General Assembly rejected the "Anthony Amendment" by a wide margin. This study attempts to answer the following question: What was the woman's suffrage movement like in Virginia? By exploring the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, its leaders, arguments for and against suffrage, the public's reaction, the reaction of the legislature and the conclusion, the answer(s) to this multi-dimensional question can be discovered. …

The Life-Long Diminution Of Anxiety Response As A Consequence Of Reproductive Experience, Ilan M. Mcnamara

Master's Theses

Reproductive experience (RE), associated with hormonal fluctuations and enriching environmental stimuli, enhances spatial memory and blunts responses to stress/anxiety. Whereas stress reductions occur during lactation, the persistence of the RE-anxiolytic effects is unclear; and little research has focused on the HP A axis, amygdala, and other anxietyrelated areas. Using an elevated plus maze (EPM), we examined anxiety in nulliparous (NP), primiparous (PP), and multiparous (MP) females (zero, one, or two litters, respectively) at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22 months of age. Brains were subsequently analyzed for neurodegeneration in dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN). RE significantly dampened anxiety (defined by time …

Friedrich Nietzsche's Reception As A Marker Of American Intellectual Culture : Crane Brinton And Walter Kaufmann's Interpretations During The World War Ii And Postwar Eras, David Marshall Schilling

Master's Theses

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy has endured a torrent of both insightful analysis and faulty interpretation in America. This thesis seeks to examine a comer of this intellectual history, specifically some of the connections between political events and American readers' reception of Nietzsche's work. Chapter 1 introduces the study, arguing that an intellectual row created during the World War I era persisted into the Depression and World War II years. Chapter 2 analyzes Crane Brinton's Nietzsche and that historian's attempts to explain Nietzsche in terms of World War II politics, namely fascist thought. Brinton's efforts to establish a link between Nietzsche and …

A Novel Distributed Denial-Of-Service Detection Algorithm, Brett Tsudama

Master's Theses

The applicability of implementing Ratio-based SYN Flood Detection (RSD) on a network processor is explored, and initial results are presented.

The Relationship Between Age And Depression : A Self-Efficacy Model, Brandyn M. Street

Master's Theses

From an applied perspective, it is useful for clinicians and researchers to know what variables are more likely to be related to depressive symptoms for some groups than for others. From the social-cognitive perspective, symptoms of depression are linked to people's beliefs that they are unable to regulate or control their own functioning. The purpose of the present study was to test social cognitive theory and its claims about self efficacy by examining whether age and sex differences in depression are a function of emotion regulation, emotional self-efficacy and response styles to depression. The results indicated that females had a …

Heeding The Call To Action: Public Policy Engagement For Children, Kevin Hickey

Master's Theses

What do individual motives and organizational factors have to do with individuals from public charities joining and participating in child-focused advocacy coalitions? A mail survey of members of child-focused advocacy coalitions in California was conducted in order to investigate the correlation between incentives for joining advocacy coalitions and level of advocacy activity. The study also examined the relationships among incentives and level of advocacy activity and other factors, including role in the coalition, job function, official duty, and organizational size. Four hundred surveys were mailed, yielding a final valid response rate of 36.8%.

The study found that strategic incentives, such …

A Study Of The Relationship Between Unionization And Nonprofit Social Workers, Nancy Dow Moody

Master's Theses

This study examined the relationship, for nonprofit employees of the Regional Center system of the state of California, between unionization, on the one hand, and morale, salary, and relationship with management, on the other. It was conducted by means of a survey of twenty questions. Responses from one hundred seventy-two nonprofit social workers from three representative centers in the California system were received.

The results of the study supported a causal link between unionization and most of the hypothesized associations. The study found that unionization did have a positive impact on morale, salary, and relationship with management. Those working in …

A Study Of The Effect Of Organizational Structure On Employee Satisfaction In Youth-Serving Organizations In The San Francisco Bay Area, Kirah J. Caminos

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the respective effects of mechanistic and organic organizational structures on employee satisfaction. Employees from four youthserving nonprofit organizations participated. The respondents were primarily direct service and administrative professionals in the field, but they also included interns and executive staff. It was hypothesized that satisfaction would be positively correlated with organic organizational structure and negatively correlated with mechanistic organizational structure.

The measuring instrument was a survey questionnaire created for this study. The data were responses to 50 Likert-based questions that assessed three variables: mechanistic structure, organic structure, and employee satisfaction.

The research hypothesis …

From Fancy Women To Demimondames : Working Class Women In Peter Taylor's Short Fiction, Frank Sung Cha

Master's Theses

In "The Fancy Woman" and "The Old Forest," Peter Taylor examines the identity of working class women in the southern social structure and the roles they play in revising class and gender perceptions. Josie Carlson, "The Fancy Woman's" protagonist, discovers the stifling nature of class divisions. The gap between the working and upper-middle-classes remains as the social hierarchy and Taylor himself lock Josie in a subordinate position. They prevent her from attaining any sense of liberation. However, the working class 'Demimondames' in "The Old Forest" exhibit a stronger independence spirit, compelling society to reevaluate traditional social perceptions. Although they too …

Didactic Anti-Didacticism : Aesthetics And Contradictions In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Dominic Laron Finney

Master's Theses

Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray calls for a reinvention of aestheticism during the Victorian Age. Wilde felt that the Victorians had surrendered any ornamentation in art to the rules of formality in religion and politics. He also believed that art should teach solely through its existence that there is a realm above mankind. Art should not be used for anything else. Dorian curses himself when he uses his portrait to exchange his soul for eternal beauty. Wilde wrote this novel as his work of art. And, the novel is to "civilize" the Victorian public, to return them to …

Katherine Anne Porter's Notorious Virgins : Female Sexuality And Catholicism In "Virgin Violeta", "Flowering Judas", And "Old Mortality", Christine L. Grogan

Master's Theses

The intersection of Roman Catholic ideology and female sexuality remains at the heart of Katherine Anne Porter's short stories, "Virgin Violeta" (1924), "Flowering Judas" (1930), and "Old Mortality" (1937). In these works, Porter implicitly suggests that the Catholic ideology of the early twentieth century has been reduced to a matter of sexuality, particularly female sexual purity. Through her portraits of the young virgin Violeta in "Virgin Violeta" and the frigid adult Laura in "Flowering Judas," Porter challenges the Roman Catholic emphasis on female chastity. In tracing the development of Miranda in "Old Mortality," Porter subverts Roman Catholic ideology by presenting …

The Politics Of Theater And The Theater Of Law: The Legal And Cultural Implications In Langston Hughes And John Wexley's Dramatizations Of The Scottsboro Trials, Mosby Garland Perrow Iv

Master's Theses

Collectively, the charges and convictions of nine black youths in Scottsboro in 1931 became a symbol of corruption and oppression for those interested in reshaping America's political and legal landscapes. Scottsboro instigated a decade of trials and retrials, two landmark United States Supreme Court opinions, countless dramatic interpretations, and various artistic responses. In particular, Scottsboro, Limited by Langston Hughes and They Shall Not Die by John Wexley were cultural revisions of the trials in 1931 and 1933, respectively. While both works supported the defendants, they were distinguished by their form, production and ultimate statement about the meaning of Scottsboro. These …

Forging The Anvil Of Victory : The British Combined Operations Command At The Start Of The Second World War (1940-42), Timothy Michael Gilhool

Master's Theses

The story of British combined operations is one too often overlooked in the study of World War II. For the Allies, success, perhaps survival, could only be achieved by developing and perfecting the techniques and equipment required for amphibious landings. In British parlance, the marrying of the ground, naval, and air components of such a landing was called combined operations. The organization built to accomplish this task was the Directorate for Combined Operations (DCO). Created in a time of great desperation (July 1940), the DCO represented the first and only ground offensive tool in the British arsenal, employing the legendary …

The History Of The One Hundred And Thirtieth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Terrence W. Beltz

Master's Theses

In August 1862, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania quickly responded to President Lincoln's request for more troops. An overwhelming number of Pennsylvania volunteers promptly answered the call that supplied the Union Army eighteen new infantry regiments who were to serve for a period of nine months. This devoted group of central Pennsylvanians, rendezvoused at Camp Simmons, Pennsylvania, in mid-August 1862, was to become soldiers of 130th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers who, with no military experience and little training, would face hardened Confederate veterans at "Bloody Lane" at the Battle of Antietam and "Marye's Heights" at the Battle of Fredericksburg. They were to …

Making The Connection: Art And Community, Daliah Khoury Massehian

Master's Theses

This study examines the role of the community arts in addressing social issues in communities. Using data gathered from community arts organizations in two San Francisco neighborhoods, this study examines the histories, missions, methods for measuring results and ideologies of San Francisco community arts organizations for the purpose of uncovering the development of the community arts movement in San Francisco, prevalent perceptions among practitioners about community art's ability to impact civil society and theories around why the community arts are an effective agent for effecting social change.

This study uncovers that the community arts grew out of a grassroots movement …

Text And Transformation: Refiguring Identity In Postcolonial Phillipines, R Edmund Lacson

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

Effects Of Computer Input Device On Movement Time And Error Among Older Adults, Melissa Marie Alvarado

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

A Usability Comparison Of E-Commerce Shopping Cart Designs, Elisa Ann Taube

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

"A Higher Ambition" : Bay Area Women Fight For Suffrage In California, Karen Lynne Skahill

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Spacing Of Practice Effects On The Learning Of Shortcut Keys, Deidre Rogers

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Status Of Leptodactylus Validus As A Single Taxon And Its Relationship To Letptodactylus Pallidirostris, Kenneth Christopher Yanek

Master's Theses

Leptodactylus validus exhibits an unusual distribution inhabiting Trinidad, Tobago, and the Lesser Antilles, but not the mainland of South America. This distribution is inconsistent with other distribution patterns observed for these islands. Although slight variation in adult morphology has been observed among the island populations, call data suggest the presence of a single species. Calls of Leptodactylus pallidirostris from Venezuela suggested that this taxon might be conspecific with L. validus. Herein sequence data from the 12S and 16S mt rRNA genes were collected and analyzed in order to address: 1.) whether more than one species is represented within L. validus, …

Person-Organization Values Congruence And The Work Commitment Of High-School Principals, Jacqueline Mcevoy

Master's Theses

Digitized thesis

The Mission Diamicton And Associated Geohazards Santa Barbara, California, Robert James Urban

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Microwave Arcjet Thruster Sizing And Performance Evaluation, Steven Michael Carmen

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Graphic Input Device And Repetition On Wrist Posture, Janice Serafine Lilien

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Do Salient Cues And Self-Relevant Task Aid Prospective Memory Performance?, La Quisha D Beckum

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.