Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluating The Effect Of Sleep Hygiene Education On Sleep Quality Among First-Year College Students, Caroline Lowe Cunningham

DNP Projects

Abstract

Background: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends college students should get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. Only one-third currently meet this recommendation. Poor sleep negatively affects academic performance, mood, and interpersonal relationships. Sleep hygiene is recommended to improve sleep quality and quantity.

Purpose: The purpose of this DNP project was to determine the effect of implementing a sleep hygiene educational intervention in classes intended for first-year college students at the University of Kentucky.

Methods: This quasi-experimental project utilized the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index to assess participants’ sleep before an in-person sleep hygiene education and after …

Disability Representation In Contemporary Playwriting, Caroline Hull

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Is it possible for a playwright to authentically capture the disabled experience without it becoming privy to stereotypes or utilized as a catalyst for the plot? The thesis aims to challenge the prevalent notion that making the disability intrinsic to a theatrical plot is essential for authentic representation, and instead asserts that authentic portrayal of the disabled experience can exist independently of making the disability a central plot device. To support this claim, In Chapter One, I engage with relevant work in the field of playwriting and narrative media studies, such as the workshop “Inaccessible: Writing Plays with Characters who …

Holistic And Holy: An Inward Journey Toward Healing And Wholeness, Chad Mcswain

Doctor of Leadership

There are two ubiquitous challenges to the modern church in North America: declining church attendance and the mental health crisis. This is an opportunity for the modern church to take up the missional imperative by providing access to mental health resources to meet the mental and spiritual needs of those they serve, while creating a positive connection to those who do not currently attend church.

This doctoral project seeks to address both challenges by providing a podcast called, Holistic and Holy, Listener Guide, and website that creates conversations at the intersection of mental health and spirituality. This approach uses traditional …

The People Are A-Changin’: The Political Groupings That Built American Folk And Country Music, Nicholas Taubenheim

CMC Senior Theses

Since the Civil War, American folk and country music have become deeply political cultural mediums. This thesis posits that the history of the folk-country family can be broken down into three distinct “eras.” During the first era, the post-Civil War South gave rise to a new form of “Dixie,” or “hillbilly” folk music derived from traditional European folk ballads. In the second era, the Dust Bowl migrants of Southern California pioneered the “Okie” sound, which built upon Dixie/hillbilly music. And in the third era, the political and cultural dissidents of the 1960s produced a new type of folk music in …

Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Analysis And Discovery, Payton Summer Maddaloni

Honors Theses and Capstones

This poster encompasses yearlong literary research into floating offshore wind turbines. Limitations created by society are discussed, these have prohibited large leaps to get the turbines out of the design phase. Traditional platform designs are displayed to show the potential the industry has to offer as the next renewable energy source. The maintenance phase seeks optimization. A case study by the University of Cincinnati used production losses as a consideration to lower the total cost of traditionally expensive maintenance. Finally, the end-of-life scenarios are currently being overlooked by developers. This opens the door to multiple options for disposal. Mimicking the …

Amity And Commerce: The Jay Treaty And Free Trade In The Atlantic World, Aaron Gibbs

WWU Graduate School Collection

Much of the scholarship surrounding the Jay Treaty, ranging from the diplomatic histories of the 1960s to the social histories of recent decades, has been predominantly focused on the treaty’s role in American political culture and party development. Building on the work of mid-century diplomatic historians, Atlantic scholars like Eliga H. Gould, and scholars of political culture like Todd Estes, this thesis situates the Jay Treaty within a broader Atlantic context, and frames it as an important chapter in longer trans-Atlantic debates over Anglo-American relations and imperial commercial policies. When the Jay Treaty is analyzed through an Atlantic lens, the …

Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Word Made Flesh: Biblicality In Cormac Mccarthy's Appalacian Novels, Brett Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

McCarthy’s Appalachian novels in particular, beginning with his first novel The Orchard Keeper in 1965, show the outline of biblicality, a concept which entails the use of religious imagery, the employment of biblical language, the interplay between religious and secular elements, the profound impact of Appalachian landscapes, along with the thematic exploration of faith, morality, and the human condition. Outer Dark (1968), Child of God (1972), Suttree (1979), and The Road (2005), expound, in more detail, upon these ideas through the use of the themes of darkness, light, and objects of divinity, outsiders, and suicide. McCarthy’s Appalachian novels, showcase biblicality …

Posttraumatic Growth In Inmates: An Exploration Of Cumulative Adverse Life Experiences And Its Relationship To Growth, Rachel Taylor

Online Theses and Dissertations

Trauma is pervasive among incarcerated populations and revictimization is common. Trauma can ripple out, affecting other areas of life—for many inmates, trauma is related to mental health issues and substance abuse, both of which can contribute to increased likelihood of recidivism. This study evaluated cumulative trauma using the Adverse Childhood Experiences survey (ACEs) and the Trauma History Questionnaire (THQ) to find the effect of cumulative trauma on posttraumatic growth, the positive psychological change that may develop following a traumatic experience. Against the hypotheses and previous research, the results showed a negative relationship between cumulative trauma and posttraumatic growth, a negative …

The Third Horseman: Preventability Versus Apocalypse In The Great Famine Of 1315 And The Irish Potato Famine, Luke Ziegler

Honors Theses

Famine is a huge problem for societies, even in the modern world. Throughout history, famine has reared its ugly head and brought about demographic and societal collapse. The Great Famine of 1315 Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, despite their differences, had similar underlying factors of land management and overpopulation paired with an environmental catalyst, and also show that governmental response has the potential to both cause and prevent a famine, but only if the scale of the problem is limited. They both examine the question of national identity and create a multitude of debates in later historiography. Although these …

A Comparison Of The Perceived Effects Of Injury On Collegiate Dancers And Athletes, Megan Chiles

Master's Theses

This research study focused on sustained injuries to collegiate dancers and athletes and the physical and mental effects that followed the sustained injuries. The researcher used an electronic survey to gather quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data included average weekly hours of practice and conditioning, if an injury was sustained during participation of their activity, where the injury was sustained, and if medical treatment was provided to them through their universities. Qualitative data included whether the injured participants ever felt pressured to continue participation after an injury was sustained. This research study demonstrated that both collegiate dancers and athletes sustain …

Evolving Expressions Of Trauma In James Joyce, Jean Rhys, And Caryl Phillips, Sean M. Mccray

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Evolving Expressions of Trauma articulates ways that dynamic, changing theories of trauma can provide a language and conceptual space to examine innovative modes and means of expression in Modernist novels and in later, post-colonial and experimental novels. This dissertation asserts that as trauma theory has expanded to encompass and describe different types of traumata, including the mundane, the insidious, and empathetic, it has provided a scaffolding for studying difficult, even impenetrable works from the Modernist period and beyond. The works examined here are strategically selected to demonstrate scope and particularity in the growth of trauma theories and their potential applications …

The Victimization Experiences Of Transgender Adult Females Of Color In The State Of Florida, Andrew Ryan Vaz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Memories And Trauma Of An Absent Past- Women Filmmakers In Argentina, Nicholas P. Pezzote

Doctoral Dissertations

This work analyzes the relationship between personal and historical memory in five Argentine films made after the end of the country's last dictatorship. All are directed by, and feature, women. Besides approaching the topic of memory, this work examines how patriarchy influences narratives of both personal histories and, more broadly, of history in: Camila (María Luisa Bemberg, 1984), Un muro de silencio (Lita Stantic, 1993), Los rubios (Albertina Carri, 2003) and La mujer sin cabeza (Lucrecia Martel, 2008). Trauma and the handing down of memory—issues that appear in all of the chosen films—are approached from a critical feminist perspective. At …

Likeness In Utopia: Situation And Metaphor From Thomas More To Edward Bellamy, Sage Rachmiel Bard Gilbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a literary genre, utopia is notably didactic. It seeks to teach desire and to educate hope. As such, utopia provides a unique site to examine the way metaphor and imagination enable one to be convinced, and the way those same elements facilitate misunderstanding. Following the theorization of Ernst Bloch, the goal of critiquing these literary utopias is not to reject hope but, rather, to educate our own daydreams, to learn and move forward. These chapters examine didacticism and the development of colonial metonymy in Thomas More’s Utopia, the way metaphor operates through time in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward: …

Proud Of Your Boy: Toxic Masculinity, Boyhood, And The American Musical, Aaron J. Wood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project traces the cultural historiography of the phrase "boys will be boys" and examines the pattern of white male excusal it embodies through a case-study based survey of onstage depictions of boyhood in musical theatre. I argue that the generational idea of manhood as aggressive, competitive, and violent is continually reasserted through our passive acceptance of white boy violence. This dissertation looks to the musicals Newsies, West Side Story, Heathers, and Dear Evan Hansen as case studies for exploring the cultural lineage of the phrase “boys will be boys.” Like the works of Aaron Thomas, Raymond …

Chemical Analysis Of Metabolites From Mangrove Endophytic Fungus, Sefat E Munjerin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Natural products hold a significant place in drug discovery for their abundant and unique secondary metabolites. These secondary metabolites which encompass a range of organic compounds such as alkaloids, phenols, peptides, flavonoids, polyketides, and terpenoids, can easily be exploited for drug development. Endophytic fungi, residing harmoniously with its host, have emerged as generous producers of bioactive secondary metabolites, displaying efficacy against a wide array of human pathogens, including the challenging ESKAPE pathogens.

The research explores endophytic fungi and their prospective for drug discovery and development through the synthesis of distinctive secondary metabolites. Endophytic fungus, HM13-26C-2B, collected from Honeymoon Island, Florida …

Implementing Nature-Based Play In Academically Focused Early Childhood Settings, Abbie Krohn

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research shows that both play and time spent in nature is critical to childhood development. Over the last fifty years, children’s access to extended play in outdoor spaces has decreased substantially. What are early childhood educators in formal academic settings to do with this information? The professional development series created for this project aims to provide early childhood educators with tools and resources to incorporate nature-based play practices into their classrooms. In the series, participants will examine the history of outdoor education in America, the effects of nature on the human body, standardized testing and current educational practices in early …

The Accounting Profession From The Collegiate Perspective: An Analysis Of Gender Equality Perceptions, Samantha Kalinka

Honors Capstones

This study investigates whether incoming female accountants expect to have the same career opportunities within the accounting profession as do males. For purposes of this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 accounting students. These students were either undergraduate seniors majoring in accounting or graduate students enrolled in a Master of Accounting Science program. The results of the interviews were such that both male and female accounting students exhibited high expectations for their careers and their lives outside of it. Students recognized the impact of family and the difficulty of the profession on their career. They also noted that the …

Regulating The Care Boom: Labor Standards Enforcement And Paid In-Home Care Work, Isaac Jabola-Carolus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, population aging has driven explosive growth in care-sector occupations, especially among low-wage home care aides who provide long-term assistance to older adults. These aides, predominantly women and disproportionately people of color, now represent one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing occupational groups. In recent decades, economic inequality and meager social policies have also spurred demand for nannies, housecleaners, and other domestic workers—occupations heavily reliant on immigrant women, many undocumented. While scholarly and public discourse has addressed labor shortages and job quality in such occupations, a related problem is the widespread violation of labor standards, including minimum …

“An Alarming State Of Evil Among Our Juveniles” A Case Study Of Public Education In Manchester, New Hampshire From 1845-1915, Amy Cummings Sherr

Master's Theses and Capstones

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of compulsory public education laws in Manchester, New Hampshire from 1845-1915, drawing on detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of school attendance records, legislative proceedings, and media coverage. The thesis identifies shifting objectives in the campaigns for compulsory education laws and child labor laws in New Hampshire over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries which help to explain lackluster enforcement. Reformers re-defined the perceived problems over time which led to new legislation and changing priorities in enforcement. Initially, reformers focused on “idle children” causing trouble and disrupting society. Then with mass immigration to the …

Feeling Uneasy On Easy Street: Decoloniality, Mental Health, And Social Culture Within A University Department Of Music, Ucee-Uchenna L. Nwachukwu

Masters Theses

As a graduate student in a university music department, I have devoted a lot of time to working in associated yet also disparate realms: as a performer, a Teacher's Assistant, and a student. During this time, I have also begun conducting research examining the music department’s social culture. I have observed my colleagues– meaning my fellow graduate students–sacrificing their mental health, physical health, and emotional wellbeing in order to meet ambiguous expectations that I will argue are often rooted in the coloniality of Western Art Music. I have observed and experienced conversations that neglect to acknowledge the ways in which …

Sleep And Multimorbidity In The Canadian Longitudinal Study On Aging, Shreni Patel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Sleep health is a latent construct comprising various sleep measures such as duration, quality, initiation, maintenance, and daytime sleepiness. This thesis compared the association of two measures of sleep health, a conventional summary score and a pooled index, with incident multimorbidity over a 3-year follow-up in 30,097 middle- to older-aged adults from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. At baseline, approximately 26% and 29% of participants with multimorbidity displayed poor sleep patterns according to additive and pooled indexing methods. Longitudinal analysis indicated that those with additive scores of 4 to 5 at baseline had a 1.54 (95% CI: 1.18, 2.03) …

The Haunting Aesthetics Of Empire: Filipinx America, Us Empire, And Cultural Production, Alana J. Bock

American Studies ETDs

Throughout this dissertation, I argue that US imperial knowledge production affirms US exceptionalism by disavowing the imperial violence wrought on the Philippines and its people. This disavowal not only renders the Philippines and Filipinx bodies illegible, but also haunts the Filipinx American diaspora. I argue that the haunted logics of empire are a set of relations, rather than specters of specific times and places, in which knowledge and power work together to continually produce and reproduce a specific and limiting reality and sensorium through which to view the world. In my interrogation of empire’s haunted logics, I not only look …

The Context And The Commissioner: The Effect Of Milwaukee’S Health Commissioners’ Social, Cultural, And Historical Understanding Of Milwaukee’S People During The Last Five Pandemics, Madeline O'Dea Fruehe

Theses and Dissertations

Resistance to pandemic response policies was observed globally throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This resistance has been linked by researchers to the prolonged duration and higher mortality rate of COVID-19 compared to previous pandemics, despite advancements in modern medicine, extensive surveillance networks and record vaccine production. However, the strategies implemented by public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic closely mirrored those successful in mitigating past pandemics. To elucidate this disparity, a historical analysis encompassing the 1918, 1957, 1968, 2009, and Covid-19 pandemics was conducted within the city of Milwaukee. By examining archival documents and over 800 newspaper articles, this research found …

Urbanization On The Landscape Of The Old City: An Archaeological Investigation Of Site 40kn223 In Knoxville, Tennessee, Garrett B. Wamack

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I examine the effects of urbanization on the landscape and the people who lived upon it at archaeological site 40KN223 within the Old City in Knoxville, Tennessee. This landscape analysis focuses particularly on the decades from 1850 to 1920 during the birth and growth of the Old City. Amid the rising tides of commercialization, industrialization, and the flood-prone waters of First Creek, residents established a working-class neighborhood on the fringe of a substantial African American community. I examine this neighborhood and the transformation of its immediate landscape to understand how urbanization impacted its transformation, to learn who …

“Each Heart Alone Knoweth Its Own Bitterness”: The Jackson Family In Clarke County, Virginia, From Enslavement To Jim Crow, Melanie E. Garvey

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the experiences of three generations of the Jackson family in Clarke County, Virginia, from approximately 1860 to 1915, covering the shift from enslavement to the Jim Crow period. Chapter One introduces the challenges with pre-existing publications on Clarke County and Virginia history. Chapter two focuses on the antebellum period and discusses what enslavement may have looked like in Clarke County. Chapter Three narrows the focus to Charles Jackson, Sr., the family patriarch, who was enslaved at New Market Plantation. Chapter Four looks at Charles Sr.’s son, Charles Jr., and the life he created for himself after enslavement. …

The 1900s Southwestern Ontario Sand Sucker Panic, Mary E. Baxter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

During the early twentieth century, waterbed aggregate mining in the Great Lakes supplied sand and gravel for infrastructure development in the lakes’ shoreline communities. This thesis explores commercial dredging and its impacts at Lake Erie's Pelee Island and Point Pelee, and along the St. Clair River. The mostly transnational activity produced shoreline erosion that threatened agricultural operations, and sand suckers, the dredges that performed the mining, came to symbolize American capitalist exploitation in southwestern Ontario. Disputes arose over the extent of the erosion and affected relations between governments at all levels. Using government and business records, I argue that the …

Creating Inclusive Spaces: Using Book Clubs To Increase Diverse Literature In Schools, Clare Ng

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Multiple studies have identified that many groups of underrepresented students, including non-Christians, LGBTQ+, Native-Americans, children of immigrant families, and youth of color, feel invisible or not included in school settings because there is a lack of visibility of non-dominant groups in school, or a lack of policies and practices that support the needs and experiences of non-dominant groups. This may include a lack of representation in recognized celebrated holidays, curriculum topics, or literature discussed in school. This capstone project will focus on how we can create inclusive spaces for students to promote positive school culture by obtaining diverse literature for …

Sleep Issues Of Older Adults: Lived Experience And Occupational Performance, Emily Angell, Anna Johnston, Adriana C. Mallett, Cassidy Ward, Rachel Wiltse

Culminating Experience Projects

Introduction: Sleep issues are prevalent among older adults which can affect occupational performance; however, there is a gap in the research in examining lived experiences of this population. This research may provide insight into these areas concerning this population.

Method: This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted via semi-structured interviews which were recorded. No identifiable information was collected during data collection. The inclusion criteria of the study sample were as follows: (a) aged 65 years or older; (b) have sleep issues or self-perceived sleep issues; (c) community-dwelling; (d) English is primary language; (e) live in West and Central Michigan. Exclusion criteria …