Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Climate Change In The Dead Heart Of Australia, Joshua Larsen, Gerald C. Nanson, Timothy J. Cohen, Brian G. Jones, John D. Jansen, Jan-Hendrik May

Timothy Cohen

Despite the absence of large-scale glaciation, the Australian continent has experienced substantial environmental change throughout the Quaternary period. This is especially pronounced in central Australia, where one seventh of the continent is drained internally to the depocentre, and lowest point in Australia, Lake Eyre (Figure 1). Research has shown that at one time, large sandy braided and meandering rivers carried water through dunefields to a large freshwater lake system. Today, the rivers are hostage to the dunefield, and floodwaters might only reach Lake Eyre once every ten years or so. In order to understand the development of this arid desert …

How To Start A Movement: Ted Talk Annotated Resource List, Daulton Cowan

Undergraduate Research Award

No abstract provided.

Changes In Luoshui: How The Outside World Affects Luoshui Village And The Mosuo Culture, Lucy Woychuk-Mlinac

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Is tourism really the biggest harm to Mosuo culture? Mosuo people are often the center of studies about how tourism affects the traditions and cultures of minority groups, but there is little focus on the other influences that change Mosuo culture. This study focuses on the lives of the Mosuo in Luoshui village, and how their everyday lives are influenced by the world outside of the village. Without knowing the causes of changes in the Mosuo village, there is little hope for fixing the situation and keeping dying traditions alive. Looking into their religion, education, and the holiday shazhu, …

The Prophet Elijah As An Agent Of Change For Community Development, Lollo Zo Nantenaina, Joel Raveloharimisy, Karen Mcwilliams

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

"Modern christian leaders can become involved as agents of change in their communities, specifically in ways demonstrated by principles of community development seen in the Old testament prophet Elisha’s miracles. According to christ’s teachings (Luke 12:32-34), the mission of christians is not just going to church every weekend and participating in internal church programs; it involves taking care of the needs of the community outside the church as well. 2 Kings 1-8 details the Prophet Elisha’s actions as he dealt with different issues that occurred in his community—some involving only individuals and others affecting the whole community."

Understanding Change In A Therapeutic Community For People With Severe Mental Illness: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Julie Caroline Keys

Graduate School of Professional Psychology: Doctoral Papers and Masters Projects

In order to gain better understanding of how therapeutic communities instigate change, this interpretative phenomenological study explores the recognized agents of change as reported by current and recent community members of a particular therapeutic community. Four superordinate themes were discovered: the structure of the program, engagement in the community, intentionality/mindfulness, and applied knowledge. While the results from this study are similar in several ways to the current literature, they also expand the literature about therapeutic communities in one important way. The change agents reported as leading to healing strongly resemble current best practice for the treatment of trauma. Limitations and …

Where The Action Is: An Analysis Of Partisan Change In House Of Representatives Open Seat Elections, 2000-2014, Kyle B. Wallace

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research is to better understand what causes partisan change in House of Representatives open seat elections from 2000-2014. Despite being the source of the majority of freshman entering the House and traditionally having a higher rate of partisan change, open seats receive less attention in the political science literature than seats involving incumbents. The most comprehensive look at open seats came from Ronald Keith Gaddie and Charles S Bullock III in their 2000 book Elections to Open Seats in the U.S. House. Since 2000, very little research has been done to update the ever-changing environment …

Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, Identity Conflict, And Psychosocial Health Amongst Same-Sex Attracted Mormons, John P. Dehlin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Both religiosity and sexuality are acknowledged by the American Psychological Association as important considerations for overall psychosocial well-being. Consequently, the denunciation of same-sex sexuality as sinful by many religious organizations leads many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals to experience significant identity conflict. Historically, conservative religious institutions such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have offered
developmental (i.e., nonbiological) explanations as to the origins of same sexuality, along with various nonaffirming approaches including: (a) sexual orientation change efforts, (b) increased religious devotion, (c) celibacy, and (d) mixed-orientation (heterosexual) marriage. However, relatively little research has been conducted …

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding Policy Change: Ireland And Mexico In The 1980s, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

John Hogan

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy, and Mexican macroeconomic policy, during early the 1980s, a time when both countries went through economic crises. Did these policy changes constitute transformations, or were they simply continuations of previously established policy pathways? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the policy changes constituted critical junctures. Our findings will help explain …

How Creativity Can Be Used To Cope: My Creative Journey, Annamaria Todaro

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

ABSTRACT OF A PROJECT

How Creativity Can Be Used to Cope: My Creative Journey

This project examines how a positive attitude and affective creative skills and behavioral skills can raise self-awareness and empower individuals to make healthy changes in their lives. The goal is to demonstrate that no matter what the individuals’ circumstances might be, they have the mind power to overcome self-victimization and create happiness from within. Affective creative skills such as fluency, flexibility, originality, divergent thinking, curiosity, imagination and many more skills allow for change and transformation within an individual. Behavioral skills are the actions or steps that …

A Discursive Institutionalist Approach To Understanding Policy Change: Ireland And Mexico In The 1980s, John Hogan, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy, and Mexican macroeconomic policy, during early the 1980s, a time when both countries went through economic crises. Did these policy changes constitute transformations, or were they simply continuations of previously established policy pathways? The CJT consists of three elements – economic crisis, ideational change, and the nature of the policy change – that must be identified for us to be able to declare with some certainty if the policy changes constituted critical junctures. Our findings will help explain …

Meteorological Modes Of Variability For Fine Particulate Matter (Pm2.5) Air Quality In The United States: Implications For Pm2.5 Sensitivity To Climate Change, A. P K. Tai, L J. Mickley, D J. Jacob, E M. Leibensperger, L Zhang, J A. Fisher, H. O T. Pye

Jenny A Fisher

We applied a multiple linear regression model to understand the relationships of PM2.5 with meteorological variables in the contiguous US and from there to infer the sensitivity of PM2.5 to climate change. We used 2004–2008 PM2.5 observations from ~1000 sites (~200 sites for PM2.5 components) and compared to results from the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM). All data were deseasonalized to focus on synoptic-scale correlations. We find strong positive correlations of PM2.5 components with temperature in most of the US, except for nitrate in the Southeast where the correlation is negative. Relative humidity (RH) is generally positively correlated with sulfate …

Life In The Gayborhood: Safety, Difference And Change In The Urban Gay Neighbourhood, Scott J. Mckinnon

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review of: Amin Ghaziani There Goes the Gayborhood? Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014 (280 pp). ISBN 9-78069115-879-2 (hard cover) RRP $64.00.

Teachers: Technology, Change And Resistance, Sarah Katherine Howard, Adrian Mozejko

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter explores the way in which a culture of educational technology-related policy and curriculum change has arguably resulted in minimal improvement in teaching and learning. Moreover, it is argued that such a culture of change has instead simply increased teacher disengagement and thereby resulted in teachers being erroneously labelled by polichy actors, administrators and technology enthusiasts as 'resistant' to change, 'luddites' and 'risk averse'. Accordingly, this chapter challenges these simplistic labels, and offers a more critical perspective of how and why teachers (dis)engage with technology.

Changing The Anthropo(S)Cene: Geographers, Global Environmental Change And The Politics Of Knowledge, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the relationships between geographers and the 'Anthroposcene'. The latter comprises the networks, institutions and publications devoted to comprehending and responding to a fast-changing Earth departing from Holocene boundary conditions. The Anthroposcene necessarily mediates peoples' understanding of what are said to be epochal alterations to our planetary home. It is currently dominated by geoscientists and certain environmental social scientists. Some geographers are among their number. Whilst these researchers are working hard to alert decision-makers and publics to the epic scale, scope and magnitude of 'the human impact', their work currently tends to screen out the insights of both …

Flourishing, Languishing And Moderate Mental Health: Prevalence And Change In Mental Health During Recovery From Drug And Alcohol Problems, Breanna Mcgaffin, Frank P. Deane, Peter James Kelly, Joseph Ciarrochi

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The aim was to explore the utility of Keyes' concept of mental health in a substance addiction context. Mental health is considered the presence of emotional wellbeing in conjunction with high levels of social and psychological functioning. Using Keyes' measure, the frequency of languishing and flourishing is compared between clients who became abstinent and those continuing to use substances following treatment. It was hypothesised that there would be a significant interaction between substance use and levels of mental health over time. Participants were 794 individuals (79.5% male) attending residential substance abuse treatment provided by The Australian Salvation Army. The current …

Coproducing Global Change Research And Geography: The Means And Ends Of Engagement, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This response identifies three areas of agreement with my interlocutors. One is the importance of global change science now and in the future; a second is the real capacity that geographers possess to shape the content and direction of global change science, building on past achievements; and the third is the existence of 'group think' in parts of global change science, presenting a target for constructive criticism but also an opportunity for serious engagement. The response then addresses specific points raised in the five commentaries. These points pertain to the burden of academic responsibility, the political aims of 'Changing the …

Reply To 'Strategies For Changing The Intellectual Climate' And 'Power In Climate Change Research', Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Although they challenge some of our claims, Myanna Lahsen and colleagues and Lauren Rickards agree with us that a new intellectual climate ought to prevail in the world of global-change science. We concur with Lahsen et al. that there are other (perhaps better) examples than those that we chose to illustrate the tendency of global change scientists to presume that a 'single, seamless concept of integrated knowledge' is realizable and desirable; Paul Palmer and Matthew Smith provide a recent case in Nature. We apologise if we misrepresented Barnes et al., and applaud the recent efforts of Barnes and Dove to …

Sadly, This Doesn't Change Very Much, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Book review of Naomi Klein's latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

From Incremental Change To Radical Disjuncture: Rethinking Everyday Household Sustainability Practices As Survival Skills, Christopher R. Gibson, Lesley M. Head, Chontel A. Carr

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Households within affluent countries are increasingly prominent in climate change adaptation research; meanwhile, social and cultural research has sought to render more complex the dynamics of domesticity and home spaces. Both bodies of work are nevertheless framed within a view of the future that is recognizable from the present, a future reached via socioecological change that is gradual rather than transformative or catastrophic. In this article, we acknowledge the agency of extreme biophysical forces and ask what everyday household life might be like in an unstable future significantly different from the present. We revisit our own longitudinal empirical research examining …

Using Solar Photovoltaic Thermal Collectors In Phase Change Materials Enhanced Buildings For Thermal Performance Management, Zhenjun Ma, Wenye Lin, Mohammed I. Sohel

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents the investigation of using air-based solar photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors in phase change materials (PCMs) enhanced buildings for effective thermal management. PVT collectors are used to generate electricity and provide low grade heating energy to buildings for winter space heating. PCMs are either integrated into building walls to increase the local thermal mass or used as a temporary centralized thermal storage to store the low grade thermal energy derived from the PVT collectors. The thermal performance of buildings due to the integration of the PVT collectors and PCMs is tested and evaluated through computer simulations. It is …

Geography And Global Change Science: Relationships Necessary, Absent, And Possible, Noel Castree

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Initiated by geoscientists, the growing debate about the Anthropocene, 'planetary boundaries' and global 'tipping points' is a significant opportunity for geographers to reconfigure two things: one is the internal relationships among their discipline's many and varied perspectives (topical, philosophical, and methodological) on the real; the other the discipline's actual and perceived contributions to important issues in the wider society. Yet, without concerted effort and struggle, the opportunity is likely to be used in a 'safe' and rather predictable way by only a sub-set of human-environment geographers. The socio-environmental challenges of a post-Holocene world invite old narratives about Geography's holistic intellectual …

Review Of Solid-Liquid Phase Change Materials And Their Encapsulation Technologies, Weiguang Su, Jo Darkwa, Georgios Kokogiannakis

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Various types of solid-liquid phase change materials (PCMs) have been reviewed for thermal energy storage applications. The review has shown that organic solid-liquid PCMs have much more advantages and capabilities than inorganic PCMs but do possess low thermal conductivity and density as well as being flammable. Inorganic PCMs possess higher heat storage capacities and conductivities, cheaper and readily available as well as being non-flammable, but do experience supercooling and phase segregation problems during phase change process. The review has also shown that eutectic PCMs have unique advantage since their melting points can be adjusted. In addition, they have relatively high …

Change Magnitude Does Not Guide Attention In An Object Change Detection Task, Simone Favelle, Stephen Palmisano

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Investigations of change detection consistently reveal an effect of change magnitude: changes involving more object parts are detected more easily than those involving fewer parts. Whether large changes improve detection by providing stronger preattentive signals to the change location is subject to debate. We report a cued object change detection experiment that tested this hypothesis while controlling for stimulus familiarity, semantic knowledge, and change type (addition versus deletion). We found strong magnitude effects regardless of whether trials were validly or invalidly cued. The size of the cueing effects, which were exhibited for all the change magnitudes examined, did not decrease …

Predicting Attitude Toward Organizational Change, Antonio Manibusan, Sarah Moore

Summer Research

This study examined specific components that influence employee attitude toward organizational change. Prior research tested the effects of organizational identity, cultural readiness to change, age, and tenure as variables that predict attitude toward organizational change. While perception of the change is discussed in past research as another potential variable, it has yet to be examined as a mediating variable between the various components and attitude toward organizational change. In this study, we predicted that the mediating variable, perception of organizational change, affects the relation between organizational identity, cultural readiness to change, age, and tenure, and attitude toward organizational change.

To …

Was It Something They Said? Stand-Up Comedy And Progressive Social Change, David M. Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From our earliest origins in every civilization across the globe, comic performances have fulfilled an important social function. Yet stand-up comedy has not attracted the serious academic inquiry one might expect. This dissertation argues that in the absence of public intellectuals stand-up comics are important to how we talk about and negotiate complicated issues like gender and race. These comic texts are sites of cultural critique, public discourse, tools for articulation, a means of persuasion, and serve to galvanize communities.

This dissertation argues that stand-up comedy performances are a vital part of modern American intellectual and social life and are …

Review Of Florence Nightingale By Demi, Rebekkah C. Reisner

Library Intern Book Reviews

No abstract provided.

Adapting To A Virtual Learning Environment, Winston H. Maddox

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This participatory action research (PAR) dissertation examines the experiences of five experienced faculty transitioning from teaching in a traditional classroom to a virtual learning environment. The research participants used technology to deliver course material and reflected on the changes in their pedagogical practice. Data were collected using four phased sessions, including the completion of interview questions, individual interview video sessions, and group video sessions and the review of participant video validation postings. Research participants used journaling to reflect on their values, beliefs, assumptions, and experiences associated with teaching and learning. Research participants teaching in virtual learning environments were provided an …

Tapestry Of Tears: An Autoethnography Of Leadership, Personal Transformation, And Music Therapy In Humanitarian Aid In Bosnia Herzegovina, Alpha M. Woodward

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

In the fall of 2003 I was invited to lead a team of music therapists in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a country that had been recently savaged by two brutal inter-ethnic wars. The program operated out of the Pavarotti Music Centre on the East side of Mostar, a divided city in the southwest region of BiH. My journey over the next four years was epically challenged by my immersion into the complexities of post-conflict recovery, and the cultural confusion that followed the atrocities of those wars. Transformation and change not only characterized the world in which I worked, but also …