Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Law Enforcement, Communication Training & Verbal Judo, Lorna F. Keathley

Masters Theses

This study incorporated a mixed method approach using qualitative and quantitative methods to capture a deeper portrayal of Verbal Judo. Verbal Judo emphasizes the use of both verbal and non-verbal communication tactics by the officer (influencer) with specific discourse structures to influence the individual to comply with the officer’s requests in compliance-gaining. This study determined that specific Verbal Judo compliance-gaining tactics must be used to try to prevent conflict such as physical force. Successive repetition by officers (with matching non-verbal tone) of strategic Verbal Judo language when dealing with a difficult person appears to be a major key in diminishing …

Adulthood Animal Abuse Among Men Arrested For Domestic Violence, Jeniimarie Febres

Masters Theses

The effectiveness of batterer intervention programs at reducing future intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration is limited. Learning about perpetrators to more comprehensively address issues relevant to their aggressive tendencies could aid in the development of more effective treatments. This study examined the prevalence of adulthood animal abuse perpetration and its association with psychological and physical IPV perpetration, antisocial traits, and alcohol use in a sample of men arrested for domestic violence (N = 307). Forty-one percent (n = 125) of the men committed at least one act of animal abuse since the age of 18, in contrast to …

The Role Of Consequentiality In The External Validation Of Stated Preference Methods, Sharon Bowen Watson

Masters Theses

This study examines consequentiality and information effects of stated preference methods by taking advantage of a unique opportunity to compare survey responses with a parallel, financially binding public referendum held in the Town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, concerning the adoption of a conservation and preservation policy to be funded by a property tax surcharge. Our survey setting departs from previous work in this area in that (1) many survey respondents were unaware of the upcoming referendum and (2) the survey “referendum” mirrors that of the public referendum. The survey and analysis are designed to elicit and control for respondent beliefs regarding …

Essays On Spatial Analysis Of Policy Impacts, Daegoon Lee

Masters Theses

This thesis is composed of two essays under the theme of spatial analysis of policy impacts. The objective of the first essay was to analyse how population dynamics affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The effects of population redistribution resulting from the South Korean government’s decentralization efforts on GHG emissions were assessed. Simulation results suggest that the direction of change in total GHG emissions depends on the share of the population redistributed from higher to lower population density regions. If the entire redistributed population of 877,000 persons expected from the government’s decentralization project were from the Seoul Area, annual CO_{2 …}

Response Of Inland Lakes To Climate Change Across The Tibetan Plateau Investigated Using Landsat And Icesat Data, Zewen Liu

Masters Theses

The Tibetan Plateau experienced tremendous climate change during the past four decades. Due to the large size, widely distribution of cryosphere, and diverse landforms, different parts of the plateau may experience different climate and cryosphere changing patterns. The changes of inland lakes within the plateau are important indicators of climate change as these lakes are fed by precipitation, permafrost degradation, and glacier melting that are all sensitive to climate change. To examine the spatial and temporal differences of lake variations across the Tibetan Plateau, Landsat images and ICESat/GLAS altimetry data were used to extract the changes in surface areas of …

Short-Term Missions: Reinforcing Beliefs And Legitimating Poverty, William Vaughan Taylor

Masters Theses

Every year more than a million short-term missionaries travel abroad. Many encounter intense poverty. Popular discourse suggests short-term missionaries return home radically changed. Social movement theory shows collective experiences can transform participants. In this thesis I explore the narratives of short-term missionaries to understand how they understand the poverty they encounter abroad. I have found short-term mission participants think about encounters with the poor in ways that produce contradictory beliefs and legitimate poverty. Interviewees consistently employed deficiency and fatalistic theories of poverty that provide little moral or practical justification for helping the poor. However, these beliefs conflicted with religious convictions. …

Daily And Longitudinal Associations Between Sexual Coercion, Affect, And Relationship Functioning Among Women In Heterosexual Dating Relationships, Vanessa Tirone

Masters Theses

Sexual coercion, the use of manipulative tactics to have sexual contact with another person against their will, is experienced frequently by women in dating relationships. Cross sectional data suggests this type of experience is associated with deleterious outcomes for women’s mental health and relationship satisfaction. To date, no published studies have examined how sexual coercion relates to women’s well-being and relationship functioning on a daily basis or their satisfaction with dating relationships over time. The present study measured the frequency of 4 sexual coercion tactics (i.e., arousal, verbal, intoxication and force) and their association with women’s wellbeing and relationship functioning …

Diffusion Of Social Media Among County 4-H Programs In Tennessee, Rebekah Bowen

Masters Theses

Over the past decade, Cooperative Extension and 4-H professionals have been faced with the decision of whether they should adopt new communication technologies such as social media to interact with their rapidly growing audience. Current research on social media and Extension shows that there are some identified risks and barriers (Fuess & Humphreys, 2011; Seger, 2011); however, many Extension professionals believe that social media usage could be very beneficial for Extension and\or 4-H usage (Coates, 2004; Rhoades, Thomas & Davis, 2009; Kinsey, 2010). In order to increase the body of empirical research on this subject, a quantitative study was conducted …

Redefining Memorial Landscapes: The Stolpersteine Project In Berlin, Matthew Russell Cook

Masters Theses

Geographers have long been interested in the ways that states and individuals use cultural landscapes to shape the meaning and understanding of the past. In this thesis, I argue that individuals and the state embed different interpretations of the Holocaust past in the German landscape. In particular, I focus on the German artist Gunter Demnig and his Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) Project as a case study of memorial projects created by an individual. The Stolpersteine are small memorial stones for a single Holocaust victim. The stones are installed in front of homes and businesses that were the last known location of …

The Information Landscape Of A Wicked Problem: An Evaluation Of Web-Based Information On Colony Collapse Disorder For A Spectrum Of Citizen Information Seekers, Reid Isaac Boehm

Masters Theses

The following research takes a mixed method approach to understanding the information landscape of a wicked problem. Wicked problems are defined as being uncertain in cause, having many stakeholders with conflicting interests, and inevitably have no foreseeable solution. Through the study a framework is implemented that assesses a portion of the landscape of colony collapse disorder information from the federal government via the web. Using a government information valuation framework that takes into account a spectrum of citizen user needs, the research was able to look at the information content within the context of the public sphere and to apply …

Reconstruction Of Fire History In The National Key Deer Refuge, Monroe County, Florida, U.S.A.: The Palmetto Pond Macroscopic Charcoal Record, Desiree Lynn Kocis

Masters Theses

The pine rocklands in the Lower Florida Keys are considered endangered because of rises in sea level, urbanization, and human impacts on the natural fire regime. Macroscopic charcoal in a sediment core recovered from Palmetto Pond (24°41’45.15”N, 81°19’43.84”W) in 2010 was examined in contiguous 1-cm intervals to reconstruct Late Holocene fire history. Palmetto Pond is a shallow freshwater solution hole located within the pine rocklands of No Name Key in Monroe County, Florida. Radiocarbon dating of plant material at 247 cm depth in the Palmetto Pond profile indicates the sediment record extends back to ca. 4500 cal yr BP. Charcoal …

Chenopodium Berlandieri And The Cultural Origins Of Agriculture In The Eastern Woodlands, Daniel Shelton Robinson

Masters Theses

The development of agriculture in the New World has been a topic of prominent historic interest, but one that has ignored some regions in favor of others. The woodlands of Eastern North America have felt this bias in the investigation of agricultural origins, but this has not prevented the development of theories to explain the emergence of a complex of indigenous agricultural plants in the region. Data collection and technological advances have in large part validated these theories, creating a model for domestication. By emphasizing farming over other cultural practices, however, these theories lack explanatory power with regards to the …

Creating A Brand Experience Across Media Channels, Virginia Gibson Switzer

Masters Theses

This study examines how messages marketed through different media channels impact a consumer’s brand experience. The goal of this study was to explore the extent to which consumers experience brands through media channels. This study relies on four focus group sessions and a thematic content analysis to gather findings. It was discovered that consumers viewed customer service as the leading characteristic in brand loyalty.

Consumers were primarily impacted by brands through consumer reviews, reliable sources, convenience and special promotions. Participants chose reliable print mediums as a resource to research products. Online sources were the leading medium for reading consumer reviews …

Spatial Discrepancies Between Nhdplus And Lidar-Derived Stream Networks, Nicole Marie Samu

Masters Theses

Many organizations demand that current water resource issues necessitate improved stream network mapping for more accurate and reliable watershed analysis and modeling results, which can ultimately enable better management and policy decisions. Stream network data from the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) and derived from Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) are each widely accepted to be of superior quality compared to many other conventional datasets. Each dataset indicates potential to improve a wide range of water resource applications; NHDPlus for its high spatial accuracy and functionality, and LIDAR-derived networks for their high resolutions. NHDPlus is publicly available and widely used; …

Potential Effects Of Institutional Repositories On Nursing Research Dissemination, Sarah Jane Mcclung

Masters Theses

Institutional repositories (IRs) might be important tools for nursing faculty to utilize as they have the potential to improve research dissemination on a timely basis to the nursing community at large. This topic is worth investigating because the field of nursing has been struggling for many decades to facilitate the relationship between theory and methods by transferring the knowledge gained from nursing research to the approaches used in nursing practice. The recent focus on evidence-based practice in nursing education is proof of the field’s attempts at shrinking the information gap between nurse researcher and nurse clinician. Methods for dissemination have …

Emergency Text Messaging Systems And Higher Education Campuses: Expanding Crisis Communication Theories And Best Practices, Tanya Desselle Ickowitz

Masters Theses

Recent public safety threats affecting college and university campuses during episodes of natural disasters and mass violence have exposed numerous challenges and opportunities in crisis and risk communication. The evacuation of college campuses during natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and episodes of mass violence such as the shootings at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in 2010, among others, have revealed how even the most well-developed campus communication plans leave room for improvement during actual crisis events (Catullo, Walker, & Floyd, 2009). Through in-depth interviews (N=10) of crisis communication managers at U. S. colleges and universities, as well as …

Economic And Environmental Effects Of Switchgrass Production On A Representative Cow-Calf Farm In Middle Tennessee, Hanna Leah Watts

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the economic tradeoffs and land use dynamics of incorporating switchgrass into the farm plan of a representative middle Tennessee cow-calf operation. A net revenue simulation and multi-year mathematical programming model was used to find the optimum mix of switchgrass and cow-calf enterprises that will maximize whole farm net revenues over 30 years on a representative middle Tennessee beef farm under both average and above average management. Land use changes predicted by the mathematical programming model were used to assess the carbon change associated with incorporating, or transitioning to, switchgrass production.

For a …

Plant Remains, Investment Strategies, And Site Processes: Two Sites Along The Nolichucky River In Greene County, Tennessee, Jessie Luella Johanson

Masters Theses

Sites 40GN228 and 40GN229, located in Greene County, Tennessee, provide a record of subsistence change and variation in landscape management practices spanning from the Late Paleoindian to the Pisgah phase of the Mississippian period. The botanical remains from these sites detail changing plant-human relationships over a 12,000-year time span in the upper Ridge and Valley of eastern Tennessee. The expansive temporal and spatial scale of the two sites presented an opportunity to evaluate the plant assemblages on several levels. The substantial cultural deposits allowed a synchronic and diachronic look into plant use. In addition, the geographic proximity of the two …

Teach For America Teachers' Blogs On Teaching, Samantha Nicole Holt

Masters Theses

In 1989, Princeton University senior Wendy Kopp conceived the idea of a national teacher corps that would place the brightest young people in the schools that were the most difficult to staff. This idea, which became Teach For America (TFA), took life in 1990, and has since become a powerful force in the public education reform movement. TFA consistently attracts college graduates from the nation’s top universities, and with the funding it receives from private donors as well as the federal government, the organization recruits and trains these individuals who commit to teach in the country’s highest-needs public schools. Critics …

The Distribution Of Paleoindian Debitage From The Pliestocene Terrace At The Topper Site: An Evaluation Of A Possible Pre-Clovis Occupation (38al23), Megan King

Masters Theses

The lithic debitage excavated from units where pre-Clovis material was found were analyzed using mass analysis as well as individual flake analysis. Statistical analyses were performed to test whether or not the assemblages associated with known occupation were similar to those associated with pre-Clovis levels. No significant difference was observed between the physical attributes of the lithic debitage found within strata associated with known prehistoric populations and the lithics found within pre-Clovis aged deposits. Two alternate explanations for these patterns exist: one which argues for the presence of a legitimate pre-Clovis occupation at the Topper Site and the other citing …

Reporting Matt Murdock's Double Life: The Image Of The Journalist In Marvel Comics' Daredevil, Robby Wayne O'Daniel

Masters Theses

Popular entertainments often provide the general public with a construct for who a journalist is and what the work of a journalist entails. It is important to study journalists in the popular culture to understand how the idea of the journalist is conceived by those who do not go to newsrooms and do not have first-hand experience with how journalists work. In order to do their jobs, journalists must regularly interact with the public at large, gathering facts, coordinating appointments, interviewing and so on. If these people have a negative image of the journalist, it would be helpful for journalists …

Lawyers And Their Books: The Augusta County Law Library Association, 1853-1883, Gregory Harkcom Stoner

Masters Theses

During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, law books of various types contained the vital information needed by Virginia’s practicing attorneys and judges. Access to these resources, however, was generally limited to personal collections and a handful of libraries. Despite numerous calls for the creation of libraries by theVirginiagovernment, state legislators took little action of note.

This study explores the history and origins of law libraries in Virginia by focusing on the formation and evolution of the Augusta County Law Library Association, one of the first libraries organized in Virginia under state legislation enacted in 1853 that authorized the creation of …

Examining Impacts On Water Demand Resulting From Population And Employment Growth Using A Regional Adjustment Model, Steven Blake Thomas

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the currently available water use data and its limitation for use in scientific research. The first chapter offers a description of the current nationwide water data including descriptions of collection methods and trends found within the data. The varying collection methods used result in inconsistencies within the datasets and between the years. These inconsistencies have resulted in the data being used more as a point of reference than in nationwide empirical analysis of water use. There has been a calling for systematic improvements to the data, which could contribute to greater empirical analysis taking place at the …

A Tale Of Two Shelters: Using Xrf Analysis To Assess Compositional Variability Of Pottery From Two Sites In Franklin County, Tennessee, Sierra May Bow

Masters Theses

The Southern Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee is an area characterized by the presence of thousands of caves and perhaps tens of thousands of rock shelters which served many purposes during the prehistoric Woodland Period (ca. 1000 B.C.-1000 A.D.). This thesis will discuss two Woodland rockshelter sites situated along the western escarpment of the South Cumberland Plateau.

The Griffin Rockshelter is a relatively small sandstone shelter which contains a predominantly Late Woodland archaeological component. Recovered artifacts consist of a wide assortment of material remains including fauna, shell, and lithics, and over 700 pottery sherds. In addition, the shelter contains engraved petroglyphs …

Data Anti-Suppression Methods And An Application Of Spatial Concentration Measures To Evaluate Green Energy Value Chain Concentration, David Lane Register

Masters Theses

A number of renewable, or so-called “green energy” products have emerged in response to the environmental, national security, and economic risks posed by the consumption of fossil fuels. The development of the renewable fuels sector, including ethanol, biodiesel, landfill and dairy methane gas, and solar and wind energy have also been considered potential sources of economic growth. But continuously changing market and policy conditions put at risk recent accomplishments in green energy sector development, thus placing a greater emphasis on efficient coordination between producers and suppliers.

Recent advances in firm location theory have produced a variety of analytical tools to …

Strangers With Benefits: Ovulation And Attraction To Outgroup Men, Joseph Frederick Salvatore

Masters Theses

The tendency for humans to behaviorally and attitudinally favor ingroups over outgroups is robust and pancultural. An evolutionary framework, however, provides reason to expect a systematic tendency toward outgroup-favoritism in a particular context. Ancestral females may have mated furtively with outgroup-males and returned to their cuckolded ingroup-male partner for child rearing, as a means of both maximizing genetic variability and promoting the long-term welfare of an offspring. The footprint of such a process may evidence in human females via increased physical attraction to outgroup (but not ingroup) males as ovulation approaches (conception-risk increases). Two studies of normally ovulating women tested …

New Means, Old Ends? World Bank Governmentality In Thailand And Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nicholas Ryan Zeller

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to make explicit the arts of government, defined as a field of power in the Foucauldian sense, employed by the World Bank in the cases of Pak Mun Dam in Thailand and Nam Theun II Dam in Lao PDR. Much of the literature on the latter case, both from the World Bank and its critics, focuses on the incorporation of conservation practices and the creation of state apparatuses which account for natural resources and local populations through a discourse of environmentalism. Using World Bank planning and evaluation documents, I argue that although these practices …