Digital Commons Network^™

How Spirituality Intensifies Sustainability: A Case Study Of Ananda Valley In Northern Portugal, Mia Handler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The religious affiliations of citizens in the West are currently shifting away from the fundamentalist, traditional structures of the past towards more alternative spiritualities. Furthermore, as a result of the climate crisis, ecovillages are becoming increasingly popular. Ecovillages are intentional, “sustainable” communities that seek to reduce consumption, live in harmony with nature, and create strong social bonds. They are characterized by varying levels of spiritual involvement (Greenberg, 2014, p. 274). As such, the objective of this paper is to study the relationship between spirituality and environmentally-friendly practices and attitudes, using the ecovillage Ananda Valley – an Ananda Marga Master Unit …

Examining The Power Dynamics In The Patient-Doctor Relationship In Bio-Medicalized Countries: A Historical And Sociocultural Framework, Molly Dickerson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Medical humanities research is an increasingly important field of study for medical care. Power dynamics that exist between doctor and patient during the clinical encounter are an integral factor for improving health outcomes and patient satisfaction with their clinician. This research study sought to determine the power dynamics that exist within the patient-doctor relationship in Switzerland and other bio-medicalized countries with similar patient-provider experiences through a historical and sociocultural lens. Four interviews were conducted alongside preliminary research, and the power dynamics identified through this study were social, economic, knowledge-based, and communication. Historical human philosophies about the universe, the role of …

The Divine Consumptive: The Depiction Of Tuberculosis In Jane Eyre, Haley Highfield

Theses and Dissertations

Disease was a constant and unavoidable facet of life in British society during the Victorian Era. Despite the overwhelming prevalence of disease, the true cause of these illnesses remained mysterious until the turn of the century. With the origins of many of these diseases being either unknown or ascribed to mistaken sources, effective treatment was an impossibility. Tuberculosis is a prime example of this conundrum. Even with an estimated twenty-five percent of the British population dying from this particular disease during the nineteenth century, the actual provenance for infection was not discovered until 1882 with Robert Koch’s identification of the …

Endemic Diseases In Samawah District 1958-1968, Sanaa Munshid Stupid Al-Jiyashi, Tired Khalaf Jaber Al-Rishawi

Uruk Journal of Human Sciences

Infectious diseases still have far-reaching effects on people's lives. In some poor cities, diseases continue to destroy economies and disable health systems. From the beginning, social and economic barriers, as well as the atrophy of people's health culture, helped spread diseases, and among those major diseases that spread during that period: Schistosomiasis And malaria, ancylostoma, trachoma, smallpox, It contributed to the loss of many lives of the people of Samawah district, And the relentless attempts of health units to neutralize those diseases.

A Phenomenological Study Of Clergy Job-Related Stress And Stress-Coping During Covid-19, Peter Michael Foxwell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of stress and stress-coping of five Michigan pastors who led their Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) congregations through the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic. Stress is generally defined as the psychophysiological response to a perceived threat or stressor, and stress-coping is generally defined as intentional behaviors designed to manage stress. The theoretical background of this study is the transactional theory of stress and coping (TTSC) (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as it relates to pastors’ lived experience of ministry-related stress and coping in crisis conditions. The rationales for …

Novel Epidemics: Contagion And Metaphor In Us Literature, Maxwell Clement Cassity

Dissertations - ALL

Metaphors of epidemic and contagion have played a powerful role in shaping American identity by using disease to symbolically mark out certain raced and classed populations as outsiders to the social body. In the twentieth century, epidemics and epidemiological reading came to dominate not only the fields of science, but also literary and cultural production and its critical lenses. “Novel Epidemics” examines how American novelists William Faulkner, Ishmael Reed, and Helena María Viramontes used epidemic as a fictional framework for examining and critiquing the ways that the US social body was imagined, constructed, and reinforced through an epidemiological lens. Using …

Women And Land Snails Consumption In The Southwest Region Of Cameroon, Forka Leypey Mathew Fomine

Journal of International Women's Studies

Both marine and terrestrial species of snails are consumed in most countries worldwide, including Southwest Cameroon where it is an age-old practice among various ethnic groups. Before the introduction of snail farming in the Southwest Region of Cameroon in the 1990s, all the residents who ate snails acquired them through gathering.

There is significant internal variation in the history of land snail consumption among four ethnic groups: the Banyang, Mbo, Balung, and Bakweri. The long history of land snail consumption among the Banyang and Mbo can be attributed to their geographical proximity to the eastern region of Nigeria, where the …

Human Mobility, Hospitality, And Tourism Industries: A Perspective On Catastrophes, Asif Hussain

Journal of Sustainability and Resilience

The coronavirus outbreak has resulted in a significant reduction in peoples’ movements, migration and trade at both local and global levels. Lockdowns and travel restrictions all over the world have led to a rapid retrenchment of the world’s hospitality and tourism sector. This is not new. Historically, catastrophes impacted human mobility. Drawing from the historical connections between catastrophes, especially health crises, this paper highlights the impacts of catastrophes on the hospitality and tourism industries. This research shows that the relationship between pandemic and tourism is turbulent, and it explores the implications of the current health crisis for the travel industry …

Covid-19 And Ubuntu Disruptions: Curbing The Violence Against Women And Girls With Disabilities Through African Women’S Theology Of Disability, Sinenhlanhla S. Chisale

Journal of International Women's Studies

The COVID-19 restrictions that require the lockdown of public and economic activities heighten the levels of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls with disabilities. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the globe, particularly in Africa, women and girls with disabilities become vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, highlighting that the home is no longer a safe space for the vulnerable. The restrictions have eroded the community structures that are promoted by Ubuntu to protect vulnerable community members from violence and different forms of abuse. This article grapples with the question of African women’s theology of disability and Ubuntu …

Depiction Of Women’S Oppression And Gender-Based Domestic Violence Against Girls In Tsitsi Dangarembga’S Nervous Conditions, Benon Tugume

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines women’s oppression and gender-based domestic violence against girls in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988). The novel is set between two families in the Shona community of Zimbabwe. The focus is on women’s entrapment in the institution of marriage and gender-based violence inflicted on girls by male patriarchs to force them to bow down to patriarchal authority. Tambudzai, the main narrator and protagonist tells a story of how her mother, Ma’ Shingayi (a peasant housewife), and her uncle’s wife, Maiguru, (a teacher with a Master’s degree) get entrapped in the marriage institution where they have no voice, how …

How Domestic Violence Affects Incarcerated Women, Michelle Ryman

University Honors Theses

The incarceration of women has grown seven times since the 1980s, with up to 90% of incarcerated women being survivors of domestic violence. Women are five times more likely to be abused by an intimate partner. Intimate partner violence leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms like drug abuse and violence against perpetrators. While coercion in IPV can contribute to violent retaliation and drug abuse, it can also lead to criminal behavior prompted by the perpetrator. Whether IPV shows itself as violent attacks, sexual assault, coercion, financial withholding, threats, isolation, psychological abuse, or any other behavior that allows one person to control …

The Media Discourses On Organ Donation And Transplantation In Spain (1954-2020) And Their Implications For Spanish Nationalism, Rebeca Herrero Sáenz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Spain has been the global leader in organ donation and transplantation since 1992, an achievement that has become a source of national pride, in a country where national symbols are heavily contested. In this dissertation I examine the changing meanings that organ donation and transplantation have acquired in contemporary Spain, focusing specifically on their implications for different aspects of Spanish nationalism. To do so, I employ a modified version computational grounded theory, a mixed-methods approach that combines topic modeling with interpretive analysis, to identify and interpret the narratives around organ donation and transplantation circulated by the Spanish press between 1954 …

Symbolic Annihilation And Stereotyping Of Native American Women In News: A Content Analysis Of Health, Safety, And Economic Status Related News, Shreyoshi Ghosh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

This is an exploratory study on the safety, economic, and health challenges of Native American women who constitute about 1.5% of the American population. With the symbolic annihilation and stereotyping of Native American people and women of color, there was a need to study the portrayal of Native American women in news. The findings indicated there was a growth in news coverage during 2018-19 and safety, including missing and murdered, emerged as a key topic. But symbolic annihilation in health and economic status including pay gap news was significant. Health news mostly covered maternal health and deaths but excluded most …

The Development Potential For Local Communities Of Religious Tourists Visiting Sacred Graves, Mohammad Taufiq Rahman, Rully Khairul Anwar

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This study aims to analyse the impact of religious tourists’ visits to tombs of saints. It illustrates the effect of these visits on the economic development of the surrounding community. This is qualitative research with a sociological approach used to determine the public acceptance of religious tourism to sacred places such as the Tomb of the Islamic Saints in Tasikmalaya, West Java, Indonesia. The results show that the community has made economic use of tourists that perform pilgrimages to fulfil their psychological needs, such as peace, tranquillity, and a sense of security. Furthermore, local governments’ development of religious tourism makes …

Total Prevention: A History Of Schistosomiasis In Japan, Alexander Bay

History Faculty Articles and Research

In Japan, schistosomiasis was endemic in Yamanashi Prefecture and a few other hotspot areas where the Miya’iri snail lived. The parasite’s lifecycle relied on the intermediary Miya’iri snail as well as the human host. Parasite eggs passed into the agrarian environment through untreated night soil used as fertiliser or through the culture of open defecation in rural Japan. Manmade rice fields and irrigation ditches, night soil covered paddies and highly refined growing seasons put people in flooded rice paddies to intensively work the land in the spring and summer. The disease was equally dependent on human intervention in the natural …

A Thematic Exploration Of The Liberation Of Identity Through Indigenous Self-Determination: Themes Of Native American And Alaska Native Identity, Martha Fiskeaux

Dissertations

Strong ethnic identity is associated with overall well-being, resilience to change, and higher self-esteem (Kiang et al., 2006; Martinez & Dukes, 1997; Umaña-Taylor, 2003; Yip & Fuligni, 2002) and serves as a protective factor against the stress associated with discrimination (Alvarez & Kimura, 2001; Phinney et al., 1998). Given the historical and systemic barriers faced by the Native American and Alaska Native population, including the history of genocide, colonization, and intergenerational trauma, the development of a strong Indigenous ethnic identity is a necessary area of research focus. Specifically, Native American and Alaska native individuals are 3.5 times more likely to …

‘Making The Dust Fly’: (A Case Study Of) Design Research Promoting Health And Sustainability In Addressing Household Infections, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Collins Ahorlu, Andy Darby, Roger Pickup, Dziedzom De Souza, Daniel Boakye

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Global health crisis, such as antimicrobial resistance, threaten planetary health, as they have a direct impact on the environment, as well as to humans and animals. Personal and environmental hygiene form the best and most natural ways of reducing home infections and hence the need to take antibiotics. Despite this our understanding of cleaning in the home and interventions on home cleaning are limited. In this paper we present a project, which combined design research with environmental microbiology, to address this issue and to co-design sustainable cleaning interventions for human and planetary health. We focus on the design of a …

Camera-On/Camera-Off: Visibility In The Design Studio, James Benedict Brown

DRS Biennial Conference Series

What constitutes, defines or bounds the ‘studio’ in architecture education when it is wholly online? The design studio contributes to a very particular spatial con-struct in proximal teaching, one that has been challenged during the pandemic as educators have adopted distance and online learning and teaching. This paper presents a brief history of the design studio in architectural education and specu-lates about three dimensions of visibility therein. It contextualises the design studio against the broader higher education experiences of teaching online dur-ing the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular so-called ‘Zoom anxiety’ and ‘Zoom fa-tigue’ experienced by teachers and students. The paper …

Out Of Isolation: Designing Reusable Ppe Gowns Based On An Understanding Of Healthcare Workers’ Lived Experiences, Katherine Townsend, Sonja Sterman, Eloise Salter, Karen Harrigan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The paper reports on an AHRC-funded project aimed at mitigating the personal and environmental impact of PPE isolation gowns, as worn by healthcare workers treating patients with COVID-19. The enquiry was devised in collaboration with NHS and industry partners and is informed by empirical investigations into procured gowns and the lived experiences the health professionals’ wearing them. The development of an industry standard ‘reusable gown system’ requires negotiating various proximities: between safety and disease trans-mission; sustainability and medical waste; the needs of end users, regulation and cost; public and private stakeholders. The article contextualises the research problem and methodology, incorporating …

Biodesign For A Culture Of Life: Of Microbes, Ethics, And Design, Rachel Armstrong

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Scientific advances at the turn of the new millennium brought radical new insights into just how microbial our world is and the extent to which microbes influence our lives: from notions of the body (human microbiome); to their distribution in our living spaces (microbiome of the built environment); playing an integral role in ecosystems services in our cities (urban microbiome) and are fundamental to biogeochemical cycles—our world is irreducibly microbial. This paper asks what it means to dwell and design in such times and proposes an ethics for biodesign: which employs the insights and tools of the biotechnological age to …

Health Information Design Model (Hidem): A Replicable Model Of The Design Process For Data-Intensive Applications In Health Informatics, Antonio Solano, Miso Kim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Genetic and healthcare data have experienced an explosion in the last decade and with it, a deluge of new and cutting-edge research as well as digital tools and software. However, visualizing and working with such large amounts of information also poses organizational challenges in transdisciplinary collaboration between scientific domain experts and design professionals. We propose Health Information Design Model (HIDeM), a collaborative process model with a novel series of principles and activities that tackle the specific nature of digital, data-intensive products for scientific research while considering different organizational contexts. The model was developed in collaboration with several domain experts in …

Why Would I Ever Fry And Eat My Scoby? It Would Be Like Murder! Attuning To Nonhumans Through Kombucha Fermentation Practices, Aybars Senyildiz, Emilija Veselova

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Kombucha fermentation is a multispecies activity guided by human-microbe interactions. This study investigates kombucha fermentation practices as a platform to recognize relationality with nonhuman microbes. For this, relational theories enable reframing human-microbe relations by focusing on reciprocity and interconnectedness within multispecies relations. The empirical research consists of interviews, a design probing task, and a collective reflection workshop with kombucha brewers. The empirical research delivers insights into the agency of microbes, sensory experiences, and embodied knowledge in kombucha fermentation practices. Findings investigate how humans attune to the needs of microbes, and the role of embeddedness in ethical doings. In this way, …

With Or Without Emoji? The Effect Of Emoji On Risk Perception And Preventive Behaviors In Health Information, Tingyi S. Lin, Yue Luo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

For nearly a decade, emoji have been widely used as a substitute for nonverbal clues in computer mediated communication, especially in social media. Although the use of emoji in health communication via social media is becoming pervasive, the influences of using emoji in health information on information receivers’ perceptions and behavior has not been fully studied. In order to discover these influences, this study collected 210 Taiwanese self-statement questionnaires for analysis during the COVID-19 period in Taiwan in 2021. It adopted a 2x2 between-subject design to examine and respond to the research questions. The results verified the enhancement effect of …

Podium Presentation: Relationships Between Nursing Stress And Perceived Importance Of Access To Chaplains During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Teresa Bigand, Adam Gaines, Sheila Doucette, Danell Stengem, Rachel Freedberg, Jamie Roney, Rosemary Timmerman

2022 Providence Nurse Research Conference

Background:

Hospital chaplains are trained to provide spiritual support to inpatients, family members, and support persons across the continuum of care. Patients receiving a chaplain visit during their hospital stay report higher satisfaction, quality of life, and spiritual well-being. Chaplain consultation during hospitalization is related to higher rates of hospice enrollment and lower rates of in-hospital deaths. Additionally, evidence suggests nurses who are employed in hospitals with staff chaplains report lower stress and compassion fatigue based on frequency of interactions with chaplains during worked shifts. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital nurses providing front-line care report higher stress levels compared to …

Vulnerability, Invulnerability, And The Mechanism Of Disavowal, Mariah C. Partida

Philosophy ETDs

In this dissertation, I defend the view that, contrary to popular opinion, vulnerability is not merely susceptibility to harm but also openness to unanticipated change and transformation. Drawing on the work of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Erinn Gilson, Gilles Deleuze, and Benedict Spinoza, I also aim to show that vulnerability is not a static property of some individuals but rather a relational process that is both universal and differently distributed. My original contribution to vulnerability studies is to trace the mechanism of disavowal across 20^th and 21^st century figures in philosophy: from Heidegger’s account of disavowing our …

Thomas Jefferson University Research - A Path To Digital Equity

Thomas Jefferson University Research Magazine

Inside this issue:

04 Editorial

05 Leadership Message

06 Global Jefferson

08 Bursts of Power

09 Antitrust Laws Don’t Hinder Foreign Investment Cancer Prediction Model Misses High-Risk Black Patients

10 Enveloping Buildings in Textiles Learning from Drowsy Flies

12 COVID Briefs

13 Jefferson by the Numbers

14 Inflecting the Narrative on African Studies

16 Journey of Adaptation

18 A Path Towards Digital Equity

24 JeffSolves: A New Way of Thinking

30 The Heart’s "Little Brain"

36 RNA like You’ve Never Seen Before

38 Online Content

توصيف المجتمعات البكتيرية في لحم الضأن الفلسطيني بواسطة التنميط الظاهري و تحليل جين 16s Rrna, Wafa Masoud, Mahmoud Hamdan

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The main purpose of the present study was to isolate, identify and quantify bacteria in Palestinian fresh lamb meat. Phenotyping and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis was used to identify bacteria present in lamb meat samples. Thirty-four bacterial isolates were obtained from 20 samples of fresh lamb meat collected from 4 meat shops in Tulkarem city in Palestine. Bacterial counts were in a range of 3 x 103 -1.5 x 105 cfu / g with Staphylococcus aureus being the highest in numbers among other bacteria. Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococ-caceae were the predominant bacterial families detected in fresh lamb meat samples. Two …

قواعد رفع الضرر وأثرها زمن وباء كورونا (دراسة تأصيلية، مقاصدية، فقهية) Harm Elevation Rules And Its Impact During The Corona Epidemic (An Original, Intentional, Jurisprudential Study), Rasha Al-Zou'bi, Mohamed Alrshdan

Jordan Journal of Islamic Studies

ملخص

خلص هذا البحث إلى أن لقواعد الشريعة الفقهية الكلية المتضمنة لرفع الضرر أثرا عظيما في استخلاص الأحكام الفقهية زمن المستجدات والنوازل المعاصرة، ومنها فيروس كورونا، حيث كان لها مدخلا عظيما في تسهيل كثير من الأحكام الفقهية على الناس ورفع الضرر عنهم، وهي من أعظم القواعد الفقهية في الشريعة، ولم تخرج مع ذلك عن نطاق الحق وموافقة الشرع؛ إذ الشرع أصلا جاء لجلب مصالح العباد، ودفع المفاسد عنهم، وظهر ذلك جليا، في رفع الضرر عنهم في أمور عباداتهم ومعاملاتهم، فمن ذلك رفع الضرر عنهم في الحكم بمشروعية تعقيم المساجد بالكحول وكذلك الأبدان والملابس للمصلين، إضافة لمنع المريض مرضا معديا من …

Cultivating Compassion In Catholic Teachings: An Invitation To Relationship With Immigrants And Refugees With Hiv/Aids, Anna Salvestrin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 1989 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released Called to Compassion and Responsibility. This document, which articulates the official Catholic Church teaching on HIV/AIDS, emphasizes personal responsibility in limiting the spread of HIV and calls for compassion toward the sick. The bishops direct their document to Catholic clergy and parishioners and offer recommendations for government policy and parish actions that affirm human dignity. This thesis argues that the document's recommendations do not adequately consider the experiences of immigrants and refugees with HIV/AIDS and neglect sufficient attention to their lived experiences. In future documents, the bishops should use the …

'My Name Is Peaches': Black Women's Affect In The Blues Biomyth, Taylor C. Scott

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

For this project, I am interested in the study of nuanced self-representations of Black rage that appear within African American literary traditions, specifically the blues aesthetic, wherein artists narrativize a wide spectrum of intelligent and specific emotion--not just melancholy. Blues narratives in which Black people self-represent are in direct opposition to flattened narratives of certain affective modes such as anger as a useless, backwards, pathologized, and flat feeling that appear within dominant U.S. and global iconographies. What I see in the blues aesthetic is the capacity for a multichromatic approach to studying rage and Black authorship in America. By using …