Digital Commons Network^™

Citizen Professionals: The Effective Practices Of Experts Helping Community Organizations, Sarah Hippensteel Hall

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Although numerous local, state, and federal laws and policies address water pollution, many problems remain. To address these problems thousands of groups of citizens, who are concerned with their water resources - rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and groundwater - organized around the U.S. over the past several decades. To succeed, these community organizations need the resources and capacity to reach their goals. To gain capacity, some community organizations turn to people outside the organization for assistance. Citizen professionals are helpers who work jointly with an organization to help develop an organization's adaptive capacity to deal with challenges and achieve goals. …

Uses Pattern Of Cosmetics And Perception Of Personality: A Study Of Students Doing Professional Courses In Lucknow City, Ruchi Srivastava, D.S. Chaubey

Business Review

The modern, urban Indian populations both male and female are becoming increasingly conscious about their style and looks, with great emphasis on lightening of skin tone. Skin care and color cosmetics have witnessed solid growth for the last few years Within a short span of the last five-six years, the use of cosmetics by Indian consumers has increased significantly with more and more women and men taking greater interest in personal grooming. Increasing disposable incomes, changing life styles, influence of satellite television and greater product choice and availability has also fueled the consumption pattern of cosmetics to build the perception …

The Role Of Racial Information In Infant Face Processing, Angela Nicole Hayden

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The present research addressed the development of specialization in face processing in infancy by examining the roles of race and emotion. An other-race face among own-race faces draws adults’ attention to a greater degree than an own-race face among other-race faces due to the “other-race” feature in other-race faces. This feature underlies race-based differences in adults’ face processing. The current studies investigated the development of this mechanism as well as the influence that this mechanism has on emotion processing in infancy.

In Experiment 1, Caucasian 3.5- and 9- month-olds exhibited a preference for a pattern containing an Asian face among …

Somatic Injury Precedes Distal Atrophy Following Excitotoxic Hippocampal Insult, Lynda Sharrett-Field

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Excitotoxicity can lead to increases in intracellular Na⁺ and Ca²⁺ concentrations via the glutamatergic NMDA receptors, which can lead to cell death. Detailing the time-dependent degradation of neuronal components in response to excitotoxic challenge may help elucidate the sequence in which these signaling pathways are initiated and further, associate these pathways with topographic cellular demise. Using organotypic hippocampal slice culture technique, tissue from neonatal rat pups was exposed to NMDA, APV, or co-exposed for 24, 72 or 120 hours. Fluorescent microscopy of propidium iodide (PI) was used to evaluate neuronal membrane damage, changes in the density of mature …

Alcohol Dose And Aggression: Another Reason Why Drinking More Is A Bad Idea, Aaron Adriel Duke

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

A wealth of studies have examined the impact of alcohol on violence; however, only a small number have addressed differences elicited by different doses of alcohol. Such studies are seriously limited by mixed findings, small sample sizes, inconsistent alcohol doses and control conditions, a bias toward studying only male participants, and the predominant use of only one particular measure to assess aggression. The present laboratory investigation was designed to elucidate and advance this literature by improving upon these limitations. Participants were 187 (95 men and 92 women) social drinkers. Following the consumption of one of 6 alcohol doses (i.e., 0.0g/kg; …

Time-Dependence Of Distal-To-Proximal Hippocampal Neurodegeneration Produced By N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Activation, Jennifer Nicole Berry

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Excitotoxicity is the overexcitation of neurons due to the excessive activation of excitatory amino acid receptors and is thought to be involved in many neurodegenerative states. The manner in which the neuron breaks down during excitotoxicity is still unclear. The current study used the organotypic hippocampal slice culture model to examine the time-dependent loss of the synaptic vesicular protein synaptophysin and the loss of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor NR1 subunit availability following an excitotoxic insult (20 μM NMDA) to provide a better understanding of the topographical nature of neuronal death following NMDA receptor activation. Significant NMDA-induced cytotoxicity in the CA1 …

The Effective Use Of Confrontation In Family Therapy: A Process Study, Timothy Michael Digiacomo

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Although contemporary practitioners have rejected the confrontational style and perceived aggressiveness of earlier family therapists in favor of a more "collaborative" stance, confrontation, as a technique, is still widely used in almost all forms of psychotherapy, including family therapy. The present process study explored what makes confrontation more or less effective in motivating clients to recognize and reevaluate counterproductive ways of interacting. Using videotaped family therapy sessions, confrontation clarity, emotional reactivity, and the use of suggestion were examined in relation to client levels of acceptance of confrontation immediately following the confrontation, as well as in relation to overall …

Spiritual Empowerment Through Buddhist Practice, Adam Mckenzie Hodgins

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Buddhist practice of eight Waterloo, Ontario residents are explored in this study, highlighting the relationship between the reported outcomes of Buddhist practice and individual empowerment. By employing a heuristic research methodology, as described by Moustakas (1994), I use my own experience as a Buddhist practitioner to contribute to the research data and elicit detailed descriptions from the participants. The findings of the interviews reveal four common themes of the participants’ Buddhist practice: 1) increased awareness of unconscious habits; 2) peace from letting go of control; 3) a change in their perspective of self; and 4) enhanced connection with others. …

Traumatic Events, Perceived Stress, And Health In Women With Fibromyalgia And Healthy Controls, Bruce W. Smith, Erin M. Tooley

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship between trauma, stress and health in 41 women with fibromyalgia (FM) and 44 women who were healthy controls (HC). The participants were assessed for traumatic events, perceived stress and mental and physical health. Perceived stress was related to worse mental and physical health in both groups. Traumatic events were related to worse mental and physical health in the FM group but were unrelated to health in the HC group. Perceived stress partially mediated the effect of traumatic events on mental and physical health in the FM group. Finally, adult abuse partially mediated the effects of …

Regional Differences In Jurors’ Attitudes And Knowledge, Heather M. Caspers

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Dynamic social impact theory (DSIT; Latane, 1996) suggests that social influence leads to four phenomena: clustering (regional differences in attitudes), correlation (emergent relationships between attitudes), consolidation (reduction in attitude variance), and continuing diversity (whereby minority opinions persist). These phenomena have been shown in a variety of settings (Harton & Bourgeois, 2004; Harton & Bullock, 2007), but geographic clustering in attitudes about crime have not been examined. These attitudes have the potential to affect a verdict in a trial if a defendant has a change of venue to a different area of the state or the country. Two datasets, the National …

Community-Based Psychosocial Interventions Improve Psychosocial Outcomes For Children And Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus And Their Families: A Systematic Review; And, Community Mental Health Nursing For Children/Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus And Their Families, Caris Bailey

Theses : Honours

Background: Research indicates an increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus in comparison to their peers. As a result, psychosocial community-based services are sometimes available to those who are experiencing psychosocial problems. Several reviews have examined the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for children/ adolescents living with type 1 diabetes mellitus, however the psychosocial outcomes of psychosocial interventions being conducted in the community specifically, have yet to be systematically reviewed. Objective: To systematically review the psychosocial outcomes of community-based psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus and their families. Subjects …

Asperger's Disorder: A Musical Treatment For Child Anxiety, Jeremy Marriott

Theses : Honours

School-aged females with Asperger's Disorder (AD) are significantly affected by debilitating anxiety. At present, no empirically validated treatments exist to treat this anxiety. To investigate this affect and treatment gap, a mixed-methods revelatory single-case design, built on evidence-based treatment elements was designed and tested. Solo pianist, David Helfgott rated, performed and provided musical performances by Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Claude Debussy which were listened to once each morning before school by a 10-year-old female with AD. Anxiety was recorded via a self-report Daily Journal and parent-report Spence Child Anxiety Scale for 20 consecutive school days. Results indicated support for the …

The Interactions Between Sentence Complexity, Working Memory, And Additional Working Memory Load: An On-Line Measure, Christy Seidel

LSU Master's Theses

This experiment takes an on-line look at syntactical complexity, external loads, and working memory, and how the three influence one another. Based on off-line data looking at the interactions between these three factors, we have discovered that syntactic complexity and span have main effects, while the effect of load is most interestingly seen in a three way interaction representing the hardest possible combination of factors. Through this new design, we were able to see whether the off-line results of sentence processing are replicated with an on-line measure. Our new off-line findings replicate past results, which show that working memory impacts …

Reliability And Validity Study Of The Motiviation For Fear (Motif) Survey, Marie S. Nebel-Schwalm

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this study was to determine psychometric properties of a newly created, 24-item functional measure of fear and anxiety for typically-developing adults (the Motivation for Fear; MOTIF). Participants initially included 1,277 college students ranging in age from 18-35. Participants were asked to complete the MOTIF, the Questions About Behavioral Function (QABF), the Sensation Seeking Scale- Form V, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS). Analyses were conducted on those scoring above a minimum threshold on a well-normed measure of anxiety (the DASS). An exploratory factory analysis, using scree plot and parallel analysis, as well as oblique rotation was …

The Development Of Primary And Secondary Memory And Their Relationship To Fluid Intelligence, Sharon Diane Eaves

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers have been able to link working memory to many important cognitive abilities throughout the life span. Two of the unanswered questions about working memory are what cognitive processes function during working memory task performance and how do these processes directly relate to intelligence? A recent model (Unsworth & Engle, 2006) suggested that performance on working memory tasks was determined by two abilities: the capacity of primary memory and the ability to efficiently retrieve information from secondary memory. In the current study, we extended Unsworth and Engle’s (2006) methodology to include two groups of children (ages 8-9 and 10-11). Our …

Beyond The Youth Gap In Understanding Political Violence, Colette Daiute

Publications and Research

"Youth are never taken seriously, and we sometimes have ideas that would be good for all people." ~ Alex, Croatia

"... Some things do depend on us; war, consequences of the war, poverty; the influence of the church interfering with the state affairs, which must not be so. " ~ Ljubicia, Serbia

As we hear in these comments by two teenagers who have grown up in the shadow of political violence, their generation is aware of the past and its legacies. These brief quotes mention many details that young people in easier situations may not notice: "consequences of the war," …

Acoustic Mediation Of Vocalized Emotion Identification: Do Decoders Identify Emotions Idiographically Or Nomothetically?, Michael Kenneth Lauritzen

Theses and Dissertations

Most research investigating vocal expressions of emotion has focused on one or more of three questions: whether there exist unique acoustic profiles of individual encoded emotions, whether the nature of emotion expression is universal across cultures, and how accurately decoders can identify expressed emotions. This dissertation begins to answer a fourth question, whether there exist unique patterns in the types of acoustic properties persons focus on to identify vocalized emotions. Three hypotheses were tested: first, whether acoustic patterns are interpreted idiographically or nomothetically as reflected in a comparison of individual vs. group lens model identification ratios; second, whether there exists …

Evaluation Of The Psychometric Properties Of The Emotion Regulation Scale, Bebhinn Martha Timmins

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common childhood disorder effecting 3-7% of school aged children and accounting for 30-50% of mental health referrals. Recent research in the area of emotional regulation has found that youth with ADHD have more difficulty regulating emotion than youth without ADHD. This is unfortunate, as emotional dysregulation has been linked to psychopathology, poor social functioning, substance abuse and suicide. Given this information, it is extremely important that measurement of emotion regulation is adequate because without good measurement it is impossible to improve our understanding of how emotional regulation is developed, maintained and how …

Laterality Enhances Cognition In Australian Parrots, Maria Magat, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Cerebral lateralization refers to the division of information processing in either hemisphere of the brain and is a ubiquitous trait among vertebrates and invertebrates. Given its widespread occurrence, it is likely that cerebral lateralization confers a fitness advantage. It has been hypothesized that this advantage takes the form of enhanced cognitive function, potentially via a dual processing mechanism whereby each hemisphere can be used to process specific types of information without contralateral interference. Here, we examined the influence of lateralization on problem solving by Australian parrots. The first task, a pebble-seed discrimination test, was designed for small parrot species that …

College Students And Stress Management: Utilizing Biofeedback And Relaxation Skills Training, Shannon Jones Anstead

Theses and Dissertations

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of biofeedback and relaxation skills training to help alleviate college students' stress symptoms. Data was collected from 659 full-time college students who attended a total of 1,170 biofeedback sessions over the course of two years. Results of the study indicated that the top three stress-related symptoms students experienced were (a) feeling overwhelmed, (b) feeling anxious, and (c) difficulty concentrating. Furthermore, the top three stressors rated by students were (a) too much to do, (b) homework, and (c) classes and school. In addition, the top three coping strategies utilized by students to manage …

Stress-Dependent Enhancement And Impairment Of Retention By Naloxone: Evidence For An Endogenous Opioid-Based Modulatory System Protective Of Memory, Allen M. Schneider, Peter E. Simson , '78, Krista Joan Spiller , '06, Jonathan Seth Adelstein , '06, Amanda Alice Vacharat , '06, K. R. Short, Lynn G. Kirby , '89

Psychology Faculty Works

The opiate-receptor antagonist naloxone was administered to rats after passive-avoidance training either alone or in combination with forced-swim stress. A retention test revealed that while naloxone enhanced retention when administered alone, it impaired retention when administered in combination with forced-swim stress. The findings provide evidence for a “protective” endogenous opioid-based system that, when not blocked pharmacologically, limits enhancement or impairment of retention under conditions of mild and intense stress, respectively.

Deception Analysis In Interpersonal Communication, Loren E. Schwarzwalter

Theses and Dissertations

The art of magic reigns as the premiere form of entertainment made possible through the strategic means of deception. An untrained individual (civilian) who desires personal gain at the expense of others, however, may use the same strategic gimmicks and manipulations that magicians employ. This study considered the theatrical elements used by magicians during the performance of magic but in an interpersonal civilian context. In order to examine civilian use of the premeditated theatrical elements, and to determine their presence in deceptive interpersonal communication, this study examined low versus high self-monitors and male versus female genders.

An experiment was conducted …

Neural Replay : A Possible Mechanism For Differing Rehersal Strategies Across Parity, Cassie Brooke Jones

Master's Theses

All mammalian females undergo behavioral and neurological changes during pregnancy and motherhood. Many of these changes lead to an enhanced ability to be an effective mother including: increased memory, foraging behaviors, and boldness. Here, we examined the differences in rehearsal strategies between mother and virgin rats. Stops made by rats when exploring their environment have been found to result in reverse replay activity in the hippocampus (Foster & Wilson, 2006). Reverse replay is sequential replay that occurs in the hippocampus immediately after a spatial experience; this replay/activation is in reversed order of the initial spatial episode (Foster & Wilson, 2006). …

Coping Methods And Meaning Making Of Liberian Refugees In The Buduburam Refugee Camp Of Ghana, Abena Gyamfuah Sarfo-Mensah

Honors Scholar Theses

The mental health of war-impacted individuals has been an issue of growing concern to many researchers and practitioners internationally (Miller, Kulkarni, & Kushner, 2006). According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2006a), Africans are disproportionately impacted by conflict-related displacement. To date, however, much of the research on the mental health of refugees has been based mostly on Western views of health and trauma. The current study is a mixed-methods investigation of stressors, coping strategies, and meaning making of Liberian refugees in the Buduburam Refugee Camp of Ghana. Results from the Brief COPE, focus groups, and semi-structured ethnographic interviews …

The Heterosexual Mother-Lesbian Daughter Relationship: Using Consensual Qualitative Research (Cqr) To Understand Perceptions Among Predominately White, Formally Educated Mothers, Julie Meredith Davis

Dissertations

Little research specifically addresses the heterosexual mother-lesbian daughter relationship. Given this, a core research team of six utilized a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) approach to gain insight into two broad ideas. The first broad idea was about how heterosexual mothers perceive that their relationship with their lesbian daughters unfolds after the mothers accepted their daughters' minority sexual orientation. The second broad idea was how changes in the heterosexual mothers' values, beliefs, and attitudes (from the mothers' perspectives) influenced their postacceptance relationship with their daughters. The 10 women who agreed to participate in the study were predominately white, formally well-educated, psychologically …

A Molecular Analysis Of Training Multiple Versus Single Manipulations To Establish A Generalized Manipulative Imitation Repertoire, Breanne K. Hartley

Dissertations

This study evaluates the necessity of training multiple versus single manipulativeimitations per object in order to establish generalized manipulative-imitation. Training took place in Croyden Avenue School's Early Childhood Developmental Delay preschool classroom in Kalamazoo, MI. Two groups of 3 children each were trained to imitate in order to determine the most appropriate number of manipulations required (per object) to establish a generalized manipulative-imitation repertoire. Three children received single-manipulations training, and 3 children received multiple-manipulations training. It was anticipated that the multiple-manipulations training group would acquire a greater amount of generalized manipulative-imitation because the training required that the children discriminate between …

Use Of Emoticons For Assessing Emotion And Mood States In Web-Based Interventions, Jennifer Chua So

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

In the rapidly growing field of online psychotherapeutic interventions, an increasing number of clinicians are seeking to extend therapeutic interventions into cyberspace. However, because communication with clients in this medium is often devoid of auditory and visual feedback, these clinicians are not able to rely on their clinical observations. It then becomes incumbent to develop a psychometrically and theoretically sound means of assessing emotion and mood states that can be easily utilized in this forum. Utilizing cross-culturally and empirically supported models of emotion structure shown to be influential in the self-report data, the Positive Affect and Negative Affect factors, this …

A Tri-Disciplinary Analysis Of Religion, Alicia Wallace

Social Sciences

This paper analyzes religion using a multi-disciplinary approach. Studying the Social Sciences exposes one to an opportunity not just to learn a single discipline, but three, and this unique learning experience can teach one to look at the world’s phenomena with a multi-perspective view. Using a tri-disciplinary approach when exploring topics can broaden ones outlook on how there are many ways to explore and investigate a topic in greater detail. By using Anthropological, Sociological and Geographical theoretical perspectives one can understand a topic more fully by using a multi-perspective approach when exploring this diverse world culturally, socially and physically.

The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The way humans move and comport their bodies is one way they (literally) carry their culture. In pre-wired embodiments, body comportment triggers basic, evolutionarily prepared affective and cognitive reactions that subsequently prime more complex representations. Culture suffuses this process, because (1) cultural artifacts, affordances, and practices make certain body comportments more likely, (2) cultural practices, rituals, schemas, and rules promote the learning of an otherwise underspecified connection between a given body comportment and a particular basic reaction, and (3) cultural meaning systems elaborate basic affective and cognitive reactions into more complex representations. These points are illustrated with three experiments that …

Mothers' Perceptions Of Website Information In Solving Behavioral Problems In Children With Disabilities, Heather Collins

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated the needs of mothers in regard to designing an educational website for parents/caregivers of children with disabilities. This research was designed to provide information to inform outreach efforts of Brigham Young University's Family HOPE (Happiness, Optimism, Promise, and Excellence) Project. This project assists families struggling with child behavior problems. Results from this study provided an initial understanding of the potential for a website to offer support to families not directly served through the Family HOPE project. Participants included 26 adult females, 25 mothers and one female caregiver. Each participant was the primary caregiver of a child with …