Digital Commons Network^™

Covid-19 Conspiracies: A Bodyguard Of Lies, Chris Hables Gray

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Special Issue On Pandemic Secrecy: The Covid Origin Story And Pandemic Risk Society, Susan Maret

Secrecy and Society

No abstract provided.

Urban Beavers At The Crossroads: How Ecological Knowledge, Sociodemographic, And Spatial Context Shape Public Perception And Coexistence Preferences, Matthew Guziejka

Dissertations and Theses

Urban beavers demonstrate synurbization by adapting to urban environments, offering ecological benefits such as biodiversity enhancement and flood mitigation, while also occasionally conflicting with infrastructure. This study examines how ecological knowledge, sociodemographics, and spatial context influence public perceptions and management preferences for urban beavers in the Tualatin River watershed, Oregon.

A voluntary survey of 176 participants from peri-urban areas assessed demographic characteristics, ecological knowledge, and attitudes toward management approaches. Spatial factors, such as proximity to watercourses and green spaces, were also analyzed. Logistic regression analyses were used to explore relationships between these factors and management preferences. Political orientation was significantly …

Lgbtq+ Identity Development And Individual Vs Group Psychotherapy Experience: A Consensual Qualitative Analysis, Aileen Marie Rands

Theses and Dissertations

Multicultural topics, such as LGBTQ+ experience, have accrued predominance within the field of psychology. It has become clear that better understanding minority experience is of utmost importance. Pervasive stigma, discrimination, and mistreatment culminate into minority stress; thus LGBTQ+ individuals face greater risk for poor mental health and seek out psychotherapy at higher rates. Despite this reality, limited psychotherapy research exists in this area generally and essentially no research has looking into the experience of LGBTQ+ individuals in group therapy. The current study investigated experiences of LGBTQ+ clients who have participated in both individual and group psychotherapy. Eleven participants were interviewed …

Youtube Upload Scheduling Strategy For Improving The Video Quantity And Audiences' Segmentation Accuracy At Pt Talenta Entertainment, Paris Dermawan

Journal of Indonesian Tourism and Policy Studies

Youtube provides features for its users to upload and watch other users' videos. PT. Talenta Entertainment utilizes YouTube to upload creative videos of each talent that has been produced. In addition, in addition to the right media, creative and interesting content also needs to be distributed at the right time so that the upload time is right with the free time of the audience segment. Therefore, the content upload scheduling strategy plays an important role in finding the right time for the audience segment so that it can increase the number of views that have been uploaded. The purpose of …

Kismet Meets Serendipity: A Personal Reflection On Using Patricia Leavy’S Novel Low-Fat Love To Bring Meaning To College Students, U. Melissa Anyiwo

The Qualitative Report

In this article Melissa Anyiwo writes about meeting Patricia Leavy and reading her debut novel, Low-Fat Love. She reflects on the impact this book has had on her personally, and how as a work of social fiction it resonated deeply with her own life experiences. She details using social fiction novels in undergraduate classroom settings, why she has used Low-Fat Love so many times in her courses, the lessons embedded into the novel, and the kinds of self and social reflection the novel stimulates. She references other well-known examples of popular culture in her analysis of meaning-making in Low-Fat …

A Full-Fat Remix Of Low-Fat Love Stories, Tabitha Chilton, Gioia Chilton

The Qualitative Report

Low-Fat Love Stories is a book coauthored by Patricia Leavy and Victoria Scotti. The book is a collection of short stories and visual arts based directly on women’s interview transcripts. In this article, the authors respond to Low-Fat Love Stories through text and visual art. The authors show how artistic analysis inspires personal reflection.

Patricia Leavy’S Spark As A Novel And Metaphor For Creative Interdisciplinary Research, Ashleigh Watson

The Qualitative Report

Spark by Patricia Leavy follows Sociology Professor Peyton Wilde as she travels to remote Iceland to participate in a mysterious scholarly seminar. Set in a moody grand manor with an enigmatic host and an eclectic cast of characters, the story blends intellectual intrigue with personal discovery and highlights the strength of Leavy’s social fiction: her characterisation, her use of motifs, and her attention to questions at the heart of scholarly work. This article reflects on the research tensions, interpersonal differences and everyday materialities that animate the story and raise valuable questions for interdisciplinary collaboration. For those interested in fiction and …

Associations Among Shopping Methods, Diet Adherence, And Nutrition Knowledge Of Employed Primary Grocery Shoppers In Households With Children, Baylee Schneider

Master's Theses

Obesity is a prominent risk factor for chronic disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. Obesity and chronic disease rates continue to rise, requiring a need for prevention and intervention efforts. The future role of dietetics is to provide treatment and prevention through holistic approaches, by understanding individuals’ habits that contribute to the onset of disease, specifically their food choices, grocery shopping methods, and influences that waver these selections. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between grocery shopping methods (online or in-store), Mediterranean diet adherence, nutrition knowledge, and food purchase patterns …

A Review Of The Ripple Effect Of Parental Incarceration: Suggestions For System Improvement From Neonatal Development Through Adolescence, Karen Thew, April Terry

International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

Parental incarceration has the potential to drastically affect the social, behavioral, and physical lives of children. Such negative impacts include prenatal and chronic health conditions, behavioral and mental health issues, developmental delays, juvenile and criminal legal system involvement, and overall declines in well-being. These damaging outcomes occur for babies delivered during their mothers’ incarceration with negative lingering effects seen throughout the lifespan. Due to the stigmatization of incarceration, these children may experience bullying, engage in isolating behaviors, and struggle within the school, which may lead to the school-to-prison pipeline. While prevention and intervention services directed at these youth could not …

Digital Inclusion And Systemic Barriers: The Role Of Technology In Shaping The Participation Of Women Of Color In Hybrid Workspaces, Sanket Patole, Rob E. Carpenter, Rochell Mcwhorter

Human Resource Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

The rise of hybrid and remote work models, facilitated by digital technologies, has been widely regarded as a means of enhancing workforce diversity and inclusion. However, this study critically examines how these digital workplaces simultaneously reinforce systemic inequalities, particularly for women of color. Drawing on digital divide theory and intersectionality theory, this research explores the ways in which women of color navigate technological barriers, algorithmic bias, and workplace surveillance while developing adaptive strategies to assert their authority in digital spaces. Through a qualitative, interpretivist approach, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 women of color working in hybrid and remote …

On Gender, Gender Incongruence, And Gender-Affirming Care, Tony N. Jelsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

As the number of transgender individuals continues to rise, there is an urgent need to understand the nature of gender and the evidence supporting gender-affirming care. This article proposes the hypothesis that one’s gender is a perception, influenced by biological and social factors. Early-onset gender incongruence seems to be influenced but not wholly determined by the prenatal hormonal environment, while late-onset gender incongruence is associated with comorbidities, suggesting that one’s sense of gender can be impacted by a variety of psychological and social conditions that affect the mind-body connection. Puberty blockers have been used on children to buy time for …

Adjudication Under Cover: Compliance And Inequality In The Criminal Courts, Mary Ellen Stitt

School of Criminal Justice Faculty Scholarship

State agencies tasked with governing poverty often aim to improve individuals’ social conditions by transforming their conduct. From welfare offices to prison reentry programs, those agencies work to compel behavioral changes by making the receipt of aid—or punishment— contingent on individuals’ compliance with requirements like appearances for regular appointments and negative drug test results. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a court-mandated therapeutic program, this study shows how “compliance” with standard behavioral requirements is constructed around health, financial resources, and institutional trust, with the result that the most vulnerable people are systematically marked as noncompliant and channeled towardmore punitive interventions. This …

Feminists For Sex-Based Rights: Trump Or Harris In The 2024 Election?, Kara Dansky

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Some US feminists who support sex-based rights for women and girls voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 US presidential election; others voted for Kamala Harris. For an American feminist to vote for a female Democrat for president is not surprising. Still, because the Democrats embraced “gender identity” at the expense of women and girls as a sex class, some feminists chose to vote for Donald Trump. This article explores some reasons for voting one way or the other (or not at all).

The Cross-Sectional Association Between Lifestyle Behaviors And Breast And Cervical Cancer Screening Among Hispanic Women Along The Texas-Mexico Border, Paul Gerardo Yeh, Audrey C Choh, Susan P Fisher-Hoch, Joseph B Mccormick, David R Lairson, Belinda M Reininger

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: Lifestyle behaviors may influence timely cancer screening, but their relationship is unknown among Hispanic women who have low cancer screening rates.

Methods: We used Cameron County Hispanic Cohort data from 2014 to 2022 to evaluate the relationship between lifestyle and compliance with mammography and Papanicolaou (Pap) screening guidelines ("up-to-date") among Hispanic women along the Texas-Mexico border. The 2018 World Cancer Research Fund scoring system characterized cancer-preventive lifestyle adherence. Multivariable logistic regression assessed the association between lifestyle behaviors and mammography and, separately, Pap screening.

Results: Among 385 age-eligible women for mammography and 412 age-eligible women for Pap test screening, up-to-date …

Metacognition And The 5cs Of Positive Youth Development Programs: A Review Of Metacognitive Interventions, Omolola A. Odejimi, Leslie F. Clark

Journal of Youth Development

Positive youth development (PYD) programs have increased positive outcomes for adolescents, however research on the underlying change processes in these programs remains limited. The 5Cs (Competence, Confidence, Character, Caring and Connection) of PYD are a framework of desirable outcomes for youth programs. Change to metacognition is proposed as a mechanism by which PYD programming accomplishes these outcomes. This review describes findings from metacognitive interventions with PYD-relevant outcomes in adolescents aged 10-24. Fifteen electronic databases were searched using keyword phrases related to “metacognitive intervention” and “adolescents”. Seventeen studies met inclusion criteria. Included studies addressed 2 of the 5 goals of PYD …

Mainstreaming Parafamily, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

In Parafamily, Chen and Mulligan have managed to cover vast terrain, to catalogue important developments in law, to canvass insights from generations of thinkers, and to propose an ambitious yet pragmatic approach to the laws that govern human relationships, directly and indirectly. They do all this in a relatively short article composed of unusually readable prose. Quite a feat.

The focus of the piece is Chen and Mulligan’s contribution to the field of legal scholarship dedicated to relationships that go beyond the traditional nuclear family. As their title reveals, the authors contribute a new term and concept to this …

The Perspective Of African American Single Mothers In Birmingham, Alabama On The Criminalization Of African American Male Adolescents, Jessica Ruth Whiteside

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of single African American mothers raising males and their association with criminal behavior. The nature of this research was phenomenological. This cross-sectional study, informed by the general strain theory, explored the effects of stress and strain from adversity and systematic racism on the criminality of African American male adolescents. The key research question was: In what ways do African American single mothers view their part and the part of their socio-economic context as contributing to the criminalization of their sons? A phenomenological research approach was used, and the …

Inhibition Of Il-6 Trans-Signaling Promotes Post-Stroke Functional Recovery In A Sex And Dose-Dependent Manner, Cassandra Hall, Dustin T Nguyen, Kate Mendoza, Chunfeng Tan, Anjali Chauhan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: Elevated circulating IL-6 levels are associated with poorer outcomes after stroke, and increased serum IL-6 levels are linked to a higher risk of stroke. IL-6 binds to soluble IL-6 receptors (sIL-6R) and subsequently to ubiquitously expressed gp130, initiating proinflammatory trans-signaling. This study tested the hypothesis that inhibiting IL-6 trans-signaling by administering soluble (s) gp130 improves long-term functional outcomes in young mice after stroke.

Methods: Recombinant mouse gp130Fc chimera (sgp130) was administered one hour after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) followed by twice-weekly administration for 2 weeks in mice (8-15 weeks old). Behavioral assessments were done on days 7 and …

A Review Of Racial Differences And Disparities In Ecg, Jianwei Zheng, Chizobam Ani, Islam Abudayyeh, Yunfan Zheng, Cyril Rakovski, Ehsan Yaghmaei, Omolola Ogunyemi

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a widely used, non-invasive tool for diagnosing a range of cardiovascular conditions, including arrhythmia and heart disease-related structural changes. Despite its critical role in clinical care, racial and ethnic differences in ECG readings are often underexplored or inadequately addressed in research. Variations in key ECG parameters, such as PR interval, QRS duration, QT interval, and T-wave morphology, have been noted across different racial groups. However, the limited research in this area has hindered the development of diagnostic criteria that account for these differences, potentially contributing to healthcare disparities, as ECG interpretation algorithms largely developed from major …

A Randomized Controlled Study Of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback In An Older Adult Sample, Whitney D. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) is a controlled breathing treatment designed to increase the variation in consecutive heartbeats leading to improved regulation of one's autonomic nervous system thereby improving one's ability to self-regulate and maintain homeostasis. Changes in heart rate variability (HRV) are seen in those of increased age and lower HRV is associated with poorer outcomes (e.g., increased mortality, worse emotional functioning, cardiovascular risk factors). As such, older adults are a group that stands to benefit from HRVB principles. The current randomized control trial was designed to understand the impact of HRVB in an older adult population on resting …

Бадхызские Архивы. Том 2, Р. И. Горелова, В. Я. Фет

Books Published by MU Libraries in MDS

Gorelova, RI, Fet V, editors. The Badkhyz Archives, Vol. 2. Huntington, WV: Marshall University Libraries; 2025. 387 p.

This book represents the second volume of the series started in 2021. It compiles memoirs and research information about the unique Badkhyz Natural Reserve, now in Turkmenistan, formerly at the southernmost point of the USSR. Established in 1941, the Reserve—nicknamed a Serengeti of Central Asia— housed many unique and endangered species, with an iconic wild ass, or kulan, preserved only there. The second volume includes unique and otherwise unavailable information about the workers of the Reserve in 1940s-1980s. We continuento publish …

Queering ‘Common Sense’: Using Critical Discourse Analysis Of Lgbtq+ Book Bans In Florida Public Schools To Unmask Heteronormativity, Talia Zito, Nicole E. Morse

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Historically, censorship of LGBTQ+ content in education has been rooted in socio-political efforts to marginalize non-heteronormative identities. However, even those who oppose censorship tend to frame their arguments around concepts like “age-appropriateness” and “protecting children.” Our Critical Discourse Analysis examines formal challenges to And Tango Makes Three in one Florida school district in 2022 to show how these concepts are deployed on both sides of the debate. The book, depicting a same-sex penguin couple raising a chick, faced objections under Florida’s HB 1557, a law designed to restrict discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Ultimately, the picture …

Resilience, Joshua Liashenko

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Once a ubiquitous framework for assessing the capacity for recovery, perseverance, and success in the face of adversity, resilience has been met with growing critiques in its application. As a frequently used “pretty word” within health disparities research, resilience has come to signify how at-risk communities overcome hardship in ways this work argues overdetermine their labor, activist potential, and existence. This critique examines resilience through the lens of ethnographic research conducted among transgender and nonbinary healthcare providers who provide gender-affirming care within their communities. As a marginalized community experiencing transphobia and increasing structural barriers to life-affirming and life-saving healthcare, trans …

Breaking Boundaries: A Critical Trans Framework Analysis Of Anti-Transgender Sports Policies In Education, Tori Porter, Briana A. Savage, Dresden June Frazier

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This policy analysis examines the impacts of anti-transgender sports legislation on K-20 transgender students through a critical trans framework. We investigate how anti-transgender laws enforce gender norms and intersect with other forms of oppression, such as racism and ableism, affecting multi-marginalized transgender students in sports and limiting access to a well-rounded education. Epistemic injustice is revealed, as these policies disregard transgender students' experiential knowledge and involvement in decision-making processes. Findings indicate that anti-transgender sports policies impact students at individual, institutional, and cultural levels, perpetuating discriminatory practices and reducing access to gender-affirming spaces and supportive adults. We argue for inclusive, evidence-based …

Mapping The Perceived Impacts Of A Social Innovation Program On Women’S Agency And Life Satisfaction, Dina Tbaishat, Lina Qtaishat, Jannik Joseph Eggerman, Catherine Panter-Brick, Rana Dajani

All Works

Introduction Cross-cultural research measuring how women perceive their sense of agency and catalyze social innovation has been limited. We conducted a mixed-methods study to learn about women's agency and life satisfaction, while evaluating the perceived benefits of a social innovation program (We Love Reading), in the UAE which, in 2022, launched a nationwide reading promotion strategy.Methods and results We implemented the Sense of Agency (SoA) scale and Cantril Ladder of Life Scale with a sample of 78 female Emirati students, then conducted two Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) sessions with 13 respondents. The FCM sessions helped to develop local definitions of …

Book Review Of Relinquished: The Politics Of Adoption And The Privilege Of American Motherhood By Gretchen Sisson. New York: St. Martin’S Press. 2024., Emily Stier Adler, Michele Hoffnung

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

The Rattler (Volume 113, Issue 5), St. Mary's University

The Rattler (Previous issues)

Founded in 1919, The Rattler is the student voice of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. The newspaper documents campus life, academic and social issues, student opinion, and local and national events as they relate to the University community. Content typically includes news articles, editorial commentary, arts and culture coverage, sports reporting, and advertisements.

"I'Ll Just Say It's Been A Racist Process": The Power Dynamics Within And Outside Diversity Requirement Classrooms At A Minority-Serving Institution, Kazusa Seko

Dissertations and Theses

U.S. higher educational institutions have increasingly implemented diversity requirements; however, institutional power dynamics during the implementation process and in a classroom after the implementation should be more highlighted. This study aims to understand the implementation of a diversity requirement during the implementation process and faculty and student experiences within required diversity courses at Portland State University (PSU) by analyzing one-on-one semi-structured interviews. PSU is a minority-serving educational institution that implemented a diversity requirement, the Race and Ethnic Studies Requirement (RESR), in Fall 2022. These data are analyzed through Critical Race Theory (CRT) lenses--introducing Okun's (2021) white supremacy culture in an …

Laina Farhat-Holzman: Distinguished Iscsc Author, Incisive Thinker, Fearless Commentator, Innovative Leader, Joseph Drew

Comparative Civilizations Review

It is a sad duty to report that a luminary who was long associated with this journal and with the leadership of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, has died.