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Apotheosis Of The State And The Decline Of Civilization: A Systems Approach, Robert Bedeski

Comparative Civilizations Review

Humanity is undergoing a second Axial Age. The first, as described by Karl Jaspers, brought transcendence into the vision and self-understanding of humans and the world. The rise of secularism and “Death of God” is dissolving and fragmenting that transcendence — a vital subsystem of the civilization system. Economy, knowledge and government comprise three additional subsystems and have coalesced to form the modern sovereign state, diminishing the traditional place of religion, art and philosophy in civilizations. An example of a state lacking common institutions of transcendence was the Mongol empire. Ruling Russia for a quarter millennium, its state form was …

Aging In The City Of Melrose: A Community Needs Assessment, Caitlin E. Coyle, Katherine Burnes, Mark Krebs, Ceara Somerville

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA) within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the City of Melrose. The goals of this project were to investigate the interests, preferences, and opinions of Melrose’s residents aged 55 or older by engaging the community regarding their experiences and needs relevant to the Council on Aging’s (COA’s) objective to identify and serve the needs of all Melrose citizens 55 and older. The contents of this report are meant to inform the City of Melrose, the Melrose COA, Milano …

Aging In North Andover: A Community Needs Assessment, Claire Wickersham, Caitlin E. Coyle, Ceara Somerville, Holly Stockdale

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA) within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Town of North Andover. The goal of this project was to identify, describe, and prioritize the needs and preferences of North Andover residents age 60 and older as they relate to aging well in the community. In 2023, North Andover opened a new Senior Community Center. The contents of this report are intended to be used for planning for the new Senior Community Center space and to inform strategic planning …

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Identification Gap In Speech Language Pathology, Mallory Prior

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Children exposed to adverse childhood experiences, a variety of potentially traumatic events occurring within the first 18 years of life, are at increased risk for speech and language disorders. Due to the high prevalence of trauma and its lasting effects, it is almost guaranteed that children who are experiencing the ongoing effects from adversity will be found on practicing Speech Language Pathologists’ caseloads. This scoping review was designed to identify current screening practices of Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) in comparison to other professionals (e.g., allied health and education), as well as additional information related to screening procedures for SLPs. The …

The Great Resignation: Narratives Of Mid-Career Teacher Burnout And Attrition, Nicole Burton

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the issues of teacher attrition. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, from January to November 2021, there was a 40% increase in the quit levels of teachers within the state and local education agencies (John, 2022). While prior research has examined early-career teachers leaving the profession, mid-career teachers have largely been left out of the conversation. This narrative inquiry investigates the reasons that mid-career teachers are leaving the profession. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four mid-career teachers hailing from the Midwest region. Interviews focused on understanding how teachers have experienced stress and …

Community Engagement Newsletter, March 2024, University Of Northern Iowa. Office Of Community Engagement.

Community Engagement Newsletter

Contents:

--- Community Engagement Celebration Day
--- Stories of Impact
--- Faculty Development
--- Events & Engagement Opportunities
--- Funding Opportunity
--- UNI Engaged Podcast

Early Life Experiences As Later Life Predictors For Criminality: Examination Of Public Criminal Records., Juliana S. Bastien

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Crime's detrimental impact on society, victims, families, and the justice system is undeniable. Thus, identifying factors that contribute to the perpetration of crime is essential to reduce the public health impact of crime. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are frequently found in community samples and are consistently associated with physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences. Research suggests that negative childhood experiences contribute to maladaptive behaviors, including delinquency and perpetration of crime later in life (Perez et al., 2018). The present study's purpose is to identify specific childhood experiences associated with criminality. The data presented on criminality and ACEs was collected from recruited …

Natural Resource Conflict And Socioenvironmental Resistance In Arctic States: Assessing Domestic Risks To Circumpolar Security, Jen Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does climate change contribute to domestic natural resource conflict and socioenvironmental resistance in the Arctic? The literature assumes that developed Arctic nations possess sufficient state capacity to overcome risks of domestic conflict and unrest posed by regional development and environmental change. Arctic policy correspondingly focuses on natural resource competition, disputes, and conflict at the international level. The mechanisms and processes of domestic natural resource conflict and socioenvironmental resistance in the Arctic have thus been largely ignored in the literature, even though 27 cases of contention have occurred since the ‘shock’ sea-ice melt of 2007.

In this study, I draw …

President's Message, Lynn Rhodes

Comparative Civilizations Review

Throughout 2023 and into 2024, the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations has been extremely busy in the furtherance of our vision. Here are some of the highlights.

The Rise Of China And The Concept Of Civilization: Constructing Conceptual Apparatus For Cross-Civilizational Comparisons, Liah Greenfeld

Comparative Civilizations Review

The paper argues that the rise of China to a position of prominence in the contemporary world offers Western scholars a greatly expanded comparative perspective and, thus, an opportunity to re-assess their fundamental view of social reality. This comparative perspective draws attention to supra-national cultural unities, “civilizations,” first suggested by both Durkheim and Weber.

There are deficiencies in the current understanding of “civilization” in the social science literature, among others exemplified by “civilizational analysis,” and so this paper proposes a new concept which adds to the conceptual apparatus of sociological theory a new — fully independent of others — variant …

From Compromise To Confrontation: The American Secretary Of State James F. Byrnes And His Attempts To Mitigate Disagreements With The Soviet Union As The Cold War Began, John Karl

Comparative Civilizations Review

James F. Byrnes as United States Secretary of State pursued a policy based on compromise with the Soviet Union during the first year following the end of the Second World War. He was determined to use his political skill for engineering compromise in order to bring about an agreement with the Soviet Union which would lead to an era of peace. While the crucial question facing American policymakers in the wake of World War II was the creation of a new world order, a most important part of this question was the future of American-Soviet relations, the two nations that …

Reading A Global Landscape, John Berteaux

Comparative Civilizations Review

It seems a truism that while our grasp of the world is at best inconclusive, it is attended by a pressing desire to articulate the ultimate context in which our lives are set. Here, my remarks focus on the limits of our ability to explicate that context or landscape, suggesting that any attempt to de-confuse our world will be inherently inconclusive, indeterminate, and undefined. In other words, I want to encourage a little cognitive dissonance regarding our ability to make sense of the globe.

Esra Özyürek. Subcontractors Of Guilt: Holocaust Memory & Muslim Belonging In Postwar Germany, Stefan Gunther

Comparative Civilizations Review

As early as 1995, James E. Young, referring to the “social effects of public memorial spaces” (p.20) in Germany, stated that “Holocaust memorial work in Germany today remains a tortured, self-reflective, even paralyzing preoccupation.” (p.21) He continues with a series of questions: “How does a state recite, much less commemorate, the litany of its misdeeds, making them part of its reason for being? Under what memorial aegis, whose rules, does a nation remember its own barbarity? Where is the tradition for memorial mea culpa, when combined remembrance and self-indictment seem so hopelessly at odds?” (p.22)

End Matter

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Racialization, Individualism, And Denial: How The American And Australian Dreams Uphold The Homelessness And Poverty Crises Of Today, Emily Rose Andrews

Social Sciences

Inspired by my lived experience of immersion in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California, for two weeks; studying abroad in Adelaide, South Australia, for two months; and my current internship at the Department of Social Services in San Luis Obispo, California, I plan on formulating a research paper on the topic of homelessness for my senior project. Specifically, through an extensive literature review and analysis, I will investigate: How does the culture of poverty ideology influence public opinions and policy responses to homelessness in the United States and Australia? To answer this question, I will first introduce the concept …

Religious Stewardship And Pro-Environmental Action: The Mediating Roles Of Environmental Guilt And Anger, Shu Tian Ng, Kimin Eom

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Past research has found that stewardship belief can motivate pro-environmentalism among religious individuals. The present study investigates the emotional pathways linking religious stewardship belief and pro-environmental policy support. In an online experiment conducted with Christians in the United States (N = 604), we experimentally primed stewardship belief (N = 195) using a video that highlighted the human responsibility to care for God’s creations. We also included a control condition (N = 206) and a religion condition (N = 203), which presented a more generic religious message. As demonstrated in a mediation model, the stewardship manipulation (vs. …

Exploring The Dynamics Of Cross-Boundary Interactions In Qinglinkou, China: The Perspective Of Networks Of Second-Home Owners, Meiling Wu, Mengqiu Cao, Jiuxia Sun

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cross-boundary interactions between second-home owners and local are complex over time–networks form and evolve within second-home owners and between owners and locals, each with its deliberately selective inclusion and exclusion. However, little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in the literature. This study, based on social network analysis alongside qualitative interviews, explores the dynamics of interactions between second-home owners and locals by analysing the networks formed by second-home owners in Qinglinkou, China. The ways in which second-home owners maintain and strengthen pre-existing networks with other owners and forge new links with locals, shape the cross-boundary interactions between the two …

The Accuracy Of Anal Self- And Companion Exams Among Sexual Minority Men And Transgender Women: A Prospective Analysis, Alan G Nyitray, Timothy L Mcauliffe, Cameron Liebert, Michael D Swartz, Ashish A Deshmukh, Elizabeth Y Chiao, Lou Weaver, Ellen Almirol, Jared Kerman, John A Schneider, J Michael Wilkerson, Lu-Yu Hwang, Derek Smith, Aniruddha Hazra

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Squamous cell carcinoma of the anus (SCCA) annual incidence among sexual minority men with and without HIV is 85/100,000 and 19/100,000 persons, respectively, which is significantly higher than the overall incidence (2/100,000). Incidence may also be higher in transgender women. Since SCCA tumours average ≥30 mm at diagnosis, we assessed the accuracy of individuals to self-detect smaller anal abnormalities.

METHODS: Using convenience sampling, the study enrolled sexual minority men and transgender women, aged 25-81 years, in Chicago, Illinois and Houston, Texas, USA, during 2020-2022. Individuals were taught the anal self-examination and anal companion examination (ASE/ACE). Then, a clinician performed …

Quality Indicators In Surgical Oncology: Systematic Review Of Measures Used To Compare Quality Across Hospitals, Megan Mcleod, Kari Leung, C S. Pramesh, Peter Kingham, Miriam Mutebi, Julie Torode, Andre Ilbawi, Jade Chakowa, Richard Sullivan, Ajay Aggarwal

General Surgery, East Africa

Background: Measurement and reporting of quality indicators at the hospital level has been shown to improve outcomes and support patient choice. Although there are many studies validating individual quality indicators, there has been no systematic approach to understanding what quality indicators exist for surgical oncology and no standardization for their use. The aim of this study was to review quality indicators used to assess variation in quality in surgical oncology care across hospitals or regions. It also sought to describe the aims of these studies and what, if any, feedback was offered to the analysed groups.

Methods: A literature search …

Trends In Sleep Duration In The Us From 2004 To 2018: A Decomposition Analysis, Jiahui Xu, Liying Luo, Alyssa Gamaldo, Ashton Verdery, Melissa Hardy, Orfeu M Buxton, Qian Xiao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Average sleep duration in the United States declined in recent years, and the decline may be linked with many biopsychosocial factors. We examine how a set of biopsychosocial factors have differentially contributed to the temporal trends in self-reported sleep duration across racial groups between 2004-2005 and 2017-2018. Using repeated nationally representative cross-sections from the National Health Interview Survey, we decompose the influence of biopsychosocial factors on sleep duration trends into two components. One component corresponds to coefficient changes (i.e., changes in the associations between behaviors or exposures and sleep duration) of key biopsychosocial factors, and the other part accounts for …

Rural Student-Home Community Engagement Impact As A Result Of Study Abroad Experiences: From Preparation Through Return, Todd M. Karr

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This qualitative study utilized a constructivist grounded theory approach to understand how rural students engaged with people in their home community as it related to before, during, and after their study abroad experience and what impact that engagement had on their experiences. Participants included 15 students who self-identified as being from a rural background that studied abroad for a minimum of one semester. Participants included students from one of two large, public universities in the state of New Mexico. Data collection included two semi-structured, in-depth interviews with each participant.

The study used a constant comparison method to generate a theory …

Social Network Centrality And The Corporate Environment: The Case Of Sexual Diversity Policies, Nuttavuth Nundhapana, Chiyachantana N. Chiraphol, Kuan Yong David Ding, Sirimon Treepongkaruna

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the external influence of social capital, measured by Facebook's (now Meta) Social Connectedness Index, on a firm's decision to adopt policies that promote a more diverse corporate environment. Recent studies find corporate policies that embrace sexual diversity are beneficial to firms and their stakeholders, thereby contributing to their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business sustainability. We find that firms with a high social network centrality are more likely to adopt policies and business strategies that support sexual diversity. Moreover, firms that adopt good CSR practices are more likely to implement more inclusive policies such as sexual diversity policies. …

Portraits Of Hispanic And/Or Latino Leadership Development In The Military, Michael Lugo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The study presented denotes a continuous transition among the Hispanic and/or Latino demographics in the military and the cadet accounts of military inequality incidents while in the military (Cabrera et al., 2017; Eckel & King, 2004). To assist Hispanic and/or Latino needs based on demographics and environment (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Military leaders contribute to growing a diverse, inclusive, and equitable military force for all ethnic groups. The Department of Defense (DoD) is the most racially and ethnically diverse workplace in the United States (Daniel et al., 2022). Nevertheless, racial/ethnic harassment and discrimination in the military continue …

Models For Estimating Intrinsic R And The Mean Age Of A Population At Stability: Evaluations At The National And Sub-National Level, David A. Swanson

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Using Canada’s provinces and territories in conjunction with the “Cohort Change Ratio” approach to generating a stable population, I test the accuracy of two regression models constructed from national-level data designed to estimate two factors of a population at stability from initial conditions at the sub-national levels: (1) its constant rate of change, denoted here by r'; and (2) mean population age. In a test of accuracy at the national level I find that these models provide reasonably accurate estimates. In the tests at the subnational level, the accuracy, as expected, is less, but the results indicate that the …

Systems Thinking: Fostering Collaboration And Connections To Strengthen The Field: A Conversation With Umberta Telfener, Deisy Amorin-Woods, Umberta Telfener

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Umberta Telfener is a highly respected figure known for her diverse contributions to various facets of family and systemic therapy. Her leadership style has earned her a reputation as somewhat of a ‘cultural anthropologist,’ reflecting her aptitude for creating connections, establishing relationships, and developing partnerships. Her unique ‘Umberta style’ is known for boundless energy, active leadership, and fierce commitment to challenging the status quo. Despite being in office for just a year at the European Family Therapy Association (EFTA), Umberta has conceived and developed numerous projects, establishing networks with practitioners, and systemic thinkers across the world. Rooted in classical philosophical …

Investigating Communication Of Findings In Environmental Impact Assessment And Developing A Research Agenda For Improvement, Alan Bond, Francois Retief, Angus Morrison-Saunders, Jenny Pope, Reece C. Alberts, Claudine Roos, Dirk Cilliers

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) aims to embed consideration of the significance of predicted environmental consequences (the findings) of proposed developments into approval decision making. Achieving this aim relies on adequate communication of the findings of the EIA to the stakeholders, especially the decision makers responsible for the approval decision. However, the naïve assumption that this communication of findings can be effectively achieved through the publication of a written report pervades legislation worldwide, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. As a first step towards improving such communication, this research identifies the contingent conditions associated with effectively transferring EIA findings from …

The Ackerman Institute: A Journey Of Culture And Diversity Over Six Decades. A Conversation With Evan Imber-Black, Deisy Amorin-Woods, Evan Imber-Black

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The Ackerman Institute for the Family, established in 1960 by Dr Nathan Ackerman, stands as one of the oldest and most respected family therapy institutes in the United States. Ackerman pioneered the integration of systemic insights into group settings, emphasised the crucial role of family in therapy, and advocated for the advancement and acceptance of family therapy. ‘The Ackerman’ played a pivotal role in launching Family Process, the first journal dedicated to academic activities in family therapy. Diversity and inclusion have been central tenets of Ackerman philosophy, evident in its programs, training courses, and staff composition. This commitment has produced …

Invisible Inequalities: Barriers, Challenges, And Opportunities, Hari Bapuji, Gokhan Ertug, Vivek Soundarajan, Jason D. Shaw

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Inequality is a grand challenge of our times, and management researchers have responded by examining the relationship between business and societal economic inequalities. This research has enhanced our understanding of the nature, sources, and consequences of inequalities, as well as identified actions to address them. However, this effort has predominantly revolved around visible inequalities. We seek to direct greater scholarly attention to invisible inequalities – uneven possession of and access to resources and opportunities to engage in value creation, appropriation, and distribution based on attributes and characteristics that are not readily apparent or noticeable. Expanding the scope of investigations to …

Feminist Policy Analysis On Gender Mainstreaming Policy In Indonesian International Peacekeeping Forces, Zahra Ayu Kusuma Ricarvy, Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem

Jurnal Politik

This study analyzes the implementation of gender mainstreaming policies within the Garuda troops using the Feminist Policy Analysis (FPA) approach in the context of Indonesia's commitment to gender equality in peacekeeping operations. Gender mainstreaming policies are expected to ensure equal access, participation, control, and benefits for both women and men within the defense system, as well as minimize gender discrimination. The method used in this research involves policy analysis as regulated in Presidential Instruction No. 9/2000, with a focus on its application in Peacekeeping Missions (IPM). Data were collected through interviews with relevant officials from the Ministry of Defense and …

Empowering Voices: Exploring The Career Trajectories Of Women Of Color Hr Professionals Amid Disruptive Change, Brandi R. Muñoz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated strategies to enhance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives in organizational leadership, focusing on supporting women of color in the workplace. The specific problem addressed was the underrepresentation and barriers faced by women of color in leadership positions despite their potential contributions to organizational success. The study employed a qualitative approach, combining qualitative interviews with socioeconomic data analysis. Data collection methods included semistructured interviews with women of color and a survey to gather demographic and employment information. The sample consisted of 16 women of color human resource professionals working in various industries and organizational settings across the …