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The Sandman: The Artifice Of Comics And Power Of Dreams, Nathan Teft

Masters Theses

Neil Gaiman’s Vertigo Series The Sandman is an exceptional artistic endeavor. From “Preludes and Nocturnes”(1988) to “The Wake” (1996), Gaiman worked alongside a team of talented artists and graphic designers to produce an indelible work of revisionist mythology. This thesis will attempt to establish the framework by which our modern literary canon has celebrated classical Western myths while relegating graphic or visual forms of literature or outright neglecting comic myths altogether. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics will frame the discourse for pictographic analysis of Neil Gaiman’s mythological revisionism of Milton’s Paradise Lost in Season of Mists, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 043, Number 14, March 25, 2019, Grand Valley State University

2018-2019, Volume 43

Grand Valley Forum is Grand Valley State's faculty and staff newsletter, published from 1976 to the present.

Institutional Resources With Notable Foci On Psychology And Culture, Walt Lonner, Wolfgang Friedlmeier

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

The following Centers, Institutes, Programs and Units (hereafter called “entities”), all components of colleges and universities in many countries, are important resources for teaching, research, consultation and services that have some focus on psychology and culture. The aim of this list is to provide brief information about each entity and to identify the main contact person(s) at each.

Games As ‘Defining Moments’ Of The College Experience: The Impact Of Reacting To The Past In French, David Eick, Janel Pettes Guikema

Peer Reviewed Articles

No abstract provided.

Consultants In The Classroom: Pilot Study Assessing Multidisciplinary Center Collaboration, Carl Brown, Ashley B. Rapp, Adrienne Wallace, Jennifer Torreano, Melanie Rabine, Patrick Johnson

Knowledge Market

Communication center clients come in various forms. Many centers work with individuals and groups while some work with entire classrooms, departments, or colleges. Very few centers both partner with other campus consulting services and interact with large units. While a considerable amount of literature focuses on one-on-one consultations and some work focuses on collaboration between similar centers (McCall, Ellis, & Murphy, 2017), little, if any, research deals with these unique partnerships and how they collaborate to serve groups. This article examines how one communication center partnered with two other campus consulting services to create a purposeful and collaborative relationship with …

Modeling Of Optimized Neuro-Fuzzy Logic Based Active Vibration Control Method For Automotive Suspension, Mohammad Adom Safiullah

Masters Theses

In this thesis, an active vibration control system was developed. The control system was developed and tested using a quarter car model of an adaptive suspension system. For active vibration control, an actuator was implemented in addition to the commonly used passive spring damper system. Due to nature of unpredictability of force required two different fuzzy inference system (FIS) were developed for the actuator. First a sequential fuzzy set was built, that resulted lower vertical displacement compared to basic damper spring model, but system had limited effect with disturbances of higher magnitude and continuous vibrations (rough road). To improve the …

Trauma Therapy And The Need For Cross Cultural Competence, Marijke Sommer

Honors Projects

This project addresses the relevance of cross cultural competence for work in trauma therapy. I begin with a review of the literature on approaches to trauma therapy, identifying similarities and differences in key approaches, and comparing outcomes where that information is available. I then review a variety of cross cultural variations in mental health conditions and symptoms, attempting to roughly position each within the ethnic group or groups in which the variation is mostly likely to be found. Finally, I review the very small existing literature examining the impact of culturally sensitive approaches to trauma therapy in several non-Western ethnic …

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Community Navigation As A Field Of Practice: Reframing Service Delivery To Meet The Needs Of Communities’ Marginalized Populations, Joby Schaffer, M. Julie Patiño, P. Barclay Jones, Ladawn Sullivan

The Foundation Review

Community navigators help individuals and families access local services and assistance through a combination of referrals and interpersonal support. The Denver Foundation launched the Basic Human Needs Navigator Learning Community in February 2014 to help navigators working with local organizations and community members practicing navigation independently improve their practice and identify similarities and differences in their approaches.

This article discusses the multiyear, peer-learning project, including the general lessons the foundation learned about both navigation and the use of a learning-community approach to reach its field-building goals.

Reports from participating organizations and community members over four years suggest the efficacy of …

Daily Oral Language, The Bell Tolls For Thee: A Critique Of Daily Sentence-Editing Exercises, Karen Pezzetti

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

For decades, experts have argued that effective grammar instruction must occur within the context of students’ authentic reading and writing processes. Despite this mandate, however, many teachers continue to use daily sentence-editing exercises like Daily Oral Language (DOL) with their secondary ELA students. Here, I argue that ELA teachers must abandon daily-sentence editing routines on three counts: first, these exercises do not help students become better writers; second, they implicitly communicate several dangerous messages about writing and revision; and, third, they are particularly harmful for speakers of stigmatized dialects of English. The article concludes with a short list of guiding …

Emotion Norms In Media: Acculturation In Hispanic Children's Storybooks Compared To Heritage And Mainstream Cultures, Victoria R. Sanders, Wolfgang Friedlmeier, Mayra L. Sanchez Gonzalez

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Cultural artifacts such as children’s storybooks may serve to facilitate learning of emotion display norms. We compared emotion displays in European American and Mexican books to infer cultural differences between the mainstream and a heritage culture to ultimately explore acculturation orientation in Hispanic storybooks. Totally, 1,059 images were coded from 10 popular storybooks from each cultural group. We focused on emotion type (positive, negative socially engaging, and disengaging) and intensity of expression. Context variables such as social partners and gender were also compared. Positive emotions were dominant in all groups, occurring most in Hispanic storybooks; Mexican and Hispanic storybooks displayed …

Teaching Peer Feedback As Ethical Practice, Derek Miller, Troy Hicks, Susan Golab

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Even with weeks of building a classroom community and deliberate instructional scaffolding, students may not engage in thoughtful peer review. One teacher discovers how he must place a deep, intentional value on the feedback itself—and the writers who provided it to one another.

Lanthorn, Vol. 52, No. 55, April 5, 2018, Grand Valley State University

Volume 52, July 10, 2017 - April 23, 2018

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

One Peninsula, Many Spains: An Inquiry On Memory, Historiography, And The Legacy Of The Spanish Civil War From 1930 To The Present, Adrian Rios

Honors Projects

In this essay, I analyze the events of the Spanish Civil War and their ramifications through the lens of cultural memory and historiography. I argue that ideas of memory are crucial to how societies and individuals understand history and that the Spanish Civil War had a tremendous impact on the Spanish people and significantly affected the memory not only of witnesses of the conflict, but to their descendants. This essay utilizes primary and secondary sources to understand the function of memory and varied responses to the Spanish Civil War. The essay begins with a brief historical overview of the conflict …

How Women Leaders Can Promote Sustainability Initiatives, Naida Weinert

Senior Projects

This paper discusses what would be the best organizational management model that could help to attain and promote corporate social responsibility. Research has been assessed on the themes of gender differences (men vs women), leadership styles (including men leaders vs. women leaders), sustainability, corporate social responsibility (including the managerial position), the importance of stakeholders (internal and external), and a combination of these subjects. Stereotypical attitudes are discussed on leadership differences between men and women within this paper. Another area of the research emphasized the importance of stakeholders linked with organizations as well as how internal and external stakeholders have significance …

Adapting To American Life: A Look At The United States’ Refugee Population, Bethany Schlosser

Honors Projects

This study examines refugees' process of adaptation to life in the United States. It focuses primarily on English learning, self-sustaining employment, and mental/emotional health. It then goes on to identify some ways in which Americans can ease refugees' process of adaptation. It is largely based on eight interviews conducted by the researcher, as well as significant secondary research.

Fusion Of Audio And Visual Information For Implementing Improved Speech Recognition System, Vikrant Satish Acharya

Masters Theses

Speech recognition is a very useful technology because of its potential to develop applications, which are suitable for various needs of users. This research is an attempt to enhance the performance of a speech recognition system by combining the visual features (lip movement) with audio features. The results were calculated using utterances of numerals collected from participants inclusive of both male and female genders. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficients were used for computing visual features and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) were used for computing audio features. The classification was then carried out using Support Vector Machine (SVM). The results …

Student Perceptions Of Vocabualry Gain During Study Abroad, Yuan Sui

Masters Theses

It is well acknowledged that study abroad is an ideal context to achieve high language proficiency. Previous studies show a relatively complex picture of the relationship of social interactions and language gains. On the one hand, students who study abroad experience language gains such as oral proficiency but on the other hand, researchers argue that study abroad does not guarantee language gains. Vocabulary as foundational knowledge of language learning has not received much attention in the context of study abroad, especially vocabulary learning strategies. The present study investigates the change of students’ perceived vocabulary gain via routine social activities with …

Linguistic Features Of Medical English For Curricular And Instructional Purposes, Yi Shi

Masters Theses

In China, medical English as a specific target language use domain has been of high need to Chinese doctors and college medical students. It is mainly used for publishing research articles in international medical journals and presenting at international medical conferences. For this reason, the study of linguistic characteristics of medical English will benefit Chinese doctors and medical students in their efforts to learn English in the field of medicine. Nevertheless, “medical English” is recognized as a concentration of study as part of the English major at some universities in China while in other colleges, medical students just learn generic …

Lanthorn, Vol. 52, No. 41, February 8, 2018, Grand Valley State University

Volume 52, July 10, 2017 - April 23, 2018

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Mutual Perception And Relational Strategies Of Hindus And Muslims In India, Shabana Bano, R. C. Mishra, R. C. Tripathi

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The present study examines mutual perception and relational strategies of the Hindu and Muslim groups in the cultural context of India by focusing on religion-based “othering.” A sample of 264 participants belonging to Hindu and Muslim groups was studied in Varanasi City. An instrument developed and used in an international project was adapted and given to participants (age range 20–60 years) for measuring their relational strategies, mutual perceptions and perceived discriminations. The findings revealed the ‘Coexistence’ relational strategy to be strongly placed in both Muslim and Hindu participants. Both ‘Integration’ and ‘Assimilation’ strategies were stronger in Muslim participants than in …

Ethnic Identity And Ethnic Organizations: The Role Of Self-Construal In The Psychological Well-Being Of Migrants, L. H. K. Fente, S. T. Fiske

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

This study attempted to highlight the role of ethnic organizations in maintaining the ethnic identity and self-construals of migrants and see whether such perpetuations were psychologically healthy or not in a contrasting culture. Two groups of migrants of Asian-Indian origin in the USA participated in the study, one group belonging to their respective ethnic organizations and the other group not belonging to any ethnic organization. Results indicated stronger ethnic identity and interdependent self-construal in members of ethnic organizations as compared to non-members. Self-construals were found to be significant moderators in the relationships between ethnic identity and well-being in members of …

Book: Venture Into A New Realm Of Cross-Cultural Psychology Meditation, Mantric Poetry, And Well-Being: A Qualitative, Cross-Cultural, Cross-Disciplinary Exploration With American Secondary And Japanese Post-Secondary Adolescents, Lunthita M. Duthely, Harashita Y. Sunaoshi, Olga M. Villar-Loubet

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

Higher well-being correlates positively with multiple psychological and social outcomes, including workplace success and better academic outcomes for students. Poetry and meditation, independently, have been demonstrated in prior studies to increase well-being in a variety of contexts, including physical and mental health challenges. To our knowledge, this is the only published cross-cultural study that merged contemplative practices and poetry within the well-being paradigm, particularly among general, non-clinical adolescent populations. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the use of meditation and mantric poetry in a cross-cultural, educational context. The materials included The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom …

‘Team Australia?’: Understanding Acculturation From Multiple Perspectives, Justine Dandy, Tahereh Ziaian, Carolyn Moylan

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

In this paper we explore mutual acculturation among Australians from Indigenous, majority, immigrant and refugee backgrounds. Our aims were: to develop Berry’s acculturation scales for use in Australia and from multiple perspectives and to explore acculturation expectations and strategies from these multiple perspectives. We conducted in-depth interviews (n = 38) in Perth, Western Australia. We investigated participants’ views, guided by the two dimensions underlying Berry’s model of acculturation: cultural maintenance and intercultural contact, and models of culture learning. We found that participants had different acculturation expectations for different groups, as well as different preferred strategies for themselves, although most …

Polish-French Bilingualism And Bicultural Identity: Cross-Cultural Studies On Immigrants In France And Belgium, And French Language Students In Poland, Łukasz K. Kmiotek, Joanna M. Kwiatowska, Paweł Boski

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

In the present study, the authors applied the Cultural Values and Script Questionnaire, together with language measures (bidirectional translation, listening comprehension tasks), to explore the relationship between Polish-French bilinguality and bicultural identity among Polish migrants in France and Belgium and students learning French at a Polish University. We hypothesized that the Francophone acculturative context will lead to (i) integrated bicultural identity, as well as (ii) a balanced bilingual profile. Thirdly, we assumed there is a link between an individual’s bicultural identity and his or her bilinguality. The data partially confirm the two first hypotheses. An unexpected contrast effect revealed that …

International Students’ Integration In Classroom: Strategies And Support By Teachers And Local Students In Higher Education, Simran Vazirani, Carmen Carmona, Jose Vidal, Nerea Hernaiz-Agreda, Inmaculada López-Francés, María Jesús Benlloch-Sanchis

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

European Higher Education institutions often have students from different countries and cultures. This situation, in part encouraged by the Erasmus program, has provided universities with an international character. Institutions have the opportunity to improve by strengthening cultural ties and making cultural diversity a true reality in universities. The present study focuses on examining teachers’ and local students’ support of integrating international students into classrooms, and the way local students build relationships with those students. Using a qualitative approach, two sets of interviews were conducted with Erasmus students and teachers from a Spanish university. In general, results indicate that teachers’ support …

Improving Office Workflow To Increase Developmental Screening Using The Ages And Stages Questionnaire (Asq-3) In A Primary Care Setting, Shelby L. Sikkila

Doctoral Projects

Background: It is estimated that 15% of children in the United States have at least one developmental delay, sadly, less than one-fifth of these children receive early intervention services before the age of three (Vitrikas, Savard, & Bucaj, 2017).

Objectives: Design, implement, and evaluate an evidence-based protocol to assist in timely referrals of identified children to intervention services in a pediatric primary care setting through staff education of the developmental screening tool ASQ-3.

Methods: Accurate assessment of current practice revealed the need for development and implementation of a protocol. Staff education was evaluated through pre and post-surveys. …

Gvsu Undergraduate And Graduate Catalog, 2018-2019, Grand Valley State University

Course Catalogs, 1963 - Current

Grand Valley State University 2018-2019 undergraduate and/or graduate course catalog published annually to provide students with information and guidance for enrollment.

Contributor's Notes

Fishladder: A Student Journal of Art and Writing

No abstract provided.

Query Expansion Techniques For Enterprise Search, Eric M. Domke

Masters Theses

Although web search remains an active research area, interest in enterprise search has waned. This is despite the fact that the market for enterprise search applications is expected to triple within the next six years, and that knowledge workers spend an average of 1.6 to 2.5 hours each day searching for information. To improve search relevancy, and hence reduce this time, an enterprise- focused application must be able to handle the unique queries and constraints of the enterprise environment. The goal of this thesis research was to develop, implement, and study query expansion techniques that are most effective at improving …