Digital Commons Network^™

Use Of Immersive Visualization For The Control Of Dental Anxiety During Dental Hygiene Treatment, Carmelo Padrino-Barrios

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of immersive visualization (IV) therapy, a technique that provides visual and stereoscopic display through the use of eyewear, in anxious patients during an oral prophylaxis. Methods: A convenience sample of thirty adults was enrolled. A split mouth design was utilized. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups: group A (use of IV for the right side of the mouth), and group B (use of IV for the left side of the mouth). Subjects received a full mouth oral prophylaxis (removal of supra and subgingival calculus and selective polishing), always …

State Of The College Of Health Sciences, 2013: Voyaging To The Waypoint, Shelley C. Mishoe

Ellmer College of Health Sciences Reports and Documents

PDF of powerpoint presentation for the State of the College of Health Sciences Address on September 4, 2013. Includes "New Faculty & Staff Introductions and Welcome."

Graduate News, Office Of Graduate Studies, Old Dominion University

Graduate News

September 2013 issue of Graduate News from the Office of Graduate Studies (now, ODU Graduate School).

State Of The University Address, 2013, John R. Broderick

State of the University Addresses

President John R. Broderick's 2013 State of the University Address and Faculty Welcome.

Earning Trust And Explaining Complexities As You Communicate Climate Science: The Cause Model, Katherine E. Rowan

July 10, 2013: Best Practices and Communications Strategies for Adapting to Sea Level Rise and Flooding

No abstract provided.

A Sociotechnical Systems-Based Process To Facilitate The Development Of A Change Intervention Deployment Plan, Jorge Luis Nadal

EMSE Doctoral Projects

The purpose of this project was to formulate a process to facilitate the development of an effective change intervention deployment plan. The premise is that without a proper deployment plan, the successful implementation of a change intervention in an organization will be slow and require multiple revisions. This research utilized a Sociotechnical Systems (STS) approach to analyze the implementation of a major change intervention.

This research was in part prompted by a request by management of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for the researcher to examine why it has taken so long to successfully implement this large-scale change …

Spectacular Unhappiness: Social Life, Narcissistic Commodification, And Facebook, Delores Phillips, Kevin Moberly

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In her 2010 work, The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed contends that contemporary society is in the midst of a "happiness turn" (3) that is characterized by a resurgence of interest in the "economics and science of happiness" (3) in popular media, as well as the rapid growth of the so-called "happiness industry" (3) and the establishment of several university departments of Happiness Studies. Recognizing that the concept of happiness has historically been used to justify the oppression of women and minorities, she argues that our contemporary turn to happiness represents a manifestation of a larger socio-political …

Monster Of Mourning, Ritual Of Remembering: Ishirô Honda’S Gojira, Sigmund Shen

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

It is widely accepted among scholars that Ishiro Honda’s Gojira (1954) contains an allegory for the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scenes involving Dr. Serizawa, the scientist who destroys the monster and commits suicide, reveal a combination of ambivalent affect, psychological defenses, and ritualistic body language that are inadequately explained by the nuclear metaphor, and suggest a more deeply repressed subtext. I argue that these moments allude to regret over the Meiji Era westernization of Japanese culture and guilt for an “open secret” of wartime biological weapons research and human experimentation conducted by the Japanese Imperial Army.

Torn Between Allure And Repulsion: English Education And The Madrasa In Contemporary Kerala, Muneer Aram Kuzhiyan

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Madrasas, traditional Islamic institutions, in India, as elsewhere, have sought to negotiate modernity as well as their identity by introducing modern disciplines like English in their curricula without trying to dilute their essentially religious character. In this article, I attempt to capture and reflect on the socio-psychodynamics of English education in contemporary madrasas in the Malayalam-speaking South Indian state of Kerala. In doing so, the locus as well as focus of analysis will be Darul Huda Islamic University, a twenty-five year old Islamic institution in Malappuram, a district of the largest Muslim population in Kerala. This university and its fifteen …

Review Of Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox, By  Linda Hutcheon, Fariba Noorbakhsh

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox, Linda Hutcheon defines metafiction as a type of “fiction that includes within itself a commentary on its own narrative and/or linguistic identity” (1). She chooses the adjective “narcissistic” to describe the “textual self-awareness” of narratives (1). She refers to the negative commentary on metafiction in the early 1970s and the following defense of it; she believes that both trends have gone wrong (2). She states that if today metafiction is not defended anymore, it is because this type of fiction has a “name” which is both “comforting” and castrating” (2). She …

In Defense Of Narcissism: Blogging As Foucauldian Technology Of The Self, Evgeniya Boklage

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The application of the idea of narcissism stretches from a description of a narrowly conceived mental illness to a more general characterization of contemporary social condition. It has been used pejoratively to describe self-absorbed, egoistic, and uncivic attitudes and behavior. Returning to the Foucauldian technologies of the self – a philosophical account which tries to rehabilitate the love of the self and the idea of self-care as a positive social force – the present article utilizes this perspective to analyze the narcissistic, yet not uncivic, nature of blogging. It addresses a long-standing conflict between individualist and collectivist values in which …

Introduction: From Digital Narcissism To Triumph Of The Id, Kane Faucher

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Online, it is all about me. From “GPOYs” (gratuitous pictures of yourself) to the curious acts of self-as-brand promotionalism seemingly enabled by online social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, etc., the mundane trivia of a completely documented digital life (“I just had a muffin...”) coupled with commercializing social interaction through status-enhancement corporate referencing (“...at Starbucks”), the myth of the instant “everyday” celebrity who seems to rise and fall in the rapid cycle of the online attention economy, the leveraging of the non-operationalized concept of “social capital,” the treatment of other subjects as manipulable digital objects in …

At The Full And Change Of The Moon: The Passing Down Of Cultural Memory In The Black Diaspora, Anh Hua

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Referring to the Holocaust, James Young argues that historians mistakenly make a forced distinction between memory and history, where history is defined as that which happened and memory as that which is remembered of what happened. This leaves no room for the survivor’s voice and the survivor’s memory of the events, whose value is lost to the historians. James Young is interested in bridging the gap between a survivor’s “deep memory” and historical narrative, how to remember the past as it passes from living memory to history (276-277). Historical inquiry, for Young, is understood as “the combined study …

Hello, Big Brother': Perception Disorders And The Scopic Regime Of Reality Tv In Homeland (Showtime, 2011-), Sébastien Lefait

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph of Introduction]

Homeland, whose broadcast started on the American cable channel Showtime in October 2011, is structured around a surveillance-aided investigation [1]. CIA agent Carrie Mathison, the female protagonist, plays the subject of the search, with Lieutenant Nicholas Brody, the male protagonist, as its object. The beginning of the first episode gives the motive for the suspicion that leads Carrie, who suffers from bipolar disorder, to keep an eye on Brody. The opening sequence shows Carrie, on an unauthorized mission in Iraq, extorting a supposed revelation from one of her assets, who is about to be executed. …

The Complexity Of Armed Conflict In Mindanao: Beyond Economic Deprivation, Discrimination, And Inequality, Nasser Pendatun Lidasan

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Studies on internal conflict focus on bringing a violent conflict to non-violent. Economic development and good governance are most attractive since essential services are provided to people, regardless of ethnic affiliation. Autonomy for minority groups to maintain the integrity of a state is another option. Applied in Mindanao conflict, negotiated settlement, separation, and military victory did not create a lasting peace. This study applies the levels of analysis framework to investigate the conflict and considers the sub-state level as vital. It suggests the role of local actors as crucial in intrastate conflict. It examines the dynamics of conflict at the …

Student Retention In Bsn Programs, Katherine Pittman Hensley

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study examined, by use of a researcher-developed survey instrument, perceptions between three groups on reasons why students drop out of nursing programs. Also examined are recommendations from the three groups on how to try to avoid nursing student attrition. Specific groups surveyed included native BSN students, RNB students, and a mixed group of nursing faculty. Survey items were divided into two general groups: student-related issues, and institutional issues. Since RNB students (which include a larger number of non-traditional students) and BSN students (which include more of the native university population of traditional students) have many differences, the author attempted …

The Relationship Between Living Arrangement, Academic Performance, And Engagement Among First-Year College Students, Denise Shata Balfour

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

One way students become engaged in their undergraduate experience is through place of residence. Factors associated with high academic performance suggest high levels of engagement in campus life. This study investigated the relationship between living arrangement and the academic performance of first-year, full-time undergraduate students. The researcher also considered age, gender, race/ethnicity, and key characteristics of student engagement as moderating factors in the relationship between living arrangement and the academic performance.

Students enrolled at a four-year, public research university located in Southeastern Virginia were utilized for this study. The final participant group consisted of 870 first-year, full-time students who participated …

Student Perceptions Of Online Course Quality: A Comparison By Academic Discipline, Brian Riley Wilcox

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The recent rapid proliferation of distance education necessitates the need for strong levels of academic accountability. An important factor found to influence and predict student success is students' perceptions of their online courses. Understanding how learners perceive their online learning environment is paramount to effective course design and implementation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate community college students' perceptions of online education.

IHEP benchmarks for quality in distance education were used develop a web-based survey designed to measure if students' perceptions of online course quality differed across academic disciplines, what factors impacted students' perceptions of online course …

Child Emotional Abuse And Its Relationship To Obesity, Kelly Anderson Driscoll

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Over the past 30 years in the United States childhood obesity has more than tripled (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). In 2008, 18.5% of adolescents of the age 12-18 years old were obese in the United States (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). With the increase of obesity Americans have spent approximately 9% of their total medical costs on obesity-related illnesses (Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn, &Wang, 2003). Previous research documented the relationship between virtually every form of child abuse and subsequent obesity. Restricting focus to child emotional abuse, while studies have linked emotional abuse to the long-term consequence of …

Depression, Social Anxiety, And Attachment As Predictors Of The Use And Quality Of Cyber Communication, Stefan E. Latulip

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the influence of depression symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and adult attachment style on the use and the perceptions of the quality of cyber communications with close friends, romantic partners, and family members. One hundred thirty-five individuals completed an initial survey, with sixty five of the original group completing a follow-up survey five weeks later. Results indicated that anxious attachment was associated with a greater reported usage of social networking sites, whereas avoidant attachment predicted less instant message use over time. Depression symptoms and avoidant attachment were generally associated with perceptions of higher negativity and lower positivity with …

Experiences Of Resident Assistants With Potentially Suicidal Students: Identification, Referral, And Expectations, Katherine M. Bender

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Resident Assistants (RAs), living on campus and tasked with advising students while keeping them safe, are in a position to identify and refer students who may be at risk for suicide or other mental health issues. This study examined RA ability to identify students at risk for suicide, RA comfort in working with students at risk for suicide, RA actions taken when working with students who may be at risk for suicide, and RA expectations for shared information about students the RAs have referred for counseling because they may be at risk for suicide. The study found that RAs report …

Design Advantages Of Skin Friction Drag Reduction Using Riblets, John Michael Gregory

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The research reported here has examined the potential improvements in overall aircraft performance that can result from integrating skin friction reduction technology, such as riblets, early in the aircraft design cycle. This study has shown that riblets can improve the payload capacity, increase the range, and improve performance of transport aircraft. If recent advances in fabrication techniques make it possible to create aluminum wing surfaces with integral riblet geometries, the applications could be widespread and the gains significant.

Relationships Of Work-Family Conflict With Safety, Performance, Occupational Injuries, And Pain Among Construction Workers, Lori A. Gelinas

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Construction industry is one of the most dangerous work environments and lapses in safe work practices can be hazardous, and jeopardize the safety and well-being of workers. The purpose ot this study was to integrate the work-family conflict (WFC) and occupational safety literatures by investigating the effects of WFC on safety performance, and occupational injuries and pain among construction workers. As a stressor, WFC reflects the conflict individuals experience when trying to juggle the demands of their family and work roles, which arises when demands in one domain (e.g., work) interfere with performance in the other domain (e.g., family) and …

Geomorphia: Did The Earth Move For You? Mobile Capital As Geomorphic Agent, Kane Faucher

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Mobilization strategies, be them of a geomorphic quality or with respect to labour, are imbued by an endocolonizing rhetoric supplied by a neoliberal discourse which relies on “state of nature” claims as the foundation upon which it can reconfigure the terms of economy, generally by what Deleuze and Guattari call “axiomatization.” These, in turn, shape a new model of labour relations that may be tied to a new relationship to the earth itself as mobile commodity. By appealing to the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, this article will attempt to provide a different insight by which …

Old Dominion University Climate Change And Sea Level Rise Initiative, Summer 2013, Larry P. Atkinson (Editor), Hans-Peter Plag (Editor)

CCSLRI Newsletters

Summer 2013 Newsletter of the Old Dominion University Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative

Promoting Gender And Building Peace: Evolving Norms And International Practices, Renata Avelar Giannini

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The United Nations (UN) has incorporated a strong gender perspective into its peacekeeping operations (PKO) based on a renewed focus on women's rights and participation in peace processes. These efforts are part of a complex organizational learning process in which women's central role in peace processes and the increasing efforts to respond to conflict-related sexual violence have become a central component of the organization' s strategy to build a lasting peace. The underlying logic is that it is only after an equitable society is founded and when the other half of the population's voice has been included in the political …

Soft Power Strategies In Us Foreign Policy: Assessing The Impact Of Citizen Diplomacy On Foreign States' Behavior, Stephen Macharia Magu

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation empirically demonstrates that the isolated effects of citizen diplomacy correlate positively with foreign policy behavior as a non-military, foreign policy strategic option. The dissertation also finds that soft power, of which citizen diplomacy is a key component, is a viable foreign policy strategy. The findings are important to the academy and to the foreign policy-making process for states in search of effective, non-military strategies that leverage foreign state needs and attributes to achieve their foreign policy goals. Using a mixed methods approach, the dissertation investigates the correlation between Peace Corps Volunteers (citizen diplomat) placement and congruent voting with …

Plight Of The Gameur : Inhibitors To Empathic Connection With Representation Of Suffering In Outreach Games, Kristopher John Purzycki

English Theses & Dissertations

The field of serious game studies, while growing, is still working through the variables that create the conditions for a discernible effect towards real-world player behavior. One branch of serious games I refer to as outreach games aim at informing and prompting the player to take further real-world action. However, a significant impediment to this appeal is the relationship between the player and the game. Referring to the role of the flaneur in post-colonial literature, I describe how the relationship between whom I refer to as the gameur and the outreach game is similar to the urban wanderer, eavesdropping on …

Training Effects Of Adaptive Emotive Responses From Animated Agents In Simulated Environments, Enilda Jannet Romero-Hall

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Humans are distinct from machines in their capacity to emote, stimulate, and express emotions. Because emotions play such an important role in human interactions, human-like agents used in pedagogical roles for simulation-based training should properly reflect emotions. Currently, research concerning the development of this type of agent focuses on basic agent interface characteristics, as well as character building qualities. However, human-like agents should provide emotion-like qualities that are clearly expressed, properly synchronized, and that simulate complex, real-time interactions through adaptive emotion systems.

The research conducted for this dissertation was a quantitative investigation using 3 (within) x 2 (between) x 3 …

The Effects Of Generative Strategies In Instructional Simulations On Learning, Cognitive Load, And Calibration Accuracy, Jennifer R. Morrison

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Instructional simulations can provide a powerful medium for learners to interact with a model representing underlying principles of content or phenomena. While a promising medium for developing a learner's own mental model, reviews of simulation learning have revealed less than promising results (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1985; Kulik & Kulik, 1991), perhaps due to the lack of instructional supports inherent with a discovery-based approach. This study examined the use of generative strategies as an instructional support to promote learning from a physics simulation. Generative strategies, originally proposed by Wittrock (1974, 1989), strengthen understanding by prompting learners to create meaning between …