Digital Commons Network^™

"It'll Pass": Nypd: Blue's Sipowicz And Mundane Masculinity, Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The development of the character of Det. Andy Sipowicz, on the ABC drama, NYPD: Blue, effectively demonstrates that the obstinance of traditional forms of masculinity may ultimately be a key factor in their undoing. Rather than effecting a superficial change based on consumer choice, as concurrent characters do, Sipowicz undergoes a transformation of his social behavior. Sipowicz regularly behaves in a manner consistent with Robert Connell’s definition of “hegemonic masculinity”: he resorts to violence, he resists change and he resents women and minorities (131). His alcoholism and quick temper tend to hinder his ability to adapt. However, change …

Constructing A New Game: J.K. Rowling’S Quidditch And Global Kid Culture, Terri Toles Patkin

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

As part of her wildly popular Harry Potter fantasy series, author J.K. Rowling created a setting of magical characters to populate magical towns, perform magical jobs, purchase magical products -- and play a magical game called Quidditch. This fast-paced team sport played on broomsticks is both a participant and a spectator sport, and forms a nucleus of leisure activity and discourse in the Harry Potter books. From preschoolers to professionals, wizards in Rowling's world incorporate this virtual sport into their everyday lives. Rowling's development of Quidditch -– some have suggested that Rowling's intense dislike of school hockey practices sparked the …

You Need Love And Friendship For This Mission!: The Final Fantasy Series As Social Education For Japanese Youth, Ben Hourigan

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

From the mid to late 1990s, popular and academic discourse on video games, particularly in the United States, has focused on their supposed capacity to engender violent and otherwise anti-social behavior in youth. Much like ludologists' recent claims that video games are not a narrative medium, at least one reason for this is that commentators have too narrow an understanding of the diverse range of games that exist. In addition to this, game demonizers have demonstrated an inadequate understanding of the ways games are related to real life. In order to combat these misunderstandings, this chapter analyzes the role of …

More Than Girlfriends, Geekettes, And Gladiatixes: Women, Feminism, And Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Rebecca Borah, Inez Schaechterle

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The only function women have in D&D is to serve cookies. Gary Gygax, the most well known of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, claims he did not make this remark (Gel214th). That he did or not is perhaps, some thirty years after the introduction of the first fantasy role-playing game, of concern only to him. The problematic position of women players is a secure feature of the RPG zeitgeist. While few male gamers may openly challenge the assumption that women can or should play fantasy role games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the function of …

The Horror Is Alive: Immersion, Spectatorship, And The Cinematics Of Fear In The Survival Horror Genre, Jay Mcroy

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The video game genre known as survival horror resembles contemporary horror cinema in that both increasingly popular forms of entertainment allow audiences to experience fear resulting from the development of suspense coupled with the dread and shock of encountering monstrosity. One need only note the remarkable success of next generation video game franchises like Resident Evil (1996) and Silent Hill (1999) to realize that, more than ever before, game players in their late teens and beyond long to immerse themselves within interactive nightmares that offer the kind of thrills and chills once available exclusively through horror literature and films. However, …

The Postmodern Hoard: Rates Of Exchange In Role-Playing Games, Carlos Hernandez

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

What makes Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) unique among games is the way it merges storytelling with game mechanics. Before the invention of D&D, both acting/narrative-based games and strategy-based war games that made use of fantasy-genre elements existed, but the way D&D integrates both elements invented a whole new category of game, one in which the immersive draw of a plot proves just as important as good tactics or luck of the dice. This chapter explores the relationship between the qualitative and quantitative aspects of D&D. Specifically, it argues that the rules of the game provide quantitative corollaries to aspects of …

The Game's Afoot: Images Of Infinite Games In Samuel Delany's Trouble On Triton, Marc R. Zaldivar

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Games are frequently used in speculative literature as a metaphor for real-world activities. In Trouble on Triton, Samuel Delany uses several sorts of games in order to explore complex systems of modeling and interrelationships between fiction and reality, extending a tradition in science fiction of placing games at the very center of social reality. Zaldivar's essay seeks to define some of the concepts of game theory that can be used to understand this complex novel and its representation of human social life. In particular, Zaldivar explores finite and infinite games and their uses within a deconstructive theoretical framework. A …

A United States Perspective: 112 Years Of Graduate Research In Technology Education, Philip A. Reed, David A. Sontos

STEMPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Imagined Cities, Real Futures: Simcity And The Co-Production Of Urban Dystopias, Samuel Gerald Collins

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While the author of this chapter agrees with anthropologists who reject an urban studies predicated on postmodern surfaces and insist that we analyze cities in regional, national and global contexts of political economy, he nevertheless suggests that the urban imaginary has never been so important: Movies, television and music have proven all too useful in the continued vilification of an urban underclass. In 2001, in order to explore the role media might play in the structuring and delimitating of the ways we think about cities, Collins assigned SimCity, a computer simulation game combining models of urban development with cellular automata, …

Shooters To The Left Of Us, Shooters To The Right: First Person Arcade Shooter Video Games, The Violence Debate, And The Legacy Of Militarism, Karen J. Hall

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Adult concerns about video games erupted in the 1990s when parents and politicians came forward with claims that Doom, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct and games like them were partially responsible for the rash of school shootings in predominantly white, middle class communities. The author of this chapter argues that arcade games serve the national interest by entertaining consumer-citizens and creating a consumer-based demand for military technology. However, when adolescent shooters disrupt the status quo, it is the games rather than militarist social and economic structures that are criticized by the news media, politicians, and parents. The author of …

Digital Extensions And Performed Players: A Theoretical Model For The Video/Computer Game, Ben Fisler

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Despite over twenty years of studies, scholars have yet to identify a productive theoretical model for the video game that does not depend on a fragmentary understanding of its form. Following Pierre Bourdieu's contention that the purpose of criticism is to understand cultural products as distinct scientific objects, and Marshall McLuhan's theory that the message and formative power of media are the media themselves, this study attempts to generate a foundational critical understanding of the video game. Building on the most lucrative intrinsic (such as David Myer's 1991 Computer Game Semiotics) and extrinsic (such as Jeffrey Goldstein's 1998 Immortal …

Allegorical Reductions And Social Reconstructions: An Introduction To Games, Gamers, And Gaming Cultures, Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Games have become a central metaphor in representations of society, and most people are familiar enough with Lewis Carroll's Alice to know that when she passes through the looking glass she finds herself embroiled in a game a Chess which is also much more (Carroll 1992 [1897]). This strange game of Chess is simultaneously a simulation and an enactment of social life in Wonderland, and Carroll plots out Alice 's narrative path as a series of tactical Chess moves, which can be understood as both an attempt to win the game and to navigate through Wonderland and her …

Cold War Games And Postwar Art, Claudia Mesch

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

During the Cold War both “superpowers” used games, particularly chess, in order to construct an ideology of complete conflict and irreconcilable division between East and West. This essay focuses on the broad cultural challenge to divisive Cold War zero-sum mentality issued by a number of artists—André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Öyvind Fahlström, and Fluxus artists George Maciunas, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Takako Saito and Yoko Ono. These artists, in a second wave of game-focused art, returned to the concerns of surrealist art practice and to earlier cultural game theory. Even conceptual art production was impacted by the predetermined structure of …

When A Killer Body Isn’T Enough: Cross-Gender Identification In Action-Adventure Video Games, Marc Ouellette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While sports games try to recreate the atmosphere of a stadium or of television broadcasts of games, role-playing and action-adventure games attempt to duplicate cinematography through animation. For Tomb Raider, the virtual reality created by the cinematic animation of the game produces an environment for male-to-female cross-gender identification, a topic that has received little critical attention. The sense of identification intended in this chapter comes from psychoanalysts Jean Laplanche and Jean-Baptiste Pontalis, who describe identification as a psychological process in which a subject assimilates an aspect, a property, a characteristic of another and transforms himself [or herself] totally or partially …

The Effectiveness Of The Behavior-Based Safety Program At Jacobs Sverdrup's Nasa Langley Rome Contract, Tony A. Mettert

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To guide this problem, the following hypothesis was established: 1. There was a direct correlation between the number of behavior based safety observations performed and safety incident rates of the employees under the ROME contract.

Understanding The Nature Of Surgical Excellence Using A Competency Modeling Approach, Hope S. Hanner-Bailey

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Currently, a thorough description of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics (KSAOs) that distinguish an exceptional surgeon does not exist. This knowledge is pertinent to the development of selection, training, and performance assessment methods that can be used to develop high performing surgeons. Expert surgeons from around the country were recruited to participate in an interview to discuss the KSAOs (i.e., the competencies) needed to be exceptional in the field. A smaller number of novice surgeons were also interviewed. The expert interview data were distilled into a competency model that consists of ten competencies and patterns within the …

A Structural Model Of Relationships Between Employee Characteristics, Supervisory Mentoring Behaviors And Job Satisfaction, Florence R. Jinadu

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Organizational researchers have consistently found that developmental mentoring has a positive effect on employees professional and career success. Some of the benefits that have been cited include increased job satisfaction, increased organizational commitment, and increased self-esteem among mentored employees. In addition to these short-term benefits, developmental mentoring has also been found to positively impact long-term career outcomes in the form of increased compensation and career mobility for mentored employees as compared to non-mentored employees. Traditionally, mentors have been described as influential senior members of an organization who provide career support and developmental opportunities to less experienced employees, who are referred …

Differences In Motivation For Participation And Attitudes Toward Management Among Rock Climbing Sub Groups: Implications For The Benefits-Based Management Approach, Amy L. Ackerman

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a scale that would measure the motivation for participation of rock climbing subgroups, determine what differences exist among rock climbing subgroups and confirm the Rock Climbers' Attitudes toward Management Scale. Respondents were given an on-site questionnaire at three rock climbing areas in the United States. Respondents identified themselves according to their preferred type of climbing (e.g., traditional climbing, sport climbing, and hybrid climbing) and their preferred mode of climbing (e.g., lead climbing, top roping, and both equally). Exploratory factor analysis identified five factors for the Rock Climbing Motivation Scale: competition, control, escape, …

Assimilating Non-Probabilistic Assessments Of The Estimation Of Uncertainty Bias In Expert Judgment Elicitation Using An Evidence Based Approach In High Consequence Conceptual Designs, Colin K. S. Barrows

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

One of the major challenges in conceptual designs of complex systems is the identification of uncertainty embedded in the information due to lack of historic data. This becomes of increased concern especially in high-risk industries. This document reports a developed methodology that allows for the cognitive bias, estimation of uncertainty, to be elucidated to improve the quality of elicited data. It consists of a comprehensive literature review that begins by defining a 'High Consequence Conceptual Engineering Environment' and identifies the high-risk industries in which these environments are found. It proceeds with a discussion that differentiates risk and uncertainty in decision-making …

A Dyadic Composition To Foster Virtual Team Effectiveness: An Experimental Study, Gamze Karayaz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The importance of effectiveness for virtual teamwork continues to gain momentum as technology and globalization of work accelerate. The implementation of virtual teams provides one approach to enhance competitiveness, overcoming the disadvantages of space and time differences through collaborative technologies. The influence of structure to virtual team performance has not been clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effectiveness of a dyad structured approach for virtual teams using a quasi-experimental research design.

This research investigated four questions related to the influence of structure on virtual team effectiveness related to task performance, communication …

Body Matters In Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

The virtual body is already here. Though not as “seamless” as the virtual body envisioned in cyberpunk literature and made popular in films like The Lawnmower Man (1992), hundreds of thousands of people in over 114 countries (“Visitor Center”) daily log into massively multiplayer online role-playing games like Everquest, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, and Earth and Beyond. These massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs or MMOs for short) [1] combine the extensive rule systems of traditional role-playing games (or RPGs) such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with computer graphic technology and online chat. In these computer …

The Criminal Justice Response To Elder Abuse In Nursing Homes: A Routine Activities Perspective, Brian K. Payne, Randy R. Gainey

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Politicians and researchers have begun to pay more attention to elder abuse in recent times. Most of the research on elder abuse has focused on cases of abuse perpetrated by family members, treating the phenomenon as a social problem, but it is increasingly being conceptualized as a crime problem. The current study examines elder abuse in nursing homes from a criminological perspective. Using routine activities theory as a guide, particular attention is given to the criminal justice system's response to abusive activities committed by nursing home employees. In all, 801 cases of abuse investigated by Medicaid Fraud Control Units are …

Predictors Of Paternal Involvement In Childcare In Dual-Earner Families With Young Children, Julie N. Jacobs, Michelle L. Kelley

Psychology Faculty Publications

Dual-earner parents (N = 119) of preschool children enrolled in licensed childcare centers completed anonymous questionnaires that examined work and family variables as related to paternal involvement in three areas: engagement (i.e., one-on-one interaction with the child), responsibility (i.e., taking care of the child’s needs), and accessibility (i.e., being available to the child without directly interacting). Paternal responsibility was predicted by beliefs about fathering and structural variables (e.g., hours fathers and mothers worked). The percentage of time fathers spent as their child’s primary caregiver was predicted by structural variables (e.g., mothers’ work hours) and belief variables (e.g., men’s beliefs about …

The Politics And Economics Of Health: A Cross-National Comparison Of Civic Engagement And Health Status, Suzanne J. Wood

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Over the past two decades, various structural modifications associated with the provision of national health and its systems have been undertaken. The preponderance of liberalization experiences have occurred in the absence of epidemiological, political, or social considerations associated with adoption and implementation. Often, financial and political manipulation by international organizations and powerful foreign governments has served as the impetus for fundamental shifts leading to an asymmetrical distribution of resources by population density, geography, and along various socio-cultural boundaries. Consequently, structural adjustments have resulted in unpredictable and divergent outcomes with regard to health status. The question of whether or not health …

Examining Retention And Academic Success Among Community College Developmental Algebra I Students, Patricia B. Huber

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

An increasing number of community college matriculants enter college needing remediation in mathematics. This study examined factors that may affect student retention and academic success in a developmental Algebra I course at a community college, including demographic variables, life demand variables, pre-enrollment academic characteristic, self-regulated learning characteristics, and instructional methodology.

The study ran for two consecutive semesters and included 154 participants. Self-report measures were used to gain demographic information and information about students' beliefs about math and their self-regulated learning characteristics at the beginning of the semester. An elementary algebra pre-test was administered at the beginning of the semester with …

An Examination Of Differences Between Occupational-Technical Student And Transfer Student Engagement At Small Community Colleges In Virginia, Janet T. Laughlin

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the differences in levels of student engagement between occupational-technical students and transfer students in an attempt to gain insight into why so many students fail to attain their educational goals. Students' engagement or involvement with their educational institution and program of study is considered a major contributor to persistence and graduation. Research on student engagement as it relates to persisters and leavers includes the five student engagement variables benchmarked by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE): (a) active and collaborative learning, (b) student effort, (c) academic challenge, (d) student-faculty interaction, and (e) support for learners. …

The Use Of The Tripartite Model Of Attitudes To Explain Ems Providers' Attitudes About The Ems Agenda For The Future, Carolyn Angela Rinaca

Health Services Research Dissertations

A dynamic and revolutionary health care system compels the Nation to develop a more cohesive, unified healthcare workforce. The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) profession has contributed to this development with the publication of the EMS Agenda for the Future. The EMS Agenda for the Future describes the future direction for emergency medical services agencies and organizations within the nation. It is a vision that integrates EMS systems with other health care professions. The EMS Agenda for the Future is designed to assist EMS professionals in realizing their full potential for proficiency and contributes to the development of the EMS profession. …

A Cross-Cultural Study Of Hearing And Hearing-Impaired Children’S Human Figure Drawings, Chia-Liang Timothy Hu

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to further the research of human figure drawings as useful assessment tools and add to the understanding of children’s human figure drawings from a cross-cultural perspective.

In this quantitative study, 147 human figure drawings made by 59 hearing and 64 hearing-impaired Taiwanese children and 24 hearing-impaired American children were collected. In addition, 50 drawings done by hearing American children were randomly chosen from the children’s drawing database of Eastern Virginia Medical School Graduate Art Therapy Program. Five Formal Elements Art Therapy Scales (FEATS) scales were modified for use with human figure drawings and were …

Alien(Ating) Naturecultures: Feminist Sf As Creative Science Studies, Helen Merrick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

“Alien(ating) Naturecultures” examines the potential of feminist science fictions to act as “cross-cultural” narratives in encounters between the humanities and sciences. Merrick argues that the conjunction of disciplines figured by the term “science fiction” bears re-examination as a resource for science studies, and a potential mediator in science-humanities dialogues.

Specifically, Merrick asks, when we are concerned with critiquing and unpacking technoscientific practices, cultures and knowledges, what can more creative forms such as science fiction (sf) offer? Such questions about “naturecultures” are intimately connected to the ways we construct and understand “life,” the “human” and difference in the discourses of Science. …

On Brian Attebery’S Decoding Gender In Science Fiction, C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The premise of Decoding Gender in Science Fiction is, as Brian Attebery states in the first chapter, that “Science fiction is a useful tool for investigating habits of thought, including conceptions of gender. Gender, in turn, offers an interesting glimpse into some of the unacknowledged messages that permeate science fiction” (1). What we have in Decoding Gender in Science Fiction is the most comprehensive analysis of gender tropes in Science Fiction from its origins in Gothic literature to today. Attebery states in his introduction that he was surprised to find there was no historical study of the development …