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Military Life Narratives And Identity Development Among Black Post-9/11 Veterans, Deon Marcell Hall

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenological experience of veteran identity development in post-9/11 veterans who identify within the Black diaspora. Given that current research suggests that behavioral health providers lack the sufficient training necessary to meet the unique clinical needs of post-9/11 veterans, this study aimed to examine military culture and experience in the context of intersecting cultural identities so as to more effectively frame the services offered by counseling psychologists working with Black military veterans and service members. More specifically, this study strengthens the existing empirical framework for addressing the behavioral health needs of post-9/11 …

Community Health Nurse Educators And Disaster Nursing Education, Jody Spiess

Dissertations

Abstract

The world is struggling with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic and the need for disaster nursing education has never been more clear. Recently, the American Nurses Association reported that of the over 32,000 nurses surveyed; only 11% felt well prepared to care for a COVID-19 patient (ANA, 2020). Community health nurse educators are tasked with educating future nurses on disasters, yet, little is known about this population’s perceived competence in disaster preparedness. The purpose of this study is to describe community health nurse educators' perceived competence in disaster preparedness.

The study is a descriptive, correlational …

Predicting Political Development After United States Military Assistance: Evidence From Case Study Analysis, Susan Rae Alaniz

Dissertations

During the administration of former President Barak Obama, United States foreign policy increased its focus on international development instability that threatened U.S. national security. In 2010, President Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 6, which declared that international development is a vital U.S. national interest. This was a watershed moment for not just how the United States views its national interests, but in which resources should be dedicated to protect them. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense has security assistance relationships with 155 countries. These countries represent a wide range of international development challenges.

This research examines the recipient state …

Exploring The Maladaptive Cognitions Of Moral Injury, Rachel L. Martin

Dissertations

Moral injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are two prominent mental health problems that affect military personnel. Moral injury results when the individual is exposed to a situation or event that violates their moral code; however, PTSD results when there is a substantial threat of harm. Moral injury is a relatively new construct within the literature with research starting in the late 2000s. Although distorted cognitions are core components of PTSD symptomatology, there has been no research of cognitions in moral injury. The current study sought to differentiate PTSD and moral injury using the specific maladaptive cognitions associated with trauma …

Perceptions Of Challenges And Resiliences Of Of Post 9/11 Combat Veterans’ Wives, Kaitlin N. Ohde

Dissertations

Ohde, Kaitlin N. (2020). Perceptions of Challenges and Resiliencies of Post 9/11 Combat Veterans’ Wives. Published Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, University of Northern Colorado, 2020. This study examined the perceptions of challenges and resiliencies of post 9/11 combat veterans’ spouses. For this phenomenological study, 12 female, heterosexual, Caucasian, post 9/11 combat veterans’ wives participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews that utilized family systems and secondary traumatic stress theories. Results were presented in themes and subthemes. This study added to the literature and exploration of the unique challenges experienced by post 9/11 veterans’ wives and how they cultivated resiliency in their marriages. …

Risk And Protective Factors For Psychological Distress Following A Morally Injurious Event In Combat Veterans, Aaron Keating

Dissertations

Morally injurious events have been shown to increase the likelihood of experiencing anxiety, depressive, and posttraumatic stress symptoms of combat veterans. Research has found that guilt and shame are associated with higher levels of symptomology following morally injurious events. Similarly, individuals who are high in trait proneness to guilt and shame may be at higher risk for developing symptoms following a morally injurious event; however, no research to date has examined this possibility. In addition, acts that go against what one considers morally right bring about cognitive dissonance which then leads to anxiety. In order to reduce anxiety caused by …

Ally Or Enemy: The Impact Of Leadership On United States Army Combat Veterans’ Deployment Experiences Who Have Served In Iraq And Afghanistan, Derik Van Baale

Dissertations

Soldiers’ deployment experiences have been well-researched and studied, but the primary focus has been on enemy-induced trauma. Being a combat veteran who served in Iraq myself, and as someone who has counseled a plethora of combat veterans, I am keenly aware that there is more than exposure to enemy fire and the loss of comrades that can leave a lasting impression. Often, the actions by and interactions with leaders during deployments can also prove to be quite impactful to soldiers. However, very little research exists on the impact of leadership behavior as a factor during a soldier’s deployment experience and …

The Effects Of A Course Oriented In Critical Race Theory On White Counselor Trainees’ Multicultural Counseling Competence, White Privilege Attitudes, And Cross Racial Contact, Dawnielle D. Simmons

Dissertations

The current study examined the effects of a single and required Critical Race Theory (CRT)-oriented multicultural course on White, master-level counselor trainees with and without clinical experience. More specifically, the study examined differences in White counselor trainees’ responses to instruments that assessed White privilege attitudes, multicultural counseling competence, and cross-racial contact comparing trainees that had taken the required multicultural course with those who had not. Previous research suggests that when a single multicultural counseling course is a requirement of counselor training, multicultural counseling competence and White privilege awareness tend to increase. In the current study, a CRT-oriented course was used …

The Russian Research Center At Harvard Versus Cambridge Analytica: Influencing The Public In A Cold War, Robert Joshua Howard

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Primary Care-Non-Profit Partnerships: Improving Ptsd Screening And Treatment Access For Veteran Patients, Nickolai Detert

Dissertations

Approximately 50% of 22 million American military veterans use civilian healthcare in addition to, or in lieu of, the Department of Veteran's Affairs health facilities. Studies find that theses veterans may have unidentified mental health needs and lack access to appropriate mental health services. Barriers to adequate mental health care include: (a) undisclosed veteran status; (b) stigma; (c) lack of cultural competency in civilian healthcare; and (d) an overall shortage of mental health services. With veteran post-traumatic stress disorder rates as high as 23%, we conducted a quality improvement project to improve veteran identification, mental health needs assessment, and access …

What Role Does The African American Church Play When Meeting The Mental Health Needs Of Its African American Parishioners?, Lisa Sutton

Dissertations

Abstract

This study will focus on understanding the role played by the church in meeting the mental health needs of its African American parishioners. The goal is to understand the ways that African American communities hold faith, position themselves within the church, and the outside world, with a specific focus on issues of trust, which have emerged based on historical and structural violence that has debilitated the health of our community. The study examines attitudes and perceptions of church leadership and members around their caring for parishioners with mental health issues. The hope is that the data will help construct …

Navy Seals - Crossing Cultures: Cross-Cultural Competence And Decision Styles, Robert Newson

Dissertations

U.S. military cross-cultural competence is currently deficient, as Special Operations Forces (SOF) personnel assessments fail to explicitly consider aspects related to cross-cultural competence and lack processes specifically tailored to cross-cultural personnel assignments. Researchers, however, have identified eleven attributes that contribute to military cross-cultural competence; this study uses these attributes to explore whether decision styles and demographics correlate with cross-cultural competence. Building on existing work on the attributes of military cross-cultural competence (defined in this study as the ability to quickly and accurately assess, then effectively act, in a culturally complex environment to achieve mission results), I first examined the attribute …

Framing Death And Suffering: An Examination Of Photographs Of Dead And Dying During The U. S. Civil War, World War Ii, And The Vietnam War, Richard Anthony Lewis

Dissertations

The dissertation analyzes photographic images of dead bodies that appeared in news settings related to warfare in the United States in three distinct eras – the 1860s, the 1940s, and the 1960s. The primary subject of the analysis are photographs of corpses created in the context of the American Civil War (1861-1865), World War II including the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust (1939-1946), and conflict and war in Vietnam (1950-1975). While the sample represents a partial catalogue of images of the dead in the context of warfare since photography emerged in the 1840s as a medium for disseminating news, the …

Huisgen 1,3-Dipolar Azide-Alkyne Cycloaddition “Click” Reaction In Polymer Synthesis And Curing, Jie Wu

Dissertations

This dissertation’s key focus is on utilizing Huisgen 1,3-dipolar azide-alkyne cycloaddition (AAC) reaction in copolymer synthesis and modification, including thermoplastic block copolymer and commercially available two-component polyurethane system. It can be divided into two major projects, introduced as follows.

The first project involves the development of a modular synthetic approach toward polyisobutylene (PIB)-based triphasic pentablock thermoplastic elastomer with enhanced moisture permeability. This terpolymer consists of a poly(styrene-b-isobutylene-b-styrene) (SIBS) core and appended hydrophilic polymer blocks (HBs). The SIBS core was synthesized via living cationic polymerization (LCP) of isobutylene followed by sequential addition of styrene. AAC was utilized …

Trauma And Social Frameworks: The Effect Of Uasd-Government Conflict Between 1966 And 1978 Over Perspectives About Higher Education, Jesús Leonardo D'Alessandro

Dissertations

Currently, the expenditures for higher education by the Dominican government are at record highs (OECD, 2012; MESCYT, 2018). Yet, nationwide, student attrition rates in universities average a challenging 50% (OECD, 2012). This percetange climbs to 80% in Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD). UASD is the oldest public university and the largest higher education institution in the Dominican Republic, hosting 44% of all undergraduate students enrolled in the country (OECD, 2012; UASD, 2018). The institution’s attrition levels suggest that while the Dominican government’s investment in higher education is high, the return on that investment is low.

Although domestic plans and …

Racial Identity Among Native American Adults In The Southwestern United States, Deidre P. Begay

Dissertations

There is growing interest in the empirical psychological study of Native Americans. Nonetheless, currently there are few empirical investigations examining Native American identity from a racial perspective. One study, completed in 2011 by Gonzalez and Bennett, modified the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity to adapt to Native American individuals and used an Exploratory Factor Analysis that resulted in a four factor model of Native American identity called the Native Identity Scale (Gonzalez & Bennett, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of the Native Identity Scale when used with a sample from self-identified Native American adults …

The Paradox Of Respect And Risk: Six Lakota Adolescents Speak, Mary J. Isaacson

Dissertations

Adolescence is a time of turbulence as young people stretch parental boundaries, seeking where they fit in society. For many American Indian adolescents this time involves the initiation of dangerous high-risk behaviors. Potential causes posed for this are: loss of identity, loss of cultural values and traditions, lack of positive role modeling and feelings of hopelessness. Survey research has been the predominant method of data collection. Very few studies of Native American youth use storytelling, even though stories are a part of many Indian cultures. The primary purpose of this study was to describe the phenomena of respect and risk …

Brain Disease Detection From Eegs: Comparing Spiking And Recurrent Neural Networks For Non-Stationary Time Series Classification, Hristo Stoev

Dissertations

Modeling non-stationary time series data is a difficult problem area in AI, due to the fact that the statistical properties of the data change as the time series progresses. This complicates the classification of non-stationary time series, which is a method used in the detection of brain diseases from EEGs. Various techniques have been developed in the field of deep learning for tackling this problem, with recurrent neural networks (RNN) approaches utilising Long short-term memory (LSTM) architectures achieving a high degree of success. This study implements a new, spiking neural network-based approach to time series classification for the purpose of …

The Function Of Military Language In The Feeding Of The Five Thousand Narrative (Mark 6:30-44): A Narrative-Cognitive Study, Oleg Kostyuk

Dissertations

Abstract Pending

Women And Strategies Of Violence: Gender Roles, Foreign Support And Maintaining The Rebellion, Caglayan Baser

Dissertations

How do women affect conflict dynamics in different ways than men? I examine how expectations based on gender identities impact rebel group strategies, as well as attitudes of foreign publics and political elites toward rebel groups. First, women can substantially contribute to rebel groups' ability to resist governments and maintain their rebellion through unique gendered ways. These include enabling greater tactical diversity, increased appeal to international audiences, and spearheading coup-proofing strategies against intra-organizational factions. Women's contributions to rebel groups are most salient during times of crises and in settings where gender stereotypes are stronger. Second, rebel groups with women participants …

Utopian Discourse In Contemporary Speculative Fiction, Casey Alan Jergenson

Dissertations

I argue in this dissertation that utopianism is a vibrant form of cultural production in the post-Cold War period, despite the paucity of recent texts depicting €œgood€ societies. Most literary historical accounts of the genre place the decline of the utopian narrative in the early twentieth century, with a brief resurgence in the 1960s and 1970s. Contemporary culture has since become inundated with dystopian and post-apocalyptic visions of the future. If we take this generic distribution at face-value, it seems symptomatic of the utopian idea's retreat from cultural production since the 1980s. Influential critics have resisted this narrative by demonstrating …

A Study Of Nones In Brazil And The Usa In Light Of Secularization Theory With Missiological Implications, Jolive R. Chavez

Dissertations

The growth of those who declare themselves to be Nones, or religiously unaffiliated, in Brazil and the USA has been continuously higher than that of the general population. In Brazil, they are the third-largest group in the religious field, behind only Catholics, and Pentecostal evangelicals. In the USA, they are the second largest group, after Protestants as a whole. The Nones, in their diverse groups, are more represented among the youth in both cultures, and reflect the modern and postmodern influences of contemporary secularism, being a product of the process of changing human thought.

This work studies the Nones, in …

Social Media, Journalism And Crisis: Twitter Representation Of #Syrianrefugees In Western News Media, Ahmad Khaled Alshallal

Dissertations

Generally, there have been conflicts in the world regarding media coverage especially on #SyrianRefugees in Western media. It is undebatable that the Western states have political stability and peace; thus, they remain better hosts for asylum seekers and other refugees who come in search of greener pastures. However, current trends have hindered such countries from being ideal hubs because citizens have basic fears including those related to national security. Refugee situations have attracted lots of controversies over the years to the point that the concern is evident in the media. This dissertation explores the crisis of Syrian refugees and the …

Winning Public Hearts And Minds: Security And Development Aid In The 21st Century, Mohammad Ashraf

Dissertations

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, foreign aid has focused on winning public hearts and minds in the aid recipient states as a hedge against insecurity and means to achieve progress in the “war on terror.” Western donors, especially the United States, argue foreign aid is an effective tool to expand government capacity and control over territory, win public hearts and minds, and ultimately mitigate the need and significant military costs of deployment to counter insecurity, extremism, and terrorism in weak, fragile and failing states.

This dissertation uses case studies to explore the …

Removing Embedded Corruption: Development Mechanisms And Case Studies In East Africa For Ending Graft, Keith Newcomer

Dissertations

Removing embedded corruption depends on 12 state characteristics and mechanisms that reduce patronage network influence and protection. This reduction cannot happen swiftly and requires staged and strategic planning to prevent state collapse, and generally prioritizes petty corruption shifts before grand corruption. Two foundational characteristics are necessary for nations to enact serious reforms: the existence of a core anti-corruption ideology group that controls the government, and political will to enforce said ideology at the state level. Without these two, anti-corruption efforts are half-hearted and ineffective and leads to state perpetuation of graft. This core group and leadership is responsible to enact …

Developing Moral Education To Combat Human Trafficking, Shima Rostami

Dissertations

Leaders are challenged daily to improve their organization's products and outcomes. “When the character of leaders is low, so are their standards” (Maxwell, 2010, p. 41), and accordingly the products and programs. No field or profession was exempt from this challenge at the leadership level. On this note, human trafficking as a humanitarian crisis was of particular interest for activists, but one that may still suffer from this same weakness at the leadership level. Consequently, having a concern for how to improve the character and standards of the leaders in the anti-human trafficking movement, the Investigator of this study questioned …

The Relationship Of Self-Directed Learning Readiness And Completion Of Officers In The Army War College Distance Education Program, Kevin Mangan

Dissertations

Today, more adults are participating in online education than ever before. The latest data from the Department of Educational Statistics show an increase of students taking all coursework online grew to 15.4% (Ginder, Kelly-Reid, & Mann, 2018). Despite this trend, some adults lack the readiness to engage in formal adult education. Readiness and other factors such as time and personal matters adults encounter are some of the most significant challenges for institutions in addressing attrition rates, which average 38% (USDE, 2011). The Army higher education programs experience the same problem in their educational institutions (U.S. Army War College Data, 2016). …

Shipboard Nursing On Aircraft Carriers: The Lived Experience Of Twelve Navy Nurses, Catherine Wilson Cox

Dissertations

The purpose of this study, was to describe the lived experience of shipboard nursing on aircraft carriers. As of Spring 2001, the Navy had twelve aircraft carriers in operation. Each carrier's medical department includes just one Navy nurse assigned to directly care for over 5,500 personnel. Currently, there is no research that describes what it is like to be the only nurse available to a patient population in the thousands. Using the principles of phenomenology, twelve Navy nurses previously stationed aboard aircraft carriers were interviewed to explore their experience as ships' nurses.

A Phenomenological Exploration Of Moral Injury Among Female Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans, Tricia Mercaldi Steeves

Dissertations

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological qualitative study was to investigate the construct of moral injury among a female Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veteran sample. Moral injury has been defined as the “lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, behavioral, and social impact of perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply-held moral beliefs and expectations” (Litz et al., 2009, p. 697). Moral injury also includes experiences of feeling betrayed by others (e.g., leaders and/or peers) while serving in high-stakes situations such as theater (Drescher et al., 2011; Litz, Leslie, Gray, & Nash, 2015; Shay, 1994). A …

From The Boots On The Ground: A Comparison Of The Attitudes And Beliefs Of Military Members And Mental Health Professionals Regarding The Moral Injury Construct, Karis L. Callaway

Dissertations

An increasing amount of research conducted in recent years indicates that, in addition to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, moral injury is a key concept to recognize when considering the deployment experiences of service members. Although related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is a fear-based mental health diagnosis, moral injury is a distinct concept. It acknowledges the possible prolonged negative psychological, social, and spiritual consequences that may occur after experiences that challenge and transgress one’s deeply held moral beliefs. Events such as perpetration of harm, failing to protect or prevent harm, and witnessing or learning about distressing acts committed by influential others …