Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of Instructional Competencies For Assessing And Managing Suicide Risk For Baccalaureate Nursing Education, Abigail Kotowski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Suicide is a major health problem and a leading cause of death throughout the world. Reforming health professional education has been identified as a primary goal for suicide prevention, and although nursing leadership is involved in this reform, nurses frequently lack the competence to care for patients in suicidal crisis. An identified gap in baccalaureate nursing education is instructional competencies for assessing and managing suicide risk. Instructional competencies are targeted components of knowledge, attitudes, and skills that nursing students need to know in order to assess and manage patients expressing suicidal ideation. This study aimed to develop a set of …

The Lived Experience Of Family Nurse Practitioners Performing Sexual Health Assessments, Madeleine Mary Lloyd

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sexuality incorporates a multitude of feelings including beliefs, fantasies, and aspects of pleasure, intimacy, and reproduction. In addition, sexuality involves rights to gender identity and role, sexual acts and orientation. Sexual and reproductive health and rights is a global health, development, and human rights priority. Universal access to sexual and reproductive health is essential. Negative sexual health outcomes are increasing in the United States and sexuality is often a neglected area for health providers including nurses. With an increasing share of the primary care services nationally, family nurse practitioners (FNPs) have the means to provide quality sexual health care across …

Three Faces Of Human Exceptionalism: Genius, Saint, Monster, Mary Clare Feldmann Mckinley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An exposition of the artistic genius invokes the perennial challenge to determine intersections between ethics (or morality) and aesthetics. As the human figure of the aesthetic realm, the genius meets its match in two counterparts of the ethical realm: the saint and the monster. Indeed, the genius shares traits with both figures, drawing closer to the saint in its communicative capacity while also revealing a prodigious nature more akin to the monster. This dissertation poses the following question: between the saint and the monster, does the genius resonate more with one than with the other? As one strategy to find …

Proust's Medusa: Ovid, Evolution, And Modernist Metamorphosis, Gregory John Mercurio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ovid's Metamorphoses has served as an indispensable text for Modernism, not least for such foundational Modernists as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis. This dissertation examines how these writers characteristically employ Ovidian metamorphoses with a specifically evolutionary inflection, particularly in a post- Darwinian world informed by varying -often authoritarian- notions of biological adaptation, as well as an increasing emphasis on Mendalian genetics as the determining factor in what would become known as the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary theory. Using the theoretical platforms of both Queer Theory and Object Ontology, this dissertation proposes that a more pluralized, less authoritative …

Affecting Neoliberal Public Health Care: Interdependent Relationality Between Disabled Care Recipients And Their Care Providers, Akemi Nishida

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I trace the neoliberal turn of a public health-care program, Medicaid, and its effects on those who are involved in it: disabled care recipients and their care providers. Also examined is the emergence of an affective relationality between these individuals through their daily practices of care. In 1993, Medicaid went through a neoliberal turn that accelerated its privatization. I investigate the ways in which this turn--in company with the neoliberal transition of other welfare programs and the rise of a transnational care industry--further deployed a gendered, raced, classed, and immigration-based division of care labor that commodified and …

Effects Of Job Type And Culture On Relationships Between Job Characteristics And Worker Outcomes: A Multilevel Analysis, Justina Oliveira

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a great deal of research regarding how job characteristics affect workers' perceptions, yet there are very few studies examining how job type (white-, pink-, or blue-collar) and culture impact these relationships. Through the use of data from over 11,000 employees in 24 countries, this project remedies the lack of multilevel study designs to determine how job type and culture each play independent roles in relationships between job characteristics (autonomy, task significance, and skill variety) and the worker outcomes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, and perceptions of the job as stressful and exhausting, as well as …

Age, Cognition, And Listening Effort, Sapna Mehta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Older adults are reported to have more difficulty understanding degraded speech than younger adults. This may be due to greater recruitment of cognitive resources in adverse listening conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between listening effort as measured by a dual task paradigm and cognitive abilities, specifically, working memory and selective attention, in normal-hearing older and younger adults in various background noise conditions. Results revealed that speech recognition scores were poorer for older adults, and speech recognition scores declined with decreasing signal-to-noise ratio. Stroop test scores suggested better selective attention ability in the younger participants, …

Hearing Conservation Attitudes And Behaviors At Orthodox Jewish Weddings, Audrey Margulies

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research has shown that prolonged exposure to noise can cause permanent hearing loss. Noise levels at Orthodox Jewish weddings can reach extremely high and damaging levels, yet the hearing conservation attitudes and behaviors of the attendees are unknown. The objective of this study is to identify the attitudes and behaviors of Orthodox Jewish wedding attendees toward hearing conservation. The major questions are: 1. What are the sound exposure levels at Orthodox Jewish weddings? 2. Do attendees hold positive attitudes toward the need for hearing conservation at Orthodox Jewish weddings? 3. What hearing conservation is being practiced at weddings among …

Cochlear Implantation As A Treatment Option For Adults With Post-Lingual Single Sided Deafness: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Elvera Bader

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Adults with post lingual single sided deafness experience a myriad of issues as a result of their condition. Speech perception in noise and localization are well documented as being compromised in this population due to the loss of binaural auditory input. Cochlear implantation was introduced in the 2000s as an experimental treatment option for suppression/abatement of tinnitus in individuals with SSD, with consistent demonstration in reduction of tinnitus severity. Most recently, the focus has shifted to the potential reintroduction of binaural effects, and subsequently, improvements in speech in noise and localization performance through this treatment modality. The present systematic review …

Mental Discipline And Musical Meaning, Alice Harriet Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Musical meaning, or what a musical experience communicates to a listener, is predicated on a shared habitus of listening between the musical creator (i.e., composer, performer, or improviser) and the listener. The meaning a listener takes away from a musical experience is partly dependent on the vessel transmitting it (i.e., who is performing, the quality of performance, or the visual aspects of performance), and a musical creator's actions are the result of his or her training, past experiences, enculturation, attentional focus, and bodily control in the heightened mental state in which creativity occurs. Even in traditions that consider the musician …

Psychosocial Sequelae Of Homicide Among Murder Victims' Family Members: An Appraisal Of Depression, Grief, And Posttraumatic Stress, Sarah Kopelovich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current investigation explored what is known regarding the psychological sequelae of the post-homicide experience for murder victims' family members and friends (MVFM). Participants were also asked about whether they felt they had attained closure, a term which populates anecdotal and theoretical accounts of MVFM's experience. Previous literature guided a theoretical definition of closure as a dimensional construct that represents adaptive functioning following a murder, and includes (1) absence of disabling symptomatology, (2) absence of ruminations about the event or murder victim, and (3) subjective return to baseline functioning. This quasi-experiment consisted of a between-subjects cross-sectional design. The dependent variable …

Attenuation Of Methamphetamine And Nmda-Induced Toxicity By Leptin In Murine Striatum, Nawshin Hoque Kutub

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methamphetamine (METH) is an addictive illicit psychostimulant that is neurotoxic and causes permanent brain injury. METH-induced neurological damage affects areas of the brain that mediates emotions, motivation, cognition and critical thinking. In the striatum METH neurotoxicity intertwines several factors such as dopamine (DA) overflow, glutamate signaling, and free radicals formation causing oxidative stress. In addition, excessive dopaminergic innervation leads to severe reduction in DA terminals, DA transporters (DAT), and vesicular monoamine transporters (VMAT)-2. METH use causes permanent damage which cannot be recovered even after three years of abstinence. Understanding the mechanism of METH-induced neurodegeneration will provide an avenue towards identifying …

"Young Men Of The Stones": Gendering The First Palestinian Intifada, Karen Lauria

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The First Palestinian Intifada (1987 - 1993) began on December 9, 1987 with riots protesting the killing of a young Palestinian man by the Israeli Defense Forces. The riots quickly grew into a much larger grassroots uprising -- Intifada -- against Israeli occupation. In the following weeks and months, the Occupied Territories were engulfed in waves of protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and other acts of civil disobedience, which continued until 1993. Although Intifada protestors represented a cross-section of Palestinian society, encompassing both old and young, male and female, a single, particular masculine trope soon came to dominate-that of young male activists …

The Effects Of Mood And Perceived Cost On Self-Disclosure Of Deviant Sexual Fantasies And Behavior, Jordan S. Maile

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study examined the effects of mood state (happy vs. neutral vs. sad) and perceptions of cost (anonymous vs. 'non-anonymous') on self-disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior (e.g. pedophilic, coercive). Research suggests that mood may affect decision making in 'risky' situations, such that a positive mood state may increase risky decision making. It could be argued that disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior can be conceptualized as a 'risky' situation; therefore, it is hypothesized that a positive mood state would increase disclosure of deviant sexual fantasies and behavior, but only when doing so is perceived to be …

Effectiveness Of Psychological Techniques In Increasing Deviant Sexual Fantasy Self-Disclosures, Christian Maile

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The assessment of deviant sexual fantasy and interests is an important component in sex offender risk assessment and subsequent treatment planning. However, clinicians and researchers have long acknowledged that sex offenders often distort or underreport details related to their sex offenses, particularly details relating to offense-related deviant sexual fantasy and interests. Some of the common methods used to minimize underreporting of deviant sexual fantasy and interests include the use of phallometry (or plethysmography) and polygraphy; however, not all assessment/treatment facilities or private practitioners providing services to sex offenders have access to such resources. Thus, the development of more efficient, cost-effective …

Middle School Girls In Postfeminist Times, Susan Mccullough

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation, based on an ethnographic case study conducted in the 2013-14 school year, examines early adolescent girls and their teachers and the way in which they experience gender and gender relations in the public middle school context in New York City. Current research into schools in the United States tends to focus on the experience of those students who are in crisis. For the most part, girls are not considered to be a demographic in crisis in public schools in the United States today. Because research on gender and schooling that highlights the success of girls is based on …

Development And Validation Of A Bangladeshi Pediatric Silhouette Scale (Bpss), Ana Mola

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is no culturally congruent children's silhouette scale to understand how Bangladeshi mothers perceive their children's body sizes and weight categories. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an ethnic congruent Bangladeshi Pediatric Silhouette Scale (BPSS) and a facial feature scale to assess the mothers' perceptions of their children's body sizes, weight categories and facial features. The study methodology was a quantitative, descriptive design with scale content validation. The sample was comprised of 29 Bangladeshis mothers ages 25-40 and their four-five year old children living in London, England and New York City. The Mola Facetool analyses revealed …

Women Of Faith: Adaptation Of African American Women Breast Cancer Survivors, Pearline Lincoln Okumakpeyi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the adaptation experience of African American women breast cancer survivors. The African American women's perception of the influence of faith on the breast cancer survivorship experience was explored.

This study utilized the directed qualitative content analysis method, which extracted themes and patterns that emerged in a narrative content. The 15 study participants were self-identified African American breast cancer survivors. The study was conducted using semi-structured interview questions that were derived from the modes of the Roy Adaptation Model (RAM). The discussion was framed within the context of the themes …

A Spelling Pronunciation Strategy Helps College Students Remember How To Spell Difficult Words, Turkan Ocal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drake and Ehri (1984) showed that children could utilize a spelling pronunciation strategy in order to remember spellings of words. One purpose of the current study was to determine whether college students could also benefit from a spelling pronunciation strategy in remembering spellings of 20 commonly misspelled words. The second aim of the study was to examine the contribution of decoding skill, exposure to print and vocabulary knowledge in explaining variance in general spelling ability of college students. Based on Share's (1995) self-teaching hypothesis, each of these predictors was expected to explain unique variance in the ability to remember the …

Playing Dead: Staging Corpses, Ghosts, And Statues In Early Modern Drama, Sarah Outterson-Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Semi-animate corpses, physically powerful ghosts, and natural looking statues serve a powerful metatheatrical purpose in early modern drama. Such liminal bodies, which I define as figures caught between the fictional body and the living actor, model the relation between playgoer, actor, and playwright as they work together to produce theatrical fictions. The dramatized impact of liminal bodies on their onstage spectators draws playgoers' attention to their own experience of the liminally present theatrical world. Such displays of the power and pleasure of artifice paradoxically free theater from the constraining obligation of so-called accurate representation and highlight the pleasure playgoers and …

The Medicalization Of Stress: Hans Selye And The Transformation Of The Postwar Medical Marketplace, Vanessa L. Burrows

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs historical methodology and public health theory to examine how critical changes in the culture and political economy of biomedical research shaped Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye's concept of biological stress, guiding him to develop a highly individualistic and commercially-appealing disease model that complimented major interests of the postwar medical marketplace: the state, the corporation and the consumer. In the mid-1930s Selye proposed that the human body adapted to a diverse range of stressors--including, extreme temperatures, intoxification, surgical trauma, physical exercise and complete immobilization--by releasing adrenocortical hormones to regulate bodily functions. For the next fifty years he devoted his …

"Managers" In The Classroom: The Impact Of Classroom Management Coursework In Teacher Education Programs, Jonathan Ryan Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the impact of integrating culturally relevant, anti-hegemonic, and pedagogically dynamic classroom management content and strategies into the curriculum of a secondary education pre-service methods course. To provide a context for the importance of this study, the dissertation begins by: 1) creating a new conceptual framework for understanding classroom management - the Dynamic Classroom Management Approach (DCMA); and 2) analyzing two data sets to establish the correlation between school climate and student achievement - data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002) and a New York City Department of Education data set created from publicly accessible data about parent, …

Undocumented Youth Living Between The Lines: Urban Governance, Social Policy, And The Boundaries Of Legality In New York City And Paris, Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation compares the transition to adulthood of undocumented youth in New York and Paris, along with analysis of the construction of illegality in each city. In both the United States and France, national restrictions against undocumented immigrants increasingly take the form of deportations and limiting access to social rights. New York City and Paris, however, mitigate the national restrictions in important but different ways. They construct "illegality" differently, leading to different young adult outcomes and lived experiences of "illegality." This project uses seven years of multi-site ethnographic data to trace the effects of these mitigated "illegalities" on two dozen …

Where's The Staying Power? Factors Influencing Dropping Out Among Black Students, Judy Touzin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Statistics show that the odds of transitioning from school before graduating are much higher for Black students than their white counterparts (NCES, 2011). In 2006, the national high school graduation rate for Black students was 51% with females at 58% and males at 44%. Such dismal figures speak to the need to study the various factors that influence the likelihood that Black students will drop out of school. This study considers several demographic, aspirational, and school culture variables and their value in predicting whether Black students will drop out.

The data used in this study are taken from the Educational …

"I Shall Not Fear:" Secure Attachment To G-D As A Buffer Against Anxiety, Peryl Agishtein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Religion has a long and mixed history in the field of psychology. Historically, some leading figures in the field viewed religion as a source of neuroses and poor mental health; others saw a more positive spiritual resource. Recently, empirical data on religion and mental health has proliferated. There is now consensus that religion is associated with lower depression. However, the link between religion and anxiety is less clear-cut. This paper proposes that a) religion can have exacerbating or alleviating effects on anxiety depending on which aspect of religion is being studied and b) the primary religious variable that affects anxiety …

Street Code Adherence, Callous-Unemotional Traits And The Capacity Of Violent Offending Versus Non-Offending Urban Youth To Mentalize About Disrespect Murder, Zoe A. Berko

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

National statistics are not available on the proportion of violent juvenile offenses driven by the experience of being disrespected. However, the New York Police Department estimates that about 40% of the city's shootings involve members of violent crews of 12 to 20 year olds with most of this gun violence driven by incidents of disrespect. Mentalization, defined as the ability to envision mental states (i.e., feelings, beliefs and intentions) in oneself and others, is viewed as underlying affect regulation, impulse control, self-monitoring, and the experience of self-agency, all of which are implicated in interpersonal violence (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, …

The Philosophical Side Of Contemporary Art Forms, Kristina Bodetti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this project is to show that contemporary art forms, specifically popular music, film and comics/graphic novels, are capable of, and do in many cases work as philosophical pieces. I believe that an analysis of these mediums will reveal instances in which the works of art explicate established philosophical theories, expand upon them, and in some cases invent new theories.

Each new medium of art gets examined by philosophy in its turn and its merits as a unique art form are debated. From these arguments it is possible to extrapolate the ways in which these works can become …

The Sadistic Reader: Gender And The Pleasures Of Violence In The Novel, Pamela Burger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project seeks to explain the prevalence of narratives that feature sexual violence against women in the tradition of the Anglophone novel. To this end, it posits the existence of a sadistic reading practice that coincides with readers' sympathetic identification. A sadistic reader takes pleasure in the bodily violation of the woman at the center of a novel; such a reader enters the text expecting violence, and experiences a sense of narrative gratification when the inevitable violation plays out. These expectations emerge from repeated interactions with a literary tradition in which victimized heroines are routine. To explore such sadism, I …

Use Of The Modified Emotional Stroop Task To Detect Suicide Risk In College Students, Yeunjoo Chung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is a challenge to detect those who are at potential risk for suicide because the base rate of suicidal behaviors in non-clinical samples is low. The aim of the present study was to investigate the concurrent and predictive validity of the emotional Stroop task (EST) as a behavioral marker for suicidal behaviors in a college population. Eight hundred and twenty students were asked to perform the EST and to respond to suicide-related self-report measures and were followed up with18 months later. The results indicated that participants with past suicide attempts had longer response latencies to the word "suicide" as …

The Contributions Of Earl "Bud" Powell To The Modern Jazz Style, David Joseph Demotta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an analytical study of pianist and composer Bud Powell's contributions to modern jazz (a.k.a. bebop or "bop"), focusing especially on the rhythmic and harmonic implications of Powell's improvisations. The analysis is informed by a series of interviews with professional jazz musicians and is supported by original notated transcriptions of Powell recordings. The aim of this project is to present a cogent technical and theoretical account of Powell's musical style that is grounded in the values of the contemporary jazz community and reflects that community's continued passion for and engagement with Powell.

Chapter One, "Contemporary Pianists and Bud Powell's …