Digital Commons Network^™

Interpreting The Culture Of Ubuntu: The Contribution Of A Representative Indigenous African Ethics To Global Bioethics, Leonard T. Chuwa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ubuntu is a worldview and a way of life shared by most Africans south of Sahara. Basically Ubuntu underlines the often unrecognized role of relatedness and dependence of human individuality to other humans and the cosmos. The importance of relatedness to humanity is summarized by the two maxims of Ubuntu. The first is: a human being is human because of other human beings. The second maxim is an elaboration of the first. It goes; a human being is human because of the otherness of other human beings. John Mbiti combines those two maxims into, "I am because we are, and …

Age As A Factor In Inter-Tissue Spacing Of Stable Carbon Isotope Values In Juvenile Human Remains From The Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, Annie Laurie Norris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Although stable isotope analysis is routinely utilized in bioarchaeology and relies on principles that are well-understood, there are still fundamental issues that have not been thoroughly investigated. This thesis examines the relationship between inter-tissue spacing of carbon stable isotope values (δ13C) and age in juvenile human remains. Analyses of tissues within the same individual reveal disparate isotopic values for a variety of physiological and biological reasons discussed herein. This project examines the distance between the δ13C values in bone collagen, skin, hair, and nail, and examines how these distances vary between different age groups, utilizing data collected from 52 well-preserved …

Integrating Differential Global Positioning Systems And Geographic Information Systems For Analysis And Mapping Of Skeletal Dispersals, Brittany Walter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scene mapping is an integral part of processing a forensic scene with scattered human remains. By utilizing the appropriate mapping technique, investigators can accurately document the location of human remains and maintain a precise geospatial record of this evidence at a scene. Global positioning system (GPS) units have been used for years to survey the spatial distribution of large-scale archaeological sites. However, differential global positioning (DGPS) unit now provide decreased positional error suitable for small-scale surveys, such as forensic scenes. Because of the lack of knowledge concerning this utility in mapping a scene, controlled research is necessary to determine the …

Perceptions Influencing School Nurse Practices To Prevent Childhood Obesity, Susan Quelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Approximately one-third of children in the United States are overweight or obese with increased risks for numerous physical and psychosocial comorbidities. Schools are ideal environments to address this serious health crisis and school nurses are uniquely positioned qualified healthcare providers to actively participate in childhood obesity prevention (COP). A review of the literature provided findings to identify a gap in the knowledge regarding the association between school nurse COP perceptions and practices. A modified theoretical framework based on Bandura’s health promotion by social cognitive theory guided this study. The purpose of this study was to identify the key perceptions (self-efficacy, …

Maya Use And Prevalence Of The Atlatl: Projectile Point Classification Function Analysis From Chichen Itza, Tikal, And Caracol, Andrew J. Ciofalo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multiple scholars have briefly discussed the Maya use of the atlatl. Yet, there has never been a decisive encompassing discussion of prevalence and use of the atlatl in the Maya region with multiple lines of support from iconographic and artifactual analyses. This thesis explores the atlatl at Chichén Itzá, Tikal, and Caracol Maya sites to prove that atlatl prevalence can be interpreted primarily based on projectile point “classification function” analysis with support from iconographic and artifactual remains. The classification functions are derived from creating mutually exclusive groups of dart points and arrow points by using discrete functional analysis. Discerning between …

That's A Wrap! The Organizational Culture And Characteristics Of Successful Film Crews, Lisa C. Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to determine through survey research what characteristics film production crews possess that makes them so successful as an organization. The factors of age, gender, years of professional experience and education level were tested for their significance on how the respondents view their culture. Hofstede's six dimensions of organizational culture survey questions were rewritten to be applicable to the freelance film crew sample. The presentation of findings focuses on the resultant organizational profile of a film production crew, the workplace values of this group and the influence that the education level of the participants had on responses. The …

Forming A Puerto Rican Identity In Orlando: The Puerto Rican Migration To Central Florida, 1960 - 2000, Julio R. Firpo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area became the fastest growing Puerto Rican population since 1980.1 While the literature has grown regarding Orlando‘s Puerto Rican community, no works deeply analyze the push and pull factors that led to the mass migration of Puerto Ricans to Central Florida. In fact, it was the combination of deteriorating economies in both Puerto Rico and New York City (the two largest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in the United States) and the rise of employment opportunities and cheap cost of living in Central Florida that attract Puerto Ricans from the island the diaspora to the region. Furthermore, …

The Foods And Crops Of The Muisca: A Dietary Reconstruction Of The Intermediate Chiefdoms Of Bogota (Bacata) And Tunja (Hunza), Colombia, Jorge Luis Garcia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Muisca people of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia had an exceptionally complex diet, which is the result of specific subsistence strategies, environmental advantages, and social restrictions. The distinct varieties of microclimates, caused by the sharp elevations in this part of the Andes, allows for a great biodiversity of plants and animals that was accessible to the native population. The crops of domesticated and adopted plants of the Muisca include a wide variety of tubers, cereals, fruits, and leaves that are described in detail in this thesis. The Muisca used an agricultural method known as microverticality where the different thermic …

Stable Isotopes And Multiple Tissue Analysis: Reconstructing Life Histories For Individuals From Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, Noel Johns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotope analysis is often used to evaluate elements of the lives of past peoples, such as diet and health status, at a societal level. Analysis at an individual level is exceptionally rare, and has not been conducted using a variety of tissues representing both early life and life approximate to death. In this study, δ 13C and δ15N isotope signatures are used to create life histories for single individuals from Romano-Christian period Kellis 2 cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. Samples are obtained from several different tissues, including tooth dentin, bone collagen, hair, nail, skin, and gut content, all …

Ritual Use Of The Human Form: A Contextual Analysis Of The "Charlie Chaplin" Figure In The Maya Lowlands, Lisa M. Lomitola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small anthropomorphic figures, most often referred to as “Charlie Chaplins,” appear in ritual deposits throughout the ancient Maya sites of Belize during the late Preclassic and Early Classic Periods and later, throughout the Petén region of Guatemala. Often these figures appear within similar cache assemblages and are carved from “exotic” materials such as shell or jade. This thesis examines the contexts in which these figures appear and considers the wider implications for commonly held ritual practices throughout the Maya lowlands during the Classic Period and the similarities between “Charlie Chaplin” figures and anthropomorphic figures found in ritual contexts outside of …

Selective Multivariate Applications In Forensic Science, Caitlin Rinke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A 2009 report published by the National Research Council addressed the need for improvements in the field of forensic science. In the report emphasis was placed on the need for more rigorous scientific analysis within many forensic science disciplines and for established limitations and determination of error rates from statistical analysis. This research focused on multivariate statistical techniques for the analysis of spectral data obtained for multiple forensic applications which include samples from: automobile float glasses and paints, bones, metal transfers, ignitable liquids and fire debris, and organic compounds including explosives. The statistical techniques were used for two types of …

Florida's Cattle Culture: Ethos And Enterprise In The Sunshine State, Corinne E. Zellner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cattle ranching has been of major significance to Florida since the 16th century; however, few are aware of the historic, ecologic, economic and cultural influence of this industry. This study investigates the origins and impacts of the traditional customs and practices of Florida’s cattle ranchers, who preserve and reinvent this rich heritage today. Ranchers live closely with the land and their animals and, due to the often-uncertain and cyclical nature of the business, must possess resourcefulness and initiative to prosper. The image of the stoic cowboy has long been associated with the American West, yet before longhorn cattle ever crossed …

Vivacity: Discovering Zora Through Her Words, Kerri J. Alexander

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In its simplest form, storytelling is the passing of information from one person to the next. When storytelling illuminates time, place and purpose, it is then able to entertain, comfort and transport any listener. As the keeper of the imagination, the storyteller has inspired me as a performer. After reading Zora Neale Hurston‘s Every Tongue Got to Confess, I found my single-defining connection to the art of storytelling. Halimuhfack ultimately became my thesis performance piece inspired by the folk tales from Every Tongue Got To Confess. The new theatre piece shares Hurston‘s folk tale the way it may have once …

A Content Analysis Of Reliability In Advertising Content Analysis Studies., Weize Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Content analysis is a systematic research method for examining symbolical content in communication by recording or transcribing these messages into categories. Reliability is one of the most distinctive attributes of content analysis methodology comparing to other techniques in communication. A content analysis was conducted by analyzing the method sections of published journal articles in Communication Abstracts from January 2006 through January 2011 by searching "advertising" and "content analysis". Results suggested that television is still the most focused medium in advertising content analysis research. Most of the content analysis studies employed 2 coders for coding reliability assessment data and final data. …

The Digital Folklore Project: Tracking The Oral Tradition On The World Wide Web., Jasen Bacon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I collected forty-two e-mail forwards over the course of four months, and from those I formulated a framework that adapts existing theory in collection and study of real-world folklore to the emerging folk communities that exist on the internet. Through this analysis I prove that the same genres of folklore that is routinely collected by folklorists have been adapted to fit the digital environment of the internet. I then use the framework that I lay out to perform a study of the e-mails themselves.

Working Class In British Films 1950s-2000s : Identity, Culture, And Ideology., Tongyun Shi 1961-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Britain was the first country to industrialize with the Industrial Revolution and therefore had the world's first industrial working class. In the 20th century, the traditional British working class went through many social and political changes, represented especially by the post-war "rise" and a lasting "decline" since the 1970s, a fate which is worth academic study. Class matters not only in sociological sense, but also in cultural sense. This dissertation, through close text analysis of seven British social realist films--two New Wave ones, Room at the Top (Jack Clayton, 1959) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960); three …

Sequence Detection And Comparative Analysis Of The Hv1 And Hv2 Control Regions Of Human Mitochondrial Dna By Denaturing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography, Sarah E. Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was the evaluation and forensic validation of Denaturing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (DHPLC) as a sequencingindependent means of detecting the presence of sequence differences in pair-wise mixtures of non-concordant amplicons of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). The reproducibility and efficacy of DHPLC results, including amplification reproducibility, injection reproducibility, and column-to-column reproducibility were measured, showing negligible assay-to-assay variability. In addition, cross-contamination on the DHPLC columns demonstrated very low level DNA carryover between a high-abundance sample and subsequent zero-volume injections.

The accuracy with which DHPLC technology can be used to screen both evidence and control samples in the context …

Santo Toribio: The Rise Of A Saint, Thomas G. Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Santo Toribio (1900-28) was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2000 as a martyr of Mexico's bloody Cristero Rebellion. He enjoyed a modest local following for decades after the Rebellion as many of the other Cristero martyr-saints did. However, around the time of his canonization, a new identity began to emerge different from that of martyr; he became the patron saint of immigration. For believers, Santo Toribio helps mitigate the criminal nature of this act by showing God's approval and blessing. He places the pain and social distortion of Border crossing in Roman Catholic contexts of holiness and divine …

Multinational Teams: The Relationship Between Work Values And Productivity And The Moderating Effect Of Degree Of Operational Integration, Kelly C. Kinnebrew

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study gathered data from 147 employees in two U.S. headquartered multinational manufacturing companies. Participants responded to questions about their work-related values, perceptions of the productivity of their work teams, and the degree of operational integration between firms‟ foreign affiliate offices and their U.S. based headquarters. Additionally, analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between team productivity and psychic distance, which is a measure of country-level cultural differences. Work values were assessed using The Values Scale (Neville & Super, 1989), perceptions of team productivity were assessed used an instrument by Kirkman and Rosen (1999), degree of operational integration was …

Re-Visioning The Semantic And Semiotic Registers In The Study Of Culture And Religion, Gary S. Bedford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term `God' may be understood as the desire for the complete epistemological condition of thought; language expresses this condition in statements of `meaning.' `Religion' expresses this desire in texts and ritual practice which may be examined by in academic study; however, because the `third term' of religio is understood as the condition of being `bounded to or by,' the study of religion is itself bounded to or by this desire for the completion of thought. This desire cannot be understood as an `alterity' of thought but is rather the internal native or `alter-native' condition of thought itself. …

To Get The Shot Or Not: Narratives, Rhetoric, And The Childhood Vaccination Crisis, Katherine M. Hurley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Parents in developed countries like the United States are questioning the need for and safety of childhood vaccinations. Incidences of disease have risen as fewer parents have vaccinated their children. Perhaps the most significant public figure to reinforce the choices of parents not-to-vaccinate is Jenny McCarthy, whose best-selling book details her theory about the cause of, and cure for, her son‘s autism. As I demonstrate, the study of the narratives is vital for understanding the vaccination crisis, not the least because of the extent to which McCarthy‘s (2007) story has echoed through parenting communities. I examine whether chosen anti- and …

Retrograde Movements And The Educational Encounter : Working-Class Adults In First-Year Composition., James Eric Romesburg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role first-year composition (FYC) courses play in the academic lives of working-class adult students in the University of Louisville, an institution that, during portions of its long history, has been a valuable educational resource for working adults in the Louisville area. A confluence of political and administrative pressures from both within and outside the institution have been working to shift U of L's focus away from being an access-oriented metropolitan university and toward the standard research university model, which has meant raising minimum standardized test scores, increasing tuition on an annual basis, and reducing the number …

Culture And The Classroom: Teachers' Perspectives Of Ethnic And Racial Culture In The Middle School Classroom, Rachel E. Heide

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public education has experienced an unprecedented growth of diversity within the student population and accompanying that growth are inequities that are present in our schools and communities. Many school teachers and administrators have a limited awareness of how their own class, gender, and race impact their work, and often, do not see how their views about others' class, gender, and race help to reproduce the social hierarchy. These limited or uneducated views may also contribute to the achievement gap that exists between students belonging to the minority and non-minority groups.

It is important to study these views and ask whether …

Texting Versus Talking: Age Sex And Extroversion As Predictors Of Frequency And Preference Among An Undergraduate Cohort., Chris J. Labowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines text messaging behavior of ETSU undergraduates. Data come from a survey of 485 students enrolled during the 2010 fall semester. The current study explores the effects of sex, age, and extroversion on (1) the volume of texts a person sends and (2) preferences for texting or calling. The study also explores the use of cell phones as a means of avoiding others during co-present interaction. Findings reveal that age is the strongest predictor of text messaging, with younger respondents being more likely to text. The study also finds that women prefer texting, while men prefer voice calls. …

Teacher Self-Efficacy And Student Achievement As Measured By North Carolina Reading And Math End-Of-Grade Tests., Wayne M. Eberle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers continue to experience an increased sense of responsibility as it relates to job performance while still being required to produce at the same level with relation to student performance. This can cause an increase in personal stress and result in lowered feelings of self- worth, having a negative impact on service delivery to children and overall job performance.

Bandura (1997) defined self-efficacy as a judgment of one's ability to organize and execute given types of performances. Furthermore, he suggests that the outcomes people anticipate depend largely upon their judgments of how well they will be able to perform in …

The Nationalism Of Joachim Meyer: An Analysis Of German Pride In His Fighting Manual Of 1570., William Charles Adamson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses the nationalistic elements in the 1570 work Kunst des Fechtens by Joachim Meyer of Strassburg. Meyer's teachings on the longsword are attached to the Swabian Johannes Liechtenauer and then transferred to the Italian rapier thus establishing Meyer as less concerned with nationalist purity as others of his century. His teachings are examined for their pleadings for moral conduct and the preservation of martial studies to the youth of Germany and the young Duke of Bavaria, Johann Casimir. Using modern examples alongside Meyer's writings the case is also made for the integration of nationalist sentiments, moral and ethical …

Communicative Language Teaching In Current Chinese Colleges And Universities., Xiaorong Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been prioritized as the key instructional approach in colleges since the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a revised syllabus in 1999 that underlines college EFL students' communicative competence. The issuance of the syllabus was followed by a series of reforms on curricular designs and teaching methods. However, CLT has encountered great resistance. College teachers and learners are constrained by socio-cultural influences such as the perceptions of teachers' roles and ways of learning and teaching (Hu, 2002; Rao, 1996). Although some teachers have shown positive attitudes towards CLT, in general they have failed to practice it …

Medieval Churches On The Spanish Frontier : How Elite Emulation In Architecture Contributed To The Transformation Of A Territorial Expansion Into Reconquista., Kelly L. Watt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the architectural evidence in the ongoing debate surrounding the demographical and political value of the shifting Iberian frontier of the tenth through twelfth centuries. In particular, it seeks to problematize the current generalization of rural stone churches in the central Duero River basin as “repopulation” churches. Using postcolonial theory and comparative analysis, this project argues that the construction of stone churches on sacred sites at the frontier was a useful strategy employed by those seeking to establish authority over existing indigenous and heterogeneous populations. Convincing arguments were needed to not only justify the usurpation of power but …

Knowledge-Sharing Networks Of Hospital-Based Infection Preventionists In Kentucky., Timothy Lee Wiemken 1979-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Infection preventionists (IPs) have a multitude of tasks aimed at the prevention and control of infections in the healthcare setting. These tasks require a great deal of knowledge that has been more challenging to gain over the past decade due to the rapidly changing healthcare environment, the IPs' increasing numbers of duties, limited staffing, and a number of other issues. Because of these challenges, other mechanisms of rapid and efficient knowledge acquisition are needed for optimal job performance. One possible mechanism is knowledge sharing through social or professional networks. Objective: To examine the knowledge-sharing network structure of hospital-based IPs …

They Are In Silence : Refugee Women's Narratives., Erin Elizabeth Herbert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work explores the personal narratives of a group refugee women recently resettled in Louisville, Kentucky, participating in the Family Center program at Kentucky Refugee Ministries. This research shows that both local and national refugee resettlement policies are complicit in the marginalization of refugee women. These policies falsely construct refugee women as a universalized "other," silencing the diverse experiences and needs of women resettled in the United States. In turn scholarship and an aid discourse that positions refugee women's employment as "supplementary" to male income is based on assumed social constructions of gender inconsistent with many refugee women's experiences both …