Digital Commons Network^™

Social Aspects Of Food-Sensitive Adults, Jean Elizabeth Duane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People living with food-related illnesses find themselves subjugated by commonly held ideologies causing awkwardness in social situations. The current study is a qualitative analysis addressing how people with celiac disease (CD) navigate social situations in light of dominant beliefs that influence behaviors. Initially, I identify macro-level patriarchal, religious, sexist, ableist and etiquette-related commensality ideologies that disadvantage those with CD. Drawing from the communication narrative sense making (CNSM) theory that supports storytelling and memorable messages as a sense-making tool for individuals diagnosed with chronic illness and their family members, this work highlights retrospective stories and memorable messages from 20 randomly selected …

"En El Poder Del Espíritu": A Qualitative Research Study On Social Ethics/Theology Among U.S. Latina/O Pentecostals, Néstor A. Gómez Morales

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Are most US Latina/o pentecostals concerned about sharing the gospel without having any interest in the reality of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization? Are they just dancing and singing in their temples, having ecstasies and emotional experiences while ignoring the poor and their social struggle? Many scholars see US Latina/o pentecostalism as a tradition with an anemic social ethic, one that lacks any significant interest in the needs of the poorest in society. However, new research on progressive pentecostals shows a different panorama. The theological perspectives and social ethics of a vast sector of US Latina/o churches have changed considerably since …

Exploring Early Temperament Predictors Of Maladaptive Behavior In A Group Of Elementary School Age Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Caren D. Rhodes-Doudna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study is an ex post facto nonexperimental design analyzing archival data collected from previous trials of a large-scale longitudinal study conducted by researchers at JFK Partners, Center of Excellence in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in collaboration with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School (Principal Investigator: Susan Hepburn, Ph.D.). Specifically, the study looked at the temperament characteristics of mood, intensity, adaptability, and approach measured within early childhood and how they relate to later maladaptive behavior within a group of elementary age children diagnosed with ASD. Maladaptive behavior is a particularly salient outcome, as it impacts the child and …

"We Were Queens": Historical Loss Among Native Hawaiians: Exploring Historical Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention, Antonia Rose Garriga Alvarez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Native Hawaiian people, and especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, māhū and/or queer (LGBTQM) Native Hawaiians, face health and mental health disparities that are disproportionate when compared with other racial/ethnic minorities in Hawai`i, and when compared to the United States as a whole. Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rates for numerous biomedical diseases, including higher rates of substance abuse, diabetes, and even asthma, of any ethnic group in the state of Hawai`i (Andrade et al., 2006; Liu & Alameda, 2011). Suicide rates, in particular, have been rising since Hawai`i began collecting data in 1908 (Else & Andrade, 2008), and continue …

Development And Validation Of The Family-School Partnering And Collaboration Scale, Carly Anne Sorenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are many positive effects that family, school, and community partnerships (FSP) have on student achievement, behavior, and social-emotional development (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003; Epstein, 1994, 2011; Graham, 2011; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Jeynes, 2005, 2007; Ulugag, 2008). Due to the many benefits FSP have on student educational outcomes, current education reform efforts and legislation have mandated the implementation of FSP practices in schools. Additionally, legislation has called for increased accountability efforts to ensure that educators have appropriate levels of FSP skills and competencies (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education, 2016). As such, …

Development And Characterization Of An Inexpensive Single-Particle Fluorescence Spectrometer For Detection And Classification Of Pollen And Other Bioaerosols, Benjamin E. Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Atmospheric aerosols are ubiquitous throughout the Earth’s atmosphere and can be important with respect to environmental systems and human health. Pollen particles are a class of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs) that cost the United States billions of dollars a year in loss of productivity and healthcare costs due to allergy and respiratory effects. Traditional methods of pollen detection rely on collection and subsequent identification by visual microscopy, yet few measurement stations exist in the United States. As such, current pollen forecasting models have relatively high prediction uncertainty, especially in regions without sampling stations. Recently, laser-induced fluorescence instrumentation has been …

"Somewhere I'M Allowed To Exist As Myself": A Grounded Theory Exploration Of Queer And Trans Young Adults Navigating Family Rejection And Housing Instability, Jonah P. Dechants

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Queer and transgender young people are overrepresented among youth and young adults experiencing homelessness and housing instability. Families' rejection of their youth's queer and transgender identities is one of the causes of this overrepresentation, as families force young people out of the home or create a home environment that is so hostile that youth chose to leave. While the relationship between family rejection and queer and trans youth homelessness is well-documented quantitatively, there is not a scholarly consensus on what family rejection looks like, how queer and trans youth experiences that rejection, and how they make decisions about where to …

Critical Consciousness Of Educators: The Development And Psychometric Validation Of A Measure Using Structural Equation Modeling, Melissa Peterson Schneider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines a measure of critical consciousness (CC) of educators created by the author, based on the concept of CC as seminally developed by Paulo Freire. A three-factor conceptual model and measurement scale are developed and validated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Findings and limitations are discussed, as well as implications for the fields of CC measurement and development in educators.

Alliances And Accomplices Rise: A Critical Look At A Partnership With A School Serving An Indigenous Community, Alicia Brianna Saxe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional research in the social sciences roots itself in the colonial surmise behind the supremacist ideologies of Western and White knowledge, ways of living, people, and institutions. The well-established hegemony of the Western positivist research paradigm encourages a paternalistic and asymmetrical researcher-researched relationship, which reserves “legitimate” knowledge creation for an elite few. In this way, research traditions have largely functioned to uphold the status quo, especially when conducted with Indigenous peoples. Community-based research challenges the positivist empire by emphasizing community knowledge in researcher-community collaborations for the sake of taking action on community-identified issues. Mutually-beneficial researcher-community partnerships are especially relevant to …

Proactive Monitoring, Anomaly Detection, And Forecasting Of Solar Photovoltaic Systems Using Artificial Neural Networks, Ahmad Almadhor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The world of energy sustainability landscape is witnessing high proliferation of smartgrids and microgrids, it has become significant to use intelligent tools to design, operate and maintain such crucial systems in our lives. Solar energy is an intermittent source and purely Photovoltaic (PV) based, or PV and storage based smartgrids require characterization and modelling of PV resources for an effective planning and effective operations. This dissertation familiarizes briefly the existing tools for design, monitoring, forecasting and operation of a solar system in smart electric grids infrastructure and proposes a unique application-based infrastructure to monitor, operate, forecast and troubleshoot a working …

Critiquing Atomistic Individualism In Law: Rosenzweig's Beloved Soul As Open And Relational Subject, Lilith Zoe Cole

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Positioned as a critique of rights-based justice, this project critically rethinks the American system of law by rooting its failures in its philosophical anthropology of atomistic individualism grounded in Locke, and recommends replacing that anthropology with an anthropology inspired by Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. In particular, the project explores how Rosenzweig's "beloved soul" invites us to understand human individuality as open and relational, which might help pivot the law away from its current myopic focus on rights-based justice and the often unjust zero-sum modality that rights-based justice produces. Rooting law in open and relational individuality rather than Lockean …

Exploring The Role Of Relapse For Women In Recovery From An Eating Disorder, Britney Tibbits

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Eating disorders are serious mental health problems with high relapse rates (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011; Herzog et al., 1999). Research has demonstrated that eating disorder populations show interpersonal deficits at baseline compared to comparison groups (Arcelus, Haslam, Farrow, & Meyer, 2013; Grissett & Norvell, 1992; Ivanova et al. 2015; Tiller at al., 1997), specifically in assertiveness (Behar, Manzo, & Casanova, 2006; Constantino & Smith-Hansen, 2008; Duchesne et al., 2012; Hartman et al., 2010). The goal of this research was to explore the variables related to relapse and make the social and interpersonal growth that occurs in recovery visible …

A Dyadic Perspective On Young Adult Dating Aggression, Ann Lantagne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the dynamic developmental systems theory (Capaldi, Knoble, Shortt, & Kim, 2012), the present studies examined individual and relationship level risk factors for dating aggression. A series of Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIM; Kenny, 1996; Kenny & Cook, 1999) were used to assess associations between males' and females' risk factors and dating aggression within 137 young adult couples. Findings indicated that both partners' reports of a number of relationship characteristics were associated with aggression, including negative interactions, satisfaction, jealousy, and anxious and avoidant relational styles. Moreover, there were actor partner interactions between male and female jealousy, anxious styles, and …

Self-Compassion Versus Self-Esteem For An Experience Of Ostracism, Russell S. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-compassion refers to an adaptive way of responding to the self when in distress and consists of three main components: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Self-compassion offers a promising alternative to the construct of self-esteem for predicting and influencing responses to ostracism, a specific type of social exclusion in which an individual is ignored for unknown reasons. The present study examined the differential associations of trait self-compassion and trait self-esteem with attribution, emotion regulation, shame, and prosocial responses following an experience of ostracism using the Cyberball ostracism paradigm. Undergraduate participants (n = 219) completed trait self-esteem and trait self-compassion …

How Informational Imperfections Lead To Sub-Optimal Solutions In Health Savings Plan And Potential Remedies In A Competitive Marketplace, Jacob Gene Dengg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the growing trend of consumer-driven health insurance, more consumers than ever have access to a high-deductible health plan paired with a health savings account, where consumers can save pre-tax income for healthcare but also face higher out-of-pocket prices, in hopes that consumers will become smarter shoppers. The Health Savings Plan is successful at lowering costs, but at the expense of consumers lowering their adherence to healthcare, raising health risk. Even in a competitive market, HSP plan designs require smart shoppers and more active healthcare self-management, but without dealing with the informational imperfections that need to be overcome to encourage …

Transgender Experience Depicted Through Memes: An Ethnographic Investigation Of Minority Stress And Resilience, Ashley Lorraine Blewitt-Golsch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work identifies transgender oriented image memes as a dataset that reflects transgender lived experience, minority stress, and resilience. In this analysis of transgender memes, four themes were identified: Community, Bodies, Transgender Experience, and The Broken System of Gender. Memes about bodies dealt not only with medical transition, but discussed the distinction between euphoria and dysphoria, as well as cisgender expectations of transgender bodies and bodily narratives. Memes about community included depictions and acts of validation, discussions of reclamations of power, and the queering of media to form senses of community representation. Transgender experience memes discussed the ways being transgender …

The Intersection Of Mindfulness, Teacher Efficacy And School Climate: A Pilot Study, Sarah K. Killion

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Burnout, teaching self-efficacy, and school climate are hot topics in education. Daily stressors create feelings known as burnout, including emotional exhaustion, detachment from teammates, and a decline in feelings of professional competence. The alarmingly high rate of educator turnover illustrates a critical juncture in education. Therefore, interventions are required to improve a teachers' ability to manage student behaviors, provide quality instruction, maintain student engagement, and sustain an atmosphere of collegiality with teammates and administrators.

Mindfulness is a concept that is best understood as moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness cultivated through the practice of meditation and calming activities. These interventions are being utilized …

Telling Our Stories: Exploring The Path Toward Successful Mathematics Degree Attainment At An Under-Resourced Predominantly Black Institution, Lauren E. Mckittrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The under-representation of Blacks in mathematics related professions stems from an American educational system of inequity. Many Black students, including a substantial proportion of those who enroll at Predominantly Black Institutions, attend elementary and secondary schools in under-resourced districts with limited access to quality teachers and rigorous, culturally-relevant instruction that would adequately prepare them for college attainment in mathematics.

The primary research question guiding this study was: What are the challenges and opportunities associated with building and sustaining a successful mathematics degree program at an under-resourced Predominantly Black Institution? Concurrently, this interpretive case study examined and documented the experiences of …

Storytelling And Self In Public Broadcast: A Visual Ethnography Of Rocky Mountain Pbs, Emily Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embodied storytelling in Denver's public broadcast media establishes how the intersectional identities of storytellers influence narrative practices in Denver's public sphere. Five approaches to communicating identity informed my theoretical background: embodiment, visual anthropology, the public sphere, practice theory, and phenomenology. Rocky Mountain PBS, a 60-year-old broadcast institution, served as my research site during the summer of 2018. In my thesis, I overviewed the history of RMPBS and observations of production activities performed by the creators of the show Colorado Memories. Using a phenomenological methodology, the research design and data collection included filmed participant observations, semi-structured interviews guided by a …

The Role Of Psychological Flexibility In Graduate Student Stress And Well-Being, Aaron Hudyma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the prevalence of mental health concerns among graduate students (Evans, Bira, Gastelum, Weiss, & Vanderford, 2018), research on graduate student mental health lags behind that of undergraduates (Hyun, Quinn, Madon, & Lustig, 2006). This study utilized Lent's (2004) social-cognitive model of well-being to examine factors thought to contribute to graduate student well-being in a sample (N = 301) of graduate students in the United States. In particular, the role of the construct of psychological flexibility was examined for its influence on other factors in the model. Results indicated that the model demonstrated a good fit to the data …

The Role Of The State In International Trade Theory And Policy: Historical Evidence From South Korea And Brazil, Sumaiya Nehla Saif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the early 1980s, the economic performance of individual countries has been increasingly dependent on global dynamics. Neoliberal policies, including free trade, have been fostered by the global community for both mature and developing economies, led by the view that free markets constitute the driving force of economic growth and development. Accordingly, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) - in addition to the developments within mainstream economic theory - have contributed to portray the state as the carrier of inefficiencies and market distortions, which prevent the unfolding of economic freedom and …

Locked Out And Locked Up: Assessing The Relationship Between Housing Instability And Recidivism For People With Criminal Drug Records Using A General Strain Theory Framework, Mark Paul Plassmeyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More than 32.5 million Americans have been arrested for drug offenses since 1996 contributing to the fact that currently nearly as many Americans have a criminal record as a college degree. After an arrest for a drug offense, often regardless of whether one is convicted, people are subject to civil penalties known as collateral sanctions. These sanctions include restrictions on access to subsidized housing, financial benefits, student loans, employment, and important aspects of civic life such as voting or holding office.

Due to recent recidivism rates - over 75% for people exiting prison with a drug record - researchers and …

Working Together To Achieve Safe And Timely Reunification: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Interprofessional Collaboration In The Child Welfare System, Jon D. Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Various professionals play a role in ensuring that foster children achieve safe and timely reunification, including child protective services caseworkers, guardians ad litem, mental health therapists and substance abuse counselors. Guided by ecological systems and relational coordination theories, this mixed methods dissertation explored how communication and joint decision-making between these professionals - two key components of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) - affects the safe and timely reunification of foster children

The quantitative phase involved analysis of administrative data collected from one urban county in a mountain region state. Logistic regressions were run to test if caseworker communication and joint decision-making with …

Anti-Fat Bias And Attentional Capture, Larissa Catherine Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Explicitly-rated anti-fat attitudes are correlated with weight-based discrimination, which is rampant in society today as many countries grapple with soaring rates of obesity. Early perceptual processes, such as conscious awareness and visual attention, may be biased based on the weight of the perceived or the perceiver, or any number of individual perceiver characteristics regarding weight-biased attitudes and experiences. The three experiments presented used continuous-flash suppression (CFS) to mask body stimuli, thereby hoping to gain insight into attentional capture of unseen images and its relation to anti-fat attitudes. The pattern of findings in the three experiments presented suggest that what makes …

Social Belonging And Built Space: Using Contact, Contention, And Common Conditions To Create Multicultural And Multifaith Shared-Space In A Repurposed Aurora, Colorado, Church, Kassandra Irene Soppas Neiss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Global patterns of human displacement and migration are diversifying the user base of urban churches. This change produces new settings of cross-cultural encounter and adaptation of social space. This study examines the transition of a Lutheran church into a multifaith and multicultural community center. In Aurora, Colorado, a majority-minority city, the facility offers vital support for immigrants, refugees, and low-income community members while maintaining links with [previous] congregants. Using ethnographic methods, I explore the cultural dimensions of repurposed space for a diverse constituency. Discussed herein are the ways in which the physical space is interpreted, how contention and divergent experiences …

Stigma In The Post Crisis Age: External Barriers To Accessing Hiv Treatment, Internalized Trauma, And Strategies Of Support In Orlando, Florida, Julian Cerrell Nilsson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2017, The CDC (center for disease control and prevention) released a memo confirming popular medical opinion that an HIV positive person with an undetectable viral load was unable to transmit the HIV virus. While treatment and prevention options are advancing, this advancement may not translate directly into reduced stigma, which is produced and reproduced by external barriers to accessing healthcare, and internalized by HIV positive people as emotional trauma. This research explores the relationship between the availability of contemporary resources for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, and the environment of stigma experienced by positive gay and bisexual men …

Protection Of High-Voltage Transformer Bushings And Other Brittle Structures Against Impact, Christine Nichole Henderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contributes unique approaches to improve the fundamental understanding of the impact behavior of porcelain high-voltage (HV) transformer bushings under high-velocity impact, with a focus on their protection with feasible methods which could be quickly applied in service to prevent vandalism and other undesirable impact situations. The bushings are brittle and pressurized; prone to explosive damage when hit by a high-velocity projectile. Damaged bushings can destroy transformers and entire substations in complex fashions. This can put the power grid at risk for cascading failures and electrical blackouts, affecting consumers. Therefore, suggesting practical approaches which could be used to protect …

Interrogating Racialized Scripts: Parents And Students Organized For Leading Educational Justice, Stefanie Iona Gurulé

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative critical case study portraiture examines several racialized scripts found in family engagement, educational leadership, and social justice literature regarding under-resourced parents and students of color as leaders for educational justice. These scripts, or dominant narratives, discuss racially-minoritized parents and students as deficient in character and culture. They also deem that educational leadership for social justice is too complex an issue for these parents and students to have any positive effect. Therefore they are viewed in the literature as being only passively active in their own education. Analyzing a successful and authentic parent and student activist organization that focused …

Psychotherapy Task-Based Assessment Of Therapists' Multicultural Orientation: A Measurement Development Study, Shaakira Haywood Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multicultural competencies (MCCs) have laid the foundation for therapists and researchers to strongly consider culture as an important factor in psychotherapy. More recently, Owen (2013) developed the multicultural orientation framework (MCO) to better explicate the MCCs for psychotherapy. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a Multicultural Orientation Performance Task (MCO-PT) and coding system with therapists-in-training. For the MCO performance task, participants responded to eight brief simulated therapy situations that centered on the intersection of various cultural identities. Responses were recorded and coded for multicultural orientation. Prior to administration, vignettes were vetted by experts in the field. Approximately 100 …

Disrupting Adultism: Practices That Enable Or Constrain Intergroup Contact Between Youth And Adults, Heather K. Kennedy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: The systematic subordination of young people who have little access to goods, resources, and power to make decisions is called adultism (Dejong & Love, 2015). Adultism has three components: attitudinal, institutional, and internalized. Attitudinal adultism, which is the focus of this dissertation, relates to adult's negative attitudes and beliefs regarding young people. Adultism intersects with other forms of oppression in after-school programs and likely impacts outcomes. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an orientation to knowledge production in which youth are positioned as experts in their own lives and work collectively with adults to identify an issue, collect data, …