Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Adequacy Of The Rate Based System Of Enteral Nutrition Infusion In The Icu Of A Community Hospital, Callie Betman

Master's Theses

The rate based system for delivering enteral nutrition has been found to result in an average delivery of 60-65% of estimated energy and protein needs in ICU patients. Interruptions in tube feedings for surgery, intolerances, and turning/bathing cause underfeeding as the rate based system does not allow the rate to be adjusted for any lost volume. At Northwest Hospital, protocol is to calculate the hourly tube feeding rate over 20 hours, and run over 24 hours, in order to adjust for an expected 4 hours of interruptions per day; however, the effectiveness of this protocol has not been studied. The …

Covering A Killer: A Content Analysis Of Newspaper Coverage Of White Male Mass Murderers In The U.S, Rhys Hall

Master's Theses

White men represent a disproportionate number of mass murderers via guns/bombings in the U.S. Though, there may be disparities in how often white masculinity is probed as a conflictual site of socialization when compared with other social racial and gender identities. Holding concern for how masculine violence is criminalized across racial lines, I conduct a review of racial typificiations of Black crime in newspapers to juxtapose with contemporary discourse of white masculine crime.

Using content analysis, I examine hundreds of newspaper publications released from 2011-2016 covering mass killers. I look for tendencies from paper writers to minimize sociological similarities between …

Ban The Box: Outcomes Of Mandatory Disclosure And Predictors Of Voluntary Disclosure Of Criminal History In Job Applications, Ginevra Marta Scherini

Master's Theses

The present study was conducted in order to examine the outcomes of mandatory disclosure of criminal history on the individual during the job application process and predictors of the likelihood of voluntary disclosure. It was hypothesized that having to disclose criminal history would predict higher levels of self-identification with criminal history, higher levels of experienced discrimination, higher levels of perceived stigma, lower levels of attraction towards the organization, lower confidence in obtaining employment, and lower levels of likelihood of voluntary disclosure. It was also hypothesized that environmental support, employment self-efficacy, self-identification with criminal history, and less experienced discrimination would predict …

An Examination Of The Demographic Antecedents And Job Outcomes Of Participation In Employee Resource Groups (Ergs), Emily Erin Lopez

Master's Theses

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are voluntary, employee-led groups formed in the workplace that focus on providing mutual support for members and that educate the organization about its members’ culture, identity, or experiences. The study’s purpose was to examine demographic antecedents and job outcomes associated with ERG participation. Specifically, this study examined gender identity and professional tenure as demographic antecedents of ERG participation and the relationship between ERG participation and employee outcomes, including job embeddedness and organizational commitment. Participants included 154 individuals employed at a technology company in the Northwestern United States who completed a survey regarding their personal characteristics and …

All Eyes On You: The Impact Of Increased Surveillance And Media Publicity On Police Identity, Sara Serpa Rodrigues

Master's Theses

The recent surge in media footage surrounding police killings of unarmed black men clearly signifies the national concern for police violence, yet researchers have yet to study police identity in connection with such publicized inequality. This qualitative study closes this gap in research by addressing the following questions: “How do patrolling officers think about and experience their jobs at this particular historical juncture of increased internet and media exposure?” and, “How does the mass exposure and scrutiny of police violence shape police perceptions of their work and impact their work identity?” Face to face semi-structured interviews, symbolic interactionism, and interpretive …

Personality, Motivation, And The War Between Facebook And Twitter, Elizabeth Shallal

Master's Theses

Social networking sites (SNSs) have recently become integrated in modern lives as entertainment, communication, and even careers have become more reliant on them. The current study explored the relationship between Facebook and Twitter attachment and demographic, motivation, and personality traits. Differing psychological relationships may explain why people become more attached to specific SNSs as well as explain their continuance of use. Using online self-report measures, this study measured motivations to use Facebook and Twitter, the Big Five personality traits, and Facebook/Twitter attachment of 109 participants who have been users of both Facebook and Twitter. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions showed …

The Effect Of Automating Routine Tasks On Air Traffic Controller Conflict Detection Performance, Lauren Claudatos

Master's Theses

The growing demand for air transportation necessitates the integration of automated support tools to assist air traffic controllers in managing the increase in number of flights. Using archival data from a human-in-the-loop simulation, the current study examined the potential consequence of integrating automated support on eight retired air traffic controllers’ performance and workload in current and projected future levels of air traffic. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA were used to examine workload and conflict detection performance across two levels of simulated air traffic density and two levels of automated routine task support. The participant controllers reported significantly higher workload and exhibited …

Associative Memory Performance Following Periods Of Wakeful Rest And Technological Distraction, Chalise Carlson

Master's Theses

We often spend breaks in our day by engaging with technological devices. However, literature across several species indicates that resting quietly without engaging in other activities, termed wakeful rest, can be beneficial to memory consolidation, a period following encoding which serves to stabilize memories. Prior research demonstrates that wakeful rest benefits memory for single items. However, the effects of wakeful rest on associative memory, (i.e. memory for associations between stimuli), remain unclear. To elucidate the effects of wakeful rest on associative memory, a study was designed to examine differences in associative memory performance following periods of wakeful rest and game …

Learning Chinese Characters And German Words Using Multimedia, Cheuk Yue Fung

Master's Theses

This study applies cognitive theory of multimedia learning and cognitive load theory to foreign language learning and examines in what conditions English-speakers benefit most from multimedia instruction. Sixty-four English-speaking college students learned either German words or Chinese characters. The reason for comparing these two languages is to assess the differences between low-knowledge and high-knowledge learners. We assume English-speakers have a better linguistic knowledge for learning German words than Chinese characters, because of the closer relationship between English and German languages than between English and Chinese languages. There were four cue conditions in which participants received either no cue, a verbal …

For The Bible Tells Me So, Jade Dozier

Master's Theses

The relationship between the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning) community and the church has been studied for critical reasons. The connection between the two has been uneasy because of the religious beliefs from religious groups and the many misunderstandings of what the LGBTQ community believes in. I have been able to understand the poor relationship between the Black church and homosexuality from the sources that are examined in my Literature Review. I evaluated the similarities and differences between queer men and women based on upbringing, denomination, and familial acceptance. As a LA native, I narrowed research on Black …

Autonomy In Video Games And Gamification, Jonathan Leventhal

Master's Theses

In the past decade, gamification (using game elements in non-gaming tasks to enhance motivation and engagement) has become a popular concept in many industries, but few studies have explored the principles under which it works. Self-determination theory suggests three psychological needs that gamification fulfills: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Autonomy, a person's perception that they have the ability to act however they choose, has emerged as an important, yet less-studied aspect in gamification. Inclusion of autonomy in gamification should foster engagement, enjoyment, and better performance. An experiment inspired by the above was carried out in which a sample of college students …

Job Level And Job Family As Predictors Of Preferences For The Physical Environment, Rachel Smith

Master's Theses

Previous research shows that the physical work environment is related to various work-related employee outcomes. However, researchers have not focused on employee preferences for the physical work environment, nor predictors of such preferences. The current study proposed that job level and job family might predict employee preferences for the layout and design of work environments. The study also examined gender and age as moderators of the relationship between job level and employee preferences, and the relationship between job family and employee preferences. The results of online surveys from 157 employees of a medical technology company showed that job level predicted …

Auditory Brainstem Response And Language In Typically Developing Children And Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Lisa Tecoulesco

Master's Theses

Syntactic, semantic, and phonological knowledge are vital aspects of macro level language ability. Prior research has focused on environmental or cortical sources of individual differences in these areas. Subcortical contributions of the auditory brainstem have also been found to contribute to language ability in both typically developing (TD) populations and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study investigates whether one aspect of auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), response stability, a metric of the variability of instance to instance neural encoding of sound, can predict syntactic, semantic, and phonological performance in TD and ASD school-aged children. This study further investigates the …

Environmental Factors That Affect Kenneled Shelter Dogs In Connecticut, Laura Burban

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Women With A Cause: Art, Representation, And Feminist Progress In Eighteenth-Century France, Darby Marie Leahy

Master's Theses

Throughout the eighteenth century the Age of Enlightenment transformed public discourse across Western Europe. In France, the salons of Paris became the primary institutions of Enlightenment thought. Hosted by women, the salons possessed a unique atmosphere in which men and women were regarded as intellectual equals. My thesis focuses on the role the female hostesses, salonnières, had in initiating French movements for gender equality that continued with great momentum throughout the French Revolution. By using popular artwork, literature, and memoirs I show how the efforts of French women to achieve gender equality helped give early rise to feminism.

Comparative Analysis Of Body Composition And Reference Values Of Visceral Adipose Tissues In Various American Collegiate Sports, Eshan M. Dandekar

Master's Theses

Background: Currently, body composition (BC) assessment is usually performed to diagnose disease states and accurately estimate certain types of tissues. In athletes, performing BC assessments helps gauge training and nutrition programs to see if they are adequately meeting the athlete’s needs to improve performance. Annual Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) scans before the start of an athlete’s season can help identify an athlete’s preparedness or health before training begins.

Objective: To assess the preseason BC of four collegiate sports: Men’s basketball, men’s baseball, women’s volleyball, and women’s soccer, for Fat Mass (FM), bone mineral density BMD), Fat-Free Mass …

Facilitating Effective Online Discourse: Investigating Factors Influencing Students’ Cognitive Presence In Online Learning, Xinran Zhu

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence in online learning within a Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). In addition, the study investigated the impact of individual’s motivational factors on the relationship among the presences. An online survey testing learner’s perceived social presence, teaching presence, cognitive presence, situational interest and online technology self-efficacy was distributed to students who were taking online courses. A follow-up interview process was conducted in order to further interpret the quantitative data. The findings show that within the CoI framework, social …

Substance Use, Hiv Serostatus Disclosure, And Sexual Risk Behavior In People Living With Hiv: An Event-Level Analysis, Matthew Sullivan

Master's Theses

Objective. Sexually active people living with HIV (PLWH) face difficult decisions about disclosing their HIV status to sexual partners. Alcohol and other drug use are prevalent in medically engaged PLWH, and could impact these decision-making processes. We sought to examine the event-level relationships between substance use, HIV disclosure, and condom use in PLWH.

Method. Adult PLWH were recruited from care settings in a southeastern US city. Participants reported psychosocial and health information at baseline, and reported their sexual behavior for 28 consecutive days via text message prompts. Multi-level modeling was employed to examine event-level associations between substance use, HIV disclosure, …

Can The Job Characteristics Model Be Used To Attract Applicants? A Policy Capture Model Of Symbolic Attraction, Alec J. Calvo

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Improving Diet & Physical Activity Behaviors Through Tailored Mhealth Messages: Application To Childhood Obesity Prevention In A Pediatric Emergency Department, Samantha Oldman

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Automation And Interpersonal Trust: The Sociotechnical Implications Of Unreliable Automation, Lauren Gannon

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Normative Civility Expectations For The Employee Experience: A Time-Lagged Analysis, Taylor Barr

Master's Theses

Previous research regarding the influence of normative workplace civility expectations on psychological health outcomes has often been cross-sectional and analyzed at only an individual-level. Furthermore, there is little knowledge of how these normative expectations may act to reduce the impact of experienced incivility. This study extends the research by conducting a daily diary study that examines longitudinal psychological health outcomes of experienced incivility using a multi-level framework. The additional focus of the study involves identifying the separate influence of supervisor civility expectations vs. workgroup civility expectations, which we test as both direct-effect predictors of daily experienced incivility. We also test …

Evaluating The Efforts Of An Early Head Start Program To Foster Social And Emotional Child And Family Development, Molly Harmon

Master's Theses

Social emotional development has been found to be a key component in a child’s developmental trajectory, as it supports many developmental domains. Low-income children often enter school having experienced low social emotional support due to the many external barriers that often challenge their families’ ability to foster positive social emotional development. The present literature has made it clear that there is an association between a child’s social emotional trajectory, family functioning, and parent-child interactions. Further, home-based intervention and prevention in early childhood is effective in promoting social emotional development. This investigation aims to assess the efforts of a particular Early …

Development Of Semantic Reference For Location Symbols By Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) Using A Two-Way Communication Keyboard, Alyssa Taylor

Master's Theses

The ability for humans to communicate with another species has been an aspiration and well documented. One example is through training animals to make associations between a designated cue and conditioned response (Pryor, 1986). Two-way communication, however, in which both species can express wants/needs has been predominantly pursued with apes and dolphins. Studies conducted by Louis Herman demonstrated the capabilities of dolphins to comprehend complex semantic and syntactic commands in an artificial language system (Herman, Richards, & Wolz, 1984). Researchers working with primates have used American Sign Language, a computer keyboard system with discrete lexigrams, and a portable lexigram keyboard …

Mississippi’S First Statewide Teachers’ Strike, Emily Doyne Smith

Master's Theses

This thesis argues that the Education Reform Act of 1982 (ERA) inadvertently led to Mississippi’s first statewide teachers’ strike in 1985 because of the Southeastern pay average clause recommending that the teachers’ pay should reach the average of the southeastern states, if possible. The teachers’ associations in Mississippi used this clause to lobby and promote teachers’ pay to that average. However, after two years of stagnated pay raises, the teachers’ associations led a state statewide teachers’ strike. The strike successfully raised the teachers’ salaries and moved state legislators to consider the teachers’ pay issue carefully afterwards. However, the pay raise …

Coastal Wetland Dynamics Under Sea-Level Rise And Wetland Restoration In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Using Bayesian Multilevel Models And A Web Tool, Tyler Hardy

Master's Theses

There is currently a lack of modeling framework to predict how relative sea-level rise (SLR), combined with restoration activities, affects landscapes of coastal wetlands with uncertainties accounted for at the entire northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). I developed such a modeling framework – Bayesian multi-level models to study the spatial pattern of wetland loss in the NGOM, driven by relative RSLR, vegetation productivity, tidal range, coastal slope, and wave height – all interacting with river-borne sediment availability, indicated by hydrological regimes. These interactions have not been comprehensively investigated before. I further modified this model to assess the efficacy of restoration …

Blazing Worlds, Bethany Kinney

Master's Theses

Blazing Worlds is a collection of short stories exploring themes of understanding, isolation, the world of work, and identity. These stories follow characters who are searching for connections to others, to their environments, to their work, and to themselves. The protagonists of these stories inhabit worlds that are slightly adjacent to reality, worlds cast into a near future, and worlds that operate by the logic of the campy and the fantastic. Through heightened technology, body horror, or blurred metaphysical boundaries, the residents of these blazing worlds pursue knowledge of their place in life and fight to establish and maintain their …

Evaluation Of Post-Graduate Endodontic Program Clinical Experiences: A Web-Based Survey, Jonathan David Blacher

Master's Theses

Endodontic residency programs vary in exposure to procedures, protocols and equipment across the United States. Available resources for clarifying the clinical experiences of current endodontic residents are lacking. Following Institutional Review Board approval, a survey regarding the clinical experiences of current endodontic residents was electronically distributed to all current endodontic residents that maintained an email address listed in the 2016/2017 AAE Membership Directory. The number of endodontic procedures, techniques employed, and products utilized were evaluated and described. The results of the survey included a 30% completion rate (133/437). The majority of respondents indicated completing between: 150-250 non-surgical root canals (NS-RCT), …

The American Dream(Ers): Undocumented Youth’S (Re)Interpretation Of Social Movement Frames, Kevin Zevallos

Master's Theses

The dreamer narrative and its accompanying frames have become a staple of immigration debates in the United States. Dreamer narratives afford undocumented youth organizations visibility to articulate their socio-political needs. As undocumented youth make claims for legal and social recognition, they utilize dreamer frames that highlight undocumented youth as productive, patriotic, and/or deserving members of U.S. society. Based on 18 semi-structured interviews with undocumented youth and Connecticut state legislators and participant observation of undocumented youth-led rallies, lobbying campaigns and organizational meetings, I examine how undocumented youth organizers react, respond and utilize nationally derived social movement frames in a local context. …

Cultural Orientations As Antecedents Of Career Anchors: An Exploratory Study, Kathrine Agger

Master's Theses

In this study the relationship between cultural dimensions and career anchors was examined. The objective was to uncover whether cultural orientations, measured through cultural dimensions, could be perceived as antecedents of career anchors. Responses from 283 people, distributed over 24 countries and five continents, were collected and a canonical correlation analysis was conducted. Results showed that the relationship between cultural orientations and career anchors could be explained through a smaller set of variables. Specifically, results indicated that the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation were related to the career anchors of job security/stability and, furthermore, that the cultural …