Digital Commons Network^™

When Linguistics And Heritage Intersect: Language Preservation And Revitalization In Cultural Institutions, Katharine Maclaren

Theses

This work explores the ways in which cultural institutions, namely museums, libraries, and archives, can help save dying languages. It first introduces language preservation and revitalization as a field and then evaluates current efforts, including those outside the museum sphere. The question guiding this research is: Given the missions of cultural institutions, their collections, and their relationships with surrounding communities, how can these institutions successfully contribute to the preservation and revitalization of endangered languages in the long-term, and how might success be evaluated? The preservation of Scottish Gaelic will be considered as a specific case study by looking at several …

What’S In A Name? Rhetorical And Political Naming In Toni Morrison’S Song Of Solomon, Kristen V. Edwards

Theses

This thesis aims to examine the usage and history of the various racial labels attributed to Black Americans and how the cyclical usage of Negro, Black, Colored, and African American are a haunting that Black people will most likely face again. As these terms do not fulfill a nationalistic identity, the quest for a satisfactory term still exists. To illustrate this journey, examining the novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison will expose how her text subtly charges the reader to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Not only is the reader charged to “know thy self”, but they are …

Jailhouse Informants & Empathic Cross-Examination, Megan Hillgartner

Theses

The current study aimed to evaluate the influence of jailhouse informant testimony on juror-decision making through the manipulation of cross-examination techniques as well as the presence and absence of an inconsistent statement concerning a specific crime detail. Thus, this study evaluated whether the method in which the defense attorney presented his cross-examination influenced jurors’ overall perception of the jailhouse informant. Participants listened to an audio-recording of a trial transcript in which method of cross-examination was manipulated in terms of an Aggressive, Neutral, and Empathic approach to determine if the addition of empathic understanding resulted in cross-examination serving as a more …

Literacy And Educational Development Programs For Arab Refugee Women In The Piedmont Area Of North Carolina, Noor Al-Samraai

Theses

Arab refugee women experience incomprehensible acts of violence and war that drive them out of their homelands. According to Greenwood (2013), among the 4.8 million Arab refugees, women and children comprise approximately three-fourths of those displaced and compound the conditions of gender-based violence, poverty, lack of economic opportunities, and a dire lack of the most basic educational programs. Arab refugee women are more likely to face further violence and marginalization because of economic pressures (UNICEF, 2001).

The purpose of this study was to document and analyze the factors, barriers, and learning needs of Arab refugee women with low-level language and …

Collaboration Pattern Model For Student Participation In Problem-Solving Typed Chat, Duy Quang Bui

Theses

This project measures different collaborative dialogue acts between students who are working together to solve problems in a computer programming class. In COMPS (Computer-Mediated Problem Solving) exercises students work together via online typed-chat. Transcripts of these conversations were annotated with four categories of collaborative utterance: sharing ideas, negotiating ideas, regulating problem-solving, and maintaining communication. The annotated transcripts were then applied to answer four different research questions. A) Among the several students in a conversation, there are measurable quantitative differences in dialogue behavior that correlate with the relative preparedness for solving the problem. The most prepared student not only talks more …

Comparison Study Of Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms For Real Time Prediction Of Uav Behaviors, Brian Baity

Theses

An American scientific writer/critic of the mid-20th century, Joseph Wood Krutch, stated, “Technology made large populations possible: large populations now make technology indispensable.” Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a vital part of society, evolving from solely military use to commercial and even personal day-to-day use. UAV application has grown for mobility on demand, increasing the number of UAVs in the sky. Consequently, more UAVs increases the possibility of aerial collisions, challenging the safety of passengers flying and bystanders on the ground. Understanding the behavior of UAVs and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in general, therefore, will decrease the possibility of …

Youth Who Serve: Mandatory School Service Experience And Consequent Civic Responsibility, Cho See Chong

Theses

Two phenomena are of interest in this study. One is youth service, in particular, the acts of volunteering by young adults. The second concerns the learning of service, with specific reference to mandatory school service. The aim of the study is to explore to what extent and in what ways young people believe that their sense of civic responsibility and propensity to serve was influenced by their experience of service at school. To achieve this aim, a qualitative study was conducted on a group of post-school youth in Singapore who had participated in mandatory community service while at school, and …

Patient Involvement In Healthcare Projects: A Mixed Method Study On The Perspectives Of Project Staff In Western Australian (Wa) Public Hospitals And Health Services, Melanie Wright

Theses

Background: the benefits of patient involvement in clinical care and research is well described in the literature; but there is little evidence to suggest that involving patients in the planning and delivery of healthcare projects is beneficial to the outcomes of the project.

Purpose: this study explores the perspectives of staff who were specifically employed to lead and manage healthcare projects in Western Australian (WA) public hospitals and health services, regarding patient involvement in their projects and the perceived benefits and barriers of this involvement.

Study design: the study was designed using a sequential mixed method approach in three phases …

Evaluating Local, National, Regional And International Interventions In Northern Uganda Using A Human Security Approach, Davis Kawooya

Theses

Since gaining independence from Britain in 1962, Uganda has been beset by conflicts, the worst of which took place between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda (1988-2006), causing a massive humanitarian crisis. The central argument of the thesis is that the government’s programmes in response would have been more successful if they had been people-centred, directly responsive to the suffering of the people, rather than centralised in the hands of a small Kampala-based elite, which controlled access to funding and political power, without transparency or accountability. This research uses human security as an umbrella concept …

Towards An Aristotelian Theory Of Care: A Comparison Of Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics With Feminist Ethics Of Care, And The Fundaments Of A Virtue Ethical Theory Of Care, Steven Steyl

Theses

The intersection between virtue and care ethics is underexplored in contemporary moral philosophy. This thesis approaches care ethics from a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical perspective, comparing the two frameworks and drawing on recent work on care to develop a theory thereof. It is split into seven substantive chapters serving three major argumentative purposes, namely the establishment of significant intertheoretical agreement, the compilation and analysis of extant and new distinctions between the two theories, and the synthesis of care ethical insights with neo-Aristotelianism to generate a virtue ethical theory of care. In the first two chapters, I outline virtue ethics and care …

Bad Droid! An In-Depth Empirical Study On The Occurrence And Impact Of Android Specific Code Smells, Khalid Saeed Almalki

Theses

Knowing the impact of bad programming practices or code smells has led researchers to conduct numerous studies in software maintenance. Most of the studies have defined code smells as bad practices that may affect the quality of the software. However, most of the existing research is heavily focused on detecting traditional code smells and less focused on mobile application specific Android code smells. Presently, there is a few papers that focus on android code smells - a catalog for Android code smells. This catalog defines 30 Android specific code smell that may impact maintainability of an app. In this research, …

The Transition Of The College Quarterback To The Nfl: Why The Hardest Position In Sports Is Getting Easier, Derik Abbott

Theses

The NFL is changing. Score boards are being lit up by young quarterbacks like never seen before. Rookie quarterbacks are playing like 10 year veterans. Offenses are playing at light speed paces. But why? This Thesis paper looks to uncover why college quarterbacks are playing at MVP caliber levels at such a young age. With research in multiple fields such as analytics, neuroscience, youth football developmental leagues and artificial intelligence,, this paper seeks to determine the relationship between what strategies front offices and coaching staffs are using and the high success rate of young quarterbacks in the National Football League. …

Looking Past The Images: Art And Film As Propaganda Apparatuses, Alexander Schumm

Theses

This paper aims to show that art and film can operate as propaganda in subtle and unintentional ways. Jacques Ellul called such propaganda “sociological propaganda.” Recent work in philosophy has relied on the notion of intention in defining how propaganda works to affect the beliefs and attitudes of its recipients. This paper argues that intention is not a necessary condition for messages to be propagandistic and works to decouple propaganda from intention. Because our current models rely on intention in defining propaganda, recent work in philosophy cannot account for sociological propaganda. Ellul’s gestures toward defining propaganda explicitly feature intention as …

Coloquio: Pro-Social Games For Healthy Social Interaction, Mintesinot T. Gebre

Theses

This study was conducted to address the unhealthy social and emotional development of children today as they are exposed to the adverse effects technology dominant environment. The extent of interference of screen interaction in today’s group activities at home, hinders opportunities for families to interact with one another. Surveys and tests were conducted for the purpose of finding where the undesired behaviors and habits formed by screen interaction become very pervasive. And the design solution proposes a pro-social activity that makes use of cognitive abilities to allow social activities and conversations to happen in parallel.

#Metoo: Personal Accounts Of Sexual Violence On Facebook Analyzing Individual Stories To Reveal Themes About Gender, Power, And Intersectional Factors, Lauren Depoint

Theses

This study examines the types of narratives constructed about experiences with sexual violence shared in Facebook posts using the hashtag #MeToo. Feminist and intersectional theories were used to contextualize a textual analysis of 61 public posts to explore how individuals were presenting their experiences for a mass audience online in the absence of traditional gatekeepers. Most of the posts featured graphic details, strong emotion, and patterns of internalized misogyny. Stories shared revealed troubling power dynamics involving disability, race, and gender. Intersectional groups are underrepresented in online spaces, indicating a problematic absence of these individuals within online movements like #MeToo that …

Perceptions Of Non-Americans Towards American Tv Series, Thaarika Charumathy Seetharaman

Theses

Television drama is one of the most entertaining genre of the media industry, and it serves as a socialization platform (Greenberg, 1982). American TV series have gained audience and fans from all around the world which opens up the scope for examining the effects of American media on the secondary audience. Drawing on the framework of cultivation theory, this study examined the effect of American TV series on non-American population. The results suggested that the cultivation effects are dependent on age and gender of the respondents, in connection with the genre of the series influencing the audience’s framing of the …

Outsourcing In Kosovo: An Analysis Of Kosovo's Comparative Advantage And The Potential For Growth, Yllza Hoti

Theses

The main focus of this research project is to explore the implications of outsourcing on the service provider countries, specifically for the case of Kosovo. With the emergence of globalization, international markets are more interconnected than ever. Technology has facilitated businesses with different ways of reducing costs, one of them being outsourcing part of their business processes internationally, also known as offshore outsourcing. While the impact of such strategies on the client countries is controversial, there is almost universal agreement that the impact on provider countries, especially when they are developing countries, is positive. Being a developing country, Kosovo can …

Understanding The Language Learning Strategies Of English Language Learners In The Community College System, Steven Kean

Theses

This study focused on English language teaching and learning through the lens of language-learning strategies, and how strategies-based instruction is implemented within the community college system. The intent of this study was to determine the extent to which language-learning strategies are taught to second-language learners in a community college district, the specific strategies that language-learners use, and whether improvements to strategies-based instruction in the community college system are needed. This research used a customized version of Rebecca Oxford’s Strategies Inventory for Language Learners. It also queried instructors who teach English as a Second Language (ESL), and it analyzed ESL course …

Uses And Gratification Of Posting Selfies On Social Media, Amanda Kearney

Theses

Selfies have become an easy and instantaneous form of self-expression and communication. Posting selfies to various social media platforms has become wildly popular and socially accepted in the digital age. This study investigated the motivation behind posting selfies to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat using the framework of uses and gratification theory. This study also compared differences in gratification sought from individual social media platforms. A cross-sectional survey shared on Facebook using a snowball sampling method recruited participants who post at least one selfie per week (N = 156). Factor analysis revealed five gratifications for posting selfies to social media: attention …

Contemporary Arabic Calligraphy And Poetry As Geometry Of True Morality, Badreyah Almuqhawi

Theses

All human languages are tightly interwoven with the history and culture of the nations and people who speak them. There is an inherent beauty to the lines of each sign, balance, and proportion of the symbols in Arabic calligraphy that are amazingly beautiful. In Arabic writing, one can feel musical rhythm to the words- there is a feeling as if one can hear the music or poetry. Arabic calligraphy is an art that contains the Arabic alphabet or Arabic script and has significant value because it includes a message which is meaningful to the artist. I think Arabic calligraphy is …

Empowering Women Through Advertising: A Content Analysis On 'Femvertising' Campaigns, Shan Wang

Theses

This study selects and content analyzes a sample of 40 femvertising videos, aims to explore what messages are delivered by the videos, and whether the campaigns actually break down the cliched ways in which media present women as the companies claim. The messages of the videos sent to viewers are qualitative content analyzed to provide a general description of the campaign videos. Women’s representations in the campaign videos are quantitively coded in terms of how women look like (i.e. physical characteristics), what age groups they are in, what traits they possess, and what roles they play in the advertisements. Also, …

Recommendations For Redesign: Revising The Rochester Museum And Science Center's "Native Peoples Of The Americas" Exhibit, Jess Andrews

Theses

This thesis proposes methods for redesigning the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit to ensure better representation of the Native cultures it displays. Explorations of these methods include a survey of the current exhibit, focusing on specific areas and design elements that need to be addressed, as well as brief comparative surveys of other Native American and ethnographic exhibits at the RMSC as well as exhibits at Ganondagan State Historic Site and the New York and Washington branches of the National Museum of the American Indian. The literature review considers the history of Native …

A Conferralist Account Of Individuality, Zachary Auwerda

Theses

The individual is at the center of liberal political theory. Despite this, oppressed groups that are members of liberal societies are not respected as individuals. This paper attempts to explain one way in which this happens. I argue that some people are not treated as individuals, because they are in fact not individuals. In some cases, to be an individual requires recognition as an individual. I attempt to show that certain uses of the term “individual” refer to conferred properties. A conferred property is a property that is given to an object by a subject. Thus, conferred properties are not …

Re-Embodying Our Discipline, Chelsea Dryer

Theses

This Master's Thesis uses personal narrative and scholarly works to examine the benefits of embodiment in literary studies. Special attention is given to how lived experience can provide legitimate sources of academic evidence when examining texts and that texts can be used to integrate, examine, and reframe lived experiences.

"Through Me Tell The Story": A New Historical Analysis Of Bob Dylan As A Nobel Laureate, Abby Mangel

Theses

Bob Dylan's receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" is perhaps the strongest validation for New Historicism as a method of literary analysis. The individual puzzle pieces of Dylan's postmodern rock poems are themselves little bits of history, but combined within the context of the massive paradigm shifts of the 1960s, they become something new and entirely relevant to the nonstop turmoil of contemporary life in America.

The Ernie Els #Gameon Autism™ Golf Program For Young People With Autism: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Jerrome Suganthy Selvaraj

Theses

The first evaluation of the #GameON Autism^^ Golf Program was conducted outside of the USA by the UNESCO Chair, I.T. Tralee in conjunction with the Els for Autism Foundation in partnership with LD Golf Ltd. The central aim of this research study was to evaluate the efficacy of the #GameON Autism^ Golf Program on young people with autism (ASD), their families, PGA golf coach, and volunteers. The two main objectives of the research were to analyse the impact of the program on the socia/communication, motor, and golf skills of individuals with autism and to assess the potential for the #GameON …

Religious Free Speech And Anti-Discrimination Laws In Australia, Isabel Rocha De Sousa

Theses

This thesis addresses the delicate relationship between Religious Free Speech and Australian Anti-discrimination laws. There are an increasing number of conflicts arising between religious and secular speech. Different opinions related to sensitive matters often result in social and legal disputes. Some of these disputes become complaints under Anti-discrimination laws and arguably lead to less freedom of conscience and speech.

This thesis focuses on ‘the relationship between Religious Free Speech and Anti-discrimination laws’. This is done though critical analysis of relevant literature, cases and legislation, contextualising them in response to the questions proposed in the research paper.

The Who.I.Am Study : Identity Formation And Motor Competence In Adolescents, Amanda Timler

Theses

Our sense of identity is an emergent concept that develops over the lifespan in response to many factors, however the adolescent phase is the most critical. During adolescence, some factors that influence identity are level of parent and peer support, environmental stresses and the ability to form personal interests and goals. These factors influence the health of one’s identity in both positive and negative ways, which may differ between males and females. Therefore, identity health refers to an individual’s capacity to develop a positive sense of self and to integrate their self within a number of valuable social settings. One …

Significant News Detection, Diwas Sharma

Theses

Social media platforms nowadays have a large number of fake or false news which have been misleading and negatively impacting viewers. In order to combat the problem, being able to differentiate important news stories which need to be verified from unimportant news stories which need not, would be a decent starting point. In this thesis, we introduce “significant news” and define it as news that affects a large number of people, changes the routines of daily life, and needs verification on the information presented. This thesis then explores if it is possible to construct a classifier for detecting the significant …

Nobody Wanted To Speak On The True Disposition Of The World : Challenging American Historical Narratives In The Underground Railroad, Tia J. Smith

Theses

The Underground Railroad borrows from the logic of science fiction, the epic, and the historical novel to both critique American post racialism and to upend the nation’s incomplete historical narrative of social progress. This thesis begins with approaching sf using the novel’s racial influences to contemplate science fiction criticism. It then examines the text’s adoption of the genre’s critical apparatus as a method to explore contemporary American racial politics. I analyze the novel’s structure, use of primary sources, and reenactments of historical events, interpreting them as tools to illustrate the novel’s view of the United States as an institution mired …