Digital Commons Network^™

Enhancing Dining Experiences Through Emotional Tableware Design, Yueyue Zhang

Theses

Positive dining experiences can improve both physical and psychological health. Eating with people and eating slowly can facilitate one’s experience and behavior during the process, owing to the unexpected information from their senses and the surrounding environment. Tableware is a very important bridge between people and food. People get food, share food, and serve food while dining. Therefore, the tableware based on emotional design can to a certain extent affect people's dining behavior and dining experience. This paper firstly introduces the reasons why people are getting hard to get a positive dining experience, and the importance of dining experiences. Then, …

The Tendency Of The Automobile Design With The Influence Of Social Culture, Cunzhi Huang

Theses

With the development of the transportation industry, the automobile has become a critical component of Chinese society. Likewise, Chinese culture has influenced automotive design. However, this influence has generally been limited to an increased focus on environ sustainability. This paper presents a strategy to explain this influence. The author discussed social changes and evaluates automobile designs for the future. Through the comparison of China history, culture, various type of automobile to analyze changes in functions and structure. This paper also describes the principles of automobile design necessary for future automobile design and automobile industry development in China.

How To Improve The Office Workers’ Lifestyle With Emotional Design, Chi Zhang

Theses

Nowadays in China, nearly 83% of office workers have to work overtime and 94% of them have physical health conditions due to work schedules. Physical stress increases mental stress while working. nonetheless, many office workers ignore this stress, resulting in severe injury. This thesis explores on phenomenon of office workers in China giving up their health for work. It discusses their working condition and psychological status, and how it affects their balance of work and entertainment. Finally, it suggests a possible way to alleviate this problem- using the emotional design to give users a comfortable and enjoyable experience to make …

Using Emotional Design To Make Memories And Enhance Relationships, Xi Guo

Theses

We have all experienced this. When we see a thing, the memory of it will come back in our minds no matter how many years have passed. This is the power of memory. What follows is our feelings and emotional reaction to this memory. Reminders of happy memories can bring back pleasant feelings tied to the original experience, regulate positive emotion and promote better well-being. This paper will focus on using emotional design to generate and recall positive memories in order to develop healthy relationships.

Mcam - The Ar Photography Composition Education Prototype For Mobile Device Based On Augmented Reality Interactive, Yunke Liu

Theses

The current digital age and era where technological advancements and innovation have revolutionized various sectors, photos and videos are the most convenient and direct medium for people to record and share their personal lives today. In this digital era and internet age, mobile phone cameras have replaced cameras as the most widely used photography tools. While documenting personal life with photos, people gradually pay more and more attention to the artistry and aesthetics of photos. Just recording that life can no longer satisfy them, how to present more of their own life is a new pursuit of videos and pictures …

Negative And Positive Reappraisal After A Romantic Break-Up, Scarlett Horner

Theses

Romantic break-ups can cause sadness, depression, and physical symptoms. The purpose of this study is to compare two methods of alleviating heartbreak: negative reappraisal of the ex-partner and positive reappraisal of the break-up. We expected that positive reappraisal would make people feel more positive than negative reappraisal, but that negative reappraisal would make people feel less in love than positive reappraisal. We expected that negative reappraisal would reduce motivated attention as measured by the late positive potential (LPP) and how upset people were about the break-up more than positive reappraisal. In this study, 24 participants (16 female) who were upset …

Type Of Facebook User And Correlational Relationship With Social Comparison And Self-Esteem Along With The Moderating Variable Of The Big Five Model, Amanda Lilly

Theses

This thesis examines different types of Facebook users and how different types of participation on Facebook are associated with social comparison orientation scale and self-esteem level of the users, and how personality variables moderate the relationship between social comparison scale and types of Facebook use. Previous research has investigated the relationship between Facebook use, self-esteem, and social comparison; however, the results have been mixed, and research on how personality traits are related to different types of active use of Facebook is needed. Study 1 of this thesis examines how social comparison orientation and self-esteem relate to how individuals actively use …

Exploring The School Nurse's Perception Of Caring For Students With Severe Allergies, Alyson Kreitzman

Theses

The role of the school nurse continually evolves, with an increase in students who are medically fragile, have disabilities and those diagnosed with both acute and chronic illnesses. A major challenge for the school nurse is the number of students with severe allergies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates food allergies in children have increased by 50% in the past decade. These allergies can be life threatening and effect one in thirteen children under the age of eighteen, which means potentially two students in each classroom in the U.S. has a severe allergy. School nurses are responsible for …

Urban Infill – Revitalize Downtown Almaty, Kazakhstan, Madi Zhunussov

Theses

This design proposal would provide a solution for a specific area of downtown Almaty, Kazakhstan and is based on research and analysis of city information, as well as on the author’s own experiences that were gathered onsite.

Almaty is very car-dependent; the city contains 1.8 million people and sprawls across an area of 263 square miles. Low-height structures to accommodate seismic activity, long travelling distances, wide roads, and vehicular parking chaos can be observed within the city center of Almaty. Having similar population – Munich, Germany and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA were compared to Almaty, where Floor Area Ratio (FAR) showed …

Utilizing Mobile Technology To Improve Accessibility For Museum Visitors With Autism, Felicia Dianne Swartzenberg

Theses

What if museums could provide an app that makes interaction easier for visitors with autism and allows them to enjoy the museum any day of the week like their neurotypical counterparts? This research discusses how museums can utilize downloadable apps for personal devices to provide easily accessible resources for children on the autism spectrum and their families to use so they can have a more inclusive and sensory-friendly museum experience. To determine the feasibility of this, I worked in collaboration with an app developer, Peter Laurin, to create a prototype-app called SenseEase: Strong Museum for the Reading Adventure Land exhibit …

Re-Imagining Downtown Rochester Creation Of An Equitable Urban Master Plan, Douglas Templeton

Theses

Downtown Rochester, New York has seen a renewed interest in the past decade. However, most of that interest and reinvestment has occurred within the eastern half of the downtown area. The western half, which is roughly bordered by the Genesee River to the east and Interstate 490 and the Inner Loop to the west, has only been lightly touched by developers. Most new building projects tend to center around creating residential apartments, many of which have price points that may exclude many populations in Rochester.

Additionally, street networks and connections tend to reinforce usage of private automobiles and dissuade the …

Secondary Analysis Of Caregiver Pain Management Issues During Telehospice Versus In-Person Interventions, Marjorie M. Kelley

Theses

Most hospice care in the US is provided in the home by lay family caregivers. These caregivers suffer physically, psychologically, emotionally, and socially from the burden of caring. The most often identified area of burden for caregivers is the management of end-of-life pain. Despite advances in pain management pharmacology and alternative therapies, unrelieved pain continues to plague patients and their care providers. Although pain management has been targeted as a national healthcare concern and research priority, specific issues of caregiver pain management remain vague and undefined. Understanding issues surrounding caregiver pain management may help clarify needs thus enabling the creation …

Underutilization Of Palliative Care Related To The Associated Stigmatism: Time To Change The Service Name Within The Veterans Affairs Healthcare Setting, Janice Schwartz

Theses

Advances in medicine and technology have transformed cancer into a chronic disease state: enabling earlier, treatable, diagnoses and longer lives. However, the focus in medicine remains in quantity of life: failing to address the multitude of stressors influencing quality of life. Quality of life considerations during treatment tend to focus on physical symptoms of disease or side effects of treatment, negating important quality of life interventions offered through Palliative Care. Palliative Care focuses on the psychosocial, emotional and spiritual aspect of living with cancer. Yet, it remains an untapped resource in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VAHCS), often reserved until …

Family Conversation Kit, Yingyi Mo

Theses

Deep, bidirectional family conversations are where family members express, listen to and understand each other’s inner thoughts with an open mindset. Such conversations can strengthen the comprehension and connection among family members, pass down cultural and family heritage further, and improve the cohesion and well-being of families and society. However, deep, bidirectional conversations are often neglected, especially in Chinese culture.

Such a lack is indiscernible to many people because they have been so used to hiding inner thoughts from their families that they find nothing wrong with it. Some are aware of the shortage, while the embarrassment comes right after …

Light In The Midst Of Darkness: Lived Experiences Of Cancer Warriors, Mignodel M. Morales

Theses

Employing a qualitative approach about the lived experiences of cancer warriors, this paper delved into the perceptions of pediatric cancer patients towards cancer, their coping mechanisms, changes that they experienced and their motivations and aspirations that served as their strengths for continuing their treatment. Eight informants were interviewed using the interview guide that was validated and pilot tested.

Relational Neurogenesis For Lifelong Learning Agents, Tej Pandit

Theses

Reinforcement learning systems have shown tremendous potential in being able to model meritorious behavior in virtual agents and robots. The ability to learn through continuous reinforcement and interaction with an environment negates the requirement of painstakingly curated datasets and hand crafted features. However, the ability to learn multiple tasks in a sequential manner, referred to as lifelong or continual learning, remains unresolved.

The search for lifelong learning algorithms creates the foundation for this work. While there has been much research conducted in supervised learning domains under lifelong learning, the reinforced lifelong learning domain remains open for much exploration. Furthermore, current …

Beware Of Uncharitable Speech: Perceptions Of Newly Graduated Nurses Regarding Their Experiences Of Academic Incivility Between And Among Nursing Students In Undergraduate Nursing Education, Tatiana K. Penconek

Theses

The perceptions of newly graduated nurses regarding their experiences of academic incivility between and among nursing students in undergraduate nursing education were explored in this qualitative descriptive study. Six newly graduated registered nurses shared their experiences of academic incivility between and among nursing students in their undergraduate nursing programs. Online public domain data with specific content pertaining to experiences of academic incivility were also gathered. Four main categories resulted from the data analysis including Not Here to Make Friends, Nobody Stood Up, Making it to the End, and The Role of Nursing Faculty. Highlights of this study include an increased …

Optimizing Women's Morning Experience: Design Of An Interactive Cosmetics' Organizer, Jiamei Huang

Theses

Nowadays, wearing proper makeup is proved to be a powerful tool which can help women get benefit in their workplace. However, many employee women face a problem about making everything perfect done in the rush morning time, especially wearing makeup, which can result in a lot of negative effects not only in personal health but also in the family relationship. Suffering from poor morning experience might mass their beginning of the day and consequently ruing the whole day. Due to the boring and complex cosmetics organizers, the problem came to be more severe for them and make the makeup process …

Feasibility Of Integrating Microfluidics Into Point-Of-Care Bio-Diagnostics, Swetha Manoharan

Theses

Potassium in the body needs to be maintained in proper levels for the normal functioning of heart and kidneys. The aim of this work is to develop a simple technique to measure the concentration of Potassium present in a bodily fluid sample, which can be used to assess the health condition of extremely sick patients, especially when the patient's condition needs to be diagnosed and results needs to be obtained rapidly under Point-of-Care settings. Microfluidics is one of the platforms used in bio-diagnostics because of several advantages such as low sample volume requirement and integration into high-throughput screening. In this …

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 …

Reinforcement Learning Reward Design For Low-Level Controllers, Evan J. Olney

Theses

The past few decades have produced many successful applications of machine learning. In the area of automated controls, machine learning controllers have been developed to take advantage of the tendency for computers to stumble upon avenues to solutions people either overlooked, or simply do not have the computational capability to explore. Reinforcement learning is a machine learning technique for learning how to choose actions in an environment to increase its expected reward. The reward is the signal that indicates whether or not proper actions were chosen, therefore a behavioral goal is achieved from implicit rewards rather than explicit direction. The …

Investigating A Cyber-Human System For Millennial Caregivers, Ashley Lofton

Theses

Research indicates that most caregiving of persons with dementia (PwD) is done by adults 49 years of age and older. However, millennials make up 25% of the estimated 44 million caregivers in the United States. Although the definition varies, “millennials” for this research is defined by those born between 1984 - 2000, which aligns with the research by Strauss and Howe (2003). Millennial caregivers are taking on this task as their parents or grandparents get older and diagnosed with dementia. Taking on the task of caring for a loved one with dementia can present itself as difficult because of competing …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of Nursing Support And The Financial Implications Associated With Cpap Adherence, Christine Brunnick

Theses

The prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is increasing. As the prevalence of OSA increases, as does the need for the condition to be treated effectively to reduce several risk factors which increase both mortality and morbidity rates. Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy is easily recognised as the most effective treatment for OSA. Despite the recognised benefits of CPAP therapy, adherence rates reported worldwide remain suboptimal. A transitional change within the Irish healthcare system means that private medical device companies will provide CPAP devices in specific contractual regions throughout Ireland. This change presents challenges and opportunities for policymakers. This …

Mind Over Matter : Stimulant Adhd Medication Use And Bone Mineral Density In College-Aged Subjects ; Is There A Trade-Off?, Sims Kirkland Lawson

Theses

Literature review showed lowered bone mineral density (BMD) among methamphetamine users and in mice that were given methylphenidate. No human clinical studies have been carried out, to date, to investigate whether there is a correlation between use of psychostimulants prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (in this case methylphenidate and amphetamines) and lowered BMD in young adult aged humans. This study observed 53 human subjects, age 19-27 years (average age 21 years); 25 experimental, psychostimulant-prescribed ADHD patients, and 28 healthy control subjects. Each subject was given dual x-ray absorptiometer (DXA) scans of femur, hip area, lumbar spine, and whole-body …

The Effects Of Gender, Family-To-Work Conflict, And Family Supportive Supervisory Behavior On Perceptions Of Leaders, Aubriauna J. Harris

Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of gender, family-to-work conflict, and family supportive supervisory behaviors on perceptions of leaders’ competence. A sample of 123 university students completed an online Qualtrics survey. In the survey, participants read a vignette and background information on leaders and answered a series of questions. Results indicated that gender did not have a significant effect on perceived competence. However, the amount of family-to-work conflict and family supportive supervisory behaviors did relate to perceptions of competence. This study demonstrates that for leaders to maintain subordinates’ belief in their competence as a leader they …

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 …

Motivation In Knowledge Workers, Carmen Wong

Theses

Traditional theories that form the basis of workplace motivation may be inadequate to manage workers in the knowledge-based economy. Knowledge workers are a growing segment of the workforce, and their needs differ from previous generations of employees. How managers can best motivate knowledge workers towards greater performance and employee satisfaction may not have a definitive answer, however we will explore the effectiveness of some of the commonly used practices in the current workplace.

Knowledge workers add value to a company's products and services by applying their knowledge. The self-determination theory (SDT) is considered a more encompassing theory than the traditional …

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 …

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 …