Digital Commons Network^™

Identity Aperture: Self-Portraits, Genealogy, And Other Archives, Yuxiang Dong

Theses

As a foreigner in the United States, I need a passport, I-20, and visas to provide the answer to a very simple question: who am I? This body of work grew out of this urgent curiosity about identity. Meta-cultural and meta-biological factors like race, gender, and nationality give me a certain identity without me asking for it. However, I tend to forget the fact that my identity is negotiable and is constantly being negotiated around and inside me. At a certain point, I realize that in order to understand the man I have become, I need to re-encounter my journey …

Prometheus, Kyle Blalock

Theses

This paper describes my thesis body of work as it originates from my personal experiences being brought up in the Mormon Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder-day Saints in rural northern Arizona. Descriptions of rituals, religion, and rights of passage as a young Mormon gay man depict a lineage that leads up to forging personal salvation through art making and literature. The narrative of my paper discusses my education and illustrates my growth as an artist who has been intimately informed by sculptural processes and the materials used in creating sculpture.

Sharing Ideas At Work: Workstation And Empathic Design, Yolegmma Marquez

Theses

In anywhere people want to promote interaction and cooperation, the furniture system "Common" provides a versatile alternative to improve the collaboration between team members. By using empathy as inspiration, this system promotes communication, adaptability, expansion and connectivity among people in office workspaces. The main theoretical premise behind this product is empathic design whose user-centered approach attends the user's feelings toward a product.

The result of this research was applied to development of an Office Desk, main product of the furniture system called Common. The Desk is a versatile structural solution that allows attaching accessories in an elegant and easy way. …

Curating Deaf Spaces In Rochester: A Historical Self-Guided Mobile Application Tour, Allison Thompson

Theses

Rochester is widely considered by many to be one if, if not the most, Deaf-friendly city in the nation due to having the one of the largest Deaf populations per capita in the country.1 The research question focused on whether sufficient material could be assembled to provide a self-guided historical tour application (still in the planning stages) that will feature locations related to Rochester’s deaf community. The content that I curated was chosen based on the historical significance and accessibility of locations to visitors. The tour demonstrates how and why Rochester has achieved its reputation as the location of such …

Time Out: Influence Of User Experience Design On Behavior To Reduce Smartphone Use, Tejal Sampat

Theses

We are more connected than we used to be but people are becoming disengaged from the real world. Are smartphones a blessing or a bane? That depends on how we use it. Being hooked to a smartphone while interacting with family or friends is a definite no-no.

To address the issue of being neglected in social situations, timeOut allows neglected users to send anonymous timeouts to obsessive smartphone users who are preoccupied with their smartphones and are in close proximity to neglected users. The timeOut app allows neglected users to express their feelings without upsetting or embarrassing anyone. The application …

Data-Ink Ratio And Task Complexity In Graph Comprehension, Kevin Mcgurgan

Theses

Human processing of graphical information is a topic which has wide-reaching implications for decision-making in a variety of contexts. A deeper understanding of the processes of graphical perception can lead to the development of design guidelines which can enhance performance in graphical perception tasks. This study evaluates the data-ink ratio guideline, which recommends the removal of non-data graph elements, resulting in minimalist graph designs. In an experiment, participants answered graph comprehension questions using bar graphs and boxplots with varying data-ink ratios. Participants answered questions with similar levels of accuracy and mental effort. Some participants drew on graphs, reducing the data-ink …

Economic Figures, Fiona Eloisa Wilson

Theses

The title economic figures refer to both finances and the people (as figures) that are affected by monetary instability. People in two consumer locations are documented photographically through two projects that tell the story of the evolving sites of strip mall and main street shopping. In Displacing Main Street, photographs of people entering strip mall stores are installed on abandoned main street store sites. ‘the store’ are photographs that show the intimate story of my parents struggle to keep their main street small business open. The final exhibition combines these two works in a single gallery to give the viewer …

Museums And Visitors With Autism: An Overview Of Programs, Rachel Varner

Theses

Across the world, several museums are committed to accessibility and accommodations for the general public, such as closed captions for the D/HH (deaf and hard-of-hearing) visitors and ramps for wheelchair users. However, not all disabilities and disorders are visible. When it comes to working with people who have a specific disability or disorder, it is critical that museum professionals be aware of what should be done to ensure that visitors with disabilities or disorders have a pleasant experience in the museum. Numerous museums have already created programs for people with specific disabilities or disorders. Workshops about disabilities and disorders should …

Dreamland:, Xiaohe Shen

Theses

I was attracted by the interaction between dream and reality. Not long before I started my thesis, I read Freud’s book, The Interpretation of Dreams, and it quite interested me. In Freud’s theory, the complete personality is composed of id, ego and super-ego. The id is the set of coordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. The super-ego can stop one from doing certain things that one’s id may want to do. These three parts dominate a …

Leadership Cultural Values Of United Arab Emirates-The Case Of United Arab Emirates University, Ebtesam Ali Alteneiji

Theses

UAE is a young country with a young population that has witnessed tremendous changes over the past decades. There has not been much research about the cultural values of the UAE in generational perspectives, and there have been rapid changes. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring systematic changes in leadership cultural values among the older and the younger generations of the United Arab Emirates. The author utilized Hofstede’s (VSM08) instrument to survey undergraduate students, administrators and faculty at UAE University.

The study found no significant differences between the younger and older generations’ tolerance to unequal distribution of power (power distance), …

Landscapes From The Road, Darren B. Schroeder

Theses

LANDSCAPES FROM THE ROAD In this paper I will discuss the images from Landscapes From The Road and how they function within a canon of landscape. I will discuss these images in relation to traditional romantic and pastoral constructs of landscape as well as the ways in which the images formulate landscape as uniquely and materialistically contemporary. I will discuss landscape as a concept related to the contemplation of the Sublime, renewed individuality, and its contemporary treatment as a location of transactional and material interest. I will contextualize the images of Landscapes From the Road as representing a more inclusive …

Espousal A La Mode, Jessica Meyer

Theses

This thesis describes the creation of sculptural wedding gowns with the ultimate goal of highlighting the realities of marriage in a society where divorce is almost as common as sustaining said unions. These realities are represented by six marital problems visualized by the use of sculptural textures. The collection is built upon the concept that the foundation of the gown must be strong in order to support the fabric manipulations, just as the relationship of the couple must be strong in order to overcome the marital problem that each gown represents. The use of contemporary structures, mixed with traditional elements, …

An Exploration Of The Concept Of Athletic Identity Among Athletic Trainers, Michael J. Lane

Theses

The purpose of this research study is to develop an understanding of how athletic trainers identify themselves in a vocational context. Additionally, this research is designed to explore perceptions of self-confidence. competence, and what attitudes athletic trainers have towards the practice of sport psychology within their professional field. Athletic trainers are often looked at as the primary medical professionals who provide care for athletes immediately following injury. evaluate and treat athletic injuries. assist with rehabilitation. design return to play exercise programs and have numerous other job requirements. The Athletic Training Identity Measurement Scale (ATIMS) was developed as a tool that …

Assess The Efficacy Of A 15-Week Psychological Skills Training Program For Collegiate Wrestlers, James Malechek

Theses

Psychological skills training is becoming increasingly popular among coaches and elite athletes. However, the research available in this area continues to be lacking. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of using a self-guided psychological skills training program to improve wrestler mental skills during competitive season. The wrestler's mental strength was evaluated before and after the program using the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory-28.

The experimental group consisted of 27 male collegiate wrestlers. The control group had 21 male collegiate wrestlers. The experimental group was given a handout every week for 15- weeks. The handouts dealt with multiple …

197_, Jason Paul Reimer

Theses

This past year, two life-altering events descended on my life within a few months of each other: the death of my sister from cancer, and the birth of my first child. Both were anticipated, but hit me with a kind of emotional power that I couldn’t have imagined until they actually happened. The extremes of the highs and lows these events brought induced a mental whiplash as I thought about what they meant, and how they would affect my family and me. Grief and celebration seldom inhabit the same place at once, but I found my-self living shoulder to shoulder …

Investigating The Effect Of Color Gamut Mapping Quantitatively And Visually, Anupam Dhopade

Theses

With the advent of various color management standards and tools, the print media industry has seen many advancements aimed towards quantitatively and qualitatively acceptable color reproduction. This research attempts to test one of the most fundamental and integral parts of a standard color management workflow, the profile. The gamut mapping techniques implemented by the ICC profiles created using different profiling application programs were tested for their congruity to the theoretical concepts, standards, and definitions documented by International Color Consortium (ICC). Once these profiling software applications were examined, the significance of the possible discrepancies were tested by establishing a visual assessment …

The Shape Of Poetry: A Typographic Exploration Of Poetry And Synesthesia, Boliang Chen

Theses

The Shape of Poetry is a thesis which explores the relationships of synesthesia, typography and poetry.

Synesthesia is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. This phenomenon is common in poetry as a rhetorical device. In graphic design, we uses typography and other visual elements to make cross-sensory metaphors as well. The similarity among these three provides a new field of research possibilities.

The goal of the thesis is to visualize poetry by exploring typographic variations and implementing synesthesia findings. The final result …

Toniis: Design That Has A Positive Impact On Children With Abnormal Muscle Tone., Liana Beer

Theses

Toniis is a three part design that gives children with abnormal muscle tone an increased sense of proprioception, which is the awareness of one’s own body.

Abnormal muscle tone, including both hypertonia and hypotonia, is a condition that limits the physical ability of young children by decreasing their range of motion. Unlike typically developing children, these children do not have access to their surrounding environment. Each one of the Toniis is meant to give them a heightened sensory experience while making sure that they have fun at the same time.

As the pieces are used in stages, one after the …

Mnemonic Waters, Catherine Hellsten

Theses

Mnemonic Waters is a body of work that explores elements of memory, personal mythology, and storytelling. Through the photographic process of wet plate collodion, images from the artist’s archive are used to visually re-interpret vivid memory narratives gathered from other individuals through an interview process. Personal mythology is a belief system created from the stories that make up autobiographical memory. The perspective of our memories evolve as we do and it is through the process of storytelling that an individual gives meaning and makes sense of past events in relation to the present and in anticipation of the future. The …

Aura: Social Impacts Of Everyday Objects, Bijal Patwa

Theses

Today, the relationship between subject and object has been reversed, and we are becoming more and more technology dependent, resulting in objects ruling us. The physical presence of people is losing its value. Small incidents or situations between strangers might lead to meaningful relationships. Everyday objects, such as a coffee table, salt-pepper shakers or phones are ubiquitous and are part of our lives in a way that influences our cultural and social behavior. The effect these objects create is more important than the objects themselves. Hence the name “Aura”, for the objects created during my thesis. These objects have a …

The Production Of Arabic Geminate Stops By English Learners Of Arabic, Ahmed Saad Almutiri

Theses

This study aims to investigate the developmental ability of beginning and advance L1 English learners of Arabic to pronounce standard Arabic geminate consonants when enrolled in a full time L2 program. The results showed that English learners produced shorter closure duration when pronouncing geminates. In particular, the beginners lengthened singletons more than the advanced learners did, while both groups of learners shortened geminates much more so than native speakers of Arabic. The advanced L1 English learners of Arabic produced longer geminate duration than beginners. The ultimate result was a smaller ratio between singleton and geminate consonants in comparison to native …

Coeffects Of Experience And Professional Interest On Slps' Assessment Of Chronic Aphasia: A Correlational Survey Study, Alivia Rachelle Berry

Theses

Abstract Background: Aphasia is a commonly treated language disorder; however there is discrepancy among professionals regarding classification and assessment practices (Code & Petheram, 2011; McNeil & Pratt, 2001). Current research focuses heavily on acute treatment; chronic aphasia is severely under-represented. A review of the literature revealed a wide array of standardized and non-standardized tests used to evaluate both acute and chronic aphasia cases. Overall, there appears to be variance in evaluation practices, especially among SLPs (Bland et al., 2013). Aims: The present study aims to quantify two variables that may account for this inconsistency in evaluation procedures: 1) years of …

Can Distractibility Facilitate Recall In Older Adults? The Role Of Affect And Hyper-Binding, Cassandra Dinius

Theses

As people age, they attend to and recall positive stimuli at a higher frequency than stimuli that is negative in valence. This `positivity effect' of older adults has been repeatedly demonstrated in the fields of human attention and memory. Studies have yet to examine the positivity effect within the realm of attentional inhibition, which was the focus of the current study. In the current study, both young and older adults were shown emotional images. These images varied in valence (negative, neutral, positive) and were superimposed with emotional words (also varying in valence). In the Adaptive condition of the study, participants …

Lexical Knowledge Of Verb-Particle By Saudi English Learners, Fadwi Waleed Alturki

Theses

Verb-particle constructions are one of the most complex components of the English language. Understanding and producing such difficult constructs in a second language (L2) is a challenge for L2 learners of English. This research was based on the study by Blais and Gonnerman (2013). The purpose of the current study was to measure American and Saudi participants' sensitivity to the degree of semantic similarity between verb/verb-particle constructions. The survey of similarity ratings was administered to 107 American native English speakers and 67 Saudi English learners. The participants were asked to rate 78 items based on their knowledge of the semantic …

Analysis Of Cycle 2 Science Textbooks Representation Of Scientific Literacy And Readability Level, Aisha Abdulla Salem Al Qaydi Al Qaydi

Theses

For over half a century, textbooks have played a decisive role in teaching and learning activities. In today’s classrooms, textbooks serve as primary teaching instruments and greatly influence how knowledge is delivered and communicated. With the development of the society, a majority of teachers use textbooks to guide their instruction. On the other hand, readability of textbooks is an important construct for both educators and textbook authors. Finding the right fit between the students’ reading ability and the text difficulty is an important and challenging task for teachers. This study is about how scientific content is presented and represented in …

Parents Attitude Towards Inclusion Of Students With Disabilities Into The General Education Classrooms, Maitha Khalifa Ali Al Neyadi

Theses

This study aims at examining parents’ attitude toward including students with disabilities into the general education classrooms. The objectives of this study are threefold as follows: a) investigating parents' attitudes towards including children with disabilities in the general education classrooms, b) examining whether there is a difference in attitude between parents of children with and without disabilities, and c) examining the influence of the child's severity level on parents’ attitudes toward inclusion. Participants were 100 parents ( 50 parents of children with disabilities from a rehabiltation centers, and 50 parents of children without disabilities). The research employed a quantitative analysis …

Exploring English Instructors' Perceptions And Actual Practices Regarding The Strategies Used In Teaching And Assessing Writing In Three Tertiary Education Institutions In The Sultanate Of Oman, Noura Abdullah Hamed Al-Azani

Theses

The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions and practices of ESL/EFL instructors in teaching and assessing writing in three tertiary educational institutions in the Sultanate of Oman (Al Buraimi University College, University of Buraimi, and Sohar University). The researcher used the quantitative and qualitative methods in the study. The data was gathered through a questionnaire (n=147), 15 interviews (n=15), and 18 classroom observations (n=10). The findings of this study revealed that the majority of ESL/EFL instructors believe in and practice aspects of the process- and product-oriented approaches for teaching academic writing in Oman. Many ESL/EFL instructors believe …

Distribution Of Ghrelin In Pancreatic Islet Cells Of Normal And Diabetic Rats And Its Effect On Diabetes Mellitus, Haba Y. M. El Abadlah

Theses

Ghrelin, a 28-amino acid peptide, is identified as the endogenous ligand of the orphan growth hormone secretagogue-receptor type 1a. Ghrelin presents a unique modification at Ser3 position essential for its activity. It was first discovered in the stomach of rat in 1999. Aside from ghrelin’s role as a potent growth hormone secretagogue and food intake modulator, ghrelin is thought to play a role in insulin and glucagon secretion and in glucose homeostasis. A lot of contradictory data have been reported in the literature regarding ghrelins co-localization with other hormones in the islets of Langerhans, its role in insulin secretion and …

Hate Speech And The Status Of Prisoners, Logan Richard Baseley

Theses

Drawing from feminist and critical race theorists’ analyses of pornography and racist speech, I advance an argument in favor of speech regulations vis-à-vis prison rape films. I call ‘prison rape films’ (PRFs) those films that depict prison rape humorously, as narrative springboards, or as unnecessary tangents. I explore why such films ought to be regulated by pointing out the harms these films have on prisoners. In doing so, I examine what it is to be a ‘historically oppressed group’ and what makes such groups particularly vulnerable to hate speech. Prisoners are a historically oppressed group that is harmed by prison …

The Scientific And Theological Superiority Of Divine Timelessness, David Christian Justice

Theses

For much of the history of the philosophy of religion it was generally accepted that God existed outside of time. Recently, however, many theologians have challenged the classical position that God exists outside of time and have instead argued for a temporal God. I argue that the concept of a temporal God is theologically and philosophically problematic, and in opposition to our best science. I first argue that a timeless existence is superior to that of a temporal existence, and that God as the most perfect being must therefore exist timelessly. I then argue a common objection raised against the …