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Depression And Cognitive Changes In Dementia Of The Alzheimer’S Type And Normal Aging, Emily A. Carr

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Past research has identified a relationship between depression scores and memory functioning in "normal" populations. However, findings in the dementia of the Alzheimer's Type (DAT) population have been inconsistent, at best. The purpose of the present study was to further investigate whether Depression affects cognitive functioning in individuals with DAT to the same extent as it affects those without DAT. Depression and cognitive functioning was investigated in two groups of subjects: individuals diagnosed with DAT (N = 27), and older normal controls (N = 24). Cognitive functioning was operationalized as scores achieved on recent memory measures. Each group was assessed …

Effects Of Pesticides And Their Combinations On Human Fibroblast Cells, Yijun Deng

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Pesticides are widely used in Iowa due to its primarily agricultural economy. Many studies have shown that the water sources in Iowa are contaminated by multiple pesticides. Most of the information about the adverse human health effects due to such environmental contaminants comes from studies that focus on exposure to single rather than multiple pesticides. Additionally, many of the environmental regulations regarding levels of pesticide contamination refer only to single, individual pesticides. Many questions remain about the human health effects of exposure to pesticide combinations. This study attempts to understand the effects of pesticide combinations on human cells. A cell …

A Preliminary Study Of Sustainable Eco-Industrial Partnerships In The State Of Iowa, Kathleen L. Hennings

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The proliferation of industry around the globe, coupled with concerns about the dwindling supply of raw materials, has fostered the emergence of a new manufacturing ideology. In contrast to the linear manufacturing model, raw material in and finished product out, precision manufacturing takes waste material in and provides a new product out. Companies in this study who participated in precision manufacturing were identified as partners when one company sold or traded a waste product to a separate company who used the waste in their primary production. This study was initiated to determine the factors present in successful waste exchange partnerships …

Effects Of Nitrates/Nitrites On Lymphocyte Proliferation And Cytokine Production, Lu Fang

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Approximately 3 million people may be exposed to high nitrate levels(>10 ppm) in the United States, especially in Iowa and other agricultural states. The concern regarding usage of groundwater with excessive concentrations of nitrates is related to human health effects. The toxicity of nitrate to humans is due to the body's reduction of nitrate to nitrite. Nitrate/nitrite impair public health with consequences such as gastric cancer, methemoglobinemia and other diseases. Currently, based upon human case studies, the drinking water quality standard in the U.S. is 10 ppm nitrate-N (MCL). Little work has been done on the effects of nitrate/nitrite …

A Question Of Sanity: Women And In/Sanity In Bessie Head’S A Question Of Power And Sylvia Plath’S The Bell Jar, Amanda Lynn Graeber

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The use of female mental illness in fiction has previously been characterized as a subversive act. Theorists such as Juliet Mitchell, Susan Gubar, and Sandra Gilbert have advocated the use of madness as a way of protesting patriarchal systems and language. Female madness in many cases has been viewed not only as a conscious choice, but as an option that is preferable to sanity. In their view, mental illness is an embodiment of a woman's rejection of the patriarchal order. I would suggest that mental illness is actually about powerlessness. The madwoman is placed in a space outside of normal …

Negotiating Voices: Ethnography Of Interactive Theatre Techniques Within A Classroom, Jana Gymer-Koch

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

During the Spring 2001 semester I had the opportunity to conduct an ethnography of Dr. Karen Mitchell's course "Texts and Contexts: Performance and Social Change" at the University of Northern Iowa. This course is designed to link performance with social change issues, by utilizing personal narrative and Augusto Boal' s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques: forum theatre, image theatre, and invisible theatre. These techniques were chosen by Dr. Mitchell on the basis of their capacity to involve both actors and audiences in the issues to be addressed and because they are based on Paulo Freire' s principles of liberatory education. …

Toward A Unified Theory Of Cognition: A Kantian Analysis, Clayton Daniel Austin

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper is to provide classroom teachers a more unified theory of cognition. The current cognitive theories of information processing, schema theory, and constructivism exhibit limitations and a lack of cohesion that make their implications for teachers unclear. This paper will be presented in five sections. 1) The first describes problems with current cognitive theories and the need for a unified theory of cognition 2) The second provides a review of the literature of current cognitive theories. 3) The third section consists of research in the history of cognitive theory both in philosophy and psychology. 4) The …

Young Children’S Responses To Conflictual Adult Conversation, Jessica A. Cartozian

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study evaluated relationships among children's cognitions following exposure to scripted conflictual interactions between adults. Thirty- five mother-child dyads were assessed using self-report measures, and continuous measures of behavioral and physiological distress (cardiac function, skin conductance). Four hypotheses were investigated: Exposure to conflict would be related to greater distress following the conflictual script; attributional errors would be related to greater distress; child distress would be positively correlated with parental conflict at home; maternal psychopathology would be positively related with distress responses to the stimulus. All hypotheses were found to be non-significant. Explanations for non-significance include the normative sample, the …

Prevention Programs For Reducing At-Risk Behaviors Involving Alcohol Abuse, Substance Usage, And Violence In High School Students Ages 14 To 17, Ismail Z. Jihad

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

The problem addressed in the applied dissertation was that high school teenagers enrolled in prevention programs are not decreasing at-risk behaviors. This problem can be answered by focusing on distinct characteristics of teenagers who are enrolled in the after-school mental health and substance abuse prevention program. The at-risk behaviors demonstrated by the teenagers in the prevention program included substance abuse, crime, violence, poor academics, truancy, mental health issues, inappropriate sexual behavior, and teenage pregnancy.

The primary solutions for prevention programs to combat the causes of alcohol and substance usage in adolescents is to offer life skills such as: emotional management; …

Improving Reading Comprehension In The High School Setting, Robert L. Harris

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

The setting for this applied dissertation is Springville High School. Twenty percent of the ninth grade students at this school scored below the 30th percentile on norm referenced Stanford Achievement Test 9 in reading comprehension. The test results reflect the lack of reading instruction at the secondary level. The implementation period was for two 18-week periods, which used reading strategies from the researched-based Alabama Reading Initiative Program. An intervention was developed and utilized to improve the reading comprehension of a select group of ninth-grade students. The objectives for this project were to significantly increase the reading comprehension scores of the …