Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Expectations As Determinants Of Satisfaction In An Outpatient Care Setting, Jan Strohmeyer Brien

Dissertations

Understanding patient satisfaction is a central theme in today's healthcare landscape. The role of patient expectations and its impact on patient satisfaction has not been well understood in the context of a viable theoretical model. Thibault and Kelly's Theory of Interpersonal Relations and constructs of expectations in relationships are used to develop a framework for identifying the main factors driving both expectations and satisfaction. Measures are developed for comparison level of current outcomes compared to expectations (CL), comparison level of alternatives to care (CLalt), investment in selecting a physician, and prior satisfaction. Participants included a random sample of 500 primary …

A Rat Model Examining Behavioral And Neurochemical Effects Of Passive Exposure To Aggression On Observers, Hideo Suzuki

Dissertations

Previous studies have consistently reported that passive exposure to aggression is a risk of aggressive inclinations for a human witness. However, it is unclear whether a witness' aggressiveness is semi-permanently socialized or temporarily primed. Furthermore, a neurochemical mechanism of passive exposure to aggression also remains unaddressed in clinical literature. The present research used a rat model to clarify the behavioral and neurochemical effects of passive exposure to aggression. First, rats were screened for their aggressiveness after they were acutely or chronically exposed to aggression or non-aggression. It was found that observer rats chronically exposed to aggression exhibited more aggression than …

Philo Of Alexandria's Exposition Of The Tenth Commandment, Hans Svebakken

Dissertations

As part of a larger exposition on the Ten Commandments, Philo offers in Spec.4.78b-131 a detailed exposition of both the Tenth Commandment, which he reads simply as "You shall not desire," and the Mosaic dietary laws, which he identifies as a distinct set of subsidiary laws designed to promote observance of the Tenth Commandment. Setting his exposition in the context of Middle-Platonic moral psychology, this dissertation answers two fundamental questions: First, what, in Philo's view, does the Tenth Commandment prohibit? (All desire? A certain type? What type?) Second, how, in Philo's view, is the Tenth Commandment observed? (What are the …

Therapeutic Mentoring: Outcomes For Youth In Foster Care, Sara B. Johnson

Dissertations

This study examined the impact of therapeutic mentoring on youth in foster care. Youth outcomes on the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) measure for four groups of youth were compared. Three treatment groups were divided based on the amount of therapeutic mentoring received and compared on CANS outcome scores as measured from baseline to 6, 12, and 18 months. The fourth group did not receive any therapeutic mentoring. Outcome domains for emotional and behavioral functioning, peer relationships, academic functioning, and community involvement were analyzed. All youth in the study (n = 262) received counseling and support through the …

The Importance Of Comprehensive Clinical Social Work Assessments For Determination Of Older Adult Guardianship Petitions In Cook County Probate Court, Chicago, Illinois, Heather Jones

Dissertations

As our population ages there seems to be a strong current toward seeking surrogate decision-makers for individuals, who appear unable to manage their lives and make clear choices. Guardianship is the most profound course of action when determining that an older adult lacks decisional capacity. Older adults make up the majority of persons adjudicated incapacitated and, in turn, are assigned guardians (Crampton, 2004; Teaster, Schmidt, and Roberto, 2004). There is limited research about older adult guardianship, so this study is opportune because of the increased longevity of the population, with the most rapid growth among the very old, who likely …

Connection, Caretaking, And Conflict: The Recalled, Lived Experience Of Adultdaughters Of Bipolar Mothers, Louise Ribeiro Presley

Dissertations

At present in the United States approximately four million people (1.6%) suffer from bipolar I and bipolar II disorders. About 20% are not helped by medication. Each bipolar person has two parents,and may have siblings, friends, spouses and children. All of these people are affected by the feelings and behavior of the bipolar person. The children are especially vulnerable to behavior disorders, depression, and anxiety, even if protective factors mitigate the family situation.

This qualitative research addresses the events recalled by adult daughters whose mothers are bipolar: what they recalled of what they thought, felt and did in response. Events …

Organizational Approaches To Drug Law Enforcement By Local Police Departments In The United States: Specialized Drug Units And Participation In Multi-Agency Drug Task Forces, Robert M. Lombardo, David E. Olson

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper examines the factors associated with the decision of local police departments in the United States to operate specialized drug units or to participate in multi-jurisdictional drug task forces. Combining data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) Survey, the 2000 Census, and the Uniform Crime Report, we use both bivariate and multivariate methods to conduct the analysis. The findings indicate that county-level agencies, those with other formalized drug control efforts, high levels of violent crime, high degrees of task specialization and formalization, and high proportions of the resident population accounted for by renters were more likely …

Dying In The Shadows Of The Lowlands : Illuminating The Lao Malaria Crisis Through Leadership And Imagination, Edgar M. Ednacot

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

Papyrology On The Threshold Of A New Millennium, James G. Keenan

Classical Studies: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Papyrologists have met internationally as a group since 1930. Following various complications, including a meeting planned for Vienna for 1939 but never held and, of course, the devastating intrusion of World War II, a custom of triennial meetings was established. Recent meetings have been larger than the early ones, with more participants, more papers, and correspondingly bigger proceedings (cf. BASP 39 [2002] 213-227 on the 1998 congress in Florence). At Vienna in 2001 there were 281 registered participants. The program featured nine specially invited keynote speeches, 126 standard-length papers, and three workshops (with fourteen workshop presenters in all).

Egypt’S “Special Place”, James G. Keenan

Classical Studies: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Paper questioning scholarly views on Egypt's peculiarity in the Greco-Roman world.

Second Life, Video Games, And The Social Text, Steven E. Jones

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Instead of being a world apart from material reality, the virtual world Second Life is intertwined with larger trends associated with Web 2.0 and the "eversion" of cyberspace. A number of recent scholars have begun to explore the relation of textual studies and video games. Games represent sophisticated ideas of what it means to enable on a digital platform the dynamic, networked, collaborative construction of the social text, broadly conceived. A game space is not an infinite virtual reality, but is instead a possibility space in multiple dimensions. Videogames offer humanists serious models for potential networked events of their own—embodied, …

Teachers' Discourse On English Language Learners: Cultural Models Of Language And Learning, Amy Heineke

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

This qualitative case study explores teacher learning about English language learners (ELLs) in a small-group, school-based context at an urban elementary school inArizona. Sociocultural perspectives on teacher learning guided the analysis of teachers’ participation in a teacher study group over six months. The teacher study group aimed to support educators of ELLs at a time of new language policy implementation, which required ELLs to enroll in an English language development (ELD) classroom for four hours of skill-based English language instruction.

In the first semester of language policy implementation, I collected discursive data that showcased the social interaction of teachers and …

The Art Of Trinitarian Articulation: A Case Study On Richard Of St. Victor's _De Trinitate_, Todd D. Vasquez

Dissertations

Richard of Saint Victor deliberately constructs his treatise De Trinitate with trinitarian structures to sustain the hearts and shape the minds of his readers with the contemplation of the Trinity. His work fits within a genre of writing in the Middle Ages where the formation of the theological apprentice was at the heart of crafting one’s theological work. The dissertation consists of three sections: Section I, “Introduction & Background,” establishes the context for the thesis. Chapter one fits Richard’s De Trinitate within the theological heritage of Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury. Chapter two describes aspects of the liturgical and educational …

A Study Of The Leadership Of High-Poverty, High-Performing Schools Through The Lens Of Moral Leadership, Scott David Fech

Dissertations

This study examines the leadership of principals who work in schools which have been identified as having a large student population living in poverty and have a record of sustained academic success as measured on standardized tests. The goal of this study was to identify which sources of authority these principals demonstrate in these high-poverty, high-performing (HP HP) schools where students achieve at higher levels than expected. Another goal of this study was to identify commonalities in leadership style and traits, which would include the concepts of moral leadership, among these principals in HP HP schools. This study used Thomas …

Degree Attainment Among Adult Learners, Maureen O'Conor

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to expand understanding and discover knowledge about degree attainment among adult learners. This qualitative inquiry is about what 15 bachelor's degree recipients over the age of 25 felt contributed to their efforts to attain the bachelor's degree.

This study contains professional research and expert material on motivation, challenges and barriers, learning preferences, and skills. These areas form the foundation of the study. This research also provides detailed demographic profiles of adult undergraduates and non-traditional-age bachelor's degree recipients, as well as economic data including unemployment, financial aid and debt burden. This inquiry utilizes data, reports …

Comparison Of The Compositional Proclivities Of The Complete Genomes Of Plasmodium Falciparum And Human, April Williams, Yuriy Fofanov, Catherine Putonti

Bioinformatics Faculty Publications

Pathogens and hosts have a dynamic relationship, one that is ever changing at the molecular level - the pathogen influencing the evolutionary path of the host and the host influencing the evolutionary path of the pathogen. The pathogen’s adaptation to a particular host could serve several purposes, e.g. to mimic the host to avoid detection, to take advantage of the host’s cellular machinery, to increase virulence, etc. Recognizing these adaptations is far from trivial, particularly when the size of the pathogen’s and host’s genomes differ by orders of magnitudes. Novel algorithms and data structures have been developed in our laboratory …

Magnetosomes And Magneto-Aerotaxis, Richard B. Frankel, Dennis A. Bazylinski

Physics

Magnetotactic bacteria orient and migrate along geomagnetic field lines. Magneto-aerotaxis increases the efficiency of respiring microaerophilic cells to efficiently find and maintain a position at a preferred microaerobic oxygen concentration. Magneto-aerotaxis could also facilitate access to regions of higher nutrient and electron acceptor concentration via periodic excursions above and below the preferred oxygen concentration level.

The Dollar, The Euro And The Role Of Emerging Economies, Bala Batavia, Anastasios G. Malliaris

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods Global International System in 1971, the world economy has experienced significant currency volatility. The major economies of the world have addressed such volatility differently. The European Union (EU) has chosen to follow a monetary union and introduced successfully a new currency. The USA has paid less attention to the fluctuations of the dollar and has pursued an independent monetary policy to promote national economic stability. Japan has seen its currency appreciate significantly. This paper argues that while trade and growth across the globe are doing well, financial developments are intensifying the competition between …

The Impact Of Information Signals On Market Prices When Agents Have Non-Linear Trading Rules, C. Kyrtsou, Anastasios G. Malliaris

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Several methods have been developed for filtering seasonal influences and extreme returns in financial and economic time series. The theoretical support for these approaches is rather questionable since it focuses on the effects of shocks on prices and not on their sources. Removing such effects modifies the true generating system of market dynamics because of the non-proportional character of non-linearity. Thus, taking into account that the underlying process of economic time series is highly non-linear we cannot be certain a priori what the impact of new information will be on the dynamic structure of a system. The main contribution of …

Women’S Possessions And Social Class In Contemporary Zagreb, Katherine Sredl

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This research asks if social stratification is related to women's consumption practices of tableware in Zagreb. It uses analytical approaches based on research in the United States that has found a relationship between class stratification and consumer practices and asks how those theories are transferable (Holt, 1998). Research was conducted over nine months in Zagreb, from 2006 to 2007. Thirty women were interviewed in two age groups, from ages 45 to 65 and in their early twenties, from the working, middle and upper classes, to discuss how they acquire, use and display tableware. The major findings are that social class …

Untangling The Biological Contributions To Soil Stability In Semiarid Shrublands, V. Bala Chaudhary, Matthew A. Bowker, Thomas E. O'Dell, James B. Grace, Andrea E. Redman, Mathias C. Rillig, Nancy C. Johnson

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Communities of plants, biological soil crusts (BSCs), and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are known to influence soil stability individually, but their relative contributions, interactions, and combined effects are not well understood, particularly in arid and semiarid ecosystems. In a landscape-scale field study we quantified plant, BSC, and AM fungal communities at 216 locations along a gradient of soil stability levels in southern Utah, USA. We used multivariate modeling to examine the relative influences of plants, BSCs, and AM fungi on surface and subsurface stability in a semiarid shrubland landscape. Models were found to be congruent with the data and explained …

A Rylean Revision To Biological Naturalism, Timothy E. Kunke

Master's Theses

This essay is a contrasting of John Searle's biological naturalist view of the mind with Gilbert Ryle's deconstruction of the problem of mind-body interaction. These two positions are most uniquely suited for this purpose since, together they constitute the best positive theory and criticism of the same problem. It will be argued that consciousness - a feature of human experience which proves to be one of the most difficult to account for, from the perspective of the naturalist can be regarded as a dispositional attribute of a complex biological organism. Considered as such, it is what Searle would term a …

Recruitment Strategies Of Ulva And Porphyra In Central California., Rosemary Romero

Master's Theses

Ephemeral algae are early colonizers of the rocky intertidal zone after a disturbance, although the mechanism of early colonization (including benthic microscopic stages and waterborne propagules) is poorly known. Recruitment of the ephemeral Ulva spp. was studied in two types of disturbance manipulations (partial removal of all macroscopic organisms were removed vs. complete removal of all macro- and microscopic organisms) and an un-manipulated control at two tidal heights (high Porphyra zone and low Mazzaella zone). Replicate disturbances were created in August 2007, November 2007, January 2008, and May 2008 and were monitored until August 2008 on a rocky bench north …

Depression: The Role Of Cultural Factors And Perception Of Treatment., Cynthia Chacon

Master's Theses

Depression is a prevalent mental disorder. Various factors influence people's attitudes toward help seeking, perceptions, and beliefs about psychotherapy, including ethnicity (language), distress level, social support, treatment modality, and subpopulation. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychodynamic therapy (PT) have been used to treat depression. This study explored the relationship between the aforementioned variables. Participants (N = 264) were White and Mexican-American from a college and the community. Results indicated that ethnicity and subpopulation were not significantly related to seeking help; people who reported higher distress levels and higher social support expressed greater likelihood to seek help. All groups rated CBT …

The Lao Language-- Our Own World To Fall Back On" : Lao American Students' Critical Reflections On Heritage Language Maintenance And Loss, Khonepheth Lily Liemthongsamout

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

A Critical Hermeneutic Approach To Understanding Experiences Of Selected Afghan-Muslim-American Leaders Post-9/11 In The Diverse Bay Area, Belal A. Kaifi

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

Leadership And The Other : Ethical Action Through Meaning In Work, Rebecca L. Cisek

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

A Qualitative Study Of An E-Commerce Organization In Transition, Steven C. Lopez

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

Students', Teachers', And Parents' Perspectives Of An African Centered Program : Þle Omode, Tiffany S. Wright

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

Transformational Leadership Practices At A Northern California Winery, Brian Douglas Phifer

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable