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2010

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Automated Biometrics Of Audio-Visual Multiple Modals, Lin Huang Jan 2010

Automated Biometrics Of Audio-Visual Multiple Modals, Lin Huang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Biometrics is the science and technology of measuring and analyzing biological data for authentication purposes. Its progress has brought in a large number of civilian and government applications. The candidate modalities used in biometrics include retinas, fingerprints, signatures, audio, faces, etc. There are two types of biometric system: single modal systems and multiple modal systems. Single modal systems perform person recognition based on a single biometric modality and are affected by problems like noisy sensor data, intra-class variations, distinctiveness and non-universality. Applying multiple modal systems that consolidate evidence from multiple biometric modalities can alleviate those problems of single modal ones. …

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Beyond Culture Wars, Emmanuel. Alvarado Jan 2010

Beyond Culture Wars, Emmanuel. Alvarado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study examines the impact of Christian religiosity on attitudes toward social safety-net policies over the past three decades in the US. The study used data from the General Social Survey on social safety-net policy preferences and levels of Christian religiosity. Simple cross tabulations, correlations and multiple regression analysis were used to assess the data. Contrary to previous related research, the results of this study indicate that Christian religiosity has a very weak association with opposition to social safety-net policies. At the national level, the relationship between Christian religiosity and attitudes toward social protection policies was largely mediated by other …

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Brain Dynamics And Behavioral Basis Of A Higher Level Cognitive Task, Meltem. Ballan Jan 2010

Brain Dynamics And Behavioral Basis Of A Higher Level Cognitive Task, Meltem. Ballan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Number perception, its neural basis and its relationship to how numerical stimuli are presented have been challenging research topics in cognitive neuroscience for many years. A primary question that has been addressed is whether the perception of the quantity of a visually presented number stimulus is dissociable from its early visual perception. The present study examined the possible influence of visual quality judgment on quantity judgments of numbers. To address this issue, volunteer adult subjects performed a mental number comparison task in which two-digit stimulus numbers (Arabic number format), among the numbers between 31 and 99 were mentally compared to …

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Beethoven, Daniel. Padua Jan 2010

Beethoven, Daniel. Padua

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Beethoven is widely considered to be one of the most influential composers of all time. His compositions denote a crucial turning point in the history of western music, and his influence can be discussed in numerous ways - musically, technically, theoretically and even philosophically. This treatise discusses one of the primary aspects of Beethoven's influence on later generations: the way that his symphonies contributed to the expansion of the genre and, consequently, to the development of the orchestra. Included is a detailed analysis of his nine symphonies, an overview of his personal life, and an exploration of the historical, social, …

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Children's Conceptual Understanding Of Growth, Aquilla D. Copeland Jan 2010

Children's Conceptual Understanding Of Growth, Aquilla D. Copeland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Growth is a property that is unique to living things. Studies demonstrate that even preschool children use growth to determine whether objects are alive. However, little identifies explanations that children use to attribute growth. The goal of the present study was to investigate how people reason about growth. We hypothesized that older children would outperform younger children in understanding that growth is inevitable for living things, while adults would consistently perform at ceiling levels. Our hypothesis was partially supported. Although adults consistently outperformed children, older children rarely outperformed younger children. Still, both younger and older children performed above chance in …

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Comparison Of Acute Heart Rate Variability Responses To Relaxation Alone Vs. Relaxation Preceded By Hatha Yoga, Nina. Markil Jan 2010

Comparison Of Acute Heart Rate Variability Responses To Relaxation Alone Vs. Relaxation Preceded By Hatha Yoga, Nina. Markil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The objective of this study was to compare the acute heart rate variability responses to relaxation alone versus relaxation preceded by Hatha yoga. Twenty women and men (aged 18-50 years) participated in the study. Participants completed a yoga plus relaxation (YR) session and a relaxation only (R) session. The YR condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), pNN50 (%, p = 0.009), LF (% p = 0.008) and HF (% p = 0.035). The R condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), HF (ms2, p = 0.004), LF (%, p = 0.005), HF (%, p = 0.008) and LF/HF (%, p = 0.008). There were no significant differences between conditions for the changes from baseline for any of the variables. The results demonstrate that relaxation produces favorable changes in indices of heart rate variability whether alone or preceded by about of Hatha yoga.

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Components Of Self, Christina Maya Major Jan 2010

Components Of Self, Christina Maya Major

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

My thesis exhibition is comprised of approximately eleven large-scale portrait paintings done primarily in oil paint on canvas. This body of work investigates the ways the identity of both artist and subject can coexist in a portrait and evolved from my desire to combine portrait painting with writing as well as to develop methods of using paint to express a merging of myself with the individual depicted in the portrait. My creative research has focused on the traditional form of the portrait as a powerful form of representing an individual and how meaning can be expanded through scale, brushstroke, color, …

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Credibility And The Internet, Katrina. Herring Jan 2010

Credibility And The Internet, Katrina. Herring

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The Internet has revolutionized the way in which people are entertained, communicate and collect information. As people increase their ability to connect with the outside world from inside their homes, they hold the power to become their own gatekeepers filtering information as they see fit. Many question whether this will weaken the power of the traditional media sources that are often seen as elitist and potentially biased. This researcher hypothesized that people who cite high credibility ratings of news media channels are more likely to use traditional media channels such as television and newspapers and people who cite low credibility …

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Constituting Community, Julianne. Curran Jan 2010

Constituting Community, Julianne. Curran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Both Thoreau and Rawlings call attention to humanity's need to expand its perceptions and interpretations of what it means to be a part of a community in Walden and Cross Creek, respectively. Building on the established idea of what it means to be incorporated into a human community, each author also implores his or her readers to extend the perceived boundaries of what comprises a "community" to include the natural world. Ultimately, both texts point to the need for the establishment of what Aldo Leopold calls a land ethic, which requires the re-drawing of communal boundaries to include the land …

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Critical Theory Analysis Of The Disproportionate Representation Of Blacks And Males Participating In Florida's Special Education Programs, Anthony G. Allen Jan 2010

Critical Theory Analysis Of The Disproportionate Representation Of Blacks And Males Participating In Florida's Special Education Programs, Anthony G. Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975 has made a profound impact on millions of children with disabilities who now enjoy their right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE). It is the goal of national policy, endorsed by Congress, to ensure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. With the enactment of IDEA, it ensures that all children, who participate in special education programs, have equal access to education. However, since IDEA's inception, a disproportionate number of African Americans children have been placed, or rather, misplaced in special education programs. …

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Deconstructing My Universal Marginalization, Fathima Asma Nazim Jan 2010

Deconstructing My Universal Marginalization, Fathima Asma Nazim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This thesis is a profoundly personal one. It examines the role of context in creation (authorship) and perception (reading an image) of representation. Born in Sri Lanka during the emergence of one the world's longest lasting civil wars, I never recognized my love and concern for the Island and its ancient history and culture until I traveled to America to pursue a higher education. Ever since, I have constantly found myself in situations where I am regarded as the 'other' or the 'outsider' ; I seem to not fit in completely in this country as well as in my own. …

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Developing Mechanisms Of Self-Regulation, Aviva R. Kadin-Pessoa Jan 2010

Developing Mechanisms Of Self-Regulation, Aviva R. Kadin-Pessoa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Parents' and children's behaviors are intricately woven together over the course of development. Consequently it is difficulty to determine the sources of influence predicting socially and academically oriented outcomes. Research from several developmental fields suggests that developing mechanisms of attention during the preschool years is crucial for both emotional and cognitive control. The current study shows that parental responsive behavior is important in understanding the development of voluntary attention. More specifically, the results suggest that parental awareness, assessed utilizing their perceptions of attentive temperament is an important factor in predicting their own behavior and the developmental outcomes of their children.

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Development Of Jealousy, Alexis K. Blau Jan 2010

Development Of Jealousy, Alexis K. Blau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Jealousy is a response to a situation in which a person feels a combination of different emotions, such as love, anger, sadness and fear when an affectionate interaction is happening between a loved one and someone else. This paper discusses the definition and onset of infant jealousy, the physiological basis of jealousy, whether maternal factors play a role, as well as studies on jealousy and EEG patterns. It has been argued that infants, as young as six-months-old display jealous-like behaviors. During jealousy evocation conditions, infants demonstrate negative emotions such as protesting or crying, diminished distancing, and heightened gaze toward their …

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Diffusion Tensor Imaging In Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries, Angelica Hotiu Jan 2010

Diffusion Tensor Imaging In Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries, Angelica Hotiu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) are the leading type of head injuries with appreciable risque of sequelae leading to functional and psychological deficits. Although mild traumatic brain injuries are frequently underdiagnosed by conventional imaging modalities, rapidly evolving techniques such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) reveal subtle changes in white matter integrity as a result of head trauma and play an important role in refining diagnosis, therapeutic interventions and management of MTBI. In this dissertation we use diffusion tensor imaging to detect the microstructural changes induced by axonal injuries and to monitor their evolution during the recovery process. DTI data were …

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Discovery And Visualization Of Co-Regulated Genes Relevant To Target Diseases, Vaibhan. Lad Jan 2010

Discovery And Visualization Of Co-Regulated Genes Relevant To Target Diseases, Vaibhan. Lad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

In this thesis, we propose to discover co-regulated genes using microarray expression data, as well as providing visualization functionalities for domain experts to study relationships among discovered co-regulated genes. To discover co-regulated genes, we first use existing gene selection methods to select a small portion of genes which are relevant to the target diseases, on which we build an ordered similarity matrix by using nearest neighbor based similarity assessment criteria. We then apply a threshold based clustering algorithm named Spectral Clustering to the matrix to obtain a number of clusters. The genes which are clustered together in one cluster represent …

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Downside Of Self-Esteem Stability, Susan L. Wiese Jan 2010

Downside Of Self-Esteem Stability, Susan L. Wiese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Self-concept stability was tested in three studies to examine the relationship between stability in one's self-concept and the ability to adapt to changes in the social environment. Much of the literature on the topic of self-stability emphasizes the functional benefits of stability and the negative outcomes associated with instability. Dynamical systems theory purports however that stability in a dynamical system is indicative of a loss of complexity that limits the range of the systems behavior. Accordingly, this series of studies tests the idea that a stable self-system may have a more limited range of behaviors than unstable self-systems and this …

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Effect Of Skill-Focused Minilessons On Students' Independent Use Of Reading Skills During Literature Circles, Gail. Kennedy Jan 2010

Effect Of Skill-Focused Minilessons On Students' Independent Use Of Reading Skills During Literature Circles, Gail. Kennedy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Increased accountability in contemporary public elementary schools requires that teachers provide evidence they are using research-based strategies that reinforce skills assessed on standardized tests. There is a need to provide empirical evidence that literature circles can reinforce skills assessed on these tests. A literature circle is a research-based strategy that is common in language arts classrooms. This study investigates the connection between these skills and student discussion that takes place during literature circles. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of skill-focused minilessons on students' independent use of reading skills. The study investigated whether application of skill-focused …

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Effects Of Target Entitativity And Group Affiliation On The Processing Of Persuasive Messages, Karoly I. Balazs Jan 2010

Effects Of Target Entitativity And Group Affiliation On The Processing Of Persuasive Messages, Karoly I. Balazs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This research addresses the question of whether individuals or groups induce deeper message processing of persuasive messages. An interaction between group entitativity and whether the group is an ingroup or an outgroup is predicted, where ingroups low on entitativity and outgroups high on entitativity are expected to induce deeper message processing. Entitativity measures the extent an aggregate of people is seen as a group (D. T. Campbell, 1958). Previous research shows contradictory results. S. G. Harkins and R. E. Petty (1987) have shown that high entitativity causes more message focus than low entitativity. R. J. Rydell and A. R. McConnell …

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Effects Of Variables In Oral History, Lise M. Steinhauer Jan 2010

Effects Of Variables In Oral History, Lise M. Steinhauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study examines six oral history projects that were conducted over fifty years in Palm Beach County, Florida. The projects recorded the history of African American neighborhoods in Delray Beach and Boca Raton; individual lives in their place and times; the pioneer and Flagler eras in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach; and people, places, and events chosen by oral history students at Florida Atlantic University. As with oral histories generally, those studied inherently contain numerous variables concerning their (1) historical context, (2) format, and (3) participants, which clearly affect the outcome of recorded interviews and their written representations. Among …

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Employees' Perception Of Employers' Response After Workplace Injury, Nancy S. Patrick Jan 2010

Employees' Perception Of Employers' Response After Workplace Injury, Nancy S. Patrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The purpose of this study was to (a) explore the lived experiences of school district employees who have sustained on-the-job injuries with specific attention to employee perceptions of employer response after injury and (b) examine whether purposeful empathetic response from the employer after workplace injury was related to changes in employee perceptions of employer response. This study included both qualitative and quantitative methods. In Phase 1, the sample for the interviews included nine workers from a large school district in South Florida who had active injury claims within two years before the study began. The Phase 1 findings were that …

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Examining Principled L1 Use In The Foreign Language Classroom, Isabel. Osswald Jan 2010

Examining Principled L1 Use In The Foreign Language Classroom, Isabel. Osswald

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study examines the potential benefits of using the native language of learners in a principled way by reviewing research that represents the dominant view of using only the second or target language (L2) against a growing body of literature that argues for principled L1 use. The development of the direct and monolingual method and its key aspects are discussed, and bilingual methods and arguments for implementing the first language (L1) in a foreign language classroom are reviewed and evaluated. An attitudinal case study investigating learners' attitudes towards L1 use in the classroom showed that students prefer a mixture of …

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Executive Fire Officers' Strategic Thinking Capabilities And The Relationship With Information And Communication Technology, Gerri. Penney Jan 2010

Executive Fire Officers' Strategic Thinking Capabilities And The Relationship With Information And Communication Technology, Gerri. Penney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

This study investigates the relationship of executive fire officers' use of strategic thinking skills and their proficiency using information and communication technology. A non-experimental quantitative study design was employed. The study consisted of 400 graduates of the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program. The use of strategic thinking skills was measured by the Strategic Thinking Questionnaire (STQv6) (Pisapia & Reyes-Guerra, 2007). The use of information and communication technology tools was measured by the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Fluency Questionnaire (Hilberg, 2007). The EFOs' strategic thinking capabilities of systems thinking (3.58 +/- .447) and reflecting (3.82 +/- .445) compared …

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Existential Consciousness, Redemption, And Buddhist Allusions In The Work Of Saul Bellow, Jerry K. Durbeej Jan 2010

Existential Consciousness, Redemption, And Buddhist Allusions In The Work Of Saul Bellow, Jerry K. Durbeej

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Within the past two centuries, massive industrialization, technological and scientific advances, wars, diseases, failures in social systems, and religious, ethnic, and political conflicts have produced an existential angst that has saturated the collective consciousness of modern man. The atrocities of World Wars I and II induced European and American authors and artists to confront this state of disillusionment, anxiety, loneliness, fear, and dread; consequently, much of our modern literature reflects this nihilistic darkness. In this state of grave doubts and uncertainties, the modern man finds himself alienated and disconnected from the very essences that ground him. Scholars of literature, philosophy, …

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Facial Expression Computer Interaction System For Children With Asperger's Syndrome, Francisco Javier Amador Jan 2010

Facial Expression Computer Interaction System For Children With Asperger's Syndrome, Francisco Javier Amador

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

People with Autism Spectrum Disorders, particularly Asperger's Syndrome, have a set of symptoms, such as difficulty processing emotive facial expressions and making less eye contact, that affect the individual's social interactions. The prototype developed is geared to help children with Asperger's Syndrome recognize facial expressions, improve eye contact, and to reinforce connections between facial and verbal components of expressions. This application utilizes a computer generated human head, an avatar, to interact with the children while displaying various emotions and using games to increase the children's eye contact. The unique properties of the avatar utilized allow for a comprehensive coverage of …

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Fritz Kuhn, The American Fuehrer And The Rise And Fall Of The German-American Bund, Eliot A. Kopp Jan 2010

Fritz Kuhn, The American Fuehrer And The Rise And Fall Of The German-American Bund, Eliot A. Kopp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

It is not generally known that a pro-Nazi organization, the German-American Bund, held sway among certain segments of American society during the 1920s and 1930s. The organization achieved its greatest successes after the self-proclaimed "American Fuehrer," Fritz Julius Kuhn, took up the reigns of leadership in 1936. Under Kuhn's leadership, the Bund saw a dramatic increase in its membership rolls; it is estimated that over 25,000 dues-paying members belonged to this first-ever National Socialist organization created outside the environs of Nazi Germany. This thesis explores reasons why this blatantly pro-Nazi organization thrived in the bastion of democracy. While most historians …

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Gender And The Abject In The Symbolic Landscapes Of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Olive Schreiner's The Story Of An African Farm, Janine. Mcadams Jan 2010

Gender And The Abject In The Symbolic Landscapes Of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde And Olive Schreiner's The Story Of An African Farm, Janine. Mcadams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The literature of the fin de siáecle challenged established societal norms through its use of avant-garde literary forms and controversial subject matter. This study will examine the use of landscape metaphors in two major works of fin de siáecle literature, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, in order to reveal how these texts critique and re-vision the social dualities of gender. A wide range of literary theories-including, feminist theory, semiotics, and ecocriticism-are used to interpret these authors' influential narratives. This thesis will also apply Julia Kristeva's …

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Gender, Sports, And Adjustment In Preadolescent Children, Patrick J. Cooper Jan 2010

Gender, Sports, And Adjustment In Preadolescent Children, Patrick J. Cooper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The fact that 45% of boys and 32% of girls in the United States participate in youth sports suggests that sports participation might be an important influence on children's psychosocial development. This study explored: (1) how children's gender cognitions influence sports self-efficacy and (2) how sports self-efficacy influences children's psychosocial adjustment. Results suggest that for boys, felt pressure to conform to gender standards and the belief that sports is important for boys influence sports self-efficacy. In girls, both the belief that sports is important for girls and the belief that sports is important for boys predicted sports self-efficacy. Sports self-efficacy …

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Gendered Approach To Synaesthesia Using The Poetry Of John Keats And Emily Dickinson, Lindsay. Lucky-Medford Jan 2010

Gendered Approach To Synaesthesia Using The Poetry Of John Keats And Emily Dickinson, Lindsay. Lucky-Medford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The Greek term synaesthesia, which literally translates into 'perceiving together,' is known among most literary critics as the mixing of sensations. The term is applied in literature to the description of one kind of sensation in terms of another. For instance: 'hearing' a color or 'seeing' a 'smell.' That is, the description of sounds in terms of colors such as a "blue note;" of colors in terms of sound such as "loud shirt;" of sound in terms of taste such as "how sweet the sound;" and of colors in terms of temperature such as a "cool green." Although synaesthesia has …

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Gesture And Learning About Objects, Robert R. Freund Jan 2010

Gesture And Learning About Objects, Robert R. Freund

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

The role of gestures in determining the use of familiar and novel tools was explored. In the first study, participants were shown gestures for tools corresponding either to tool design, or to the physical affordances of a puzzle designed for each tool. In the second study, two additional conditions were added. In the first, gestures were used that did not correspond to tool design or the puzzle affordances. The second was a control condition in which no gestures were shown. Results indicate that the demonstration of gestures appropriate to a novel problem situation facilitate creative use of tools. Additionally, attention …

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Giving Voice To Historical Trauma Through Storytelling, Barbara K. Charbonneau-Dahlen Jan 2010

Giving Voice To Historical Trauma Through Storytelling, Barbara K. Charbonneau-Dahlen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019

Objectives: This study documented events contributing to historical trauma among American Indian mission boarding school survivors, described residual effects of that trauma, and verified the Dream Catcher-Medicine Wheel model as a culturally appropriate tool that enhanced storytelling. Research Design and Methods: Nine women from two Upper Plains tribes were located through snowball sampling and participant referrals. A descriptive exploratory qualitative approach facilitated them in relating their survival stories. Seven were tape-recorded and two were hand-written on the Dream Catcher-Medicine Wheel, a model specifically designed for this study; this, combined with traditional spiritual grounding ceremonies, enhanced perspective for researcher and participants …

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