Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking Success: A Person-Based Approach To Service Learning, Ryan Cales

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the nature of service learning projects that are structured to make interventions in rhetorical spheres and seek to achieve social change on a smaller scale rather striving for grander, or even systemic, change. In structuring community projects that include inherently limited interventions and equally limited goals, I argue that such projects should be open to immediate adjustments within themselves –to abandon any particular form or goal—to satisfy the immediate needs of the individuals served. I draw upon my work with a reintegration program for ex-offenders in Richmond, Virginia called Working with Conviction to help demonstrate that service …

Real-Time Fundamental Frequency Estimation Algorithm For Disconnected Speech, Thomas Skjei

Theses and Dissertations

A new algorithm is presented for real-time fundamental frequency estimation of speech signals. This method extends and alters the YIN algorithm, which uses the autocorrelation-based difference function, by adding features to reduce latency, correct predictable errors, and make it structurally appropriate for real-time processing scenarios. The algorithm is shown to reduce the error rate of its predecessor while demonstrating latencies sufficient for real-time processing. The results indicate that the algorithm can be realized as a real-time estimator of spoken pitch and pitch variation, which has applications including diagnosis and biofeedback-based therapy of many speech disorders.

Aristotle On Truth, Facts, And Relations: Categories, De Interpretatione, Metaphysics Gamma, Blake Hestir

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

Aristotle’s conception of truth looks like this:

TA-Schema: ‘S is P’ is true ↔ S is P.

TA-Schema(n): ‘S is not P’ is true ↔ S is not P.

By Tdf Aristotle need only mean that stating with respect to some property P that is in the case some subject S that P is in the case of S, is what amounts to truth. More precisely then for Aristotle the TA-Schema would amount to:

TA-Schema*: ‘S is P’ is true ↔ the universal P is instantiated in the case of S. TASchema( n)*: ‘S is not P’ is true ↔ …

Culture, Language And Gendered Violence In Southern Nevada, Kelly Campbell-Kiser, Kathleen J. Bergquist

Graduate Research Symposium (2010 - 2017)

Nevada is increasingly becoming culturally ethnically and linguistically diverse with approximately 25.1% of Nevadans estimated in 2006 to 2008 by the U.S. Census Bureau to be non-white, 27.3% speaking a language other than English at home, (compared to 19.6% nationally), ad 24.9% of Hispanic or Latino origin (compared to 15.1% nationally)

Service providers nationally struggle with providing culturally and linguistically relevant services to meet the needs of shifting demographics. Southern Nevada similarly struggles with decreasing resources and increasing needs in all sectors, to include service provisions for women who are at-risk of gendered violence. Linguistic and cultural barriers have been …

An Examination Of Parent Perspectives On Augmentative And Alternative Communication Systems In Children With Fragile X Syndrome, Michelle Schladant

Open Access Dissertations

The purposes of this qualitative inquiry were as follows: (a) to understand how mothers of children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) used augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems in the home, (b) to capture their views regarding AAC use, and (c) to examine the support they received in the process. Data was collected using participant observations, semi-structured interviews and review of archival educational records and were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Results revealed that for children with FXS, the interplay of children’s complex developmental challenges, mothers’ internal struggles, and the absence of external supports leads to limited and variable use …

Talking Back And Getting Smart: Action Research In A Primarily African American First Year Composition Class Learning The Skills For Research, Natasha Denise Moore

Theses

This action research is a study of teacher, student, race, and pedagogy as an answer to the challenge posed to me from Lisa Delpit, Gary Howard and bell hooks. They believe that there should be more studies that look at what really goes on in multicultural classrooms in order to get a better understanding of how race and student engagement intersects with pedagogy. Like them, I am very concerned about these intersections, specifically in the composition classroom and specifically for the task of looking at how race and student engagement affect students' ability to actively interact with text. This action …

The Medical Essay As An Invitation For Interdisciplinary Exploration, Edwin Stieve

Quadrivium: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Why Democracy Needs The Humanities, Ben Mulvey

Quadrivium: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Vagueness And Fuzzy Logic, Darren Hibbs

Quadrivium: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beginning Conducting Curricula: Building Course Objectives Upon The Foundations Of Aural Image And Natural Body Movement, Tobin E. Stewart

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Beginning conducting textbooks are structured so as to privilege the mastery of generic conducting gestures over the foundations of developing an aural image through score study which in turn stimulates effective and natural body movement. Rather than deriving motion from an aural image, students are expected to show proficiency with generic gestures applied to score markings. In learning these gestures, students not only struggle to develop coordination and effective movement, but they also fail to recognize inorganic and unhealthy movement habits and how these influence performers.

Rather than structuring a course around generic techniques, this document proposes to start with …

Geochemical Analysis Of Ancient Fremont Activity Areas At Wolf Village, Utah, Laura Morrison Pyper

Theses and Dissertations

There is growing interest in the use of geochemical analyses for the evaluation of anthropogenically altered soils and other archaeological deposits. Areas of human habitation and activity tend to accumulate greater levels of soil phosphorus and trace metals. These elevated concentrations leave permanent signatures that can only be removed by erosion of the soil itself, and so phosphorus and trace metal mapping have become popular field procedures to identify areas of habitation and activity. Gridded soil samples were collected and soil phosphate and trace metal ions were extracted to identify these activity areas at the ancient Fremont site Wolf Village …

Sustaining Knowledge Building As A Principle-Based Innovation At An Elementary School, Jianwei Zhang, Huang-Yao Hong, Marlene Scardamalia, Elizabeth A. Morley, Chew Teo

Educational Theory and Practice Faculty Scholarship

This study explores Knowledge Building as a principle-based innovation at an elementary school and makes a case for a principle- versus procedure-based approach to educational innovation, supported by new knowledge media. Thirty-nine Knowledge Building initiatives, each focused on a curriculum theme and facilitated by nine teachers over eight years, were analyzed using measures of student discourse in a Knowledge Building environment--Knowledge Forum. Results were analyzed from the perspective of student, teacher, and principal engagement to identify conditions for Knowledge Building as a school-wide innovation. Analyses of student discourse showed interactive and complementary contributions to a community knowledge space, conceptual content …

A Bottom-Up Design And Implementation For Ambiguity-Compatible Natural Language Sentence Parsing, Elise Thrasher

Computer Science Honors Theses

Although many theory-focused computer science textbooks give a brief outline of a context-free grammar model of natural language, the approach is often vague and, in reality, greatly simplifies the English language’s grammatical complexities. When applied to commonly-seen sentences, these sentence parsing models often fall short. In this paper, I detail my process of creating a programmable natural language context-free grammar that is able to parse (i.e. diagram) many common sentence forms, as well as the research which influenced the design of this project. In order to create a grammar that recognized the intricacies of the English language, I also incorporated …

Chimpanzee Vocal Signaling Points To A Multimodal Origin Of Human Language, Jared P. Taglialatela, Jamie L. Russell, Jennifer A. Schaeffer, William D. Hopkins

Faculty Articles

The evolutionary origin of human language and its neurobiological foundations has long been the object of intense scientific debate. Although a number of theories have been proposed, one particularly contentious model suggests that human language evolved from a manual gestural communication system in a common ape-human ancestor. Consistent with a gestural origins theory are data indicating that chimpanzees intentionally and referentially communicate via manual gestures, and the production of manual gestures, in conjunction with vocalizations, activates the chimpanzee Broca’s area homologue – a region in the human brain that is critical for the planning and execution of language. However, it …

Does Verbal Irony Affect The Perceived Credibility Of Web Pages?, Crystal Joy Godwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

To date, there has been no research on the negative effects of using irony on the Web. This research explores the effect of irony on the perceived credibility of education, government, blog, and microblogging Web sites. In Experiment 1, government and educational Web sites were shown to have high perceptions of credibility, and low perceptions of irony. Past research suggests that users should not be able to recognize irony on education or government Web sites, because the site iteself is not ironic. However, Experiment 3 showed that irony was recognized on all sites. This recognized irony lowers the perieved credibility …

The Effect Of Games On Engagement And Performance In Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Kyle Brandon Dempsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this dissertation is to assess the relation between game-like elements, individual differences in gameplay, and engagement within an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). The current studies examined the incorporation of a game into an existing ITS, iSTART. The game, Self-explanation Showdown (Showdown) added game-like elements into the iSTART practice sessions. Incorporating games was expected to increase engagement while not affecting participants’ overall performance. However, the results of Experiment 1 indicated that game-based practice (Showdown) was more engaging than the non-game-based practice (Coached Practice), but produced lower quality self-explanation performance. The decrease in performance was attributed to the amount …

Newsroom, Georgia Southern University

Newsroom (2006-2023)

• Georgia Southern University Honors Outstanding Students and Faculty at Honors Day

Signs And Symbols: Art And Language In Art Therapy, Malissa Morrell

Journal of Clinical Art Therapy

This paper is a preliminary attempt at theory building by exploring the use of art and language in art therapy through a theoretical inquiry model. Inductive and deductive processes are used to explore literature from the fields of psychology, art philosophy (particularly aesthetics), and linguistics. Concepts common to each of these disciplines are then further explored through the lens of bilingual therapy. Practical applications are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

The Prospector, April 19, 2011, Utep Student Publications

The Prospector

Headline: UTEP Celebrates Earth Week

Knowledge Discovery Through Large-Scale Literature-Mining Of Biological Text-Data, Vida Abedi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The aim of this study is to develop scalable and efficient literature-mining framework for knowledge discovery in the field of medical and biological sciences. Using this scalable framework, customized disease-disease interaction network can be constructed. Features of the proposed network that differentiate it from existing networks are its 1) flexibility in the level of abstraction, 2) broad coverage, and 3) domain specificity. Empirical results for two neurological diseases have shown the utility of the proposed framework. The second goal of this study is to design and implement a bottom-up information retrieval approach to facilitate literature-mining in the specialized field of …

Dialogue In The Galleries: Developing A Tour About Contemporary Art For The Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts, Elizabeth Reilly-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This museum thesis project considers the challenges involved in developing engaging museum tours. The purpose of this project was to develop a fifty-minute, guided gallery tour that uses inquiry-based instruction to engage participants in dialogue and critical thinking about artworks. The tour was designed specifically for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond, Virginia, using artworks selected from the museum’s twenty-first-century art collection that relate to the theme hybridity. This project contributes to the museum studies field by exemplifying how gallery tours can stimulate active learning, encourage visitors to find meaning in artworks, and form their own conclusions …

Unusual Prosodic Descriptors In Young, Verbal Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Rachel Diane Fields

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study aimed to determine which prosodic descriptors best characterized the speech of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and whether these descriptors (e.g., sing-song and monotone) are acoustically different. Two listeners' auditory perceptions of the speech of the children with ASD and the pitch of the speech samples were analyzed. The results suggest that individual children are characterized by a variety of prosodic descriptors. Some thought groups were described as both sing-song and monotone, however, most children appear to be either more monotone or more sing-song. Furthermore, the subjective and acoustic data suggest a strong relationship between atypical intonation …

She Dared To Challenge Tradition: Seraph On The Suwanee, Zora Neale Hurston's "White Novel," And Its Literary Foundation, Paul Laurence Dunbar's The Uncalled, Jervette Rashaun Ward-Ellis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation explains the significance of Zora Neale Hurston’sSeraph on the Suwaneeby using Paul Laurence Dunbar’sThe Uncalledas a literary framework. Hurston’s novel tells the story of Arvay Henson, a pretty, poor, white woman who advances to the white middle class. Intriguingly, Arvay and her family speak in a dialect that is very similar to the “black” dialect featured in many of Hurston’s other works. Sadly, Hurston’s decision to place “black” dialect or what scholars would call African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the mouths of white characters has allowed for the dismissal of one of her finest works.The two novels …

Vocal Quality Development In Children With Autism: The Role Of Flutter, Amber Nichole Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are frequently described as having unusual prosody. Studies in vocal quality in children with ASD have been limited in number and are generally descriptive in nature. The objective of this study was to examine the occurrence of a specific vocal quality, flutter, in children with ASD.Method: Vocal flutter was examined via subjective ratings and through acoustic analyses to determine if flutter occurred more frequently in children with ASD than in language delayed or typically developing peers.Conclusion: Vocal flutter was heard more frequently in children with ASD via the subjective ratings. The occurrence of …

Bias In Hard News Articles From Fox News And Msnbc: An Empirical Assessment Using The Gramulator, Brock Ashton Terwilleger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Hard news articles can reflect a media organization's bias. This study assesses bias in hard news articles published by Fox News and MSNBC. More specifically, the study examines bias in the two networks' coverage of elections and immigration. Indicative linguistic features identified by the Gramulator reveal biases in corpora of texts pertaining to these two news topics. The results suggest that the networks exercise selection bias. Furthermore, the findings show that the networks use the same collocations differently and also use different collocations to refer to the same referents.

Evaluation Of Information Acquisition And Information Retention Using A Low-Literacy Booklet For Illiterate Caregivers Of Children With Leukemia, Terezie Mosby

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

At the 2006 meeting of the Asociación de Hemato-Oncología Pediátrica de Centroamerica y Caribbe, local nurses recognized food safety as one of the main problems they dealt with daily. Based on that information, food safety education program was developed. The program consisted of development, evaluation, distribution of the booklet “Alimentación del niño con cáncer [Feeding the child with cancer]”, training of nurse educators to provide food safety education using the booklet, and testing of its efficacy. Development of the booklet included a survey in Guatemala and El Salvador hospitals and its review by a board of experts.Pre- and post-education tests …

From The Closed Society To The Realization Of Freedom: The Mississippi Delegation Debate At The 1964 Democratic National Convention, Morgan Louise Ginther

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

In late August of 1964, two-days prior to the opening ceremonies of the Democratic National Convention, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) members were poised to challenge the seating of the regular, all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation in dramatic fashion on national television. While both sides believed that they would win the challenge, neither side could have foreseen the complicated twists and turns this debate would take. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the arguments of the Mississippi delegation debate at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in order to more fully understand the rhetorical situation.Using Lloyd Bitzer's …

Deafdigest: Gold Edition, April 17, 2011, Barry Strassler

DeafDigest Gold 2011

No abstract provided.

Reading Comprehension Strategies In Children With High-Functioning Autism: A Social Constructivist Perspective, June Ann Cotter

Communication

Individuals with autism see the world, by definition of the diagnosis, in a very different way than the typical student. Communication, both verbal and non-verbal, is a defining characteristic of this disability. Students with autism both can and need to learn to comprehend when reading to be successful in school and in life. This study evaluated the reading comprehension abilities of three students with autism and using a strength-based approach targeting comprehension strategies. These strategies also appear to have increased the students' communication skills. All participants were medically or educationally diagnosed with autism. All had an educationally-defined label of autism …

Differences Between Frequency Of Diagnosis, Diagnosis Extremity, And Global Assessment Of Functioning Score In A Euro-American And Alaskan Native Client, Britton Ann Niles

Education

This research answers the question, given identical client information, history, and presenting issues, but variation in ethnicity, does diagnosis frequency, diagnosis extremity, or Global Assessment of Functioning score differ for an Euro-American male versus an Alaska Native male mental health client. Graduate counseling students, six males and six females, ranging in age from 22--59, currently enrolled at either the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the University of Alaska Anchorage, or Alaska Pacific University, volunteered to participate in the present study. Participants were randomly assigned to view either a Euro-American or Alaska Native client's mock intake session. The mock videos were identical …