Digital Commons Network^™

Double Truncated Poisson Regression Model With Random Effects, Abdalhalim M. Ali Suaiee

Dissertations

Count data regression models are used for special cases where the response variable takes count values or only non-negative values. Poisson regression models are commonly used to analyze count data. A frequent problem with the use of these models is that the observed variation is greater than expected and mixed Poisson models are alternative models that provide a means of explaining the extra-Poisson variation. Mixed Poisson regression models have extensive research and literature studies, and have been commonly used in fields such as epidemiology, medicine, genetics, economics, engineering, marketing, and in the physical and social sciences. However, in many cases, …

An In-Depth Exploration Of Successful Weight Loss Management, Stephanie M. Witwer

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to advance knowledge in the area of health behavior change maintenance, specifically weight loss maintenance, and develop a substantive theory of successful weight loss maintenance in adults. Using classical grounded theory methodology, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 12 adult men and women who lost at least 10% of their body weight and had maintained the weight loss for at least one year. Analysis of the interviews revealed a basic social process called Transforming Self, wherein participants described a process through which they designed and made significant lifestyle changes that resulted in weight loss …

The Interrelationships Among Attachment Style, Personality Traits, Interpersonal Competency, And Facebook Use, Michael A. Jenkins-Guarnieri

Dissertations

Online social media has become a popular way to communicate and develop interpersonal relationships. Facebook use in particular has become an important topic for researchers and clinicians, as young adults are increasingly integrating this use into their daily lives and social behavior. As empirical work on the personality traits and interpersonal competency associated with use and the potential consequences of use on social behavior is still emerging, the present study sought to investigate the interrelationships among constructs relevant to the developmental tasks associated with emerging adulthood, including adult attachment style, Five Factor Model personality traits, interpersonal competency, and Facebook use. …

An Orchid In The Land Of Technology: Embodied Presence In A Mediatized World, Kevin Dodd

Masters Theses

This thesis applies the Aesthetic philosophy of John Dewey to the current discourse about mediatization and performance in an effort to explain how a Deweyan conception of embodied aesthetic experience can contribute to meaningful experience and human flourishing in a mediatized culture. The relationship between live presence and technological mediatization is often characterized as oppositional. Through an explication of the process of mediatization and manifestations of presence, this relationship can instead be viewed as reciprocal. An overview of Dewey's theories of experience and aesthetics refutes dualistic thinking and demonstrates how faculties of perception can be engaged and our capacity for …

Solving The World's Problems: Walker Percy's Cultural Critique In Love In The Ruins, Jeremy Ryan Gibbs

Master's Theses

This thesis examines Walker Percy's manipulation of time in Love in the Ruins as a component of indirectly communicating his solution to problems in twentieth-century Western society: existential authenticity. By examining this often overlooked novel, I clarify the process by which Percy conveys his solution and the difficulties inherent in his attempts to do so. Research shows how Percy perceived such problems stemmed from the tendency of postmodern thought to place human subjective experience within an overarching, objective framework. These problems that Percy exaggerates in the novel are essentially distractions of immediacy that lead the characters away from choosing authentic …

Parenting Style Differences In Black American And White American Young Adults, Sarah Lynette Mcmurtry

Dissertations

Baumrind’s (1967) theory of parenting style influenced over 40 years of parenting research, which found authoritative parenting as the optimal parenting style. Authoritarian and parenting styles have been linked to worse adjustment and achievement for child outcomes (Baumrind, 1967; Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch, 1994) than children in authoritative-parented homes. In 1972, Baumrind described racial differences in parent-child relations and outcomes between authoritarian Black American and White American parents and preschoolers (1975). In comparison to White American parents, Black Americans exhibited authoritarian parenting that was less rejecting and associated with communication and warmth (Baumrind, 1975; Murry, Brody, & Simons, …

Men's Modesty, Religion, And The State: Spaces Of Collision, Karen M. Morin

Faculty Journal Articles

This article examines religious practices in the United States, which govern modesty and other dress norms for men. I focus both on the spaces within which they most collide with regulatory regimes of the state and the legal implications of these norms, particularly for observant Muslim men. Undergirding the research are those ‘‘gender equality’’ claims made by many religious adherents, that men are required to maintain proper modesty norms just as are women. Also undergirding the research is the extensive anti-Islam bias in American culture today. The spaces within which men’s religiously proscribed dress and grooming norms are most at …

Toward An Interactive Directory For Norfolk, Nebraska: 1899-1900, Robert B. Allen

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

We describe steps toward an interactive directory for the town of Norfolk, Nebraska for the years 1899 and 1900. This directory would extend the traditional city directory by including a wider range of entities being described, much richer information about the entities mentioned and linkages to mentions of the entities in material such as digitized historical newspapers. Such a directory would be useful to readers who browse the historical newspapers by providing structured summaries of the entities mentioned. We describe the occurrence of entities in two years of the Norfolk Weekly News, focusing on several individuals to better understand the …

Slavery And Manumission In The Pre-Constantine Church, Joseph Francis Super

Liberty Theological Review

This paper looks at the church’s handling of the issue of slavery in the period before Constantine and the official recognition of Christianity. The time period is important because Christians had no political authority to end slavery, assuming they wanted to do so. Thus, the aim of the paper is discover how the Church as an institution alleviated the conditions of the slaves and how slaves were treated in the church and examine the relationship of slave to master in the church. This will be accomplished by examining certain doctrines of the faith church leaders applied to these problems as …

August 2013 Commencement Program, Bowling Green State University

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Factors And Motivations Behind Volunteering At Domestic Violence Emergency Shelters, Amy Fowler

HIM 1990-2015

Volunteerism is a commonly researched topic however, much scarcer is research into the factors or motivations behind volunteering at domestic violence emergency shelters. Knowing the motivating factors that lead people to dedicate their time to different organizations is important because it gives us an understanding of what can be done in order to get other people involved in pro-social activities that benefit society as a whole. Just as there are different types of individuals who volunteer their time, there are different factors and motivators that compel those individuals to do so. Research to date has identified some common motivators. One …

Perceptions Of Sex Offenders On College Campuses, Dayanne Harvey

HIM 1990-2015

As previous research has indicated, it is not a common societal norm that sex offenders generally have a negative connotation associated with them. These types of perceptions are held without considering the varying types of sexual offenders and sexual offenses. The legislation concerning sex offenders is broad, and therefore encompasses a lot of different offenses and people. Notification of these types of offenders varies by state, but all states require sex offenders to register. A number of colleges also require sex offenders to register before attending classes. This research focuses on student's perception of sex offenders on college campuses. That …

Fan Fiction, Fandoms, And Literature: Or, Why It’S Time To Pay Attention To Fan Fiction, Christina Yatrakis

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The internet has revolutionized how we interact with the world around us. We now have access to information, creations, and people on such a scale previously impossible. A direct result of the rise of the internet age is the growing popularity and visibility of fandoms and their creation and dissemination of derivative works, such as fan fiction. While fan fiction in its modern form can easily be traced back to the early days of Star Trek and fan made "zines," it is now perhaps the most visible and well known fan creation. Fan fiction has evolved from the expansions or …

New Narratologies: An Examination Of The Interplay Between Life, Land, And Story, Dana Turner

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The study of land and geographical place remains to be an important theoretical consideration in the field of Narratology studies. This thesis illustrates how land and geography play a role in the maintenance of traditional culture and narratives in the rural communities of DeKalb and Neshoba counties in Mississippi. The first chapter argues that memory through story can yield significant historical findings in narrative identity. It is here where the discussion on historiography, memory, and narrative introduces a cognitive narratological lens that helps structure the psychological processing of life stories and oral histories. Then, the issues of self and narration …

Metaphors Of Health And Disease In Nazi Film Propaganda, Melanie Wright

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

This study examines how propaganda imagery was used to reveal metaphors of health and disease in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Specifically, it explores how German medical and political authorities of this period entrenched biological explanations for social ills through medico-political discourses of disease, criminality and deviancy, in their efforts to exterminate particular populations. This propaganda was conversed with the idealised and beautified German Volk who, in turn, were graphically elevated to the realms of a supreme master race. I use a methodology composed of compositional and discourse analysis, and a theoretical framework that develops the work of Erving …

The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …

Assessment Of Consumer Motivations To Attend Farmers' Markets, Their Preferences, And Their Willingness To Pay For Differentiated Fresh Produce: Three Essays, Jean Dominique Gumirakiza

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this public abstract is to present research objectives, societal benefits, and costs associated with this dissertation. This dissertation is one the outcomes of a three-year $155,450.86 project whose number is UTA01008. Kynda Curtis, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Economics proposed the project to assess consumer demand and purchase motivations for differentiated produce across direct marketing outlets. In general, this dissertation seeks to analyze consumer primary motivations for attending farmers’ markets, their preferences, and their willingness to pay for differentiated fresh produce. To accomplish this task, we develop three essays.

Specific objectives for the first essay are to …

Characteristics Of 4-H Participants And Their Psychosocial Development, Lauralee Lyons

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Volunteerism is an important component in the 4-H program. It was initially used as a method to help agents reach the many youth interested in participating in 4-H. Community service has since become a required component for every club project. Research shows that volunteering can impact youth in many different ways. Other research shows that 4-H youth are more likely to contribute or do some type of community service.

The present study uses the Modified Extended Version of the Object Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOMEIS), the Cognitive Autonomy and Self-Evaluation (CASE) inventory, and an instrument specifically designed to study …

Usf Women's Club Yearbook, 2013–2014, Usf Women's Club

USF Women’s Club Collection

Yearbook of the USF Women's Club. Inside is a list of past presidents, officers, committee chairmen, and members for 2013–2014. The booklet also includes a tribute to Grace Allen, interest groups, calendar of events, and a copy of the constitution and by-laws from the handbook.

The Portfolio Effect: Enhancing Turkish Elt Student-Teachers’ Autonomy, Rana Yildirim

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This article reports on the use of portfolios to develop ELT major student-teachers’ autonomy. The research was carried out for 14 weeks with twenty-one 3rd grade student-teachers in the English Language Teaching Department of Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey. To evaluate the impact of portfolios on fostering the participants’ autonomy, data were collected from an autonomy readiness questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with the student-teachers and three portfolio evidences: graded goal sheets, reflection reports, and cover letters. The findings revealed that the use of portfolios assisted the student-teachers in becoming autonomous in regard to their personal and professional development and that the student-teachers …

Lessons Learned From College-Educated, Employed Black Male Mentors: A Qualitative Anti-Deficit Study Of College Persistence And Career Success, Cecil Wright

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this qualitative, hermeneutic, phenomenological study was to learn how college-educated, employed Black males’ mentors successfully completed their undergraduate degrees and went on to be success stories in their career fields. The research focused on college persistence and career success by asking the mentors to comment about their experiences along four pipeline points (precollege socialization and readiness, college achievement, postcollege success, and employment postgraduation). The participants for this study were Black male mentors selected from a pool of active mentors serving Black male high school students in a one-on one setting at a male empowerment seminar held annually …

How School Principals' Perspectives Of Hidden Curriculum Affect Title I Middle Schools, Kimberlee B. Pierre

Education Doctoral

This dissertation addressed hidden curriculum and the impact it has on principals in five Title I middle schools. Currently, there is a gap in the research exploring principal perspectives of hidden curriculum. The research objective was to investigate how principal perspectives of hidden curriculum affect Title I middle schools and enable school improvement. In this study, principals were interviewed regarding their perspectives on curriculum, leadership, discipline, testing, professional development, collaboration, expertise and perspectives about teachers and students in their classrooms and schools. This was a qualitative study and the data was analyzed for codes and themes of hidden curriculum. Four …

2013-2014 Campus Plan

Complete College Georgia Campus Plans

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Early-Exposure Environmental Education On A Child's Selection Of Words And Creativity, Reid Fisher

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Environmental education researchers have long identified a connection between formative play experiences in nature settings and pro-environmental behaviors (i.e., career paths) of their subjects later in life. Most studies have been post-hoc retrospective looks that have not had the ability to assess causation. As more children are removed from free-play wilderness opportunities, some schools are seeking means to create those formative experiences within the educational setting, but research has not been done to address the impact that this approach has on developing particular environmental behaviors. To address that gap in the literature, this study seeks to identify the impacts that …

Illinois State, August 2013, Illinois State University, University Marketing And Communications

State: The Magazine of Illinois State University (1999-present)

Illinois State University alumni magazine

The Influence Of Plainchant On French Organ Music After The Revolution, David Connolly

Doctoral

The period after the 1789 French Revolution was one of turbulence, musically, socially, culturally and politically. The violence against both people and property meant that the nineteenth century was a time of renewal and regrowth. At all times this was uncertain as numerous political upheavals took place as the French attempted to define their future direction. As with all aspects of culture, organ music experienced a slow regrowth over the course of the long nineteenth century, perhaps being at a particular disadvantage due to its role in the church, an institution which also went through a period of difficulty from …

"Having Our Say": High Achieving African American Male College Graduates Speak About Parental Involvement And Parenting Style, Lynn Cheryl Lanier Odom

Dissertations

This study examined the patterns of parental involvement and parenting styles of a particular sample of academically successful African American males who attended and graduated from historically Black colleges or universities. More specifically, investigated was the presence of any relationships between parental involvement, parenting styles, grade point average, family structure, and parent(s) educational level. An online self­ report instrument was administered to 36 participants. Information gathered focused on how the graduates viewed their parents' child-rearing or parenting style during their educational experiences from kindergarten to the 12th grade. Three students agreed to participate in interviews designed to provide more information …

Holmes, Cardozo, And The Legal Realists: Early Incarnations Of Legal Pragmatism And Enterprise Liability, Edmund Ursin

San Diego Law Review

The theory of enterprise liability is associated with the tort lawmaking of the liberal California Supreme Court of the 1960s and 1970s. Legal pragmatism, in turn, is associated with the conservative jurist Richard Posner. This Article explains that early incarnations of each can be found in the works of four giants in American law: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Judge—later Justice—Benjamin Cardozo, and the Legal Realists Leon Green and Karl Llewellyn. As will be seen, these scholars and judges shared a common view of the lawmaking role of courts. Stated simply, this shared view was that judges are lawmakers and policy …

Chronological Benchmarks In Cross-Cultural Psychology. Foreword To The Encyclopedia Of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Walt Lonner (Professor Emeritus)

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Prefatory Remarks

Researchers and persons interested in culture almost inevitably are asked questions such as: “When did interest in this area begin?” “Why did it start, and how?” “Who were the main people in this area?” “What is its current status, and where is it going?” Of course, answering these questions, and many more like them, would take hours and hours of lectures, visits to libraries and hundreds of books, and other excursions into the history of psychology, anthropology, sociology and other fields.

With respect to cross-cultural psychology, there were definite significant events and developments that contributed to its current …

Trial And Error In Influential Social Networks, Xiaohui Bei, Ning Chen, Liyu Dou, Xiangru Huang, Ruixin Qiang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we introduce a trial-And-error model to study information diffusion in a social network. Specifically, in every discrete period, all individuals in the network concurrently try a new technology or product with certain respective probabilities. If it turns out that an individual observes a better utility, he will then adopt the trial; otherwise, the individual continues to choose his prior selection. We first demonstrate that the trial and error behavior of individuals characterizes certain global community structures of a social network, from which we are able to detect macro-communities through the observation of microbehavior of individuals. We run …