Digital Commons Network^™

Tweet Vs Status Update: Exploring Ways To Promote Collaborative Argumentation In An Online Classroom Setting, Marissa Christina Owens

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The focus of this study was to answer the following overarching question: How does a Twitter discussion format compare to a Facebook discussion format in terms of promoting collaborative argumentative discourse? Data analysis focused on the difference in amount of arguments, counter-arguments, reasons, and elaborations generated by participants between the two social media platforms. In addition, the impact of participant use of sentence openers on the amount of argument components was also examined. A Mann-Whitney statistical test was conducted to determine the differences between Twitter and Facebook groups in argument components across three small group discussion questions. The results of …

What Do We See: Number Line Estimation With Eye Tracking, Sarah Ann Salas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The following paper presents a study investigating adult number line estimation patterns through use of an eye tracker. Estimation patterns were examined by changing the range of the number line on which the estimations occur from the typical ranges of 0-100 and 0-1000 to a more difficult range of 0-723. There were two main conditions of the experiment; in one condition the number to estimate and the number line were presented simultaneously, and in the other condition, the number line presentation was delayed. In each of the two conditions of the experiment, eye fixations and area of interest analysis were …

Perceptions Of Mattering In The Doctoral Student And Advisor Relationship, Holly Anne Schneider

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The advising relationship has been acknowledged as one of the most important factors in doctoral student persistence and attrition. Less researched are psychosocial factors that contribute to doctoral student persistence and completion. Preliminary research including measures of psychosocial factors on doctoral student success found faculty-student relationships and collegial support contributed significantly to doctoral completion more so than individual factors including motivation, career goals, procrastination, financial security, and external demands such as family.

The current study draws on the psychosocial construct of mattering (Rosenberg &

McCullough, 1981) to examine doctoral students’ perceptions of mattering to their advisors and the influence on …

Citizen Participation Within Mental Health Planning And Advisory Councils, Ronald W. Strickland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation studies citizen participation, mental health care and block grants. Each state has a Mental Health Planning and Advisory Council (MHPAC) that is required by the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant program. Councils must consist of at least 50 percent citizens. This dissertation looked at MHPAC activity levels of the 50 states (and Washington, DC) and developed an activity level index to measure council activity from 2008-2011. Two main questions were posed. First, do planning council differ in their level of activity? If so, what explains this variation? Second, do differences in activity levels of MHPAC’s explain variations …

The Experience Of Participating In Des, Dio Turner Ii

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Descriptive Experience Sampling method (DES, Hurlburt, 1990, 1993) is designed to help researchers collect and describe participants’ inner experience in a way that minimizes the impact of the participant’s presuppositions and the researcher’s worldview on the description of participants’ inner experience. This study was an exploratory examination of the potential therapeutic effects of DES. It used three sources of data: pre and post-DES SCL-90-R questionnaires, observation of the process that unfolded during DES interviews, and a post-DES exit interview. Participants (n = 14) were drawn from the Psychology 101 Subject Pool. After five days of DES, there was a …

Division I Men's Basketball Scholarship : The Challenges Of Being A Black Male Athlete, Lonnie Gene Wright

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Qualitative research will explore issues that interface particularly with Black student- athletes on Division 1 basketball scholarships regarding academic readiness, academic support, family support and how the experience of a Division 1 scholarship impacted their lives. The population of Black student-athletes that the focus of the research will concentrate on are the black student-athlete who typically exhaust their scholarship, who may have graduated or not but didn’t advance to the Pro Ranks. Case Study methodology will be applied wherein the researcher will interview nine former Black basketball players, within 1 to 5 years separation from 3 different Division 1 …

Transformational Leadership Increases Self-Determination And Positively Impacts Hospitality Frontline Employees, Xiao Zhang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This professional paper presents literature by exploring the role of self-determination theory between the relationship of transformational leadership and hospitality employees’ well-being. It integrates the present research on leadership style, needs theory and well-being and provides useful and meaningful information for executives and organizations who are dedicated to improve employees’ well-being.

Servant Leadership And Related Issues In Chinese Hotel Industry, Yiqing Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Because of the economy growth and the Open Door Policy, Chinese hotel industry was under a huge expansion. Since more and more western customers are visiting and Chinese customers are having more hotel experience abroad, the service Chinese hotels used to provide dose not meet the standard anymore. So the managers and leaders need to find an appropriate approach to encourage their employees to improve the service to their customers. This research went through over 40 articles about Chinese hotel industry and Chinese culture and found out that servant leadership style should be the best approach to engage the employees.

Sense Of Place Among Adolescents: Factors Influencing The Place Attachment On Shopping Malls, Astrid Kusumowidagdo, Cicilia Larasati Rembulan, Agus Sachari

Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia

This research aims to find the push factors that create relationships between youth and shopping centers and examines how different mall environments also help create different emotional bonds towards the malls. This topic is further observed with an explorative study that obtained its primary data from interviews and secondary data from various supporting literatures as well as from a number of observations. The informants were 15 visitors of each of the following shopping centers: Tunjungan Plaza and Ciputra World in Surabaya; and Mal Ciputra and Gandaria City in Jakarta. The total informant number is 60. The research found several affective …

Discourses On Time In The European Avant-Garde, Aaron Allen Hayes

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

In the 1950s and 1960s, European composers, especially those interested in the development of serialism and electronic music, framed many of their aesthetic and compositional challenges as problems of time. This dissertation examines the writings and music of five notable composers from this era, and reconstructs the philosophical discourses that implicitly and explicitly provide the intellectual horizons for these temporal problems. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Karel Goeyvaerts, Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqué attended the seminar offered by Olivier Messiaen at the Conservatoire National Supérior de Musique de Paris. With the exception of Barraqué, these composers …

Age Differences In Loneliness: Neural Correlates, Neurogenetics And Functional Connectivity, Alexandra D'Agostino

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Loneliness, defined as the subjective experience of social isolation, has been linked to poor health outcomes (e.g. depression, cardiovascular disease) and is prevalent among older adult populations. To improve upon current treatments, the interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors for loneliness and their effect on the brain must be better understood. The present study investigated the brain basis of loneliness in younger (mean age = 20.4) and older adults (mean age = 62.9). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an emotional picture task to address this question. fMRI data were collected on a 3T Siemens Trio Scanner, …

Body And Horizon: Kant, Husserl, And The Nonconceptual Content Of Experience, Emiliano F. Diaz

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The debate that took place between Herbert Dreyfus and John McDowell a few years back concerning the nonconceptual content of experience was in many ways disappointing. The question addressed in the debate between Dreyfus and McDowell, in its most basic form, is why we should think embodied cognition is a more compelling account of our motor engagement with the world than one that casts it in terms of concepts. A question that is not addressed is why we should find the justificatory grounds provided by either thinker more or less compelling than the other. To answer this question, I reframe …

Living The Past: Bergson, Proust, Deleuze And Nietzsche On Memory And The Self, Danae Mcleod

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Memory is not of the past, it is of the present and it is of the future. This insight, developed by Henri Bergson in Matter and Memory is the subject of this dissertation. Focusing on the figural representations in Matter and Memory, I argue that Bergson presents a dynamic conception of memory that can be read as destabilizing fixed notions of the human subject. I closely examine the implications of Bergson’s positive account of memory, demonstrating that his account is primarily oriented toward showing how memory is useful for action in the present. I continue to develop this dynamic model …

Vulnerability's Demands: Need And The Relational Self, Katharine Leah Wolfe

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Persons, in the words of Annette Baier, are “essentially second persons†(“Cartesian Persons,†Philosophia 10 [3-4]: 169-188, 172). Not only are we ‘second persons’ insofar as personhood arises through a childhood in the care of others, and insofar as each of us is born new in an old world where our entry has always been preceded by others; persons are also second persons insofar as we each know ourselves as a ‘you’ before knowing ourselves as an ‘I’. This work explores one strand of what it means for the self to be thus bound to others. A self so bound …

Ideological Asymmetries In Unconventional Political Participation, Raynee Sarah Gutting

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

There is a long-standing ideological asymmetry in protest activity that is observed world-wide. Individuals on the left are far more likely to engage in protest activity than those on the right. This asymmetry is especially important in an era in which young people are far more likely than their elders to engage in various forms of protest and non-electoral activity. But somewhat surprisingly, there has been no careful investigation of this asymmetry to date, a deficiency which I remedy in my dissertation project. I argue that authoritarians, who are more commonly found on the political right than left, help to …

Fight Or Flight: Mobility, Political Behavior, And Nativism In The United States, Yamil Velez

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

In recent decades, communities across the United States have seen increases in hostility toward immigrants. Prevailing theories in political science hold that responses to immigration are, in part, a function of local area demographics. However, assessments of these theories suffer from the critique that local area demographics and immigration preferences may be endogenous due to residential self-selection. Recent efforts sidestep this problem by using clever modeling strategies or experiments. Rather than viewing self-selection as a nuisance, however, this article develops and tests a theory that treats migration and political behavior as strategies residents invoke in the presence of local immigration. …

Lost And Found: Transgender Elders’ Journey Toward Authenticity. A Constructionist Grounded Theory Study | Lost And Found: Transgender Elders’ Journey Toward Authenticity. A Constructionist Grounded Theory Study, Donna Barbara Riley

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

While theoretical models of transgender identity development exist, theoretical models of post-transition social identity development are limited, and theoretical models of transgender individuals transitioning in later life are absent. As such, the purpose of this study is to explore the experience of transgender individuals coming out later in life, often after decades of hiding. Their experiences give voice to the trans community to define self-fulfillment as a transgender person post-transition. Additionally, this study explores the obstacles transgender elders navigate in middle and later life. Using a semi-structured interview guide with 42 transgender elders 55 years and older, respondents constructed chronological …

Deciding What Counts As Persecution: An Analysis Of Gender And Sexual Orientation Asylum Cases In The United States, Cheryl Llewellyn

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

In the United States, individuals may apply for asylum if they have a “well-founded†fear of persecution in their country of origin based on one of five enumerated grounds: race, religion, national origin, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. saw an influx of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) applicants. While gender and sexual orientation are not specified in the refugee definition, these applicants contended that their persecution could be attributed to their membership in a particular social group. In response to the growing number of …

Mobilization Lessons From Marcus Garvey And The Universal Negro Improvement Association, Kenneth Andrew Pierce

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This study of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) explains the mobilization successes and failures of a major social movement organization and its leader, Marcus Garvey. The UNIA succeeded in mobilizing millions of Blacks; prior to the UNIA, Black Americans had not developed an organization that produced this level of mobilization. By 1920, Garvey was regarded by both critics and supporters as one of the most important leaders of the African diaspora. This research focuses on the roles of the UNIA’s organizational structure and the Black church in explaining why the UNIA was first highly successful and later collapsed. This …

Meditative Aesthetic, Fiona Naomi Cashell

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Through the use of photography and digital media processes, my art practice explores themes relating to identity, the consciousness of self, home, environment and personal relationships. These themes are explored via an observational approach (external), or, via personal experience (internal); each approach highlighting psychological processes, the vulnerability of self and the commonality of human experience and behavior. In my most recent work, I am using a combination of photography and video, site-specific installation and mixed media applications. Areas of research I am interested in and actively utilize in my work include relational and environmental psychology, cognitive aesthetics, visual communication and …

Mutilated Bodies And Memories Of Violence: Displacements And Contestations Of Representations Of Violence, In Contemporary Video Art And Photography In Colombia, 1993-1998., Juan Carlos Guerrero Hernandez

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

How do contemporary artworks address and give visibility to the wounded body without reinvigorating trauma, without repeating the spectacular and homogenizing strategies used by the media? How do artworks move beyond denunciation to aesthetically and historically name and rearticulate bodily violence? And fundamentally, how do artworks offer an historical understanding of the political historicity of contemporary violence without uncritically resorting to myth and structural trauma? We intend to answer these questions within the context of art and violence in Colombia in 1990s. In this direction, we examine four artworks produced between 1993 and 1998, by artists Alberto Baraya, Clemencia Echeverri, …

Designated Pages: Bradbury Thompson's Inspirations For Paper, Mi Seok Huh

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

How do Bradbury Thompson’s designs in Westvaco Inspirations work as a guide for design and paper? Westvaco Inspirations was a promotional magazine first published in 1925 by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. The main purpose of the magazine was to promote paper and to show an intricate relationship between print, paper and design. Bradbury Thompson was the designer for the magazine from 1939 to its final year of publication in 1962. This thesis shows how Thompson’s designs promoted the quality of each particular paper brand and its effectiveness in presenting a printed image. The thesis aims to show …

Knowledge Extraction From Diverse Biomedical Corpora With Applications In Healthcare: Bridging The Translational Gap, Ritwik Banerjee

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

A wealth of knowledge in the biomedical domain is available in unstructured or semi-structured data repositories as natural language narratives. Much of this knowledge can provide immediate and tangible benefits in patient welfare and the healthcare industry. Extracting relevant knowledge from these natural language sources and providing them as structured information suitable for immediate real-time consumption in clinical settings is, however, a manual process restricted to human domain experts. As a result, it is expensive and time-consuming. A very real consequence of this is that the journey made by medical " knowledge nuggets" from research publications to patient care settings …

Implications Of Early-Onset Psychiatric Symptoms For Peer Functioning In Middle-Childhood: A Validity And Clinical Significance Approach, Allison Pennock Danzig

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Recent findings indicate that preschoolers experience psychiatric symptoms at rates similar to that of older children and adolescents. However, there are limited data examining the impact of early-onset psychiatric symptoms on subsequent peer functioning. To support the validity and clinical significance of early-emerging symptoms, it is necessary to demonstrate that youth with elevated symptom levels experience significant later difficulties across various domains. Most research linking these constructs has examined the impact of externalizing symptoms on peer functioning cross-sectionally, without consideration of internalizing symptoms. The goals of this study were to derive multiple-informant middle-childhood peer factors, examine the longitudinal impact of …

A Multi-Method Assessment Of Error Sensitivity And Anxiety In Childhood And Adolescence, Alexandria Meyer

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Anxiety disorders are the most frequent form of psychopathology in children and adolescents and often result in chronic impairment. Therefore, there is a critical need to identify markers that characterize normative versus anxious trajectories of development. One promising biomarker of anxiety is altered brain activity in response to errors, as reflected by the event-related potential (ERP), the error-related negativity (ERN). The ERN occurs around the time of error commission and is generated in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). An increased ERN has been consistently found in adults with anxiety disorders. Although the ERN is smaller in children and changes across …

Coping With Sexual Orientation-Related Stress: A Weekly Diary Study Of Gay Men, Brian Feinstein

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Research has consistently demonstrated that gay men are at increased risk for internalizing symptoms and disorders compared to heterosexual men. Although sexual orientation-related stress (SORS) has been identified as a risk factor for internalizing disorders among gay men, little is known about how SORS influences mental health. The current study had three main aims: (1) to examine the associations between individual attributes (internalized homonegativity and rejection sensitivity) and coping strategies used in response to SORS (active and disengaged coping); (2) to examine the associations between coping strategies and internalizing symptoms; and (3) to examine coping strategies as mediators of the …

The Impact Of Weight-Related Abuse On Self-Perception And Disordered Eating: A Model Of Obesity, Jessica Keefe Salwen

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Obesity affects approximately one-third of the adult population in the U.S. and is one of the primary reasons for bullying in school. While weight-related abuse (WRA) is a specific risk factor for disordered eating (binge eating, emotional eating, night eating, and unhealthy weight control) and negative self-perception, and disordered eating and negative self-perception are predictive of obesity, these relationships have not been addressed with a comprehensive model. Thus, the current study evaluated a structural equation model in which severity of WRA predicted the emotional impact of WRA and negative self-perception, which predicted disordered eating, which in turn predicted current body …

Getting To Know Siblings Of Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Model Of Risk And Resilience, Megan Elissa Tudor

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Therapy and support programs for siblings of youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are on the rise, indicating a growing demand for specialized sibling services. However, current research findings remain unclear as to what exactly the needs of siblings might be and why those needs might be present. The current dissertation aims to identify what particular risk factors may lead to problematic outcomes that warrant clinical services (e.g. | emotional, behavioral, or social problems), while concurrently, examining resilience factors that may lead to positive functioning in these areas. A comprehensive family systems model was created drawing from literature related to …

The Origin Of Contemporary Drug Contraband: A Global Interpretation From Sinaloa, Froylan Vladimir Enciso Higuera

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation charts the longer history of contemporary drug contraband by focusing on the Pacific state of Sinaloa, the cradle of the Mexican drug trade. Historians working on drug trades in Latin America have now produced many accounts of the development of global drug commodity chains, and of the origins of drug prohibition regimes as well as smuggling and illicit flows. This dissertation is different in its attempt to trace the emergence of drug trafficking as a historically specific set of relationships emerging between states—above all, the United States and Mexico--and global markets, all mediated by shifting cultures of medical …

Milton's Satan As The Evolving Poet, David Thomas Johnson

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Beyond established associations between Milton’s Satan and the poet himself, I argue that Milton’s Satan, specifically in Book Nine of Paradise Lost, is a direct reflection of Milton, his career as a poet, and his precarious position in attempting to create a conclusion to his epic that does justice to the extraordinary narration of pre-fall history in Books I through IX. I will use a psychoanalytic approach in discussing what I believe to be Milton’s overwhelming desire to solidify his own position in the English literary canon, and the anxiety he seems to experience in a state of creative limbo. …