Digital Commons Network^™

The Tower Of Hanoi In Dynamic Creative Problem Solving, Lia Harrington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Creativity and emotions are well-studied constructs, and there is much work on their interrelations. However the empirical application of dynamical systems analysis to them is still relatively rare. For these reasons, a study was conducted on the dynamics and interrelationships of creativity, emotion, and psychopathology using state space grids (SSG) in 33 young adult participants assessed for autism spectrum and negative schizotypy traits, using a computerized Tower of Hanoi (ToH) creative problem-solving task. An overview of the dual importance of convergent and divergent thinking styles to creativity is provided as a context for the experiment. The hypothesis that participants with …

Blended Framework: Bill Mckibben's Use Of Melodrama And Comedy In Environmental Rhetoric, Megan E. Cullinan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the last five years, as climate change became less abstract and more noticeable, conversations surrounding the issues have begun to change. In the past, solutions to climate change were framed in terms of how individuals can made a difference—and yet, no significant changes have occurred. Research shows that the main contributors to climate change are the fossil fuel industry, as both extraction and consumption of fossil fuel products are irresponsible and unsustainable. Thus, it is important for climate change conflict to leave the personal sphere and become more prominent as a political controversy.

Bill McKibben’s blended framing of climate …

A 'Paradox Of Expression': Bertolt Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt In Performance, Cohen L. Ambrose Mr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Anatolii Lunacharskii And The Soviet Theater, John E. Dunkum

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Impact Of A Flame Resistant Synthetic Material Base Layer On Heat Stress Factors, Matthew C. Dorton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Protective clothing worn by wildland firefighters (WLFF) may increase physiological strain and heat stress factors due to increased insulation and decreased ventilation. PURPOSE: To examine the effects of a flame resistant synthetic material base layer on heat stress factors. METHODS: Ten recreationally active males (25 ± 6.1 yrs, 80.9 ± 8.4 kg, 11.1 ± 5.3% fat, 4.4 ± 0.6 L·min-1 VO2 max) completed two trials of intermittent (50 min walking, 10 min sitting) treadmill walking (4km/hr, 4% grade) over 3 hours in a hot, dry environment (35⁰C, 30% rh). Participants wore standard WLFF Nomex green pants, Nomex yellow shirt with …

The Occurrence Of Place-Based Narrative In U.S. Senatorial Campaign Advertisements, Brian K. Munis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Narratives have been increasingly subject to study within social science disciplines. However, research pertaining to narrative within political campaigns is incomplete. For example, there has been a relative lack of attention in the literature to the symbolic discourse and imagery in many political campaign advertisements that—seemingly—exists in order to link candidates to specific geographic “places” within their constituencies. A more complete understanding of the association between narratives of place and political campaigns will allow us to more effective and accurately gauge how, when, and why candidates use this potential strategy; as well as its possible effectiveness in election outcomes. This …

"Why Wait Until They Commit A Crime?": Moral Imbecility And The Problem Of Knowledge In Progressive America, 1880-1920, Chelsea D. Chamberlain

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Focusing on the forty-year period from 1880 to 1920, this thesis explores moral imbecility--the lack of a moral sense at birth--as a contested medical diagnosis that embodied many of modernizing America's greatest fears. It argues that moral imbecility played a pivotal role in facilitating the emergence of several hallmarks of modern America. The diagnosis legitimated medical experts’ far-reaching cultural authority, encouraged the rise of a surveillance society, and secured the growth of a medicalized bureaucratic state responsible for institutionalizing hundreds of thousands of people. As a potent medico-cultural threat based upon new and disputed knowledge claims, it became an important …

Tennessee Williams' "Plastic Theater" A Formulation Of Dramaturgy For "The American Method" Theater, Peter A. Philips

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Diabesties: How Diabetic Support On Campus Can Alleviate Diabetic Burnout, Kassandra E. Martin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study is to determine what types of supportive communication Type One diabetic students need when entering college to decrease diabetic related distress. A training program for students living with Type One Diabetes was created on the barriers they face to effective disease management on campus. This training plan was developed using Beebe, Mottet, and Roach’s (2013) Needs-Centered Training Model. The main issue that appeared from the Needs Assessment was that students are feeling high distress when it comes to keeping with a strict medical regimen. What they expressed interest in was a need for information from …

An Analysis Of Socioeconomic Influences On Health Care Seeking Behavior In Humla, Nepal, Hannah Kuehl

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mobile medical camps (MMCs) are common in Nepal, as well as other parts of the world. MMCs in Nepal provide health care resources that are not available through the government health system, due to Nepal’s weak health infrastructure. Although MMCs are problematic for a variety of reasons, they continue to play a role in health care delivery in remote settings the world over. Despite the fact that MMCs are increasingly common in many countries around the world, their patient populations and their health outcomes are poorly understood. This thesis is an analysis of socioeconomic influences within a select group of …

Socialization And Volunteers: A Training Program For Volunteer Managers, Allison M. Sullivan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this project was to construct a training program for volunteer managers in nonprofit organizations that will aim to increase the retention of volunteers through better socialization practices. The training was developed using Beebe, Mottet, and Roach’s (2013) Needs-Centered Training Model, and volunteer manager and volunteer focus groups served as the needs assessment. The main topics that arose from the needs assessment included fostering a positive and supportive volunteer relational environment, helping volunteers see that they are needed, useful, and making an impact, and clearly communicating volunteer expectations. The need for better volunteer socialization can be seen from …

The Ethics Of Mourning: The Role Of Material Culture And Public Politics In The 'Book Of The Duchess' And The 'Pearl' Poem, Tarren Andrews

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project is a socio-historic analysis of two late 14^th century dream visions: Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Pearl poem. Utilizing Robert Pogue Harrison’s concept of objectifying grief through ritualized communal mourning, this thesis examines the ways in which mourning literature functioned as consolatory device, and a form of public performance for the powerful patrons who commissioned the pieces. By engaging with pre-existing communities of grief, material culture, and courtly discourse these poems perform the work of mourning while simultaneously enacting modes of public performativity that stress the ethics of grieving, and suggest that, for royal patrons, …

The Bioscience-Industrial Complex, Radical Materialist Aesthetics, And Interspecies Political Ecologies: The Unforeseen Posthuman Future In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein And Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam Trilogy, Sarah Sydney Lane

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project traces how Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy, science fiction novels from the Romantic and contemporary literary periods respectively, contest the problematic relationships between subjecthood, science, ecological health, and patriarchal, capitalist societies by crafting radical materialist alternatives to such a system and its dualistic and destructive interpersonal/interspecies relations. Through the theoretical framework of ecofeminism that recognizes the conceptual linkages between women and nature in Western systems of thought, as well as psychoanalytical feminist critiques of the masculinization of scientific epistemology, this project examines the developmental and ontological overlaps between literary “masculine” and “scientific” subjects socialized under …

The Impact Of Detention On Juvenile Recidivism In Montana: Is The Impact Of Detention Influenced By Other Factors?, Daniel N. Acton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study is to identify the effect detention has on recidivism risk as well as to identify the degree to which the effect of detention on recidivism is influenced by other variables. The data for this analysis were collected by probation officers across Montana, using the Back on Track risk assessment instrument (N=840). Although detention was the topic of interest, this analysis also tested aspects of three popular criminological theories: social bond theory, self-control theory, and life-course persistent theory. Using logistic regression, the effects of detention and a variety of other risk factors are identified. Hypothesis one …

Self-Compassion As A Moderator Of The Relationship Between Emotion Dysregulation And Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms, Priya Loess

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is emotion dysregulation (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Such dysregulation leads to emotions spiraling out of control, hindering reason, and leading to out-of-control maladaptive behaviors (Conklin, Bradley, Westen, 2006). Invalidating environments, coupled with biologically based emotional vulnerability, are thought to account for the development of BPD (Linehan, 1993). Self-compassion (SC) is in contrast to some common symptoms related to BPD, such as self-hatred, intense shame, and negative self-schemas. SC was tested as a potential moderating mechanism in the relationship between emotion dysregulation and BPD symptoms among a sample of college students. SC consists …

An Assessment Of The Health Needs Of The Transgender Community In Montana, Karishma Chainani

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Transgender individuals face a unique set of challenges in their day to day lives. While issues regarding stigma and discrimination are well documented in the literature, most of the information about transgender people has been gathered in urban settings. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore factors that influence quality of life and risk of infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Hepatitis C (HCV), Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) among transgender people living in Montana. A questionnaire was developed after a thorough review of the literature as well as a review of existing assessments. The questionnaire was reviewed by …

Victims' Perspectives Of Their Roles In Unwanted Sexual Experiences When Alcohol Is Consumed, Lindsey C. Grove

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Sexual violence among college students is recognized as a serious public health concern in the United States. Among college students, sexual violence is associated with high levels of PTSD symptoms and psychological consequences (Frazier et al., 2009). For ages 18 to 25 sexual violence is the only crime that is found to occur more frequently among college students than the same age group not attending college and is at its highest rate during the first year of attendance(Baum & Klaus, 2005) Research has already uncovered increased risk of victimization for young college students including heavy alcohol consumption (Messman-Moore, Coates, Gaffey, …

Classroom Modifications With Improved Acoustics Modeled For Cehic, A School For The Deaf, In Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, Polwatte Krishantha Silva

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to model a typical classroom in a school for the Deaf inKelaniya,Sri Lanka. Intense effort by teachers provides intervention for students with significant hearing impairment. The school is an oral school, and the philosophy is to utilize the residual hearing of each student through the use of high-powered hearing aids. Like many schools inSri Lanka, the Centre for Education of Hearing-Impaired Children (CEHIC) has many classrooms that have both high ambient noise with long reverberation times. Both noise and reverberation interfere with the sound signal, the teacher’s voice, and provide a poor learning environment …

Behavioral Effects Of Fluoxetine On Aggression And Associative Learning In Betta Splendens, Benjamin Eisenreich

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

While the link between serotonin and the behaviors of aggression and learning has been elucidated, few studies have examined the impact serotonin has on learning for aggressive rewards. In particular, the SSRI fluoxetine has been demonstrated to reduce aggression as well the acquisition of instrumental responding for rewards indicating that this drugs behavioral effect may be related to motivational processes important for learning. To examine the relationship between fluoxetine and motivational process important for learning, two experiments were conducted using Betta splendens, a species well known for their robust aggressive response and drive to engage in aggressive behaviors, to examine …

Stories Of Contaminated Waste Dump Sites In Amskapi Pikuni Blackfeet Country, Kimberly L. Paul

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract:

Significant health disparities affect much of the American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Native Hawaiian (NH) populations of America_.^3,6,10,11,14 Inequalities in health care and delivery of services for these populations are a contributing factor to disparate health conditions.² Lack of equity in areas such as social services¹⁸, education, environmental contaminants^5,7,8,17, historical trauma¹ and acute poverty[a1] [KP2] ^{16, 19} strongly influence health conditions⁴. People residing within the remaining tribal lands of the Northern Plains experience markedly higher incidence of disease than other ethnicities within this nation¹⁰, ultimately …

Effectiveness Of Mary Ainsworth's Maternal Sensitivity Scale With Four-Week-Old Infants, Laurel Anne T. Yorgason

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The attachment relationship between a mother and her infant provides a foundation for future development (Bowlby, 1951; Sroufe, 2005). A high level of maternal sensitivity has been deemed one of the most important antecedents to a secure attachment (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2004). Although Mary Ainsworth originally developed a measure of maternal sensitivity other researchers developed measures to determine a mother’s level of sensitivity (Mesman & Emmen, 2013). The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) was developed to determine the classification of the attachment relationship (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton, 1974). Currently these measures focus predominantly on dyads that include an infant at …

Resilience Through Adversity And Aging: Historical Loss And Resilience In Adults From A Northern Plains Tribe, Desiree L. Fox

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Historical loss is a primary contributor to the well-being of American Indian people and their communities. Research has shown that these losses have contributed to modern-day physical and mental health disparities. Research has also shown that adverse experiences, such as historical loss, are associated with the development of resilience. Additionally, increased age has been found to be related to increased levels of resilience. An informal survey of members of a Northern Plains tribal community identified grief as a major area of concern. The present study is a secondary analysis of data that was collected from two culturally-anchored grief retreats. Participants …

Measuring Participation For Persons With Mental Illness: A Systematic Review Assessing Relevance Of Existing Scales For Low And Middle Income Countries, Ganesh M. Babulal, Parul Bakhshi, Sunyata Kopriva, Sarah A. Ali, Susan A. Goette, Jean-Francois Trani

Brown School Faculty Publications

Background: Participation is increasingly becoming an important outcome for assessment in many fields, including development, disability and policy implementation. However, selecting specific instruments to measure participation has been a significant problem due to overlapping conceptual definitions and use of different theories. The objective of this paper is to identify participation instruments, examine theories/definition supporting their use and highlight scales for use in low and middle-income countries for persons with mental illness. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify instruments intended to measure participation for individuals with severe mental illness. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in …

Time-Limited Case Management For Homeless Mothers With Mental Health Problems: Effects On Caregiver Mental Health., Judith Samuels, Patrick J. Fowler, Andrea Ault-Brutus, Dein-In Tang, Katherine Marcal

Brown School Faculty Publications

Objective: In this study we test the effect of a time-limited case management model targeting homeless mothers who are experiencing mental health problems. Adapted from an empirically informed intervention to prevent recurrent homelessness among individuals, the Family Critical Time Intervention (FCTI) supports mothers with children for a 9-month period as they move from homeless shelters into affordable housing. The case management team uses a structured intervention to encourage mothers to create and maintain necessary connections in the community for key family supports. Method: We use a longitudinal randomized controlled trial (N = 210) to test whether homeless mothers referred to …

Faster-Better-Cheaper Projects: Too Much Risk Or Overreaction To Perceived Failure?, Robert L. Dillon, Peter M. Madsen

Faculty Publications

From1992 until 1999,NASA adopted a Faster-Better- Cheaper (FBC) paradigm—i.e., smaller low-cost spacecraft—for its unmanned missions. When many early missions met their objectives at much lower cost than traditional flagship missions, the FBC approach seemed successful. However, after the failures of two Mars spacecraft in 1999, the FBC paradigm was viewed as a failed experiment. We reflect on the legacy of FBC. In particular, we focus on the organizational learning literature to explore whether FBC, a stretch goal, was a good step for NASA. Previous examinations of FBC have focused on failure rates rather than on cost effectiveness. We revisit the …

A Multi-Experimental Examination Of Analyzing Mouse Cursor Trajectories To Gauge Subject Uncertainty, Jeffrey L. Jenkins, Ross Larsen, Robert Bodily, Daniel Sandberg, Parker Williams, Steve Stokes, Spencer Harris, Joseph S. Valacich

Faculty Publications

Providing information online is pervasive in human-computer interactions. While providing information, people may deliberate their responses. However, organizations only receive the end-result of this deliberation and therefore have no contextual information surrounding the response. One type of contextual information includes knowing people’s response uncertainty while providing information. Knowing uncertainty allows organizations to weigh responses, ask follow-up questions, provide assistance, or identify problematic instructions or responses. This paper explores how mouse cursor movements may indicate uncertainty in a human-computer interaction context. Specifically, it hypothesizes how uncertainty on multiple-choice questions influences a mouse-movement statistic called area-under-the-curve (AUC). We report the result of …

The Gardener’S Lament: Rehabilitation And Responsibility Inside Leavenworth Prison, Laccia Bromell

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

In this thesis, I assess the debate over whether inmates should have privileges as a means of rehabilitation within United States prison populations. I focus on the example of Carl Bowles, a convicted murderer residing in Leavenworth Prison, who was given a garden to tend, only to have it taken away by a new regime. My argument is twofold: I will first discuss the normative question of whether an inmate like Carl Bowles ought to be given his garden in the first place. I will then address the empirical question of whether giving him the garden is beneficial to him …

Privacy And The Right To Free Speech, Alejandra A. Uribe

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Because of the nature of their jobs and lifestyles, public figures are more likely to suffer intrusive invasions into their private lives and cannot generally expect to receive privacy in public places. However, the right to respect for a person’s privacy and the right to freedom of expression are both vitally important rights. Drawing on a balancing test similar to that used by the European Court of Human Rights that attempts to give due weight to each right, I argue that, with matters that are considered to be private like medical issues, a right to free speech should not trump …

Thomas Pynchon's Philosopher Detectives: An Investigation Into The Epistemic Cyborg, Jonathan Votypka

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Thomas Pynchon's novels have puzzled audiences for decades, in the same way his conspiracy plots lead his characters into labyrinthine networks of events and people. These two novels feature female detective protagonists pursuing elusive secrets and conspiracies while struggling with technological advancement that is altering the world they think they know. These detectives are Oedipa Maas in The Crying ofLot49 (1966) and Maxine Tarnow in Bleeding Edge (201 3). The Crying of Lot 49 is set in the Cold War mid-1960's, while Bleeding Edge begins in April of2001, and ventures through the events of September 11th, 2001. Pynchon places his …

Are Privileged Individuals More Likely To Make Unethical Decisions?, Lauren Koff

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Growing inequality over the past few decades has been a great problem for the majority of Americans. Inequality is in part a reflection of privilege. The objective of this research was to investigate the association between privilege (including socioeconomic status or SES) and honesty (cheating behavior), along with relationships between privilege and personality and finally personality and honesty. This work furthered our knowledge of perceptions of social justice and the mechanisms underlying unethical behavior. Participants completed a questionnaire on Amazon MTurk that measured constructs of privilege (subjective SES, race, education, occupation, gender) and unethical behavior (participants completed three skill and …