Digital Commons Network^™

The Trauma Thesis: Medical And Literary Representations Of Psychological Trauma In The Twentieth Century, Sarah Louise Eilefson

Dissertations

The historian Samuel Hynes has observed that World War I was not only the greatest military and political event of its time but also the greatest imaginative event. Soldiers and civilians struggled to comprehend the war’s devastation and the changes it produced while medical practitioners and artists examined the war as a site of extraordinary trauma. My project explores two of the many archives of trauma: the medical discourse through which trauma was defined; and representations of trauma in a variety of English language novels from the early and mid-twentieth century. I begin with a historical survey of the medical …

Competing Voices: Negotiating Power And Place In Mixed-Income Housing Development, Kimberlee S. Guenther

Dissertations

Public housing internationally is undergoing a transformation due to the implementation of mixed-income policies. Based on two years of research in Chicago and Sydney, this project aimed to understand how resident leaders experience this transformation and the strategies they used to contribute to placemaking in new communities. The research also investigated new methods of conducting community-based, participatory research that emphasized resident perspectives and inquiry. Findings show that resident leaders utilize negative narratives about public housing to make claims to new neighborhoods. The research also revealed that highly stigmatized, but demolished places continue to function in people’s lives through the process …

Factors Impacting Student Outcomes In Multicultural Counseling Courses, Kathleen Kordesh

Dissertations

This study explored how complex factors related to student characteristics (e.g., demographics, levels of racism) and instructor characteristics (e.g., demographics, level of multicultural competence, teaching strategies) are related to student outcomes in multicultural counseling courses (e.g., levels of racism and levels of multicultural competence at the end of the semester). Data collection yielded a sample of 21 students and six instructors. Findings suggest that instructors are a significant factor in how much students develop with regards to gaining multicultural knowledge, but not in how much students develop with regards to gaining multicultural awareness. Multivariate analysis of student responses suggest that …

The Role Of Vocational Hope In The Social Cognitive Career Theory: A Test Of Three Models, Andrea Lynn Carr

Dissertations

This study is the first to empirically explore the potential role that vocational hope serves in the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Vocational hope was proposed as a mechanism through which at-risk youth could develop a positive future orientation, an essential component of the career development process (Brown, Lamp, Telander, & Hacker, 2012). Measures assessing vocational hope, hope related self-efficacy beliefs, hope related outcome expectations, and educational and occupational goals were completed by 147 diverse adolescents. Structural equation modeling partially supported vocational hope serving as a partial mediator of the relationships between self-efficacy beliefs and …

Daddy Is Involved: How Do African American Fathers Participate In The Education Experiences Of Their High School Children?, Gregory Pierre Baker

Dissertations

Parents have tremendous influence in the lives of their children. As a result, it is valuable to investigate how high school parents participate in their children's high school education experiences. African American fathers in particular, have been placed under scrutiny by the media and general population for not being involved in the education experiences of their children, while the research literature dispels this generalization.

This study investigates how African American fathers, in a suburban community, participate in the education experiences of their high school children. This research study took place at a Du Page County, Illinois, high school under the …

Public Relations: Diaspora, Media, And The State(S) Of American Literature, Nathan Allen Jung

Dissertations

Like any good public relations campaign, this dissertation aims to offer a persuasive interpretation of certain key facts. The facts, as I see them, are as follows: first, a great number of contemporary novels and poems explore the personal and social consequences of diasporic migration. Second, these texts, along with their print and electronic paratexts, share a pervasive interest in media. And third, these works are rarely read in conversation with one another, despite their mutual concern for migration and media. Owing to this last point in particular, scholarship has failed to fully address the broader media theories developed in …

Dbt And Bereavement: A Multiple Baseline Design, Marissa Marshak

Dissertations

This is an interpretive, single-subject design study, which followed a non-concurrent multiple baseline design to understand the processes of bereavement treatment. The study comprised six groups (n=29) enrolled in the General Adult Loss Groups after the loss of a family member. The researcher used mixed methodologies to understand the bereavement process, group work process, and DBT process. The objective was to evaluate whether the timing of implementing DBT, or DBT at all, improved coping outcomes. Two groups served as control groups, and the remaining four groups received a 5-weeklong 45-minute voluntary modified intervention of DBT at staggered intervention start points. …

Social Justice And Ecological Responsibility: A Moral Case For International Collaborative Action On Environmental Degradation And Climate-Induced Displacement, James Stephen Mastaler

Dissertations

The contemporary ecological crisis, manifest in human-induced climate change, is a powerful form of structural violence against the poorest communities on the planet. As such, my research resides at the nexus of structural poverty, gender disparity, ecological degradation, and climate-induced displacement. The social justice implications emerging from this nexus require responsible moral deliberation and discernment over the international community's role in minimizing the human tragedies accompanying forced displacement and migration. While asserting the interconnectedness and dependency of all life upon mutual flourishing, responsible decision-making expands the range of felt moral concern to include ecological flourishing. Social justice is only possible …

Easing My Burden: A Grounded Theory Study Of Kidney Transplant Recipients' Experience With Their Transplant Coordinators, Gwen E. Mcnatt

Dissertations

Organ transplantation holds the promise of new life or better life for thousands of Americans every year. Transplantation involves a process that stretches over time beginning at referral, moving to transplantation and long term care. The transplant coordinator is considered an integral part of this care. Transplant coordinators are considered so important to the care of these patients that transplant centers are required to have at least one transplant coordinator by federal regulations.

The role of the transplant coordinator, however, is not well defined. Although many of the role dimensions attributed to transplant coordinators are consistent with nursing practice, the …

Censorship And Intolerance In Medieval England, Richard Obenauf

Dissertations

Censorship is difficult to prove conclusively in the Middle Ages because manuscript culture is susceptible to the destruction of evidence, namely by burning works deemed unacceptable. Moreover, medieval authors were subject to many forms of intolerance which shaped their literary decisions. This dissertation proposes that the roots of formal print censorship in England are to be found in earlier forms of intolerance which sought to enforce conformity and that censorship is not distinct from intolerance, but rather is another form of intolerance. I draw on political writings by Peter Abelard, John of Salisbury, and William of Ockham to establish a …

Emergent Literacy Skills In Print And Electronic Contexts: The Influence Of Book Type, Narration Style, And Attention, Kathryn Joyce O'Toole

Dissertations

Preschoolers can learn words and story content from traditional print books, but there has been no direct comparison of their learning from print and e-books while controlling for narration style. Additionally, very little empirical work has utilized a tablet e-book as the majority of research has examined learning from computer e-books. The current project examined how 4-year-olds (N = 100) learned words and story content from four different book reading contexts: a print book read aloud by a live adult, a print book narrated by an audio device, a tablet e-book read aloud by a live adult, or a tablet …

The Role Of Neighborhood And Parenting In The Development Of Effortful Control And Subsequent Social Competence During Early Childhood, Edna Y. Romero

Dissertations

The current study examined ecological predictors of the trajectory of effortful control (EC) across ages 4, 5, and 6 in a community sample of young children (N = 796). The specific goals of the study were to examine poor neighborhood quality as a predictor of EC development, to evaluate the moderating role of supportive and hostile parenting in relation to poor neighborhood quality and EC development, and to determine if the interaction between poor neighborhood quality and parenting predicted change in children’s social competence through the mediating role of EC. Data were analyzed using latent growth curve modeling (LGM). Results …

Mandated Reporting: An Examination Of Training And Practice Of School Psychologists, Katie Nicole Bradshaw Sears

Dissertations

This study sought to explore the training opportunities, knowledge, confidence in intervening, reporting behaviors, and types of supervision received and given in the areas of child maltreatment and mandated reporting by practicing school psychologists. Little is known about school psychologists' knowledge of child maltreatment and specific mandates about reporting suspicions of abuse or how to appropriately respond to disclosures of abuse (Arbolino et al., 2008). Given school psychologists' unique role in schools working directly with children, it is not uncommon for school psychologists to either suspect maltreatment is occurring or to hear a disclosure of maltreatment directly from a student. …

Amyloid Precursor Protein (App) Regulates G0/G1 Transition And Cell Growth, Anna Sobol

Dissertations

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) originates in the epithelia of the lung and persists as the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Many studies have shown that hypoxia is prevalent in NSCLC tissue and negatively influences treatment outcome.

In previous studies, we investigated the efficacy of gamma-secretase inhibitor (GSI) treatment in an orthotopic mouse NSCLC model. Analysis of hypoxic areas of tumors from GSI treated animals showed reappearance of 4E-BP1 phosphorylation at threonine 37/46 residues (T37/46). 4E-BP1 phosphorylation is primarily mediated by mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC-1), a major cell integrator of growth factors stimulation, …

A Multi-Method Analysis Of Body Mass Index, Physical Activity, And Executive Functions Among Urban Minority Girls, Amanda K. Ward

Dissertations

Recent evidence suggests that the summer months represent an especially vulnerable time of year for weight gain, inactivity, and cognitive decline, particularly among adolescent girls. To explore these issues, this study examined the relations between changes in physical activity (PA), body mass index (BMI), and executive functions (EFs) among a sample of sixty-eight, 10-to 14-year-old girls participating in a four-week, community-based summer camp. Objectively measured PA data (i.e., accelerometer), BMI measurements, and EF neuropsychological assessments were conducted prior to the first week of camp and during the last week of camp. Results revealed that girls increased in all measurements of …

Structure And Molecular Mechanism Of A Plp/Gaba Dependent Transcription Regulator Gabr, Rui Wu

Dissertations

GabR is a member of the MocR/GabR subfamily of the GntR family of bacterial transcription regulators. It regulates the metabolism of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an important nitrogen and carbon source in many bacteria. The crystal structures reported here show that this protein has evolved from the fusion of a type I aminotransferase and a winged helix-turn-helix (wHTH) DNA binding protein to form a chimeric protein that adopts a dimeric head-to-tail configuration. The pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP)-binding regulatory domain of GabR is therefore an example of a coenzyme playing a role in transcription regulation rather than in enzymatic catalysis. Our structural and …

Roman Catholic Teaching On International Debt: Toward A New Methodology For Catholic Social Ethics And Moral Theology, M. Therese Lysaught

Institute of Pastoral Studies: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Ritual And Practice, M Therese Lysaught

Institute of Pastoral Studies: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Identity, Heritage And Memorialization: The Toraja Tongkonan Of Indonesia, Kathleen M. Adams

Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Viral Populations Within Lake Michigan Nearshore Waters At Four Chicago Area Beaches, Emily Sible, Alexandria Cooper, Kema Malki, Katherine Bruder, Siobhan C. Watkins, Yuriy Fofanov, Catherine Putonti

Bioinformatics Faculty Publications

In comparison to the oceans, freshwater environments represent a more diverse community of microorganisms, exhibiting comparatively high levels of variability both temporally and spatially Maranger and Bird, Microb. Ecol. 31 (1996) 141–151. This level of variability is likely to extend to the world of viruses as well, in particular bacteria-infecting viruses (bacteriophages). Phages are known to influence bacterial diversity, and therefore key processes, in environmental niches across the globe Clokie et al., Bacteriophage 1 (2011) 31–45; Jacquet et al., Adv. Ocean Limn. 1 (2010) 97–141; Wilhelm and Suttle, Bioscience 49 (1999) 781–788; Bratback et al., Microb. Ecol. 28 (1994) 209–221. …

Survey Of Microbial Populations Within Lake Michigan Nearshore Waters At Two Chicago Public Beaches, Kema Malki, Katherine Bruder, Catherine Putonti

Bioinformatics Faculty Publications

Lake Michigan is a critical resource for the residents of Chicago, providing drinking water to its 9+ million area residents. Along Chicago׳s 26 miles of public beaches the populous urban environment and this freshwater environment meet. While city-led monitoring initiatives investigate pathogenic bacteria in these nearshore waters, very little is known about other microbial species present. We collected surface water samples from two Chicago public beaches – Montrose Beach and 57th Street Beach – every ten days from June 5 through August 4, 2013 as well as once in early Fall (October 4, 2013). Sixteen bacterial communities in total were …

Hash-Map-Eradicator: Filtering Non-Target Sequences From Next Generation Sequencing Reads, Jonathon Brenner, Catherine Putonti

Bioinformatics Faculty Publications

Contemporary DNA sequencing technologies are continuously increasing throughput at ever decreasing costs. Moreover, due to recent advances in sequencing technology new platforms are emerging. As such computational challenges persist. The average read length possible has taken a giant leap forward with the PacBio and Nanopore solutions. Regardless of the platform used, impurities within the DNA preparation of the sample - be it from unintentional contaminants or pervasive symbiots - remains an issue. We have developed a new tool, HAsh-MaP-ERadicator (HAMPER), for the detection and removal of non-target, contaminating DNA sequences. Integrating hash-based and mapping-based strategies, HAMPER is both memory and …

Teaching, Learning, And Leading: Preparing Teachers As Educational Policy Actors, Amy J. Heineke, Ann Marie Ryan, Charles Tocci

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

Within the current federal, state, and local contexts of educational reform, teachers must be recognized as central actors in policy work, but rarely do we explicitly consider preparing teachers to become policy actors. Understanding these implications for teacher education, we investigate teacher candidates’ learning of the complexity and dynamism of educational policy through a field-based teacher preparation program. Situated across four unique school contexts in the diverse neighborhoods of Chicago, Illinois, we qualitatively study the cases of eight teacher candidates as they explore policy in practice. We found that candidates developed enduring understandings about policy as complex, situated, and multilayered, …

The Project Approach Meta-Project: Inquiry-Based Learning In Undergraduate Early Childhood Teacher Education, Adam S. Kennedy, Erin Horne, Kelcie Dolan, Cindy Herrera, Naomi Malutan, Kathleen Noetzel

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article describes a case study involving the planning, phases, and outcomes of an exploration of the Project Approach led by four teacher candidates as part of an undergraduate early childhood teacher preparation program. Four undergraduate junior-level teacher candidates investigated the phases of the Project Approach during their junior year; this work took place during a 26-week learning module comprised of a seminar and part-time student teaching placement in a preschool setting. The candidates aligned the stages of their investigation with the phases of the Project Approach, which provided a framework complementary to that of action research, within which the …

A Multiyear Investigation Of Combating Bullying In Middle School: Stakeholder Perspectives, David L. Shriberg, Mallory Burns, Poonam Desai, Stephanie Grunewald, Rachel Pitt

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

Working collaboratively to address bullying among middle school students is an ongoing challenge. This study used participatory action research to collaborate with key stakeholders within a middle school to identify needs and implement more effective practices. Extensive qualitative and quantitative data are presented, along with process recommendations for bringing different stakeholders together for a sustained change effort.

The Brain Geography Mini-Course: A Neuroscience Outreach Effort, Mark Albert

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The way we experience the world - how we go between sensing, thinking, and acting - is in some ways no more of a mystery than understanding how a computer works. Brains are quite complicated and we may never understand the details, but what we know in general can be very interesting. In this mini-course, we will learn how we think. When we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, remember, rehearse, fear something, understand or produce language, move our bodies...specific parts of the brain are used. Students will get a rough introduction to each part and how they interact. This will …

The Next Generation Of Computational Science And Engineering, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Editor-in-Chief message.

Scientific Software Communities [Guest Editor Introduction], Andy Terrel, Michael Tobis, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Guest editor introduction

Paradoxes In Physical Health, Robert Crosnoe, Aida Ramos-Wada, Claude Bonazzo

Faculty Publications - Department of Sociology

This chapter reviews the evidence from social science and medical research that sheds light on this potential immigrant paradox in health -- when, where, and for whom it holds or does not apply. In doing so, two important points need to be kept in mind. First, the existence of the paradox does not necessarily mean that immigrants are doing than everyone else. Rather, it means that they are doing better than social and economic positions suggest that they should be. Second, paradox may apply in general but not hold in specific domains of health for certain subgroups or at certain …

Ethnic Identity Maintenance Within The Latino-American Church: A Structuration Perspective, Charles W. Choi, Deborah Berho

Faculty Publications - Department of Sociology

The Latino ethnic/immigrant church plays a significant role in maintaining the ethnic identity of its congregants. Through the perspective of structuration theory, this qualitative analysis investigates how the activities of the church impact its members and how an individual might contribute to the cultural structure of the Latino church (i.e., duality of structure). Interviews of 25 pastors from Spanish-speaking congregations in both urban and rural settings in Oregon resulted in several themes including the initial planting of the church, the denominational structure, the emergence of a new multiethnic cultural identity, generational differences, and the influence of Spanish.