Digital Commons Network^™

Speak'st, Art Sound: The Material Voice In Early Modern England, Nathaniel Philip Likert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that early moderns conceived of speech as a material phenomenon; voice struck out from bodies into environments. Early modern voices thus participate in what sound studies scholars call the soundscape, which I link to current new materialist and ecological theories of network and assemblage. Within this soundscape, I pay special attention to the role of language as a semantic system of meaning. Current ecological criticism takes for granted the utter “flatness” of ontology, and as such discards the question of human language so central to previous deconstructive and discursive scholarship. My thesis attempts to account for the …

The Unregulated Certification Mark(Et), Jeanne C. Fromer

Faculty Articles

Certification mark law — a branch of trademark law — itself enables consequences that undermine the law’s own goals through inadequate regulation or oversight. Because the law allows certification standards to be kept vague, high-level, and underdeveloped, a certifier can choose to exclude certain businesses inconsistently or arbitrarily, even when those businesses’ goods or services would seem to qualify for the certification mark (particularly to consumers). Moreover, even when a certification standard is clear and complete, certifiers can wield their marks anticompetitively. They can do so through redefinition — something certification mark law currently allows without oversight — to ensure …

The Transnational Case In Conflict Of Laws: Two Suggestions For The New Restatement Third Of Conflict Of Laws—Judicial Jurisdiction Over Foreign Defendants And Party Autonomy In International Contracts, Linda J. Silberman, Nathan D. Yaffe

Faculty Articles

To inform the ongoing Restatement efforts in Conflict of Laws and Foreign Relations, the authors identify two areas where the transnational case might deserve special consideration: judicial jurisdiction over foreign defendants and party autonomy in choosing the applicable law. On the question of judicial jurisdiction, the authors point out that the modern two-step constitutional test for specific jurisdiction articulated in Asahi—minimum contacts and then reasonableness—involved a foreign defendant. Although the lower courts appear to embrace the same standard with respect to both domestic and foreign defendants, they argue that the factors identified by the court in the reasonableness analysis best …

Found In Translation : How Social Work Education Can Support Student Practice With Language-Discordant Client Systems, Martha Ann Early

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This study’s research question was "How can schools of social work support their students to work with language-discordant client systems (LDCS)?" In addition to the need for general support, social work students are preparing to enter a field where the patient population is growing increasingly diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture and language ability. Participants in the study described herein were current and recent social works students who were recruited for sample membership via broad social media outreach, supplemented with outreach to the researcher's professional network

The findings of this study indicate that the role of schools of social work …

Working With Trauma : A Qualitative And Retrospective Exploration Of The Experiences Of Clinicians Who Work With Trauma, Allyson Rebecca Lent

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The current study explored the gap in understanding the experiences of clinicians who work with trauma given the interesting intersection of high prevalence of trauma and demonstrated lack of training in working with trauma survivors. To this end, this qualitative and exploratory study sought to gain a retrospective understanding of clinicians’ training and career experiences in an effort to glean what has worked well in preparing skilled clinicians to work with trauma. Findings confirmed that clinicians do not feel prepared to do trauma work upon graduating from their degree programs and that they must seek out training opportunities in order …

Head In The Game: A One-Act Play, Carolyn Gage

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Head in the Game is a fifteen-minute, five-character, easy-to-stage-anywhere play that brings audiences into the world of male "pay-to-play" abuse of women, through a fantasy scenario of "boxing girls," women whom men pay to batter. The world of the boxing girls is an apt analogy for prostitution. The play uncompromisingly brings home the point that paying to use someone for sexual gratification is no more "sex" than paying to punch someone is boxing.

Exploring Experiences Of, And Responses To, Microaggressions As Disrespect From Teachers In High School Classrooms : A Person-Centered Approach, Emily Ann Peck

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The present study examined the relationship among high school students’ experiences of microaggressions and disrespect perpetrated by teachers and their perceptions of school connectedness and projections of their own bystander intervention behaviors. There is reason to believe that peer bystanding behavior, defined as either intervention in the moment, or active supporting after the event, are protective in terms of the otherwise cumulative impact of microaggressions. Using interviews from seventeen high school students, and quantitative data from nine participants, this research prioritized the voices of students, their narratives, and their meaning making process after such events occur. Findings suggest that participants …

One Or Two Things I Know About Us: Narrative Strategies For Autoethnography, Self-Representation And Healing In Four Memoirs By Poor-White Women From The U.S. South, Joseph Aaron Farmer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines autobiographical writings by formerly poor white Southern women, who are rarely considered as a group and are more typically studied with “rough South” male writers, which would suggest that few women have contributed their own gendered experience to discussions of class, race, and sexuality vis-à-vis Southern poverty. Correcting this assumption, I examine formative statements by women from poor white backgrounds, including Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Red Dirt, Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood and Wild Card Quilt, Dorothy Allison’s Trash, and Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle. Each of these writers engage in narrative strategies that do not defend …

Project Launch: System Transformation Evaluation Final Report, Center For Public Health Systems Science, Kim Prewitt, Bobbi Carothers, Patricia Kohl, Erin K. Black, Anneke Mohr, Kendre E. Israel, Nancy B. Mueller, Douglas A. Luke

Center for Public Health Systems Science

This final report presents the evaluation of Missouri’s Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health). Project LAUNCH was a 5 year federal initiative funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The initiative promoted health and well-being for children from birth to age 8 by creating a more integrated early childhood service system throughout Missouri.

The Effects Of Arts Integration On Literacy Comprehension Achievement, Sara D. Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on the effects of arts-based instruction on student literacy achievement. The study sought to identify how incorporating arts into the reading classroom through arts-based interventions affected the literacy achievement of fifth-grade students who attended a school for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) located in South Carolina. One group of fifth-grade student-participants, consisting of 10 students, received arts-based interventions, focusing on literacy skills. Students met with the researcher three times a week to receive arts-based literacy interventions. Data collection included a pre assessment and post assessment of literacy skills, along with surveys of student-participants’ attitudes about …

Translingual Conversations: Interrogating Default Whiteness In College Writing, Stephanie Eve Boone Mosher

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how language ideologies influence composition, both in disciplinary approaches to language difference and in individual instructors’ attitudes about language correctness and appropriateness. The dissertation presumes that all natively-spoken varieties of human languages are inherently systematic and valid, and that from a linguistic standpoint, contrary to popular belief, no variety is “better” than another; moreover, beliefs about language correctness intersect with structural racism and therefore contribute to inequality. Popular beliefs about the superiority of Standard English (SE) and academic discourse, both based in white, middle-class communicative practices, still influence composition; so this dissertation is particularly interested in how …

The Impact Of Repeated Reading On The Comprehension Level Of Eight Eighth Grade Students At The Middle School Level, Elizabeth C. Dotson-Shupe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of repeated reading on the comprehension level of eight 8th grade students. Incorporating an action research design, data was collected through utilizing a pretest and posttest, timed repeated readings, a reading semi-open ended questionnaire, a Likert-scale questionnaire, observation and the taking of field notes, and weekly assessments. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected for a total of eight weeks for a period of 20 minutes two times per week, each Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Participants were a combination of eighth-grade regular education and special education students, with the majority …

Queer Practices, Queer Rhetoric, Queer Technologies: Studies Of Digital Performativity In Gendered Network Culture, Gerald Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

The question of gender and gender representation has been an issue for STEM fields like computer science and software engineering for decades. This dissertation argues that the impact of labor practices in such fields promotes gender disparity by masking gender, and often sexuality, behind myths of mastery and correctness. In this dissertation, I approach technical objects like computer code and protocol specifications from the BitTorrent and Bitcoin software packages, and argue that gendered forms of labor that have existed since the inception of computer programming as a profession are evident in technical documents like code. Furthermore, I argue that this …

A Critical Analysis Of The Effects Of Language Policy, Curriculum, And Assessment On Arabic L1 Student Performance In An Esl 1 Classroom, Juliane Bilotta

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers a preliminary analysis into looking at the ways in which Arabicspeaking ESL students are inadvertently marginalized by state standardization, curriculum, and dominant forms of classroom interactions in a NJ recovery program. Specifically, this analysis addresses the absence of orthographic training and a reliance on teacher-fronted, textbook based classroom exercises as a problematic structure that limits opportunities for Arabic-speaking students to participate successfully in an ESL 1 classroom. This data was collected during six-weeks of preliminary research during the summer of 2016 in a Jersey City, NJ ESL classroom. Using transcriptions of recorded data from lessons that typify …

Assessment Of Providers’ Perception And Knowledge Of Overactive Bladder In Women: A Quality Improvement Project, Helen Wambui Ngigi

Theses and Dissertations

Background: OAB is defined by subjective symptoms, rather than objective measure, the patient’s perspective is important in managing OAB (Hung et al., 2013). As such providers need to capture the patient’s perspective of their OAB symptoms and their impact on the quality of life. A patient work up helps providers determine the cause of the symptoms as well as the degree of bother to the patient (Barkin, 2016). The diagnosis of OAB is essentially clinical and can be performed through structured questionnaires (Juliato et al., 2016). When conducting a patient history, it is important to determine the onset and severity …

Effects Of The Mindplay Computer Program On Student Reading Achievement: An Action Research Study, Kara Mann

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative Action Research study examined how a computer-assisted reading program, called MindPlay, affected reading achievement in four second-grade classrooms within a Title I School. The identified problem of practice at Amazing Elementary School (AES) involved numerous years of underachieving reading results for underprivileged, racially diverse children. The majority of primary school students at AES are considered “at-risk” given their reading performance. The study explored whether a different intervention technique would increase student reading achievement, specifically in fluency, phonics, and comprehension, within a Title I context. Therefore, the research question that guided this study was as follows: “What is the …

Towards Gender Inclusive Representation In The Theatre: The Actor And The Spectator, Jeanette Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

This piece of writing is aimed at theatre practitioners who might not have a background in feminist critical theory. Its main function is to help these practitioners to aware of how they might- in the theatre- propagate gender stereotypes. It provides thorough and accessible explanations of the concepts central to feminist critical theory. It argues that in order to create a truly inclusive theatre, the spectator and the actor must be resistant towards gender-based oppression.

Effects Of Reading Eggs On Reading Proficiency Levels, Latisha D. Lowery

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present action research study is to examine the effects of a technology based reading intervention program titled Reading Eggs on a small rural Title I elementary school. The identified problem of practice involves students reading below grade level by third grade, which is an indicator of future academic problems for students. To address this problem, Fairfield Magnet School for Math and Science (FMSMS) has implemented the use of Reading Eggs to supplement instruction. Reading Eggs is a web based literacy program in which modules and automated videos teach students skills to build reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, …

Toward A Networked Feminist Pedagogy For Composition, Leah Vitello

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to offer a pedagogy that uses methods inspired by fourth-wave feminism, or what I name Networked Feminist Pedagogy, to address both the highlights and challenges we have seen in the multimodal and public turns in the field. First, I provide an overview of the ongoing relationship between feminist composition and digital and multimodal rhetorics in order to locate the spaces in which Networked Feminist Pedagogy can intervene. Then, based on work by fourth wave feminist writers and teachers, I outline what I see as central principles of a fourth wave pedagogy, including daily practices, assignment ideas, and …

Odor And Power In The Americas: Olfactory Consciousness From Columbus To Emancipation, Andrew Kettler

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes discourses concerning odor within the Atlantic World from approximately 1492 until 1838. Numerous historians and philosophers have described how the Reformation’s emphasis on texts and an increased concentration on visual science during the Enlightenment influenced Western Europeans to heighten the importance of the eye to the detriment of the lower sense of smell. This dissertation begins by thinking about materialist contours of this olfactory decline through a linguistic analysis of sulfur within seventeenth century England. It then proceeds to examine how in the early Americas such a repudiation of the sense of smell did not occur. The …

Manifestations Of Corporal Oppression – Embodiments Of Culturalpolitical Resistance: The Representation Of The Body In German Literature Of The Long Nineteenth Century, Hans Niehues

Theses and Dissertations

The “long nineteenth century” was subject to various social, economic, political and cultural changes that were propelled by the Enlightenment and industrialization. This alteration of human life also had a physical dimension. It generated new bodypolitics and conceptions of labor which had a significant impact on the human body. This project is concerned with the changing experience of human physicality in the long nineteenth century and how it is reflected in German literature of the time. I study the trope of the body in Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die Weber, Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck and Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung. I reveal how the …

We [Still] Have A Moment: Multimodal Values And Curricular Practices In A First-Year Writing Program, Kelly L. Wheeler

Theses and Dissertations

Students today get much of their news and information about the world through their handheld devices. Their phones flash or vibrate with a new message or post, and they are sucked into a conversation or moment beyond the physical space they occupy. In this way, their phone feeds blur the lines between places as politics enters the bathroom, a walk in the forest, or their most private spaces. With opportunities for rhetors to act upon audiences in every imagined physical space, our practices within the classroom should reflect these changes in space, delivery, and ubiquity of multimodality in digital platforms. …

A Vowel Analysis Of The Northwestern University-Children's Perception Of Speech Evaluation Tool, Kassie Nicole Zukowski

Honors Theses and Capstones

In an analysis of the speech perception evaluation tool, the Northwestern University – Children’s Perception of Speech test, the goal was to determine whether the foil words and the target word were phonemically balanced across each page of test Book A, as it corresponds to the target words presented in Test Form 1 and Test Form 2 independently. Based on vowel sounds alone, variation exists in the vowels that appear on a test page on the majority of pages. The corresponding formant frequencies, at all three resonance levels for both the average adult male speaker and the average adult female …

Process-Based Modelling Shows How Climate And Demography Shape Language Diversity, Michael C. Gavin, Thiago F. Rangel, Claire Bowern, Robert K. Colwell, Kathryn R. Kirby, Carlos A. Botero, Michael Dunn, Robert R. Dunn, Joe Mccarter, Marco Tulio Pacheco Coelho, Russell D. Gray

Biology Faculty Research

Aim

Two fundamental questions about human language demand answers: why are so many languages spoken today and why is their geographical distribution so uneven? Although hypotheses have been proposed for centuries, the processes that determine patterns of linguistic and cultural diversity remain poorly understood. Previous studies, which relied on correlative, curve-fitting approaches, have produced contradictory results. Here we present the first application of process-based simulation modelling, derived from macroecology, to examine the distribution of human groups and their languages.

Location

The Australian continent is used as a case study to demonstrate the power of simulation modelling for identifying processes shaping …

An Action Plan For Youth Involvement Leadership At Francois In Martinique, Louise R. Nocandy

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Youth involvement leadership in Seventh-day Adventist local churches remains an issue of concern. Part of the vision of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church and the local church is to encourage the youth to be faithful disciples of Christ and to teach, train, equip, and involve them in the Seventh-day Adventist local churches. However, the Annual Local Churches Strategic Plan is not intentionally oriented towards youth involvement leadership and the Annual Youth Strategic Plans are generally not based on the vision for the entire church. This gap reveals a lack of partnership between the youth department and most other departments …

The Theme Of Creation In Old Testament Theology From The Twentieth Century Onwards: Assessing The State Of Play, David J. Fuller

The Asbury Journal

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Educational Opportunity Of Emergent Bilingual Students: Why Are Some State School Finance Systems More Equitable Than Others?, David S. Knight, David E. Dematthews

Working Papers

Despite the rapid increase in enrollment of students who speak a language other than English at home, little prior research examines whether school districts receive adequate funding for instructional programs for emergent bilinguals. We show that prior to the Great Recession, districts with greater proportions of students classified as English language learners (ELL) received approximately 10 percent more funding than otherwise similar low-ELL districts. However, recessionary budget cuts disproportionately impacted high-ELL districts, effectively removing resource advantages. Cross-state analyses suggest that states using direct reimbursement methods and those with smaller ELL student weights in their formula funding tend to have less …

Multi-Way Factorization Machine For Sentiment Analysis, Jingwei Zhang

Wayne State University Theses

Sentiment analysis is a process of learning the relationship between sentiment label

and text. The research value of sentiment analysis is two-fold: first, it has a wide range

of applications in many sectors and industries, e.g., the industry has flourished due to the

proliferation of commercial applications such as using sentiment analysis as an integrated

part of customer experience strategy. Second, it offers an array of new challenging problems

for research community such as word feature embedding and machine learning. Albeit earlier

methods such as Naïve Bayes (NB), Random Forest (RF), k-Nearest-Neighbours (kNN),

Support Vector Machine (SVM) and more recent …

Reconstructing The War In Iraq: Post-9/11 American War Fiction In Dialogue With Official-Media Discourse, Ashley Kunsa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project examines American-authored Iraq War fiction within the context of public discourse. Given that modern, industrialized warfare is as much created by and through official-media discourse as represented by it, fictional accounts of Iraq exist not outside or separate from this discourse but rather in a dynamic, continually evolving relationship with it. The three texts explored in this study—Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk (2012), David Abrams’ Fobbit (2012), and Phil Klay’s Redeployment (2014)—thus do more than merely represent the war experience: operating always in conversation with how the war has been constructed, the novels and stories …

Refugee-Led Organizations And The Obstacles They Face: A Comparative Study Of Syria Bright Future And The Bhutanese Community Association Of Pittsburgh, Priscila Elizabeth Cordoba Montoya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the nexus of our collective history, it has been recorded that human-induced political and social conflicts play a powerful role in displacing millions of people. The social insecurity produced by conflict persists long after they have ended, as refugees adjust to new circumstances, cope with loss, and attempt to regain a sense of normalcy. This study focuses on two distinct refugee-led organizations, namely a Syrian and a Bhutanese organization. These organizations operate in distinct stages of resettlement, in different parts of the world—one in a state of emergency, the other in resettlement in the United States. However, both organizations …