Digital Commons Network^™

Addicts Speak: An Exploratory Ethnographic Study Of Opioid Addiction, James A. Hamm

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the experiences of people in recovery from opioid addiction in order to better understand the many process of recovery. Employing both participant observation and focused life history interview, and utilizing a grounded theory approach to data analysis, this research emphasizes data-driven conclusions. The research provides numerous insights into the process of recovery from opioid addiction, as well as factors that help to facilitate and sustain the process, the role that services play, and how services can be developed to better meet the needs of those in recovery.

Targeting Collection Assessment Data To The Intended Audience, Kimberly S. Westbrooks, Paula Barnett-Ellis

Research, Publications & Creative Work

At Jacksonville State University, additions of new degree programs have added greater importance to collection assessments as a guide for future budget planning and the accreditation process. Collection assessments give librarians and administrators an overview of the library’s collections, justification for expenditures, and disclosure of areas in need of strengthening. Assessments highlight resources and their access points, while justifying the resources’ presence to faculty stakeholders. An approachable assessment can be a valuable tool to introduce or reacquaint faculty with the collection development process and with classroom and research resources.

Evaluation Of Wvuteach: Enrollment, Retention, And Students' Intentions, Catherine Garner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background/Purpose: Mathematics and science achievement of K-12 students in the United States is lagging the achievement of students in other developed countries. A shortage of highly qualified teachers in the areas of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) is a contributing factor to lower achievement. One solution is to provide an efficient means for STEM students to earn a teaching certification without adding time to their current four-year degree programs. In 2015, West Virginia University introduced WVUteach, a program designed to encourage students in STEM majors to earn their teaching certifications while they are earning their degrees in their major …

Ius Soli, Ius Sanguinis, Ius Linguae, Or Ius Mundi: Living, Understanding, And Building Transnational Citizenship In A Transnational Multilingual Family In The U.S, Natalya Kuznetsova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Through the case of a multilingual Estonian family of sojourners in the U.S., this ethnographic study examines the ways in which a multilingual family lives, understands, and constructs their transnational experiences, negotiating their language practices and identities in the context of their family space and globally. With an intention to respond to and to reflect the complexity of the phenomenon of language ecology in a multilingual transnational family, the study draws on and merges three conceptual frameworks: language socialization, family language policy, and transnational social spaces. Through the analysis of ethnographic observations, recordings of naturally occurring conversations, interviews with family …

Connecting Continents: Archaeology And History In The Indian Ocean World, Krish Seetah

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In recent decades, the vast and culturally diverse Indian Ocean region has increasingly attracted the attention of anthropologists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and other researchers. Largely missing from this growing body of scholarship, however, are significant contributions by archaeologists and consciously interdisciplinary approaches to studying the region’s past and present.

Connecting Continents addresses two important issues: how best to promote collaborative research on the Indian Ocean world, and how to shape the research agenda for a region that has only recently begun to attract serious interest from historical archaeologists. The archaeologists, historians, and other scholars who have contributed to this …

Classifying Facts And Opinions In Twitter Messages: A Deep Learning-Basedapproach, Ronghua Shan, Swayambhu P. Chatterjee, Shuyuan Deng, Jun Liu, Wu Jiao

Research & Publications

Massive social media data present businesses with an immense opportunity to extract useful insights. However, social media messages typically consist of both facts and opinions, posing a challenge to analytics applications that focus more on either facts and opinions. Distinguishing facts and opinions may significantly improve subsequent analytics tasks. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based algorithm that automatically separates facts from opinions in Twitter messages. The algorithm outperformed multiple popular baselines in an experiment we conducted. We further applied the proposed algorithm to track customer complaints and found that it indeed benefits subsequent analytics applications.

How Ecs Improve Creative Use Of Employees’ Knowledge?, Vetrivadivel Vel, Insu Park

Research & Publications

Recently, organizations are using crowdsourcing systems (CSs) to collect innovative ideas from their employees harnessing their insights of companies’ products, processes, customers, and competitors. While crowd workers in third-party CSs are a diverse and multifaceted population with a range of motives and experience, and yet few researchers have grappled with the facilitators of the employees’ behavior comprising the creative application of their knowledge using enterprise CSs. This study develops a theoretical framework to identify enterprise CSs role and to provide the way how CSs are related to creative behavior via knowledge sharing. In this research, we used a survey to …

After Suffrage Comes Equal Rights? Era As The Next Logical Step, Tracy Thomas, Tracey Jean Boisseau

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (Nasis) 2018 Methodology Report, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS)

Introduction 3

Mode Selection 3

Design & Item Selection 3

Sampling Design 4

Experimental Design Treatment 4

Data Collection Process 4

Response Rate 5

Data-Entry Training, Supervision, and Quality Control 5

Processing of Completed Surveys 5

Data Cleaning 5

Representativeness of the Survey 6

NASIS Sample Weights 6

Figures 8

Tables 9

Appendix A: Cover Letter 11

Appendix B: Formatted Mail Survey 13

Appendix C: Future Interest Research Form 45

Appendix D: Reminder Postcard 46

Appendix E: County Codes 47

Appendix F: Variables and Descriptions 48

Routes, Locations, And Social Imaginary: A Comparative Study Of The On-Going Production Of Geographies In Somali Forced Migration, Marnie Shaffer, Giulia Ferrato, Zaheera Jinnah

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Drawing on the thresholds approach, a model that incorporates geography and mobility studies to understand migration from the perspective of migrants, this article examines the importance of location and route(s) in determining the journeys of Somali migrants. We use the protracted displacement of Somalis to address the process through which actual and perceived geographies are produced and reconfigured by Somali migrants on the move. In doing so, we look at how different migration paths, connected through transnational networks, influence the geographical perception of migrants at the core of any cross-border experience. Employing ethnographic fieldwork with Somalis in South Africa and …

Social Control In Transnational Families: Somali Women And Dignity In Johannesburg, Marnie Shaffer

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Transnational mobility often separates families and distances individuals from the kinship and social structures by which they organized their lives prior to migration. Myriad forms of insecurity have been the impetus for Somali movement into the diaspora, with people fleeing the realities of conflict that have marked Somalia for decades while physically dividing families as individuals settle in different countries around the world. Mobility has altered the dynamics of households, families, and communities post-migration, reshaping social constructions as individuals move on without the familial support that sustained them in Somalia. While outcomes of these hardships are variable and often uneven …

Nasis: Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey -- Previous Core Items, Bureau Of Sociological Research

Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey (NASIS)

The NASIS survey varies from year to year depending on client needs, but every year a core group of items consisting of common demographics and quality of life measures are included. These include, for example, age, sex, education, community satisfaction, etc (for complete list, see below). These items are asked each year to provide key demographic information to all users of NASIS as well as comparability to other social indicator information.

The core items were reduced in 2018 in an effort to keep NASIS costs as low as possible and reduce respondent burden. You can find the current core items …

Natural Resource Access Rights And Wrongs: Nontimber Forest Products Gathering In Urban Environments, Susan Charnley, Rebecca J. Mclain, Melissa R. Poe

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

This article uses research about non-timber forest products (NTFP) gathering in Seattle, Washington, USA to examine how people gain access to natural resources in urban environments. Our analysis focuses on gathering in three spaces: parks, yards, and public rights of way. We present a framework for conceptualizing access, and highlight cognitive mechanisms of access associated with foragers’ internal moral judgments about harvesting. Key findings are: (1) internal moral calculations about whether it is right or wrong to harvest a particular NTFP in a particular place are an important but previously unacknowledged mechanism governing resource access; and (2) these calculations may …

Gvsu Undergraduate And Graduate Catalog, 2018-2019, Grand Valley State University

Course Catalogs, 1963 - Current

Grand Valley State University 2018-2019 undergraduate and/or graduate course catalog published annually to provide students with information and guidance for enrollment.

Bystander Self-Efficacy To Prevent Sexual Assault: An Evaluation Of The Impacts Of Online And In-Person Bystander Intervention Training, Morgan Paige Devine

Theses and Dissertations

To address the alarming rates of sexual assaults on college campuses, the 2013 Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act required publicly funded colleges to provide some form of sexual assault intervention training to college students. While bystander intervention training is the most common form of primary prevention, there is little research indicating whether online or in-person bystander training is more effective at producing strong bystander self-efficacy and whether bystander intervention is actually occurring. Utilizing data from the 2017 Multi College Bystander Education Efficacy survey taken online by undergraduate students (N = 387) at a Midwestern university, an analysis of self-reported bystander …

Alcohol-Related Regret Among Undergraduate Students, Samantha Jo Feroni

Theses and Dissertations

College alcohol use remains a major public health concern, particularly on campuses in the Midwest. Heavy drinking has been linked to a number of deleterious consequences, ranging from poor academic performance and early school exit to injury or death. Many of the negative consequences linked to alcohol use carry with the possibility of regret. The purpose of this study is to explore the types of alcohol-related regret, any gender and class level differences in regret, and whether students become hesitant to drink alcohol after such a regret occurs. Data used for the study came from semi structured interviews with undergraduates …

Collective Efficacy And Police Homicides: Evidence From California In The 1990s, Jayme Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines certain factors relating to collective efficacy; loosely defined as the strength of a community, and the effect those factors have on police homicides in the respective communities. More specifically, this study analyzes three components that contribute to collective efficacy: linguistic isolation, residential stability, and educational attainment. Data utilized in this study include U.S. Census data as well as data from a unique dataset containing California state-wide homicides during the 1990s. Using a negative binomial regression on pooled zip code data shows that, in relation to the factors mentioned above, educational attainment is the most influential characteristic analyzed …

To “Own Yourself A Little More”: Afropolitan Feminism In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Bridget Tetteh-Batsa

Theses and Dissertations

Afropolitanism, in part, accounts for itinerant and so autonomous Africans who shape the contours of a late-modern global history. If Afropolitanism describes the work and activism of 21st century Africans in Euro-America determined to challenge western discourses that malign Africa, it is important to witness the distinctive character and voice Afropolitan women bring to that history defining exercise. Otherwise, as critics and scholars interested in what Afropolitanism brings to the work of reframing master narratives hitherto encircled for western primacy, we risk reinforcing the injustice we address.

To fill this gap in the literature, I employ Selasi’s initial conception of …

Educational Technology Integration Among Community College Instructors, Oybek Turayev

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, educational technology (ET) integration has become an increasingly important aspect of higher education, particularly with the growth of online, distance and hybrid courses and degree programs. Furthermore, accrediting agencies such as the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) are paying close attention to online and hybrid courses and degree programs, making effective use of ET even more important to colleges and universities. Even in traditional, on-campus classrooms, some instructors are not using ET effectively to augment teaching and learning.

The main purpose of this research study was to examine a holistic view of educational technology integration into …

Examining Determinants Of Patient Activation In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study, Marnie M. Wetzstein

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Self-management plays a central role in the treatment chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the patient characteristics necessary for effective self-management are not understood. The skills, confidence, and knowledge to engage in chronic disease self-care, known as patient activation, may play a key role in the capacity of people to self-manage COPD. How the complex, systemic nature of COPD influences patient activation has not been explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among patient characteristics and health outcomes as determinants of patient activation among community-dwelling adults in the U.S. with COPD. The Revised Wilson …

The Influence Of Buying Vs. Receiving An It-Based Device On User Commitment, Xiaofei Zhang, Joseph S. Valacich, Jeffrey L. Jenkins, Xitong Guo

Faculty Publications

IT-based mobile devices (i.e., smart devices), especially those with health monitoring features, are popular gifts. However, little is known about a recipient’s commitment to using the smart device when it is obtained as a gift. To explore the influence of giftgiving on user perceptions and usage, three studies are reported. These studies build on the IT use literature, the gift-giving literature, and social exchange theory to investigate whether and how gift-giving leads to device commitment. Specifically, we found two contextual factor – receiving the smart device as a gift (versus buying for yourself) and providing emotional support when giving the …

The Power Of Myths And Storytelling In Nation Building: The Campaign For The Independence Of Catalonia From Spain (2012-2015), César García

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

Background There is no nation without its origin story. The recent success of the Catalan campaign for independence (2012–2015) can be explained by a strong capacity to build and convey a story capable of informing, persuading, and eliciting emotional responses from Catalans and other Spaniards.

Analysis The recent Catalan nationalism narrative has been forged by updating the foundational myths of Catalan nationalism through four main plots—quest, escape, revenge, and transformation—that with a pragmatic character have been able to integrate current affairs into the old myths.

Conclusion and implications This article explores the elements of the new Catalan nationalism narrative by …

Technoference: Parent Distraction With Technology And Associations With Child Behavior Problems., Brandon T. Mcdaniel Phd, Jenny S Radesky

Health Services and Informatics Research

Heavy parent digital technology use has been associated with suboptimal parent-child interactions, but no studies examine associations with child behavior. This study investigates whether parental problematic technology use is associated with technology-based interruptions in parent-child interactions, termed "technoference," and whether technoference is associated with child behavior problems. Parent reports from 170 U.S. families (child age = 3.04 years) and actor-partner interdependence modeling showed that maternal and paternal problematic digital technology use predicted greater technoference in mother-child and father-child interactions; then, maternal technoference predicted both mothers' and fathers' reports of child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Results suggest that technological interruptions are …

Towards Establishing Parenthood By Agreement In Jewish Law, Yehezkel Hezi Margalit

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Faculty Perceptions Of What Makes A Student Successful In The Mathematical Sciences, Casey E. George, Lisa Skultety, Randi Congleton

Journal of Excellence in College Teaching and Learning

Faculty members play a key role in facilitating student outcome, including their learning, persistence, and degree completion. Through analyses of online survey data, this study investigates the views of faculty mentors involved in a nationwide mentoring program that aims to support underrepresented students' transition from undergraduate to graduate studies in the mathematical sciences. Specifically, faculty member's perceptions of what factors contribute to students' success or lack of success in mathematics, statistics, and biostatistics are examined. Reasons for success cited by faculty are highly individualized, such as innate ability, motivation, and dedication, yet some contextual and structural factors, including research opportunities …

Media Framing Of Drug Crises In The United States, Rebecca Bolinski

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Quantity-Quality Tradeoffs In Family Size, Health And Crime, Tabitha Juneau

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Counseling Program Intervention For Improving African American Students’ Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Dual Enrollment Participation, Sonja L. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

African Americans are underrepresented at all points in the STEM pipeline from K-12 coursework into professional careers. The reasons for this underrepresentation are varied and reflect a myriad of contributing factors based on early academic experiences, sociocultural influences, and the effects of standardized testing. The three-fold purpose of this study was to implement a counseling program to inform nine African American study participants about the dual enrollment opportunity at their high school, to gain perspective about the factors which shaped their STEM disposition, and to determine the effect of the program on their attitudes about dual enrollment participation. The study …

Garagecraft: Tinkering In The American Garage, Katherine Erica Mcfadden

Theses and Dissertations

The American garage, whether in the home or larger, communal ventures, has been a site of technological crafting for a variety of people across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The garage has been a space in which to both reaffirm the status quo of masculinity, and to discover feminist modes of self sufficiency. It has provided a place to play, experiment, commercialize technology, while also providing a space to create new identities and communal standards. What we make and how we make it is, in the end, more about crafting ourselves than crafting objects.

The Leap In Place: Rethinking Key Concepts In The History Of Composition And The Return Of Lore., David Stubblefield

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation attempts to affirm a key set of practical terms in order to guide Composition Pedagogy. These terms include error, language, voice, teacher neutrality, and rationality. In recent years, many of these terms have been discredited theoretically; however, they remain dominant in textbooks and in our actual teaching practice. The result has been a significant divide between theory and practice, resulting in a cognitive dissonance between our classroom activities and our scholarly activity. However, by presenting each of these terms as dynamic and performative, this dissertation invites the field to find productive practical possibilities inside of them. Moreover, the …