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Leaving A Lasting Impression: The Role Of Foundational Family, Privacy, And Gender Messages On Coming Out Disclosures, Justin Stewart Motto

Communication

This dissertation investigates the influence of family messages about gender, free expression, conformity, and privacy on coming out disclosures, a difficult experience in today’s society. Using communication privacy management theory, this study explored how heteronormative beliefs, family privacy boundaries, and family communication patterns relate to disclosure concerns. A total of 218 self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) participants were recruited using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Participants completed an online survey to measure family privacy orientations, family communication patterns, heteronormative attitudes and beliefs, and disclosure concerns. Six linear regression analyses were performed. The findings suggest that both family privacy …

Creating And Facilitating Change For Person-Centred Coordinated Care (P3c): The Development Of The Organisational Change Tool (P3c-Oct), Jane Horrell, Helen Lloyd, Thavapriya Sugavanam, James Close, Richard Byng

More Faculty of Health Research

BACKGROUND: Person Centred Coordinated Care (P3C) is a UK priority for patients, carers, professionals, commissioners and policy makers. Services are developing a range of approaches to deliver this care with a lack of tools to guide implementation. METHODOLOGY: A scoping review and critical examination of current policy, key literature and NHS guidelines, together with stakeholder involvement led to the identification of domains, subdomains and component activities (processes and behaviours) required to deliver P3C. These were validated through codesign with stakeholders via a series of workshops and cognitive interviews. RESULTS: Six core domains of P3C were identified as follows: (i) my …

A Circle-Geocaching Game Based On Classified Specimens, Prabhakara Reddy Agasaladinni Reddy

Computer Science

This paper describes a CIRCLE-Geocaching extensible system played for the purpose of rehearsal learning. The system operates over a classification tree built by an instructor or a group of students engaged in classification, identification and learning of real world objects. Geocaching involves gathering specimens, naming specimens, recording GPS coordinates, and performing experiments on each specimen. It is assumed that student motivation is increased, as it is an outdoor activity to locate specimens using coordinates, allowing students to learn about features during game play. Implementation of this game draws on the Model, View and Template architecture (MVT). Client software is a …

Understanding Human Errors To Improve Requirements Quality, Kavitha Manjunath

Computer Science

Requirements engineering is the first and perhaps the most important phase of software life cycle. Software faults committed during the requirements development, if left undetected can affect downstream activities. While previous research has developed fault-detection techniques, they are inadequate because they lack an understanding of root cause of faults to be able to avoid its future occurrences. Our research is aimed at helping software engineers understand human errors (i.e., the root cause) that cause faults that are inserted into Software Requirements Specification (SRS). This can help software engineers become more aware and reduce the likelihood of committing human errors during …

Using Human Error Models To Improve The Quality Of Software Requirements, Vaibhav Kumar Anu

Computer Science

Creating high quality software is a primary concern for software development organizations. Researchers have devoted considerable effort in developing quality improvement methods that help software engineers detect faults early in the development lifecycle (when the faults are cheapest to detect and repair). While useful, the available approaches still cannot make sure that Software developers are able to identify all or even a significantly large portion of faults. This is because they do not help software developers identify errors (i.e., underlying cause of faults) that may have led to the insertion of the faults (i.e., manifestation of error). This lack of …

The Participating Mind In The Quantum Universe, Menas Kafatos, Keun-Hang Susan Yang

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The Orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics, which followed the Copenhagen Interpretation but was enhanced by primarily Werner Heisenberg and John von Neumann into a fully developed theory, brought in, among others, the role of measurement, available choices and response of the quantum system. It is, more consistent and clear than other interpretations of quantum mechanics as it provides account of the interactions of observers with the external world. As such, the Orthodox interpretation does a lot more than just account for physical interactions in the atomic world, which was the original goal of quantum mechanics in the early part of …

Designing For Humanity, Elizabeth Thordson

Architecture Theses

This thesis aims to explore the idea that a healthy prison design will in turn create a healthy atmosphere. I will work to design a prison that will aid in the inmates’ transition back into society. By designing a structure that provides views to nature, access to natural sunlight, and room to move semi freely, I believe inmates will be healthier and happier. Currently the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and over half of the people incarcerated will end up back in prison within 5 years of their release. The oppressive nature of prisons …

Interplanetary Habitation: Designing For Life On Mars, Landon Schoeneck

Architecture Theses

How can architecture adapt the complex engineering systems of a Mars colony to sustainable human life? Migration and travel has evolved from the dawn of humanity to the automotive and flight industries of current times. Now interplanetary travel is on the forefront of technological innovation. Innovation is created by those who dream farther forward than current society can understand, and it is necessary to push the boundaries of technology to make the impossible practical. thinking ahead to design for future interplanetary migration is a needed step to compel the world forward, as well as architecture and it’s boundaries therein. The …

Relocated Roots: A Community Focused Urban Agriculture Facility, Alexandra Mills

Architecture Theses

The design of 407 New Street seeks to introduce the agricultural sector into the urban environment. By integrating agriculture into the city context, the project aims to introduce a new typological identity to the neighborhood and revitalize the community. This thesis project, titled “Relocated Roots,” addresses a limitation in current thinking about agriculture within the urban environment. It aims to expand the public knowledge by providing an educated architectural experience that both informs the user of modern growing techniques and positively promotes the message of sustainable city farming.

Absim Exhibition Design: Agent-Based Simulation In The Curating Process, Brady Laurin

Architecture Theses

The design of museum and gallery spaces are typically done by different designers with a mutual understanding of the scope of work for each. In the best possible scenario, these processes will take place congruently, with cooperation from both designers to realize the complete museum. In many cases, these processes take place in isolation from one another, with little to no collaboration between the building designer and the curator. Agent-Based Simulation, or ABSim, is a process often used to analyze the flow of pedestrians in a designed space. Most commonly used to optimize evacuation patterns and transit terminal layout, the …

The Architecture Of Happiness, Morgan Larson

Architecture Theses

According to Architect John Lautner, the purpose of architecture is to “improve human life. Create timeless, free, joyous spaces for all activities in life” (Lautner, n.d.). His goal for this statement was to push architecture into a more timeless frame, architecture that had no beginning or end; however, I feel it can also be used to describe the importance of feeling within a space. Much of what we do as Architects is based around the wants and needs of people, this normally falls into the category of square-footage, bathroom space, circulation, how we can move a person from one space …

Architectural Mood And Mental Space: A Cathartic Journey Off The North Shore Of Lake Superior, Ty Englund

Architecture Theses

Most people think of architecture as a profession that is concerned with aesthetic beauty—designs that please the observer through visual perception of the harmony, symmetry, and good proportions crafted by the designer. But, architecture is more than just aesthetics. Well-designed buildings need to respond to the functional needs of the occupants, and ensure structural soundness for safety reasons. However, I believe Architecture is even more than that. True architecture can create feelings and emotions from within, and cause the users to self reflect on their own lives. Furthermore, I suggest that we, as architects, can provide a healing environment for …

Understanding The Micro-Situational Dynamics Of White Supremacist Violence In The United States, Steven Windisch, Peter Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew Demichele

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

While substantial effort has been devoted to investigating the radicalization process and developing theories to explain why this occurs, surprisingly few studies offer explanations of the micro-situational factors that characterize how extremists accomplish violence. Relying on in-depth life history interviews with 89 former white supremacists, we analyzed the situational, emotional, and moral considerations surrounding white supremacist violence. Overall, we identified a variety of strategies white supremacists utilize for overcoming emotional and cognitive obstacles required to perform violent action. Furthermore, we also identified the callous effect of habitual violence. We conclude this article with suggestions for future research and recommendations for …

The Synthesis Of Balance: Conscious Design Based On The Lived Experience, Kaitlyn Aberle

Architecture Theses

Architecture become harmonious when it is experienced as a triad of the lived reality, the perceived experience, and the impact it has on the memory of the soul. The physical reality of the built environment can highly influence the subjective experience of a space. However, it is not solely dependent on it. Subdividing architecture into a trinity of the physical space, the mental space, and the spiritual place is what encourages a harmonious balance. This intentional design is a practice of architectural discovery as it seeks to create a facilitator for balance between the built environment and the human user …

Game Play: Promoting Park Retention, Physical Activity, And Social Interaction In Central Minneapolis Through Pokemon Go, Kyle Malecek

Landscape Architecture Theses

It’s become increasing obvious how technology has impacted and influenced our everyday lives. People are constantly on their phones, laptops, tablets, or gaming consoles for entertainment and staying connected with their community. With the rise of dependence on technology, people have less need to go out and interact with the people they wish to speak with, when they can simply send them a message from their home. This technology has also created an easy way to look up information using the World Wide Web. These points will be the basis of my thesis work. Rather than try and remove technology …

Violent Video Games, Externalizing Behavior, And Prosocial Behavior: A Five-Year Longitudinal Study During Adolescence, Sarah M. Coyne, Wayne A. Warburton, Lee W. Essig, Laura A. Stockdale

Faculty Publications

Decades of research on the effects of media violence have examined associations between viewing aggressive material in the media and aggression and prosocial behavior. However, the existing longitudinal studies have tended to exclusively examine aggression and prosocial behavior as outcomes, with a limited range of potential mediators. The current study examines associations between playing violent video games and externalizing and prosocial behavior over a 5-year period across adolescence. Additionally, the study examines potential mediators of these associations, including empathic concern, benevolence, and self-regulation. Participants included 488 adolescents (MAge of child at Wave 1 􏰀13.83, SD 􏰀 0.98) and their parents, …

Teaching Children About Money: Prospective Parenting Ideas From Undergraduate Students, Ashley B. Lebaron, Christina M. Rosa-Holyoak, L. Ashley Bryce, E. Jeffrey Hill, Loren D. Marks

Faculty Publications

Many Millennials (aged 18-30 in 2016) are struggling with financial capability and independence. As efforts unfold to address this issue by improving financial education, Millennials themselves can offer helpful family-centered ideas for children 's financial learning. As part of the Whats and Hows of Family Financial $ocialization project, this qualitative study explored the ideas of 126 undergraduate students enrolled in family finance classes at three institutions from three regions of the United States about how and what they intend to teach their future children about finances. Thematic content analysis and coding of interviews revealed four core themes: (a) "Communicating Family …

Proactive Social Validation Of Methods And Procedures Used For Training Speech Production In Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Lucy Hardy, Katarina L. Haley

Faculty Publications

Background: Social validation evaluates the importance and acceptability of treatment goals, procedures, and outcomes. Previous studies for treatments that train speech production in aphasia have applied social validation during the post-treatment period or to treatment protocols that are already fully developed.

Aims: The purposes of this study were to (1) examine the social validity of goals and procedures experienced in speech production treatment for people with aphasia and (2) evaluate the feasibility of procedural choice-making during such tasks.

Method: Seven people with aphasia and eight speech-language pathologists were interviewed about previous treatment that targeted speech production. Participants were also observed …

Reconsidering Design And Evaluation, Andrew S. Gibbons Iii, David D. Williams

Faculty Publications

In this paper we have put design and evaluation as it were under a microscope with multiple lenses. We use four different snapshots of design, each at a different level of resolution, to reveal new perspectives on the design-evaluation relationship. We believe that the disparate views of designers and evaluators can be resolved by resorting to the middle ground described by Klir. We believe also that the disparate views of educational technologists and learning scientists can be similarly resolved by appealing to the similar principle of Edelson.

Child Inhibitory Control And Maternal Acculturation Moderate Effects Of Maternal Parenting On Chinese American Children’S Adjustment, Jing Yu, Charissa L. Cheah, Craig H. Hart, Chongming Yang

Faculty Publications

The goals of this study were to examine: (a) bidirectional associations between maternal parenting (physical punishment and guilt induction) and Chinese American preschool children’s psychosocial adjustment and (b) the role of maternal cultural orientation and child temperament in moderating parenting effects. Participants were Chinese American mothers and children (N 163, Mage 4.56, 53% boys). Mothers reported on their parenting practices at both Wave 1 (W1) and Wave 2 (W2) and their cultural orientations and children’s inhibitory control at W1. Teachers rated children’s prosocial, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors at both W1 and W2. A Bayesian approach to path analysis was utilized …

Buddhism Is More Than Just Meditation: A Cognitive Non-Attachment Training For Social Stress, Robert Klein

Psychology

Buddhism is essentially a cognitive-behavioral intervention where oral teachings and meditation work together to develop nonattachment, a mind-state considered to be the antidote to all human suffering. The present work investigated a twelve-minute cognitive nonattachment induction that taught a wisdom training called the “Three Marks of Existence.” We expected nonattached attitudes to increase following the training. Anxious reactivity to a public speaking task was also expected to be reduced. Results were mixed, and suggested that the training increased agreement with nonattachment world-views, and reduced threat appraisals as hypothesized. However, the training generally did not reduce anxiety measures, although it was …

Belief And Belongingness: Are Supernatural Agents And Forces Social Surrogates?, Taylor Nelson

Psychology

Motivational approaches to the study of supernatural beliefs propose that such beliefs serve psychological functions. I tested the proposal that supernatural agents and forces are sought out as social surrogates to fulfill the need to belong. First, I present preliminary data consistent with the claim that the belongingness motive and deficits in belongingness (i.e., loneliness) are related to supernatural beliefs. Next, I report an experiment testing the supernatural social surrogate proposal. I hypothesized that affirming belongingness would reduce supernatural beliefs and that the relationship between the predictors and supernatural beliefs would weaken if one’s belonging is affirmed. If supernatural beliefs …

The Role Of Distress Tolerance In Cognitive Control Training For Dysphoria, Alisson Nicole Schultz Lass

Psychology

Cognitive Control Training (CCT) is an area of research which has been hypothesized as a way to decrease symptoms of depression. The purpose of this study was to replicate the results found by others using the PASAT, and to examine potential mechanisms behind the effects of CCT, particularly the role of distress tolerance. Seventy-two participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions, a waitlist control, and 2 treatment conditions. Participants in the treatment conditions were given an electronic tablet to practice the attention task over a 2 week period. One condition was paced and time-pressured, the other was self-paced …

Health Risk Feedback: The Effects Of Ace Insight On Stress Reactivity, Heidi Anna Rued

Psychology

Exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) has lasting repercussions throughout an individual’s lifetime. An adult with a history of childhood trauma is at increased risk for excessive stress reactivity, which exacerbates the development of chronic disease. It is important to investigate how this information can be used for adult trauma survivors. This study assessed the psychophysiological impacts of providing “ACE insight”. Participants completed questionnaires and were given false feedback that their childhood experiences put them at increased risk for excessive stress reactivity and the development of disease. Following ACE insight, participants underwent a speech stressor task during which cardiovascular reactivity …

On Distance Perception, Shanda Deleen Lauer

Psychology

A crucial, but little studied, visual function involves estimating distance from the self to an object in the environment (absolute distance perception). This is a fundamental component in the creation of our perception of the 3D world and is likely to be affected by alcohol, and be a factor in drunk driving accidents. To better understand which visual cues observers use to determine distance, participants completed a series of psychophysical judgments under different viewing conditions. By controlling and isolating specific distance cues through a novel viewing apparatus, we were able to investigate which cues are used to accurately judge distance. …

The Role Of The Gut Microbiota In Sustained Weight Loss Following Roux-En-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery, Farnaz Fouladi

Pharmacy

Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB) surgery is one of the most effective approaches for the treatment of severe obesity. Despite substantial weight loss following RYGB, a considerable proportion of patients experience weight regain or insufficient weight loss. The proposed research aimed to investigate the role of the gut microbiota in weight regain or suboptimal weight loss following RYGB. The gut microbiota composition in post-RYGB patients who experienced successful weight loss (SWL, n=6), post-RYGB patients who experienced poor weight loss (PWL, n=6), and non-surgical controls (NSC, n=6) who were age- and BMI-matched to the SWL group (NSC, n=6) were characterized through 16S …

Development And Preliminary Assessment Of Interprofessional Education Focused On Vulnerable Populations, Celia Pechak, Connie Summers, Barbara Schoen, Margie Padilla, Patricia Lara, Joanna Velasco, Stephanie Capshaw

Faculty Publications

With the current state of the U.S. healthcare system, interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) has never been more important. Health professions educators are increasingly incorporating interprofessional education (IPE) in their curricula in order to prepare students for IPCP. The HealthFocused IPE Community of Practice (representing nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, rehabilitation counseling, social work, and speech-language pathology) at the University of Texas at El Paso has created a unique IPE model centered on vulnerable populations. The purposes of this paper are to describe the early development of this innovative IPE model and present findings from an evaluation of an IPE …

Tolkien’S Phonoprint In Character Names Throughout His Invented Languages, Bruce L. Brown, Brad Wilcox, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Timothy G. Morrison

Faculty Publications

J. R. R. Tolkien claimed to create names based on sound symbolism and invented languages. Previous studies revealed that Tolkien had his own phonoprint (tendency to use the same phonemes repeatedly for character names) regardless of his claims that they reflected different language origins. However, this research examined phonemes and syllables rather than names as whole units. This study compared 183 names from Tolkien’s works and 100 names from the nineteenth Century Us Census. The name recognition software linked names with known languages or provided a “generic” category when no match was found. Results showed no significant differences between the …

Sanctifcation And Cheating Among Emerging Adults, Scott Braithwaite, Paige Mcallister, Elena Henderson, Meghan Maddock, Krista Dowdle, Frank D. Fincham

Faculty Publications

Cheating—a general term for extradyadic romantic or sexual behavior that violates expectations in a committed romantic relationship—is common and leads to a number of poor outcomes. Religion has historically infuenced conceptions of romantic relationships, but societal attitudes about religion are in fux as many seek to retain spirituality even as afliations with formal religion decrease. The present study evaluated a potential predictor of cheating that is more spiritual than formally religious, the “psychospiritual” concept of relationship sanctifcation (i.e., the idea that one’s relationship itself is sacred). In a sample of college students in committed relationships (N=716), we found that higher …

Strength Of Belief: Religious Commitment, Knowledge, And Hpvvaccination Adherence, Wendy C. Birmingham, Janelle L. B. Macintosh, Allison A. Vaughn, Tyler C. Graff

Faculty Publications

Objective:Human papillomavirus (HPV) infects millions of men and women annu-ally and is a substantial contributing factor in many cancers including oral, penile, anal,and cervical. Vaccination can reduce risk but adherence nationwide and, particularlyin highly religious states, is suboptimal. Religious principles of abstinence before mar-riage and total fidelity following marriage may create a belief of protection throughadherence to religious guidelines. However, while one partner may remain monoga-mous, one cannot be assured of their partner's behavior both before and after mar-riage. These misconceptions may create a barrier to religious youth's adherence tovaccine recommendations.Methods:We sampled single young adults, age 18 to 25 years, …