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Borders As Documents Of Violence: Colonial Cartography And The Epidermal Border, Kalemba Kimera Kizito

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation analyzes the role of violence as constitutive and integral to border experiences. I focus on my lived experiences through transnational interaction with borders as analytical texts through which I realize that I am and have always been branded a Black man. I analyze the role of colonial cartography in the construction of the racialized body in Half of A Yellow Sun (2013) by relating the contrived mapping of Africa as symbolic of the mapping of race on to the black body. I also analyze the fixity of the colonial gaze in The Last King of Scotland (2006), focusing …

The Effects Of A Mobile App-Based Sky Map In Teaching College Students About Constellations, Aklilu Maasho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using a mobile app-based sky map to teach college students about constellations, stars, nebulae, and star clusters. The name of the app was Star Chart. The setting for the study was a community college in West Tennessee. Twenty out of 60 participants were males, with 83% of all being less than 25 years old. The first effect studied was concerning students level of attitude toward astronomy after they used the mobile app to learn about sky constellations, stars, nebulae, and star clusters. The second effect investigated in the study …

Marked Bodies And The Invention Of Tradition In Mobile, Alabamas Mardi Gras, Isabel Santos Machado Dos Santos Wildberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This project uses Carnival as a vehicle to understand social and cultural changes in Mobile, Alabama in the Post-WWII period. Employing oral history and archival documentation and combining narrative with theory, it explores gender, class, race, sexuality, representation, space, and identity. Borrowing from the semiotic concept of markedness, from Eric Hobsbawms definition of invention of tradition, and from the debate over the function of Carnival either as a vehicle for inversion or affirmation of social norms and hierarchies, it argues that defiance and endorsement of normativity are not mutually exclusive. The process through which queer and/or African American Mobilian men …

Modified Electrospun Chitosan Guided Bone Regeneration Membranes For Stimulating Osteogenesis And Angiogenesis, Vishnu Priya Murali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Guided bone regeneration (GBR) membranes are commonly used to maximize bone healing/regeneration by protecting bone grafted sites from invasion by soft tissues. Electrospun chitosan membranes modified by short chain fatty acids (Acetic anhydride (AA), butyric anhydride (BA) and hexanoic anhydride (HA)) or with tBOC (tert-Butyloxycarbonyl group) have many characteristics including retention of nanofiber structure, occlusive to soft tissues and osteoconductive properties in vivo that are important for GBR applications. The high surface area of the nanofiber structure of the membranes provides opportunity for the local delivery of osteogenic or angiogenic agents for enhancing their healing and bone regeneration properties. The …

Constructing Black Mothers As Educational Leaders: A Source Of Knowledge And Theory, Sheron T. Davenport

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation follows a three article format. The articles represent a building upon research with the first article exploring the history of Black women leadership in the U.S. and the need to incorporate the leadership traits of Black mothers in educational leadership. The second article, through critical phenomenological inquiry, allows current college students from urban k-12 institutions to construct their mothers as educational leaders and identify traits that formal educational leaders should adopt. The third article expounds upon the lived experiences of Black students and the critical care leadership necessary to ensure their academic success. Care in education and education …

"This Is The Liberian Way": Coping And Health Literacy In Narratives Of Sickness From Liberia, West Africa., Crystal Dawn Daugherty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Following two consecutive civil wars, Liberias health infrastructure was left in shambles. As the country moved forward in restoring health facilities, a mysterious virus began to sweep through the country. Ebola traumatized Liberia and most of West Africa from 2014-2016. This qualitative study explores how people in rural Liberia, West Africa manage sickness. My work is situated in narrative theory and a culturally centered approach as well as literature on health narratives, approaches to medical treatment, and coping. Using semi-structured interviews, I collected health narratives from 30 individuals who identified as community members and 16 individuals who identified as healthcare …

Sleep Matters For Adolescents To Rise And Thrive: A Brief Motivational Intervention For Short Sleep Among Adolescents With Large Bodies, Kristina Decker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Sleep plays an essential role in health and well-being throughout the lifespan. Short sleep duration (< 8 hours/night) is highly prevalent among adolescents and is associated with a myriad of problematic psychosocial and physical health outcomes including obesity. There are a number of mutable, behavioral predictors known to be associated with short sleep; however, interventions targeting these behaviors to increase sleep duration are either limited or yield inconsistent findings. Researchers suggest that Motivational Interviewing (MI) interventions may be a feasible and acceptable means to improve sleep duration, yet no known research has examined MI to improve sleep duration among adolescents with large bodies. The purpose of the current study was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a brief, individually-delivered, MI intervention that utilized tailored feedback and values-based strategies to improve sleep among adolescents with large bodies. Thirteen adolescents (aged 13-18; 62% female; 77% Black; Mage=15.2) with large bodies and self-reported short sleep participated in an MI intervention incorporating personalized sleep feedback generated from weeklong monitoring via sleep diary and Fitbit. The present study employed a one-group design with pre-test/post-test assessment to examine the feasibility and acceptability of this brief MI intervention. Session attendance was feasible given high retention from baseline to post-intervention (100%) and follow-up (92%, N=12). Monitoring sleep via Fitbit was acceptable and moderately feasible, while sleep diary completion was neither. Regarding intervention content, teens found personalized sleep feedback helpful and activities easy to understand. From baseline to six-week follow-up, teens reported improvements on perceived importance of sleeping more as well as increased confidence in their ability to get more sleep and readiness to sleep more. Findings support the feasibility and acceptability of an MI intervention for short sleep among teens with large bodies and will be used to inform future intervention development and adaptation for use in a randomized controlled trial. The brevity and practicality of this intervention also enhances long-term sustainability and ease of integration into busy multidisciplinary clinics.

Frontline Residential Staff Perceptions Of Mental Illness And Burnout, Justin Keith Dodson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to examine whether perceptions of mental illness have a relationship with burnout among frontline staff in adolescent treatment facilities. Participants include 199 frontline staff with a minimum of a bachelors or basters degree who serve as direct care staff to adolescents including medical, milieu, and clinical staff serving at various institutions. Frontline staff completed two self-report inventories. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to determine the risk of burnout measuring three areas: depersonalization, exhaustion, and personal achievement. Participants also completed the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale (BTMI) measuring dangerousness, incurability, and poor interpersonal …

Computational Thinking Self-Efficacy In High School Latin Language Learning, Dennis Clark Dickerson, Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Research suggests that computational thinking is a necessary skill exercised in STEM courses, non-STEM fields, and in everyday life. However, very little research has investigated the potential transfer of computational thinking self-efficacy available through classical Latin courses. This causal comparative study contrasted the computational thinking self-efficacy of computer science students with no exposure to Latin to computer science students with exposure to Latin at a Memphis all-boy high school. The independent variables were Latin language learning experience, i.e., up to 6 years total of Latin language learning (n = 33), versus 0 years of Latin language learning experience (n = …

The Impact Of Task Difficulty On Reading Comprehension Intervention With Computer Agents, Ying Fang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

According to Vygotskys zone of proximal development (ZPD), students benefit from tasks that are difficult but can be achieved with the guidance of a skilled partner. This concept has often been implemented during the development of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), but there remains a need to empirically investigate the validity of this concept in reading comprehension interventions. Individual differences need to be considered in order to assign tasks to individual students with the right level of difficulty. Mixed results have emerged from previous research that specifically investigated the potential interaction between student attributes and ITSs on learning in the domain …

The Perception Of Online Degree Programs: An Instrumental Case Study Of Two-Year Community Colleges In Louisiana, Amy Cable

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

While there may be high demand for and an increased interest in pursuing distance education, the education obtained may not translate into jobs or careers, and the inability to secure a position is related to the hiring practices within organizations. Potential employers may hold a bias towards graduates of online degree programs. The purpose of this mixed-method, instrumental case study was to understand the hiring process within higher education and to understand the impact distance education and online degree education has on the hiring process within community colleges in Louisiana. The participants included administrators who served on a hiring committee …

"Good Food" In The City Of The Blues: A Nexus Analysis Of Memphis Alternative Food Networks, Andrew Carter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation explores both the complexities and transformative potential of Good Food networks to contribute to more just and sustainable food practices. By comparing two farmers markets with distinct cultural histories in Memphis, Tennessee, I examine how narratives of Good Food are constructed against the larger backdrop of the citys racial, social and cultural legacy and food economy, and how those narratives map onto the citys current socio-spatial construction. Employing Scollon and Scollons (2004) nexus analysis theoretical and methodological framework, I analyze both macro-level structures that shape local food systems (e.g. access to farmers markets) and micro-level structures that shape …

Novel Perspectives Of The Iraq War, Olivia R. Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

My dissertation, "Novel Perspectives of the Iraq War," explores literary representations of the American occupation of Iraq. Responding to Roy Scrantons argument that the prevailing narrative of the traumatized veteran returning home from war with experiential knowledge (what David Buchanan calls combat gnosticism) has overshadowed other important perspectives, this project interrogates the manner in which cultural representations can both sustain and challenge national mythologies. Each of my chapters responds to a specific problem in our cultures popular narratives of war and argues that solutions to extant misperceptions are available via counternarratives. What connects these problems are their prevalence in the …

I Am A Quiet Struggler: Conceptualizing The Identities Of Muslim American High School Students Within The Context Of Islamophobia., Wesam M. Salem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The spread of Islamophobia in the U.S. positioned Muslims as different and inferior to American society and racialized their experiences by subjecting them to narratives of prejudices and stereotypes. This postcolonial interview study examined how Muslim American high school students conceptualized and negotiated their racialized identities within the context of Islamophobia and how the negotiation processes informed their learning in school, particularly the construction of their mathematics identity. The study built on postcolonial theorists, mathematics research, and decolonizing approaches to research to interrogate and (un)settle traditional and predetermined interviewing practices. Participants included six high school students (2 males and four …

Louder Than Words: Voicing, Sounding, And Listening To Deafness In "A Quiet Place", Sarah Mayberry Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation analyzes the ways voice, sound, and hearing are represented in John Krasinskis 2018 film, A Quiet Place. Using a theory of close reading inspired by the works of Michael Leff and informed by a Deaf epistemology animated by the works of sound artist Christine Sun Kim, this dissertation uses A Quiet Place as a touchstone from which to explore issues of sound within the Deaf community. Kims art, demonstrations, and lectures provide focus for the three critical vibrational pulses of this project: Seeing Voice, Subjective Loudness, and (LISTEN). Vibrating these areas of exploration against A Quiet Place allows …

Building Self-Efficacy And Persistence Through Stem E-Mentor Training: A Multi-Site Case Study, Kathryn Marie Sharpe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The limited number of women persisting in STEM degree programs and pursuing STEM careers is concerning, particularly when one considers the absence of minority women in this field. One way of addressing this issue is to explore avenues that build womens STEM self-efficacy. Providing connections with other more experienced women involved in STEM through e-mentoring is one approach that could give women the support and experience they need to feel confident in their ability to succeed in STEM fields. Highly qualified mentors are a key component in the mentoring process and, therefore, need focused training that prepares them to support …

Enhancing The Female Student-Athlete Satisfaction At An Ncaa Division I Limited-Resource Institution, Emanuel Kenneth Siegfried

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Siegfried, Emanuel Kenneth. Ed.D. The University of Memphis. December 2019. Enhancing the Female Student-Athlete Satisfaction at an NCAA Division I Limited-Resource Institution. Major Professor: Donna Menke, Ph.D.This study conducted a quantitative analysis on pre-recorded secondary data from a student-athlete survey previously conducted at East Valley University (UVU). There were 734 participants in the study with 330 being male and 404 being female student-athletes. A comparative between group design was used. The first research question examined was to what degree do males and females differ in satisfaction with their coaches, equity of athletics-related resources, and athletic-related facilities. The second research question …

A Failed Water Intervention In The Haitian Central Plateau, Christine M. Platt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Secular and non-secular mission efforts to developing countries continue to grow and voluntourism is at an all-time high. The literature is corpulent with examples of failed mission health interventions. However, a noticeable gap exists of studies that address conflict leading to intervention failures as a result of intercultural communication. The purpose of this exploratory is to better understand intercultural communication challenges existing in short-term medical missions (STMMs) by better understanding the lived experience of participants of a clean water intervention in the Haitian Central Plateau. The intervention was planned and executed after the devastating 2010 earthquake and resulting cholera outbreak. …

Galnt3 Maintains The Epithelial State By Promoting O-Galnac Modification Of E-Cadherin In Trophoblast Stem Cells And Human Mammary Epithelial Cells, Deepthi Raghu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

O-GalNAc glycosylation is initiated in the Golgi by glycosyltransferases called GALNTs. Proteomic screens identified >600 O-GalNAc modified proteins, but biological relevance of these modifications has been difficult to determine. We have discovered a conserved function for GALNT3 in trophoblast stem (TS) cells, blastocyst trophectoderm, and human mammary epithelial cells (HMECs). Loss of GALNT3 expression in these systems reduces O-GalNAc glycosylation and induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Further, Galnt3 expression is reduced in aggressive, mesenchymal Claudin-low breast cancer cells. We show that GALNT3 expression controls the O-GalNAc glycosylation of multiple proteins including E-cadherin in both TS cells and HMECs. Loss of GALNT3 results …

Principals As Promoters Of Teacher Retention: A Study Of The Four Dimensions Of Principal Leadership, Ethan Andrew Randall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Teacher attrition is disruptive to the functioning of schools. Student disadvantage is exacerbated in schools serving larger populations of lower socioeconomic status and/or non-white students because these schools suffer from higher rates of teacher attrition. The subsequent recruitment, selection, and development cycle of new teachers contributes to the problem by constraining economic resources of schools and districts. Combined, the effects of teacher attrition inhibit schools from becoming effective promoters of student achievement. Previous research on teacher retention identified school leadership as an important and salient factor in promoting teacher retention. While it is known that school leaders matter, the literature …

Artifacts, Others, And Temporality: An Enactive And Phenomenological Approach To Material Agency, Tailer Geoffrey Ransom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation will be organized in the portfolio style. It will center around the themes that develop further and expand Material Engagement Theory, especially regarding the hypothesis of material agency. The dissertation will focus on (1) clarifying and making intelligible certain aspects of this theory from the perspective of embodied and enactive cognition and phenomenological approaches to contemporary cognitive science, and (2) using some of the ideas from MET to make interventions in and enrich the current state of literature. The independent papers of my dissertation will follow roughly this trajectory. The first will deal with a phenomenological approach to …

Politics, Governance, And Leadership: What Can We Learn From The Academy Of Management’S Response To Eo13769?, Gerald Davis, Michel Anteby, Forrest Briscoe, P. Devereux Jennings, Samina Karim, Aseem Kaul, Sergio Lazzarini, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Paul Donnelly, Andreas Rasche, Anne S. Tsui, Thomas A. Wright, Todd R. Zenger

Articles

Organization design seeks to balance potentially conflicting objectives while achieving a broader mission. EO13769 created a challenge for the president of the Academy of Management in leading through these conflicts, as President Anita McGahan describes: how to be true to her own moral values while leading an organization with well-established design constraints, and members with diverse opinions. This article shares the perspectives of 12 scholars on the lessons we can learn from Professor McGahan’s leadership of a constraining organization through a challenging time.

The Moderation Effect Of Social Factors On Marketing Factors In Consumer Research, Xiaochuang Wu, Helen Chen, Xiaohong Li

Articles

Consumer research tends to isolate the impact of marketing and social factors. Little has been done to include both. This paper aimed to find out what would happen when these two sets of factors are included. Two models were built in this paper, Model I with the marketing factors only and Model II with both the marketing and social factors. Data was collected in Ireland among more than 1473 transition year students in a personal survey regarding their willingness to learn Chinese. Data were analysed by using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results showed the two social variables, acculturation and intergenerational …

From Meme To Memegraph: The Curious Case Of Pepe The Frog And White Nationalism, Fernando Ismael Quinones Valdivia

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis explores Pepe the Frog, a comic book character that became a meme, then went mainstream, and then became appropriated by the Alt-Right in support of the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Users in the Internet have declared this meme a god, others have claimed it as a piece of crypto-art, while White Nationalists use it to propagate their ideology. I draw on McGee’s notion of the ideograph to argue that, in a networked environment characterized by limited attention and heightened speed of circulation, memes have the capacity to ideologically condense publics. This gives rise to what I …

Increasing Student Perceptions Of Success And Inclusion Through Strategic Programming Of Underrepresented Composers, Joyce J. Beyer

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

There is a disproportional representation of women and people of color in orchestra and classical music. Both on the stage and in the music being performed, white and male musicians are more prominent than women and people of color. This disproportionality impacts underrepresented people, especially young students.

A study was done to see if introducing students to successful women and people of color who were musicians would increase student perceptions of success and inclusion in orchestra. The study included 37 students from 5 public school orchestra programs. The treatment was a series of pre-designed mini-lessons on underrepresented musicians. Growth was …

Motivation To Call Police: The Exploration Of Racial And Risk Averse Motivation, Alivia Lauren Zubrod

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

When calls are made to the police, the magnitude of their impact is often overlooked. When calls are made to the police and there is no crime, police resources, time, and energy could be wasted (Sampson, 2002); however, when no call is made to the police and there is a crime, human lives could be put in danger (e.g., Felson, Messner, Hoskin, & Deane, 2002). Based on highly publicized news reports, it appears that being a racial minority is enough motivation to call the police in some situations (e.g., napping or humanitarian work; Griggs, 2018; Williams, 2018b). Aversive racism theory …

Seeing The Forest For The Trees: Elementary Stem Environments That Nurture Creativity And Innovation, Lisa Jo Chizek

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study examined creativity in schools through the lens of nine rural Midwestern public school fifth grade students in a student-centered, inquiry-based science classroom within a STEM Framework. Previous literature suggesting the importance of nurturing creativity in schools (Florida, 2004; Executive Office of the President, 2018; K. H. Kim, 2016; Csikszentmihalyi, 1999) inspired the purpose for this dissertation. What is missing is the perspective of creative youth. Phenomenology as a research method is a “systematic attempt to uncover and describe the structures, the internal meaning structures, of lived experiences” (van Manen, 2016, p. 10). Through student voices, this qualitative study …

The Marginalization Of Black Aspiring Lawyers, Aaron N. Taylor

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Umpires, Judges, And The Aesthetics Of The Infield Fly, Chad M. Oldfather

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Machine-Learning-Based Pml For The Fdtd Method, He Ming Yao, Lijun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this letter, a novel absorbing boundary condition (ABC) computation method for finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) is proposed based on the machine learning approach. The hyperbolic tangent basis function (HTBF) neural network is introduced to replace traditional perfectly matched layer (PML) ABC during the FDTD solving process. The field data on the interface of conventional PML are employed to train HTBF-based PML model. Compared to the conventional approach, the novel method greatly decreases the size of a computation domain and the computation complexity of FDTD because the new model only involves the one-cell boundary layer. Numerical examples are provided to benchmark …