Digital Commons Network^™

The Fundamental Right To Technology, Haochen Sun

Hofstra Law Review

Waves of technological progress in recent decades have tremendously improved quality of life. Meanwhile, concerns about technology-driven injustices, such as unfair distribution of wealth and racial discrimination, have deepened. Experts have cautioned that new technologies could have potentially devastating effects, claiming for instance that artificial intelligence may lead to World War III. We are at a crossroads, and how we harness technology now will determine the future of humanity.

This Article presents a thought experiment, proposing that a new fundamental right to technology be recognized under the U.S. Constitution. Given that technology is of fundamental importance to human dignity and …

Change In Relationship Satisfaction Among Veterans In Couple Therapy, Grace Boyers Mckee

Psychology Theses and Dissertations

Approximately two-thirds of Americans will live with a romantic partner at some point in their lives, and 75% of individuals marry by age 30. Unfortunately, relationship dissatisfaction is a common occurrence, with as many as one-third of couples reporting relationship distress. Although many forms of couple therapy are effective for improving relationship satisfaction and reduces the risk of divorce among distressed couples, no one form of couple therapy has clearly been established as superior. Moreover, relatively little is known about how and why couple therapy has its effects. Improved understanding of what change may occur, as well as common trajectories …

Brand Linguistics: Study Of Sound Symbolism And Consumer Language Fluency On Brand Name Attitudes And Perceptions, Evita Subkowski

University Honors Program Senior Projects

Brand names can subtly evoke the practical qualities of a product as well as the positive emotions a company hopes that consumers will feel regarding its product. Because a brand name serves as an identifier for consumers to the product itself, effective branding has the potential to increase sales and customer loyalty. Brand names are essential because they are often the consumer’s first exposure to the product and for this reason they must be configured effectively. There is considerable research in this area that can guide companies toward more effective brand-naming strategies. Unfortunately, a key gap exists in this literature: …

Pilosopiyang Pinoy: Uso Pa Ba? (The Relevance Of Filipino Philosophy In Social Renewal), Romualdo E. Abulad

Philosophy Department Faculty Publications

This paper evaluates the titular question and features a summative evaluation and critique of the works and contributions of Leonardo Mercado, Dionisio Miranda, Albert Alejo, Rolando Gripaldo (1947-2017), and Florentino Timbreza to the anthropological and cultural approaches that form a significant part of the discourses on Filipino philosophy. In this piece, Abulad maintains, as in his other writings, that any strict emphasis with regard to methodology restricts the true potential of Filipino philosophy. He buttresses this assertion by invoking postmodernism's 'incredulity towards metanarratives' We should be skeptical about the metanarrative of Filipino identity for it is precisely our rootlessness that …

Full Issue Fall 2019

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

No abstract provided.

Second Look Commission 2019 Annual Report, Tennessee. Commission On Children And Youth.

Second Look Commission Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Alternative Conceptions, Initial Knowledge, And Self-Efficacy Of The Novice And Expert Geologist Regarding Mineral Identification, Amanda Manzanares

Master's Theses

Research shows the novice geologist begins an introductory geology course with alternative conceptions about minerals and other geoscience concepts. Students use their prior understanding of these concepts as the basis for future learning. If students’ frameworks include alternative conceptions about foundational geoscience concepts, these could hinder their ability to learn more factual and complicated ideas and facts in the future. It takes time to change these alternative conceptions. For this reason, instructors need to understand their students’ prior understandings of geoscience concepts at the beginning of the courses to move students to a better understanding of the material. Moreover, the …

Using Self-Compassionate Focused Writing Prompts By Middle School Students In The Dance Classroom: Shaping How Students Respond To Their Art And View Themselves As Artists, Kathleen Stein

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using self-compassionate focused journal writing as a way to induce a more self-compassionate and less self-critical view in students of themselves and their art. This study examinedthe connection between the use of self-compassionate focused journal writing prompts and an increase in the levels of self-compassion that a student feltfor him or herself. The purpose of this study was to provide students with the self-compassion tools, strategies, and skills necessary to deal with perceived setbacks in their choreographic process and performance. This quantitative and qualitative study was designed to answer …

The Effects Of Dance On Gross Motor Skills And Strength In Students With Down Syndrome, Jennifer Canfield

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine if weekly participation in a ballet class improved upon the gross motor skills of students with Down Syndrome. This study is important because the student participants all showed growth in their gross motor abilities as well as overall strength and physical functioning. When students with special needs are regularly exposed to dance, certain physical skills that are normally more challenging for them, improve, including gross motor functioning, increased strength, better coordination, and an increased ability to balance. This research can be used to justify the expansion of inclusive and adaptive dance opportunities …

The Effect Of Interpersonal And Institutional Trust On Organizational Commitment In Voluntary Settings, Kayla Nicole Brewster

Master's Theses

The goal of this research was to explore how institutional and interpersonal trust affect organizational commitment within voluntary organizations. This research focused on civic engagement and religious organizations as forms of voluntary organizations and utilized previously validated instruments as the means to collect data. The participants were obtained by a random sample of students, staff, and faculty from a mid-sized university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States and the data collection method was an email with a description of the project and a link to the survey. The survey responses resulted in a sample size of 189 …

Perinatal Mental Health: Improving The Quality And Consistency Of Health Care Delivery In Kootenai County, Leanne Elisha

Doctoral Scholarly Projects & Capstones

Elisha, Leanne. Perinatal Mental Health: Improving the Quality and Consistency of Health Care Delivery in Kootenai County. Unpublished Doctor of Nursing Practice scholarly project, University of Northern Colorado, 2019. Perinatal mental health issues including depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, mania, and psychosis occur frequently during pregnancy and after delivery; these issues have potentially devastating impacts on mothers, infants, other family members, and communities. Despite increasing awareness of perinatal mental health issues and formal recommendations to implement universal screening and ensure access to appropriate follow-up, there is wide variation in clinical practice across regions and providers. Inconsistent screening, paired with limited …

A Psychoanalysis Of Rebecca West’S Unfinished Novel The Sentinel, Taylor Vesely

Honors Theses

This thesis applies a psychoanalytic lens to a little-known and unfinished manuscript by Rebecca West. There is little scholarship on The Sentinel but a wealth of knowledge to be gained from it about the complicated psychological dilemmas the suffragists suffered. West was writing at a critical period in feminist history that is still relevant today, and this novel, which would have been her first, lays the groundwork for many of her future works. Her depictions of sexuality, violence, religion, and motherhood provide an excellent framework for both her protagonist’s self-suppression and a compelling psychoanalysis. This thesis argues that the many …

In For A Shock?: Discretion And Disparity In Program Assignment, Brianna Mathis

Honors Theses

Due to the massive prison population in America, correctional agencies are considering alternatives to standard incarceration. These programs are designed to redirect individuals from serving a prison sentence, and are instead assigned to a program specifically targeted at reducing offenders’ likelihood at recidivating. Typically, the main focus of these programs centers on education, job training, and various types of counseling. The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) has implemented two programs that aim at reducing recidivism: the first was the Regimented Inmate Discipline Program (RID), which was later replaced with the Recidivism Reduction Program (RRP). While both programs were intended to …

Of Promoting Networking And Protecting Privacy: Effects Of Defaults And Regulatory Focus On Social Media Users’ Preference Settings, Hichang Cho, Sungjong Roh, Byungho Park

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Privacyresearch has debated whether privacy decision-making is determined by users'stable preferences (i.e., individual traits), privacy calculus (i.e.,cost-benefit analysis), or “responses on the spot” that vary across contexts.This study focuses on two factors—default setting as a contextual factor andregulatory focus as an individual difference factor—and examines the degree towhich these factors affect social media users' decisionmaking when usingprivacy preference settings in a fictitious social networking site. Theresults, based on two experimental studies (study 1, n = 414; study 2, n =213), show that default settings significantly affect users' privacypreferences, such that users choose the defaults or alternatives proximal tothem. Study 2 …

Of Promoting Networking And Protecting Privacy: Effects Of Defaults And Regulatory Focus On Social Media Users’ Preference Settings, Hichang Cho, Sungjong Roh, Byungho Park

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Privacy research has debated whether privacy decision-making is determined by users' stable preferences (i.e., individual traits), privacy calculus (i.e., cost-benefit analysis), or “responses on the spot” that vary across contexts. This study focuses on two factors—default setting as a contextual factor and regulatory focus as an individual difference factor—and examines the degree to which these factors affect social media users' decision-making when using privacy preference settings in a fictitious social networking site. The results, based on two experimental studies (study 1, n = 414; study 2, n = 213), show that default settings significantly affect users' privacy preferences, such that …

Categorization Of Vocal Fry In Running Speech, Katherine Proctor

Honors Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine and categorize patterns of vocal fry in running speech. Since no other research studies have attempted to fully categorize vocal fry before, and due to the universality of the phenomenon of vocal fry, and the potential psychosocial and voice disorder consequences that come with using it, this topic is of great significance. For this study, voice samples were read into Praat and analyzed, and minor differences in the physiologies that produce different “types” of fry were examined.Temporal categories of vocal fry discovered were as follows: “onset,” “earlier,” “later,” and “final,” depending on …

Leader Mindfulness And Employee Performance: A Sequential Mediation Model Of Lmx Quality, Interpersonal Justice, And Employee Stress, Jochen Reb, Sankalp Chaturvedi, Jayanth Narayanan, Ravi S. Kudesia

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the present research, we examine the relation between leader mindfulness and employee performance through the lenses of organizational justice and leader-member relations. We hypothesize that employees of more mindful leaders view their relations as being of higher leader-member exchange (LMX) quality. We further hypothesize two mediating mechanisms of this relation: increased interpersonal justice and reduced employee stress. In other words, we posit that employees of more mindful leaders feel treated with greater respect and experience less stress. Finally, we predict that LMX quality serves as a mediator linking leader mindfulness to employee performance—defined in terms of both in-role and …

General Practitioners’ Perceptions Of Their Communication With Australian Aboriginal Patients With Acquired Neurogenic Communication Disorders, Deborah Hersh, Elizabeth Armstrong, Meaghan Mcallister, Natalie Ciccone, Judith Katzenellenbogen, Juli Coffin, Sandra Thompson, Colleen Hayward, Leon Flicker, Deborah Woods

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Objective:

Aboriginal people have high rates of stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI), often with residual, chronic communication deficits and multiple co-morbidities. This study examined general practitioners’ (GPs’) perceptions of their communication with Aboriginal patients with acquired communication disorders (ACD) after brain injury. Effective communication underpins good care but no previous research has explored this specific context.

Methods:

A qualitative descriptive approach was employed using interviews and focus groups with 23 GPs from metropolitan Perth and five regional sites in Western Australia. Data were analysed thematically. Results: GPs reported low visibility of Aboriginal patients with ACD in their practices, minimal …

Perceived Justice, Community Support, Community Identity And Residents’ Quality Of Life: Testing An Integrative Model, Lujun Su, Songshan (Sam) Huang, Mehran Nejati

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study tested an integrative model to investigate the effect of perceived justice, in its three dimensions (procedural, distributive, and interactional), on destination residents’ quality of life (QOL) with perceived community support and community identification as mediators. Analysis on a sample of 453 Gulangyu Island residents in China shows that procedural and interactional justice positively influenced perceived community support, whilst procedural and distributive justice positively affected community identification; both perceived community support and community identification contributed to resident QOL. This study offers a new perspective on how to improve resident QOL in tourist destinations. Theoretical and marketing implications are discussed.

Microfinance Institutions’ Criteria On Small Business Financing In Cameroon, Serge Messomo Elle

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

This study uses MFIs as a unit of analysis to examine the factors of human, financial and social capital that increase the financing of microenterprises’ identification of opportunities and exploitation in Cameroon .To attain this objective, a questionnaire was used to collect data from 207 MFIs and analyzed using descriptive and multiple linear regression models. The results revealed that when it concerns the financing of opportunity identification, only human capital variables of Prior knowledge and Business training increase the financing of microenterprises by MFIs in Cameroon. Regarding the opportunity exploitation on the contrary, accumulated business knowledge, business skills and customer …

Associations Between Multidimensional Spirituality And Mental Health: Positive Psychological Traits As Mediators, Trever Dangel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in the areas of religion and spirituality and positive psychology have experienced considerable growth within the past two decades. Such growth has led to a plethora of research identifying important constructs in both areas and key relationships among them. The current literature is, however, limited by unclear distinctions between the constructs of religion and spirituality, and a general lack of research into their associations with positive psychological traits and mental health status. As such, the present study aimed to investigate a new model of spirituality, the RiTE model, which is a three-part model designed to capture the multifaceted nature …

Perceptions Of Maxine Smith Fellows On Barriers That Contribute To The Underrepresentation Of African Americans In Faculty And Administrative Positions At The Tennessee Board Of Regents, Sidney R. Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African Americans are underrepresented in full-time faculty and administrative positions at Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) institutions. This study examined the perceptions of 11 Maxine Smith Fellows on the underrepresentation at TBR institutions and provides recommendations that could assist in increasing representation of African Americans in full-time faculty and administrative positions.

A qualitative method was used for the study. Each participant was required to participate in a recorded SKYPE interview. The researcher transcribed the interviews and analyzed the data using coding to derive overarching themes that provided findings based upon the research questions.

Based upon the analysis of data, the …

Factors That Contribute To Pk-12 Teacher Retention In One Midwest School District, Jeffery Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine relationship of the distinct factors to PK-12 teacher retention in one Midwest school district. This study was an examination of multiple factors, including work environment, fit, compensation and benefits, leadership, performance management system, peer support and mentoring, that contributed to the retention of PK-12 teachers with different levels of education, certifications, experience, career plans, and military affiliation. The questions on the Teacher Retention Survey used a Likert-type scale to measure teacher perceptions about retention factors to address 8 research questions.

For this study, I surveyed the population of 704 current PK-12 …

We All Need Somebody To Lean On: Social Support As A Protective Factor For Individuals With Childhood Adversity, Rachel Clingensmith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Extensive research has shown that childhood adversity impacts development across the lifespan and has been linked to numerous negative health outcomes. Depression symptoms are one such outcome that has been associated with ACE exposure. The literature also indicates emotion regulation may be a mediator between ACEs and depression outcomes. The primary aim of this study (N = 766) is to investigate pathways leading from ACEs to depression and potential protective factors. It was hypothesized that difficulties in emotion regulation would mediate the link between ACEs and later depressive symptoms, social support would moderate the pathway between difficulties in emotion regulation …

Student Retention In Community College Engineering And Engineering Technology Programs, Harrison Orr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An ex-pos-facto non-experimental quantitative study was conducted to examine the academic, financial, and student background factors that influence first-to-second year retention of engineering and engineering technology students at U.S. community colleges. Analysis of the five research questions was done using a chi-square test and multiple logistic regressions. Data were obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Beginning Postsecondary Students 2012/2014 (BPS: 12/14) study. Computations were performed using PowerStats, a web-based statistical tool provided by the NCES, as well as IBM SPSS 25.

The sample population consisted of students who entered postsecondary education for the first time in the …

Differences In Socialization Factors In Relation To Prescription Drug Misuse Between Rural And Urban Juveniles, Gabriela Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Juvenile misuse of prescription drugs in the United States has continuously increased over the last few decades, especially within rural regions of the country. Despite continuous increase in rates of misuse, limited research exists on elements of socialization that may function to prevent drug use. The current study utilized the Monitoring the Future Survey data to explore prescription drug misuse between different populations of juveniles. While using Hirschi’s (1969) theory of social bonds as a theoretical framework, different elements of socialization were explored to determine whether they work to contribute or prevent prescription drug misuse among rural and urban juveniles. …

Second-Grade Students’ Perceptions Of Their Classrooms’ Physical Learning Environment, Tsitsi Nyabando

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the constructivist framework, the focus of the investigation was on second-grade students and their perceptions of their classrooms’ physical learning environment.

A qualitative multiple case study approach was employed, and data were collected through interviews, participant-generated photographs, and observations. Participants in the study were 16 second-grade students in four classrooms in three school districts in Northeast Tennessee. A physical learning environment tool, Assessing the Pillars of the Physical Environment for Academic Learning (APPEAL), developed by Evanshen and Faulk (2019) was used to select classrooms to take part in the study. The tool focuses on dimensions that help observers …

Queer Students’ Perceptions Of Inclusion At Abc Community College: A Phenomenology, Francis Canedo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of Queer students at ABC Community College. Using phenomenology as its guiding framework, transcribed interviews were analyzed in order to seek the phenomenon of the experience. Examination of the literature suggested that Queer students’ experiences of discrimination could have a negative impact on academic achievement and that inclusive and affirming spaces have the opposite effect.

Further, Queer students search for affirming spaces from their faculty and peers, and the engagement these spaces provide may be good prognosticator academic achievement. When students are provided with inclusive spaces, they may be more likely to come …

The Gendering Of Death Personifications In Literary Modernism: The Femme Fatale Symbol From Baudelaire To Barnes, Amanda Mcnally

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The time of modernity, defined here as 1850-1940, contributed to massive changes in the representation of the feminine in literature. Societal paradigm shifts due to industrialism, advances in science, psychology, and a newfound push for gender equality brought transformation to the Western World. As a result of this, male frustrations revived the ancient trope of the femme fatale, but the modern woman—already hungry for agency, tired of maligned representation in heinous portrayals of skeletons, sirens, and beasts—saw a symbol begging for redemption rather than the intended insult. Women of the nineteenth century infused texture to a two-dimensional accusation that argued …

In Search Of Work-Life Balance: Organizational And Economic Challenges Confronting Women In Banking And Management Consulting Firms In Southwest Nigeria, Oluwafisayo Ogundoro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life …