Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Pvc-Lot-015-E-011, Russell Smith

Four Valleys Archive

No abstract provided.

The Benefits Of Art Therapy On Stress And Anxiety Of Oncology Patients During Treatment, Helen Shiepe

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Within the last ten years research on art therapy and its positive impact on oncology patients’ stress and anxiety during treatment has been minimal. Oncology patients whether they are children or adults when diagnosed experience similar reactions due to their diagnosis, treatment, and in some cases end of life care. The current question is whether or not art therapy does have a positive impact on decreasing the stress and anxiety with oncology patients while undergoing treatment. Deane, Fitch & Carmen (2000), discussed art therapy as a healing art that is “intended to integrate physical, emotional, and spiritual care by facilitating creative ...

Dataset Of Antemortem Tooth Loss And Carious Lesions At Deir El-Medina, Anne Austin

UMSL Datasets

These data are from observations on antemortem tooth loss and the presence of carious lesions from the site of Deir el-Medina, Egypt. The data were collected by Anne Austin and Mélie Louys as part of the mission of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale at the site during the 2012-14 and 2019-20 field seasons. These data were derived from human remains found in Theban Tombs 6, 217, 290, and 298. They are estimated to date from 1550-945 BCE. These data include macroscopic observations from 32 mandibles and 44 maxillae consisting of 485 observable teeth and 1,052 observable tooth sockets ...

Genetic Impacts Of Deforestation On Mouse Lemurs, Darice Westphal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The impact of deforestation on the genetic structure of mouse lemurs is poorly understood. In this project, I assess deforestation of Madagascar’s terrestrial protected regions, quantify genomic wide genetic variation in two sympatric mouse lemurs, and evaluate the role of landscape structure in genetic relatedness patterns within two sympatric mouse lemur species. Overall deforestation rates across the 98 terrestrial protected areas in Madagascar are increasing, resulting in an average annual deforestation rate of 0.68% per year, with approximately 10,600 km² lost between 2000 and 2019. In a comparison of relatedness patterns between the sympatric gray mouse ...

North Of The Grid: The Black Experience Of 17th -19th Century Rural New York City, Stephanie E. Barnes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, transatlantic slavery was a racial project and template for race-making which created a country that relied on institutions that were organized and performed through social stratification. Today, the nation still operates on systemically racist institutions that have benefited whites while disadvantaging ‘others.’ The narratives presented in American history are rooted in whiteness and benefit the white community while marginalizing nonwhites. Over two hundred years of slavery history in this country has been purposely manipulated and left out. My research focuses on using an historical archaeological framework to research and share the lives of free and enslaved ...

Examining The Cross-Cultural Competence Of United States Christian Missionaries Engaged In Developing Indigenous Leaders: A Mixed Methods Study, Craig W. Goodman

Dissertations

For the past two millennia, missionaries have crossed from one culture to another to bring the Christian message to all cultures of the world. Questions about the effectiveness of these mission efforts have been asked and researched by many; however, one key question remains unanswered: what personal attributes help a person to be more competent at crossing cultures as they interact with people from other cultures? Although cross-cultural competence has been studied in a variety of fields over the past 50 years, the models and assessments used have never been applied to Christian missionaries.

To address this deficiency, this parallel ...

A Qualitative Study On Nurse Facilitators Of Mind-Body Skills Groups, Paula D. Blake-Beckford

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM), founded by Dr. James Gordon, provides communities with evidence-based Mind-Body Skills Groups (MBSGs) that foster self-care, self-awareness, and self-expression. MBSGs range from 8 to 12-week series on various mind-body practices wherein group members meet, practice, and reflect on the impact of mind-body skills in their lives. Research has demonstrated that participants in MBSGs have positive outcomes. Healthcare professionals (HCPs), especially nurses, gain resiliency from MBSGs. As facilitators of MBSGs, nurses develop essential skills transferable to clinical and educational settings. MBSGs are therapeutic for adult participants with chronic stress. Prior to this thesis, only one ...

Toward A Co-Working Posture In Global Mental Health: A Literature Review On The Use Of Photovoice In Partnership With Forcibly Displaced Populations, Bethany Randolph

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Abstract

As of 2020, the number of forcibly displaced people in the world numbered 82.4 million. This radically diverse population, approximately one in every 95 people, only continues to burgeon as wars and conflicts send millions fleeing for their lives. Sadly, on top of the massive allostatic load endured by the forcibly displaced, many are then doubly harmed by global mental health professionals who lack insight into the culture and worldview of the fellow humans they serve. In an effort to support meaningful therapeutic work in the cross-cultural milieu, this paper presents a literature review inquiry into the purpose ...

Alimentary Politics And Algorithms: The Spread Of Information About “Healthy” Eating And Diet On Tiktok, Sara Pierce

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Social media has been identified as an important venue for the spread of diet trends, especially those that promote disordered eating. Meanwhile, existing research on diet and alimentary politics points to deeper societal issues at stake in food choice, such as notions of personhood and what it means to be healthy. This research involves a deeper study, through interviews with users and extensive observation of content, of the types of information about diet being promoted on TikTok and the ways in which it spreads on the app. TikTok emerged as its own social world, a place of interaction where both ...

Speechless: Understanding The Manufacture Of Omission In An Effort Toward A More Responsible Ethnography, Sophie Goldstein

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Narratives are versions of reality that are often fragile and always contingent. As such, the potential for anthropological knowledge production hinges on the gaps in narrative that result from omissions, exclusions, and silences on the part of both researcher and research subject. In this thesis, I draw attention to the ways anthropological knowledge is narrative knowledge, and, as such, can be productively engaged with the tools of narrative study. I contend with the excesses and omissions that shape the production of ethnographic narratives, and offer correctives born of this work that might allow for the production of more salient and ...

“That’S What Hospice Is Supposed To Do”: How U.S. Hospice Care Staff Bridge Philosophy And Institutions, Morgan Alexa Leff

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Hospice founder Cicely Saunders wrote that “the dignity and worth of each individual patient [are] central to Hospice philosophy—an idea closely tied to anthropological personhood (Saunders and Clark 2002). As dying in hospice becomes an increasing reality of life in the United States, we must grapple with how the ideals, costs, and challenges of hospice care play out in the healthcare system. The institutional structures meant to ensure a ‘good death’ (while protecting the interests of the state) can fracture care of the dying. As hospice staff work within and around these structures, they build meaning in care strategies ...

Activity Area Analysis For The Sanders Site (45kt315), Emily Elizabeth Laplante, Rylee A. Chadwick

Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE)

The Sanders Site (45KT315) was excavated in the 1970s by Central Washington University. The site is located on the Yakima Army Training Center some 12 kilometers up Johnson Canyon from the Columbia River. The site was occupied from as early as 9,000 years ago; however, the heaviest occupations with features and activity areas date closer to 3000 years ago which are associated with Frenchman Springs Phase. We are interested in how food processing and animal use at this seasonal upland site compares to sites on the river that may have been occupied year-round during the Frenchman Springs Phase.

https ...

Bon Appѐtit: Faunal Subsistence At Fort Tombecbe (1su7)​, Sarah Coffey

Master's Theses

The frontier fort known as Tombecbe is situated on the Tombigbee River in present day Epes, Alabama. Tombecbe was constructed in 1736 as a staging point for Bienville’s campaign against the Chickasaw and to block encroachments by the British military. Following the Treaty of Paris, the fort was occupied successively by the British and then Spanish in the eighteenth century. Fortunately, historic documents and physical modifications to the fort suggest that it is possible to isolate and examine the French, British, and Spanish separately, however the breadth of the faunal analysis leaves this for future research. The soldiers at ...

The Social Life Of Violins: A Creative Exploration Of Entanglements And Actor-Network Theory, Benedetta Lombardo

Culture, Society, and Praxis

This paper uses fiction to explore anthropological concepts concerning material culture, entanglements, new materialism, agency and actor-network theory. In this article a fictive ethnographer encounters a violin who narrates its life- from its conception in the forest where it was part of an ecosystem, to taking form as a violin in a luthier’s shop and the skill negotiation that it entails as well as the effect on the human body, similar to Ingold’s theory of skilled practice, later following the violin until contemporary days as it gets exchanged as a precious good or sold as a commodity. The ...

The World’S Languages In Crisis (Redux): Toward A Radical Reimagining For Global Linguistic Justice, Gerald J. Roche

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

The world’s languages are in crisis: intergenerational transmission of around half the world’s languages is collapsing. I argue that to understand and intervene in this situation, we need to radically reimagine what it means to call it a crisis. We need to think about this crisis not simply as an acute emergency (which it is), but also in Antonio Gramsci's sense of a period in which ‘the old is dying but the new cannot be born’. In this sense, our present moment of crisis is one in which language oppression and language revitalization co-exist in dynamic tension ...

Answering The Call: Disrupting The Logics Of Capitalism Through Indigenous Economies, Madeline Jaye Bass

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Capitalism, racialism, and indigenous exploitation are deeply entangled practices. In their implementation, they each rely on forms of extraction and subjugation with long-lasting impacts. Denise Ferreira da Silva uses a Black feminist practice of “reading” in order to explicate the ways lives are valued and lost within this pursuit of global capital. Despite overwhelming extraction, looking closely and reading into Indigenous lifeways and organizing practices encourages the pursuit of “otherwise worlds.” This essay uses a close reading of da Silva’s chapter on global capital, and the larger collection it comes from, as a way of exploring the economic practices ...

Making The Old New: The Recontextualization And Traditionalization Of Tree Spirits In Video Games, Alexandria Ziegler

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

Folklorists study the active rituals between humans and deities, as well as the inactive participation between them in narrative. However, they do not study the active participation that comes in the form of video games between them, though with shifts in society, this new way of engaging through digital forms is widespread and accessible. In my research, I studied Russian and Japanese tree spirits in a variety of video games to understand this new form of engagement with ancient deities. These video games are Okami, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Black Book, and The Witcher 3: The ...

Reduce, Reuse And Deny: How Sustainability Is Judged By Consumers, Madison E. Hill

Student Research Symposium

This research was an analysis of a series of interviews regarding what factors are considered when deciding if a given product is environmentally friendly or not. Participants were asked to select between products or practices as the generally more sustainable option, and were asked to explain their reasoning for that decision. Participants were encouraged to describe their reasoning behind each choice, but it was noted when certain choices were more challenging than others. Products that green-wash effectively generate trust between consumers trying to ‘do their part’ and industries attempting to capitalize on each side of environmental crises. Most sustainable practices ...

The Abuse Of Darwinism (And Social Darwinism) For The Purposes Of Discrimination, Jessica N. Kantrowitz

Honors Student Research

Throughout most of history, people have tried to justify their discrimination against other groups of people in any way they can, especially using biology and evolutionary theories as reason. When Charles Darwin published his book “On the Origin of Species”, introducing his theory of evolution and the work and experiments he did to prove this theory, it caused many to question their previous bigoted beliefs. For some, however, Darwin’s theory of evolution, which would come to be referred to simply as Darwinism, only further proved their biases, or they could, at least, make it sound like they did. Later ...

A Model For Equity In Arts Education For Youth In Greater Portland, Maine, Catherine Scheirer

Thinking Matters Symposium

Time and time again, by providing an outlet that allows innate human creativity to roam free, participation in arts activities such as dance, music, theatre, and visual arts is proven to have significant positive impacts on participants, regardless of age, experience, or background. Even though the arts have been acknowledged as critical for mental, physical, and emotional health, especially for children and adolescents, research has found that providing arts education in an equitable and culturally appropriate way is fraught with barriers. In addition, certain areas of the arts have seen a downward trend in educational priority and availability. My project ...

Ancient Cities: Teaching And Learning In The Digital Age, Stefan Feuser, Francis Brouns, Michael Blömer, Alain Duplouy, Simon Malmberg, Stephanie Merten, Christina Videbech, Alessia Zambon, Mantha Zarmakoupi

Journal of Archaeology and Education

In this paper we present an overview of the Ancient Cities project’s outcomes and experiences with producing and testing digital educational material in the field of archaeology. In the first part, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Discovering Greek & Roman Cities is introduced with respect to its target audiences and learning objectives, the ways in which it was disseminated to the target audiences, and how its structure and learning material were developed. Based on several questionnaires answered by the participants and user data from the MOOC platform itself, we were able to collect comprehensive information on the demography of ...

Quantification Of Dental Fissures Through Occlusal Topography Analysis, Duru Erkan

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Narrow, deep, and elaborate dental fissures are widely believed to increase the predisposition of enamel to develop carious lesions as these surfaces are thought to be ideal for cariogenic bacteria to adhere to. Therefore, dentists prescribe sealants as a preventative measure for patients with such fissures to avoid tooth decay. Yet to date, there is no objective data supporting the notion that fissure morphology actually affects caries susceptibility, nor is there a quantifiable, clinically practical method to characterize fissure patterns expected to increase risk of caries disease.

In this study, three new methods to quantitatively characterize fissure pattern in mandibular ...

Anthropology In 3d: The Use Of Photogrammetry In The Preservation And Dissemination Of Ethnographic Art, Alexander Spindler

Honors Projects

Photogrammetry is an effective tool used by archaeologists in museums and organizations by creating a 3D model from overlapping photos. This project involved a collection of ethnographic artifacts from Papua New Guinea that are currently housed in the Grand Valley State University Anthropology Department. This essay reviews the process and results of this project. Artifacts were photographed and 3D models were created using the Agisoft Metashape program. Models are disseminated via the Sketchfab website with proper cultural information. Artifacts originate from Sepik River tribes and were designed originally for the tourist industry. This project shows the utility of photogrammetry in ...

Lawrence Kaplan (14 April 1926-6 March 1918), Emily Kaplan

Andean Past

This is an appreciation of the life and work of archaeobotanist Lawrence Kaplan, a specialist in domesticated beans.

Alana Cordy-Collins (5 June 1944-16 August 2015), Christopher B. Donnan, Rose Tyson

Andean Past

This is an appreciation of the life and work of Andean archaeology Alana Cordy-Collins.

The Lost Emerald Mines Of Ecuador: Contrasting Patterns Of Emerald Use In Native South America, Warwick Bray

Andean Past

The author presents evidence for a now-lost Pre-Columbian emerald source within the territory of present day Ecuador.

The Monoliths Of Chumbivilcas, Cusco: A New Focus On Pukara Culture, Rainer Hostnig, Francois Cuynet

Andean Past

Carved monoliths pertaining to the Pukara culture of the Lake Titicaca region are described, illustrated, and analyzed.

The Settlement History Of The Lucre Basin (Cusco, Peru), Brian S. Bauer, Miriam Araoz Silva, Thomas John Hardy

Andean Past

This article reports the results of archaeological survey from Oropesa to Andahuayllilas, Peru.

Incas And Arawaks: A Special Relationship Along The Andes-Amazonian Frontier, Darryl Wilkinson

Andean Past

In this article the author argues that the Incas and the Arawaks had a relationship that was more complementary than antagonistic.

The Dynamics Of The Raya-Raya Farming Site In The Occupational History Of One Sector Of The Quebrada De Humahuaca (Jujuy, Argentina), Augustina Scaro

Andean Past

No abstract provided.