Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

St. Mark’S Catholic Community Of The Deaf, May 10, 2009

Saint Mark's Catholic Community of the Deaf

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Edmonton, Canada

Saint Mark's Catholic Community of the Deaf Finding Aid

A Hard Year, A Cloudy Future, Jens Manuel Krogstad

Postville Project Documents

An article in the May 10, 2009, Courier, a Waterloo and Cedar Falls, Iowa newspaper, about the living conditions in Postville, Iowa, one year after the 2008 Postville immigration raid.

Splitsville: A Study Of Income Inequality And Political Polarization In The United States House Of Representatives, Robert O'Brien

Honors Scholar Theses

The study compares a measure of income inequality with polarization scores of U.S. Representatives from the 104th to the 109th Congresses. It attempts to explain the link, on the abstract level, between high inequality and high polarization. The end findings indicate that inequality increases a Representative's likelihood to act liberally.

"Super" Representation: The Relationship Between Elected Officials And Their Constituents, Joshua Shulman

Honors Scholar Theses

The following paper is about the relationship between elected officials and their constituents. Seniority and margin of victory are studied to determine their effects on said relationship. The institution of superdelegates in the Democratic nominating process is studied from 1984-2008 to make this thesis empirical.

Joint Attention In Young Children With Autism, Sabrina Jara

Honors Scholar Theses

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are classified as pervasive developmental disorders characterized by social, communicative, and behavioral impairments. According to formal and informal reports, children with ASD present with receptive and expressive language delay. Joint attention (JA: the behavior that occurs when two individuals focus on the same object or event) has been identified as a possible marker of delayed language development in children with ASD. In this study, the JA behaviors in children with ASD were contrasted with initially language-matched typically developing (TYP) children across three visits.

Measures of language, the frequency, duration, and source of initiation of JA episodes, …

The Right To Die Debate: The Demonization Of Dr. Kevorkian And The Creation Of A Moral Panic Surrounding Physician-Assisted Suicide In The United States, Dana White

Honors Scholar Theses

The Right to Die Debate is a recent but highly controversial moral matter. In particular, physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is an issue that has been evaded by the medical community for years. As of 1990, most states had never encountered the issue before and therefore did not have any laws in place to prohibit PAS (Strate et. al, 2005). Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a retired pathologist from Royal Oak Michigan was the first to publicly address PAS. He brought the issue into the limelight through a bizarre and crude series of assisted deaths that had a lasting impact on not only the …

The Sweet Script: A Critical Analysis Of American Sportswriting, Jonathan Schreiber

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis analyzes the sportswriting genre as a form of personal essay. It explores the art over time through writers Red Smith, A.J. Liebling, Roger Angell, George Plimpton, Bart Giamatti, Frank Deford, and Rick Reilly, as well as anthologized writers from 2008 and blogs.

History Of Maltreatment And Psychiatric Impairment In Children In Outpatient Psychiatric Treatment, Kerry Gagnon

Honors Scholar Theses

There is increasing evidence that childhood victimization and attachment disruptions impact a child’s development. In this study, children and adolescents from an outpatient psychiatric clinic were assessed, measuring history of trauma, history of out-of-home placement, initial diagnoses, and CBCL internalizing and externalizing problem scores. Multiple regression analyses showed that both violent abuse trauma (physical/sexual abuse) and victim trauma (physical abuse/sexual abuse/witnessing domestic violence/witnessing community violence) are prevalent among patients with externalizing severity problems; concluding that diagnosis alone may not account for a history of victimization, but externalizing problem severity does. Overall, the study is consistent with past literature that it …

Diagnosing The Prodromal State Of Alzheimer's Disease, Jennifer Bartkowiak

Honors Scholar Theses

Mild Cognitive Impairment- Amnestic Subtype (MCIa) is a putative prodromal stage of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) characterized by focal deficits in episodic verbal memory. Less is known about relative deficits in visuospatial learning, although there is ample evidence indicating involvement of the hippocampus in visuospatial learning, as well as hippocampal degeneration in early AD. The aim of this study was to better characterize the components of working memory dysfunction in people with MCIa to increase the ability to reliably diagnose this disease. Fifty-six elderly adults diagnosed with MCIa and 94 healthy elderly completed a hidden maze learning task. Results indicated similar …

The Treatment Action Campaign's First Decade: Success Achieved?, Jung Cho

Honors Scholar Theses

South Africa is known to have the largest HIV epidemic in the world with 5.7 million people currently living with HIV, according to UNAIDS. In light of the crisis, South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has led the social movement for increased treatment access for people living with HIV through lobbying the government, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and grassroots campaigning. Since it's founding a decade ago, TAC has been highly acclaimed both regionally and internationally for its success. In order to determine the success of this social movement organization, social movement theories, such as mobilization potential, external political opportunity structure, and …

Ddasaccident748, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

On 10 May 2009 at 10:35 [the Victim] the deminer of [Demining group] DT-02 was excavating on a detected signal in his clearance lane where he hit the top of an anti-personnel mine by bayonet and it caused the mine going off. The procedure of investigating a pinpointed signal was ignored by this deminer and he was working carelessly. As a result this accident the deminer got several injuries to different parts of body i.e. both hands and thighs. The deminer had only used the jacket of his PPE without skirt. If he would wear the skirt too, his lower …

To Vaccinate, Or Not? Health Care Providers And The Hpv Controversy, Nicole Elizabeth Hanbury

Honors Scholar Theses

Gardasil® – the vaccine was first thought to be a medical breakthrough in the fight against cancer, but it quickly became plagued with controversy. Despite wide media coverage, little attention has been paid to today’s health care professionals who are ultimately responsible for prescribing the vaccine, and who may be the most knowledgeable about it. The present study seeks to expand on previous literature by investigating health care providers’ current beliefs and practices with the human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization. It is essential that more recent research be performed in order to encompass current views of the vaccine, post FDA-approval.

Data …

Behavioral Implications Of Knockout For The Dyslexia-Risk Gene Dcdc2 In Mice, Dongnhu Truong

Honors Scholar Theses

Several genetic linkage and epidemiological studies have provided strong evidence that DCDC2 is a candidate gene for developmental dyslexia, a disorder that impairs a person’s reading ability despite adequate intelligence, education, and socio-economic status. Studies investigating embryonic intra-ventricular RNA interference (RNAi) of Dcdc2, a rat homolog of the DCDC2 gene in humans, indicate disruptions in neuronal migration in the rat cortex during development. Interestingly, these anatomical anomalies are consistent with post mortem histological analysis of human dyslexic patients. Other rodent models of cortical developmental disruption have shown impairment in rapid auditory processing and learning maze tasks in affected subjects.

The …

Salivary Cortisol, Psychological Stress And Depressive Symptoms Among Patients Undergoing Colon Cancer Screenings, Allyson Reid

Honors Scholar Theses

As the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, colon cancer has a high cure rate if detected early by a colonoscopy (U.S.

Cancer Statistics Working Group, 2007). However, more than 41 million at-risk Americans are not properly receiving colonoscopy screenings according to the recommendations of the Center for Disease Control. This study provides insight into the physiological and psychological benefits of the colonoscopy procedure over and above cancer detection and prevention. Thirty-six patients receiving colonoscopic screening at the University of Connecticut Health Center participated in this study. A questionnaire battery that assessed perceived stress, depressive symptoms, …

Children's Perceptions Of Male And Female Athletes As Presented In Sports Illustrated For Kids, Brittany Perotti

Honors Scholar Theses

Despite gains made by Title IX in the past 36 years, including increased female participation in high school and collegiate sport, there is evidence that gender equity in sport is not fully achieved. Researchers target the media because they tend to shape social values and disseminate information to the masses (Kane, 1978, in Fink & Kensicki, 2002). As sports become more pervasive, framing theory has become particularly relevant. The purpose of this study is to build on the Hardin et al.

(2002) study by examining the relationship among media sports coverage, gender equity in sport and the perceptions young sports …

Cooperation & Competition Between Navigation Systems In The Rat Brain: The Role Of The Hippocampus And Striatum During A Dissociative Maze Task, Benjamin Gruenbaum

Honors Scholar Theses

While many tend to think of memory systems in the brain as a single process, in reality several experiments have supported multiple dissociations of different forms of learning, such as spatial learning and response learning. In both humans and rats, the hippocampus has long been shown to be specialized in the storage of spatial and contextual memory whereas the striatum is associated with motor responses and habitual behaviors.

Previous studies have examined how damage to hippocampus or striatum has affected the acquisition of either a spatial or response navigation task. However even in a very familiar environment organisms must continuously …

Making A Story Move: The Art Of Film Editing, Daniel Gross

Honors Scholar Theses

An in-depth treatise on the process of film editing, featuring 16 original interviews from renowned editors. These editors share insight and anecdotes about the daily joys and difficulties of their careers (and the professional principles they subscribe to), as well as the creative, interpersonal, and technical challenges they constantly face. Discussion of the “MTV influence” behind modern film editing is offered, and this influence is explored in filmmaking history. Advice and inspiration is also shared for the benefit of future film editors; Hollywood editors tell their own stories about how they thrived in a notoriously-difficult field, and what it would …

Rules Of Misrule, Meghan Forgione

Honors Scholar Theses

The project seeks to offer an alternative interpretation of sport culture in Renaissance England with respect to theater and football. I seek to show how sport culture, although seemingly threatening to the state, actually reinforces the monarchy due to its ability to provide the people with a controlled social release. The prose explores the function of carnival in sport culture and the way in which the two are manifested in football and theater in the Renaissance.

Labeling In The Classroom: Teacher Expectations And Their Effects On Students' Academic Potential, Jacqueline Ercole

Honors Scholar Theses

The transition to high school can be challenging for some adolescents, resulting in drops of academic functioning (Barber & Olsen, 2004; Smith, 2006). While changes in academic demands and the disparity between adolescent needs and the environmental characteristics of high school have both been cited as possible contributors to this decrease in academic and personal functioning (Barber & Olsen, 2004), it is possible that teachers may play an even larger role in undermining these students’ functioning, specifically through labeling. Although labeling, and how it can lead to self-fulfilling prophesies, is a concept that has been thoroughly researched and applied to …

Gay Parenthood And The Revolution Of The Modern Family: An Examination Of The Unique Barriers Confronting Gay Adoptive Parents, Nicholas Arntsen

Honors Scholar Theses

Abstract: In recent decades, the structure of the American family has been revolutionized to incorporate families of diverse and unconventional compositions. Gay and lesbian couples have undoubtedly played a crucial role in this revolution by establishing families through the tool of adoption. Eleven adoptive parents from the state of Connecticut were interviewed to better conceptualize the unique barriers gay couples encounter in the process adoption. Both the scholarly research and the interview data illustrate that although gay couples face enormous legal barriers, the majority of their hardship comes through social interactions. As a result, the cultural myths and legal restrictions …

Assessment Of English Language Learners Seeking A Graduate Degree In Speech Language Pathology, Lisa Anne Prushko

Honors Scholar Theses

A shortage of bilingual/bicultural speech language pathologists may reflect a problem with recruitment and retention of bilingual/bicultural students. The purpose of the present study was to survey graduate training programs in speech language pathology to determine typical policies and practices concerning students who apply and are admitted as ELLs. With a growing number of ELL children needing services from a bilingual SLP, it seems that little is being done to address the issue. The problem may be with the reluctance of programs to not only accept ELL students, but there also seems to be a disinclination for any sort of …

Giving Voice To The Results Of Your Study: A Review Of Authoring Your Life: Developing An Internal Voice To Navigate Life’S Challenges By Marcia B. Baxter Magolda, Robin Cooper

The Qualitative Report

In Authoring Your Life: Developing an Internal Voice to Navigate Life’s Challenges, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda offers a theory and model for building self-authorship through the development of an internal voice. Her primary audience is adults in their twenties and thirties, as well as their parents, peers, and employers. Qualitative researchers will also find the book of interest as a unique example of reporting results of a study in an original format.

Weak States And Political Constraints: Experiments With Truth In Liberia And Sierra Leone, Robert Collins Painter

Political Science Honors Projects

Focusing on truth and reconciliation commissions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, this thesis examines which political conditions typical of weak states had the greatest impact in deciding the different levels of success between the two cases. Two conditions played a central role in determining each commission’s success: the de-legitimization of the state and political fragmentation. Their presence in Sierra Leone derailed that truth commission’s efforts to carry out its mandate. Conversely, their absence in Liberia allowed its commission to operate relatively free of political impediments, leading to greater success.

Local Columnist Denies Library Wrongdoing, Ginny Maziarka

West Bend Community Memorial Library (Wisconsin), 2009

No abstract provided.

Book Banning In West Bend Continues: No Common Sense On The Common Council., M Peterson

West Bend Community Memorial Library (Wisconsin), 2009

No abstract provided.

Some Interviews (And Answering A Question I Wasn’T Asked)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

I’ve recently been lucky enough to be asked to do a couple of radio interviews to promote Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments, and also to get an opportunity to explain what I was trying to do in the book to various journalists working for Chinese and English language publications. This is a very nice development because I wrote the book with general readers as well as academics in mind, and because I hoped that my ideas about Shanghai would start to make their way into Chinese as well as English language discussions of the city’s past, present, and …

More Web-Based Resources For Learning And Reading Chinese

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In two earlier posts (from last May and August 2008), we offered some of our top picks among language and literature websites for students of Chinese. Here are five more recommendations for anyone who is learning the language or who struggles occasionally (!) with reading Chinese texts. All these resources are free unless otherwise noted.

1. Based on a popular tool for reading Japanese websites, Chinese Perapera-kun is an easy-to-use pop-up translator that can be installed as an add-on to the Firefox web browser. Once the tool is enabled, positioning the mouse cursor over any Chinese character on a website …

A Comparative Study Of High School Academic Paths, Grade Point Averages, And Act Composite Scores As Predictors Of Success At Walters State Community College., Jill C. Reuschel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With an overwhelming number of students attempting to enter college after high school, the competitive nature of college admissions continues to grow. Colleges and universities are attempting to find the appropriate means to adequately predict collegiate success. Common methods of this prediction have come from a variety of sources most of which are the use of high school performance and standardized college admissions testing. Walters State Community College was chosen for this study because of its open door admission policy that allows for variability in high school academic paths as well as grade point averages and ACT scores students earned …

2009 Report Of Gifts (117 Pages), South Caroliniana Library--University Of South Carolina

University South Caroliniana Society - Annual Report of Gifts

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Psychological Dimensions Of Airline Security And Correlates Of Perceived Terrorism Threats: A Study Of Active American Airlines Pilots., Paul Martin Borowsky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attack resulted in a myriad of new policies designed to enhance aviation security. These policies ostensibly considered the origins of the exact threat facing the United States. Missing, however, were the inputs from rank and file pilots of the airlines that policy makers were attempting to protect. This exploratory study distributed a 50-question survey designed to measure pilot perceptions of security risk and threats. Univariate descriptives were used to examine the extent to which sample data approximated the population of interest. Factor and reliability analysis were used to document the multidimensionality of the constructs and …