Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The University Of Hawaii At Hilo: National Student Exchange Four-Part Workshop For The Outgoing Students At The University Of Hawaii At Hilo, Kadian Shaw

Capstone Collection

The University of Hawaii at Hilo (UH Hilo) is part of the National Student Exchange Consortium, a unique, not for profit organization of nearly 170 accredited, baccalaureate-granting Colleges and Universities that provide exchange opportunities to undergraduate students. These exchange opportunities are across the US mainland, the US territories and Canada. The purpose of the National Student Exchange Office at the University of Hawaii at Hilo is to provide UH Hilo students with exchange opportunities at a reasonable and affordable cost. This capstone explores the idea that it is important to prepare students for a domestic exchange program. This capstone will …

Workplace Spirituality And Employee Work Intentions : Examining The Relationship And The Mediating Role Of Ethical Leadership., Paula F. Soder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined the extent to which workplace spirituality was associated with work intentions, and whether ethical leadership served as a mediator of the relationship between workplace spirituality and work intentions. The study begins with an overview of the significant workplace spirituality literature, and a brief overview of work intentions and ethical leadership. A convenience sample of 405 U.S. based adults, employed full-time were surveyed. Using correlation and path analysis, results from the study showed a positive strong association between workplace spirituality and employee work intentions, and mediation via ethical leadership. The findings of the study provided support for both …

Secular But Not Superficial : An Overlooked Nonreligious/Nonspiritual Identity., Daniel G. Delaney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since Durkheim’s characterization of the sacred and profane as “antagonistic rivals,” the strict dichotomy has been framed in such a way that “being religious” evokes images of a life filled with profound meaning and value, while “being secular” evokes images of a meaningless, self-centered, superficial life, often characterized by materialistic consumerism and the cold, heartless environment of corporate greed. Consequently, to identify as “neither religious nor spiritual” runs the risk of being stigmatized as superficial, untrustworthy, and immoral. Conflicts and confusions encountered in the process of negotiating a nonreligious/nonspiritual identity, caused by the ambiguous nature of religious language, were explored …

Detecting Evidence Of Systemic Inflammation From Osteological Markers In The Indian Knoll Population Of Ohio County, Kentucky., Krysta Wilham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Indian Knoll is an Archaic shell midden site located in the Green River region of west-central Kentucky, and was excavated twice in the first half of the 20^th century. While Indian Knoll has been the subject of frequent bioarchaeological studies, the present study presents an osteological analysis of the relationships between skeletal markers commonly associated with local inflammatory processes, and that have the potential to be used as proxies for systemic inflammation. The analysis revealed a significant positive association in the presence of periodontal disease (PD) and periosteal lesions (PL), suggesting a potential underlying hyper-inflammatory status or phenotype. These …

Assessing Moral Injury And Existential Well-Being In Returning Servicemembers Using The Spiritual Attitudes Inventory - Revised (2010)., Leann E. Armes-Bruce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Military personnel returning from deployment often report a variety of distressing symptoms stemming from exposure to prolonged, extreme deployment stress, and traumatic experiences. In addition to reporting symptoms consistent with the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they are also known to report struggling with existential angst often leading to great despair and a sense of profound changes in the core of their being. While this phenomenon, referred to herein as Moral Injury, has traditionally received little attention, it is beginning to emerge as a potentially viable construct in practice and research and may assist in explaining the effects of war …

Challenging Conventional Wisdom : Section 8 Housing And The Real Impact On Neighborhood Values In Louisville, Kentucky., Paul Francis Dries

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Section 8 Housing was designed to de-concentrate poverty and spread affordable housing across communities. There are many studies that have evaluated the successes associated with the policy of dispersing the urban poor to the surrounding suburban areas in various cities. The positive impacts of dispersing the urban poor, in terms of education, self-esteem, and jobs, is well documented. There are fewer studies related to the potential externalities associated with these programs. This study uses advanced multiple regression techniques to study 170 Louisville neighborhoods to look at whether large concentrations of Section 8 housing have a negative impact on neighborhood housing …

Enhancing Capacity And Managing Demand To Increase Short-Term Throughput On The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Kevin Reid Carstens

Master's Theses

While there are many proposals for fixing congestion between San Francisco and Oakland in California by adding a new bridge or tube, these solutions will take decades to implement even though a solution is needed now. This thesis assesses sixteen different strategies for reducing congestion in the short-term in the four categories of improving transit, promoting carpooling, implementing intelligent transportation systems practices, and incentivizing alternatives to using the Bay Bridge. Top priorities include HOV improvements on the West Grand Avenue and Powell Street onramps, altering WestCAT Lynx and BART transit services, partnering with rideshare apps to increase transit station accessibility …

The Relationship Between Lead In Groundwater And Elementary School Students' Academic Performance In Missouri, Lynnette Xiangling Li

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Lead exposure can come from various sources, e.g., lead mines, industrial areas, and lead based paint. Missouri has more than 4,128 lead mines. Lead is a neurotoxin. The objectives of the study were to investigate i) the spatial relationship between lead mines and lead distribution in groundwater, ii) the statistical impact of lead in groundwater on students' Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores, and iii) the geographic variations of lead's impact on students' MAP scores. Geographic Information Science spatial analysis tools were used to analyze the concentration of lead in groundwater within school districts in Missouri. Regression analysis was utilized to …

Frozen Conflicts, De Facto States, And Enduring Interests In The Russian Near Abroad, Brittany A. Pohl

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in the establishment of fifteen sovereign nations and a number of separatist states concentrated in the greater Black Sea region. The latter, so-called de facto states, are the result of frozen conflicts that emerged as Moscow's grip over its territory weakened in the waning years of the USSR and dormant ethno-religious tensions erupted into internecine conflict. Separatists, ultimately with help from Moscow, were able to enshrine victories on the battlefield through ceasefires with metropolitan states that have held for over two decades. However, the issues surrounding these pseudo-states remain unsettled, and attempts at …

Using Behavior Skills Training To Teach Effective Conversation Skills To Individuals With Disabilities, Allison L. Schmidt

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

A behavioral skills training (BST) package consisting of instructions, modeling an appropriate conversation, participant rehearsal, and constructive feedback, was used to teach appropriate conversation skills to three adults with developmental disabilities. A task analysis was used to define the steps of having a conversation. These steps included greetings, initiations, initiating a topic, responding, and maintaining a topic as the target skills. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used; an A-B-C format was embedded within the design for participants 1 and 2. Participant 3 was assessed using an A-B format. In situ was measured across three settings: each participant's …

Selecting For Commitment: Intentional And Habitual Predictors, Carl Witten

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This study examines long term strategic thinking (LTST) as a predictor of organizational commitment and turnover intentions, and attempts to distinguish it from the personality factor conscientiousness. Although LTST is related to conscientiousness, its use as a selection device relies on enhanced prediction above conscientiousness alone. Results of a survey study show that different facets of organizational commitment are to some extent differentially predicted by these two constructs.

Ethicality Of Advisor Motives In Academic Advising: Faculty, Staff, And Student Perspectives, Xiafei Xue

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Advising is an important aspect in academic settings. While the literature has emphasized better academic advising, including the personal qualities of good advisors, there has been little emphasis on ethical issues and ethical concerns related to advisors' roles or positions. The National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) provides a set of core values to guide ethical behavior. The current study examined (in an experimental design) faculty, staff, and student perspectives regarding advisors' more ethical, neutral, or less ethical behaviors. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between faculty and staff. All groups could differentiate between ethical and unethical extremes, but …

Concurrent Biological, Electromagnetic Pulse, And Cyber Attacks - A Challenge To The Interagency Response, Patricia Rohrbeck

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The U.S. including its military depends on an electrical grid and electricity-based critical infrastructure. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and cyber attack can disable not just a significant portion of the electrical grid and critical infrastructure, but also the networkcentric military response to such an attack. There is a large range of actors that might attempt EMP attacks against the U.S.. Health surveillance systems are network-centric, and if mass destruction is the goal of an adversary, launching a biological attack concurrently with EMP and cyber attacks may achieve this goal. Current agency response plans focus on one WMD attack at a …

The Development And Validation Of Personality-Based Implicit Measures For Predicting Character Failure, David Doedli Willis

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Previous research in personality-based Implicit Association Tests (IATs) found little predictive power and obtained limited psychometric properties. This study was designed to improve the psychometric properties of personality-based Implicit Association Tests designed to assess attributes related to integrity and character. The predictive validity of the IATs for behavior related to character failure (e.g. dishonesty and rule violations) was also investigated. The personality-based IATs target attitudes and behavior related to what is referred to as the dark side of personality (i.e. traits related to Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism). To obtain criterion behavior related to these traits a temptation manipulation provided subjects …

“Frames” And Bias: How A Lack Of Context In Middle East News Coverage Can Impact U.S. Foreign Policy, Jennifer Lois Moore

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis is a critical examination into how American mainstream news media outlets often neglect to incorporate religious, cultural and historical context into their coverage of the Middle East. I show through my research and analysis that the news coverage of the Middle East, even at the highest echelons of American journalism, is often lacking in sophistication in terms of cultural and religious context, sometimes to the point of affecting its fairness and accuracy. The danger of this is that it has the power to grossly simplify and reduce to an “us versus them” frame an entire contingent of the …

The Core Of An Unqualified Case For Judicial Review: A Reply To Jeremy Waldron And Contemporary Critics, Alexander Kaufman, Michael B. Runnels

Brooklyn Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parasocial Relationships With Transgender Characters And Attitudes Toward Transgender Individuals, Lizhen Zhao

Dissertations - ALL

The transgender population lives in a condition of serious discrimination, poverty and violence (NCTE, 2014). Few studies, however, have been conducted to understand people’s attitudes toward this population and factors that affect the responses. Applying the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis (Schiappa, Gregg & Hewes, 2005), this thesis investigated the relationship between audiences’ positive and negative parasocial relationships with transgender characters in TV and their attitudes toward transgender people in real life. A survey method was employed to address research questions and test hypothesis. Results show a significant association between parasocial relationship (positive or negative) and attitudes toward trans people in real …

The Competing Risks Of Prepayment And Default On The Single-Family Mortgage Market, Ran An

Dissertations - ALL

This study contains three chapters. Since the subprime crisis, it has become increasingly important to understand the competing risks of prepayment and default on the single-family mortgage market. This research studies the economic factors that affect the competing risks of prepayment and default in locations where the aggregate of the prepayment risk and the default risk are simultaneously high.

Chapter 1 outlines the analysis based on thirty-year, fixed-rate, single-family mortgages in five Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs): Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Detroit and Las Vegas. These MSAs are chosen from a sample Single-family Loan-Level Dataset constructed by Freddie Mac based on high …

Achieving Public Long-Term Care Insurance Through Social Security Wealth: Microsimulation For The Us Case, Alexandre Genest

Dissertations - ALL

The risk of needing long-term care (LTC) at some point in one's life is non-negligible, and the cost of care–whether in formal or informal settings– can be prohibitive for many seniors. In fact LTC is sometimes labeled the last major uninsured expense for seniors in the United States. The majority of LTC costs are currently borne by Medicaid and out-of-pocket spending, while private insurance coverage remains minimal. The take-up of private insurance among American seniors has remained low, in part because of the large (and growing) cost of premiums, as well as the presence of Medicaid. As the payer of …

Reacting To Negative Self-Relevant Information In An Interpersonal Context, Mingxuan Tan

Dissertations - ALL

Using a newly developed perspective provided by cross-cultural research, the concept of face, I conducted three experiments to examine the impact self-construal, feedback source and interpersonal contexts have on one’s reactions to negative self-relevant information. In these experiments, characteristics of contexts including audience’s status, audience’s standard, audience’s performance and publicness of the situation were manipulated to examine participants’ reactions to feedback pertaining to an ostensibly important ability. These experiments revealed that compared to the interdependent self-construal, the independent self-construal was associated with higher levels of self-serving responses. These self-serving responses include attributing failure to external factors and attributing success to …

Indonesian Women’S Health Determinants, Victoria A. Mcgrady

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilized the Indonesian Family Life Survey 5 to investigate the relationships between broad health outcomes and selected biopsychosocial measures. The study population was comprised of 17,480 Indonesian women who ranged in age from 15 years to 103 years with a mean age of 38.27 years. The results of this study showed the biopsychosocial model of health is valid for Indonesian women. Results supported the assumption that the measures of physical health (acute morbidity and medically diagnosed chronic conditions) are significantly correlated with the measures of psychological health (depression, and subjective wellbeing). Results also supported the assumption that biopsychosocial …

A Location Allocation Model For Retention Basin Placement On Vacant Land In Detroit, Mi, Keith Chapman

Masters Theses

The principal objective of this research is to develop a location-allocation model for vacant lots in the City of Detroit, MI, to analyze for the suitability of retention basin placement. The model will place the retention basins in areas that will effectively reduce the amount of stormwater runoff that reaches the surrounding storm drains. Detroit needs stormwater mitigation to relieve the burden that is currently on the outdated combined sewer system (CSS). The Detroit Future City strategic framework suggests the use of blue infrastructure controls to alleviate the sewer system and reduce the number of combined sewer overflows (CSOs). The …

The Social Work Librarian And Information Literacy Instruction: A Report On A National Survey In The United States, Margaret Bausman, Sarah Laleman Ward

Publications and Research

As an interdisciplinary profession encompassing macro, mezzo, and micro fields of praxis, well-informed and ethical social work practice necessitates the continual utilization of information literacy skills across a wide and ever-evolving range of information sources and access points. In response to a dearth of scholarship concerning information literacy instruction in social work education, this article reports on an initial endeavor to quantify and describe the nature of information literacy instruction in social work education on a national level in the United States. In addition to a review and discussion of the National Social Work Librarians Survey's descriptive data, this article …

Christ And Culture Valued: Test Cases On Fairness, John Carson Iii

Senior Honors Theses

This research engages H. Richard Niebuhr’s work, Christ and Culture. Niebuhr’s book is a seminal work on the historical trends of Christian cultural engagement. This research applies several tests to the paradigm demonstrated in Niebuhr’s work. These tests demonstrate that Christ and Culture presents a paradigm that lacks fairness and does not adequately meet the goals of an explanatory paradigm. Niebuhr’s paradigm has shaped the discussion of Christian cultural engagement for over fifty years, and this research was done to demonstrate the need for new conversation-shaping paradigms in the field of Christian cultural engagement.

Educational Journeys Of Successful Hispanic Science Professionals, Gizelle Ann Luevano

All Theses And Dissertations

This qualitative case study examined the science identity and educational experiences, including discrimination, perseverance, and mentorship, of Hispanics in science. The participants were asked to reflect on their 1) educational journeys including obstacles they encountered during their education, 2) support systems while in college, 3) science identities, and 4) their advice for future Hispanic science majors. To capture the stories of successful Hispanic science professionals in detail, transcripts were utilized as data sources. Once member check was conducted, transcripts were analyzed by utilizing qualitative computer software. Grounded science identity model and social capital theory were utilized as the conceptual frameworks. …

A Further Analysis Of Commission Errors During Discrete Trial Training, Tavy Alisa Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

Treatment integrity has been manipulated in various ways to evaluate its impact on intervention effectiveness. Studies have compared different types of integrity failures and levels of treatment integrity in various contexts and behavioral interventions. Evaluations include differential reinforcement of alternative behavior, child compliance, and discrete trial training. However, further research is needed to establish the point at which integrity becomes detrimental to intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to conduct a parametric analysis (i.e., 100%, 75%, 50%, & 25%) of treatment integrity to examine the effects of commission errors during discrete trial training. Three participants, ages 35 - …

Correlates Of The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (Mmpi-2-Rf) Scores For Asian Indian College Students, Saloni Taneja

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate empirical correlates of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) for Asian Indian college students using the NEO Five Factor Inventory-3, College Maladjustment Scales and Measures of Psychosocial Development. The study utilized an Asian Indian college student sample (N=48) from a private university in Florida. Pearson Product Moment correlations were computed to establish correlates of the MMPI-2-RF scale scores. Overall, a large number of significant correlates with large effect sizes were found across the three measures. Some correlates found in the study provided an expansion for the interpretation of the MMPI-2-RF scales for Asian …

The End Of The Democratic Blue Wall?, Robert E. Lang, David F. Damore

Brookings Mountain West Publications

Heading into the 2016 presidential election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had multiple paths to secure the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. In contrast, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s path to the White House necessitated winning a number of large swing states and securing victories in states that had been reliably Democratic. Building from a prior Brookings Mountain West brief (Damore and Lang 2016), we consider how the Trump campaign, despite being vastly outspent, was able to use targeted online messages to activate “white identify politics”—long a staple of Republican politics in the South— in the non-metro areas …

The Use Of Video Outreach To Increase Incoming Students’ View Of The Higher Education Institution As A Whole: A Case Study At California Polytechnic State University, Leah Horner, Michelle Logan

Journalism

No abstract provided.

Multiple Effects Of A Brief Mindfulness Training, Stephanie Aholt

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Mindfulness-based interventions have been related to emotional regulation, reduced stress, and increased psychological flexibility. The current investigation extended previous findings by examining the short-term effects of a brief mindfulness training in undergraduate psychology students. The non-concurrent multiple baseline design evaluated heart rate and cortisol changes in response to a brief mindfulness-based intervention. The results found for some individuals, participation in the mindfulness intervention helped regulate their emotions and heart rate, as evidenced by the decrease in heart rate and cortisol and increase in psychological flexibility by changes in Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-2 and Perceived Stress Scale-14 scores. Findings suggest more …