Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sound Bathing As A Healing Modality, Dhyani Bella Niedelman

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Sound therapy is thousands of years old. But today the ancient practice of singing bowls is hitting the mainstream. What is a sound bath?

Prevalence Of Non-Communicable Disease Among Adults In Tonga, Autumn Vaitohi

Ballard Brief

Non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, are a primary health issue among people in the South Pacific country of Tonga. This issue is driven by various factors, the most notable being poor consumption behaviors, sedentary living, and genetics specific to this demographic. As a result of NCDs in Tonga, the population is experiencing high morbidity and mortality rates and a decreased stability of the healthcare system, government, and economy. Therefore, implementing interventions that are multifaceted and able to address all aspects, social, legislative, physiological, environmental, and so on, of the issue is key to finding success in overcoming this health issue.

Child Labor In Ghana, Cara Pugmire

Ballard Brief

Child labor has been a pressing issue for many years, with about 160 million children involved in child labor worldwide. Ghana has one of the highest rates of child labor per country in the world, with about 21% of the childhood population in the country participating in some form of child labor. Children in Ghana become a part of child labor due to a variety of reasons, including outside cultural influences, lack of access to quality education, and a lack of regulation regarding current child labor laws. There are several negative consequences that affect children's lives when they are involved …

Effects Of Plastic And Waste Pollution On Ocean Communities In The Asian Pacific Region, Whitney Kingsolver

Ballard Brief

Plastic and waste pollution is a global problem, but it affects ocean communities in the Asia Pacific Region (APR) the most due to their lack of resources to process the pollution. Additionally, low-income areas in these countries need access to sustainable non-plastic packaging options, which increases the amount of plastic generated. Direct pollution leads to poor ocean health and the disruption of important industries like tourism or fishing. Plastic pollutants eventually break down, which creates microplastics and releases toxic chemicals. These pollutants damage ecosystems and severely harm marine life. The overwhelming amount of waste pollution in the APR also damages …

Financial Inaccessibility Of Mental Healthcare In The United States, Sophie Lasswell

Ballard Brief

Despite progressive improvements in healthcare in the United States, healthcare for individuals who experience mental health issues remains financially inaccessible. For this brief, financial inaccessibility refers to an individual's inability to afford mental healthcare services, such as therapy, prescriptions, and inpatient and outpatient services. Inadequate execution of legislation, such as the Mental Health Parity and the nature of insurance coverage, contribute to inaccessible mental healthcare in the US. Additionally, the United States maintains healthcare and health insurance costs that are more expensive than comparable developed countries, which contributes to the inaccessibility of mental healthcare in the United States. As a …

Income Instability Among Artisans In South Asia, Grace Wilson

Ballard Brief

Artisans in South Asia preserve valuable cultural traditions through their handicrafts. However, artisans in the region often experience income instability or repeated fluctuations in monthly income, more than any other occupation. The fluctuating nature of the tourist market (a major revenue source), lack of access to e-commerce for further opportunities, and lack of regulation to protect artisan business and wages all cause income instability for artisans. As a result of income instability, many artisans in South Asia live in poverty. The consequences of income instability for artisans include the perpetuation of poverty, a shrinking artisan economy, and a shrinking global …

Can Developmental Trauma Disorder Be Distinguished From Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? A Confirmatory Factor Analytic Test Of Four Structural Models, Julian D. Ford, Mark Shevlin, Thanos Karatzias, Ruby Charak, Joseph Spinazzola

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) is a proposed child psychopathology diagnosis with emotion/somatic, attention/behavioral, and self/relational dysregulation symptoms extending beyond posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) tested four structural models with structured interview data for trauma history, PTSD, and DTD with 507 children receiving mental health or pediatric care ( N = 162, 32% diagnosed with DTD; N = 176; 35% with PTSD; N = 169, 33% with neither). A unidimensional model with a single latent variable had unacceptable fit (RMSEA = 0.094; CFI = 0.844). Compared to a model with PTSD and DTD as correlated first-order latent variables, …

Work And Demand Making: Productionist And Consumptionist Politics In Latin America, Brian Palmer-Rubin, Ruth Berins Collier

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

How does the world of work in Latin America affect the way workers act to defend their interests? To what extent have “productionist” demands, those concerning jobs, work conditions, and wages, which are highly salient across the region, been “displaced” by consumptionist or political demands? While the literature has distinguished formal and informal work grosso modo, we explore individual traits of work, which cross-cut the formal-informal distinction. Analyzing survey data from four Latin American capital cities, we find, not surprisingly, that both work-based atomization and insecurity depress demand making in the work arena. But these traits of work also …

Order Statistics From Independent Non-Identical Exponentiated And Proportional Hazard Rate Random Variables, José-Antonio Espín-Sánchez, Tianhao Wu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We study order statistics (OS) from independent non identically distributed (INID) samples for two large classes of statistical distributions: Exponentiated Distributions (ED) and Proportional Hazard Rate Models (PHRM). We show that for the analytical solution for the CDF (PDF) of OSs in ED and PHRM: i) each OS's CDF (PDF) depends on all shape parameters; ii) the CDF (PDF) of each OS is a weighted average of CDF (PDF) within the same family and with shape parameters equal to a partial sum of the original shape parameters; and iii) the weights are integers and sum up to 1. These properties …

Does Procedural Justice Reduce The Harmful Effects Of Perceived Ineffectiveness On Police Legitimacy?, Yongjae Nam, Scott E. Wolfe, Justin Nix

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Objectives: Judgments about police procedural fairness consistently have a stronger influence on how the public ascribes legitimacy to the police than evaluations of police effectiveness. What remains largely underexplored, however, is the potential moderating effect of procedural justice on the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy and whether this moderation varies by citizen race. Method: We administered two separate surveys to determine whether procedural justice's moderating effect on the relationship between police ineffectiveness and legitimacy varies by citizen race. The first was a mail survey of a random sample of citizens in a southern US city (N=1,681) conducted in 2013; the …

Bibliotech, September 2022, Dr. C.C. And Mable L. Criss Library, University Of Nebraska At Omaha Uno Libraries

BiblioTech

Criss Libraries' Digital Newsletter, BiblioTech, September 2024 Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Equity And Exclusion Issues In Cashless Fare Payment Systems For Public Transportation, Aaron Golub, Anne Brown, Candace Brakewood, John Macarthur, Sangwan Lee, Abubakr Ziedan

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many transit agencies in the United States plan to automate their fare collection and limit–or even eliminate–the use of cash fares, with the goals of expediting boarding, collecting data, and lowering costs. Yet about 10% of US adults lack a bank account or credit card, and many rely on restrictive cellphone data plans or do not have access to the internet or a smartphone. These riders will find it difficult to access transit in the future. This paper examines transit users’ experiences with fare technologies using a survey of riders in three cities. Our analysis reveals which riders are most …

Shaheen Bagh: Muslim Women Contesting And Theorizing Citizenship And Belonging During Covid-19, Priya Kapoor

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper documents an important slice of global South COVID-19 history, of primarily Muslim women's protests against the Indian Government and Legislature for taking away their constitutional rights as citizens. The Shaheen Bagh mobilization has already become an important disruption in contemporary Indian history stirring public intellectuals to probe the question: “who is a citizen of India?” in their scholarship and public-community work. By virtue of the disruption the event has caused in the enactment of the citizenship law, including other biometric directives, CAA-NRC-NPR, it has ceased to be regarded a minority or marginalized occurrence. This paper examines the writings …

Belonging Amidst Bias: Embracing Difference On The Path To Common Humanity, Alyssia Sheikh

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The mindfulness community prioritizes self-awareness and common humanity, but is often entrapped by the idea that oneness is equivalent to sameness. This inclination for objectivity is rooted in the same neural propensities that facilitate bias; the brain is a subjective organ, however, and so neurologically speaking, bias is inevitable. This paper asks: Is striving for sameness separating us from interconnectedness? A human experience is a subjective, diverse, and variable one. The path to shared humanity and social justice co-occurs with increasing cultural humility through mindful awareness and acknowledging our subjective nature. Exploring our neurological tendency to make assumptions, we …

The Bodhichitta Way: Igniting Mindful Leadership From Within - An 8-Week Online Program, Paula Ledbetter

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This paper investigates ways in which the practice of mindfulness can positively influence workplace leadership. Mindfulness-based approaches, when woven together with compassion, self-awareness, and meditation, cultivate qualities of effective mindful leadership that are essential in today’s workforce. Within this creative thesis, I developed an eight-week online training program for leaders to build foundational mindfulness practices necessary for optimizing meaningful connections in their daily work-life. The online training is based in experiential learning, self-reflection, and meditation practice. Research shows that there is significant benefit to incorporating mindfulness in the workplace. The purpose of this paper and online training is to provide …

Taming The Wandering Mind: Where Buddhism & Polyvagal Theory Meet, Tamara Embrey

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The ability to tame the wandering mind is at the heart of the insights emerging from the places where Buddhism and the Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2001, 2011) meet. A polyvagal understanding of how our nervous system functions opens the door to developing skills that can strengthen our ability to regulate ourselves and others during times of challenge. The Buddha’s meditation instructions, laid out in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse offers a type of attentional training that allows us to become aware of our current neural state so that we can make intentional choices to tame our wandering …

A Systematic Comparison Of In-Person And Video-Based Online Interviewing, Bojana Lobe, David L. Morgan, Kim Hoffman

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Due to the increasing popularity of online qualitative interviewing methods, we provide a systematically organized evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages in comparison to traditional in-person interviews. In particular, we describe how individual interviews, dyadic interviews, and focus groups operate in both face-to-face and videoconferencing modes. This produces five different areas for comparison: logistics and budget, ethics, recruitment, research design, and interviewing and moderating. We conclude each section with set of recommendations, and conclude with directions for future research in online interviewing.

Do Parents Matter For Student Loan Repayment After Graduation?, Byeongdon Oh

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Previous studies suggest that a college degree is the great equalizer leveling the playing field. However, the rapidly growing educational debt of college graduates might restrict their life chances throughout adulthood, particularly for those raised in socioeconomically disadvantaged families. This study uses data from the National Survey of College Graduates to examine whether parents’ socioeconomic status is related to their children’s student loan repayment after graduation. Holding the amount borrowed for completing higher education constant, college graduates with less educated parents hold a larger amount of educational debt in adulthood compared with their counterparts with more educated parents. The association …

Environmental Governance By Contract: The Growing Role Of Supply Chain Contracting, Michael P. Vandenburgh, Patricia A. Moore

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Corporate net zero climate commitments and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies have the potential to bypass barriers to international, national, and subnational government action on climate change and other environmental issues. This Article presents the results of a new empirical study that demonstrates the remarkably widespread use of environmental supply chain contracting requirements. The study finds that roughly 80% of the ten largest firms in seven global sectors include environmental requirements in supply chain contracting, a substantial increase over the 50% reported by a comparable study fifteen years ago. The Article concludes that the prevalence of environmental supply chain …

The Cooperation Databank: Machine-Readable Science Accelerates Research Synthesis, Giuliana Spadaro, Ilaria Tiddi, Simon Columbus, Shuxian Jin, Adam W. Stivers

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Publishing studies using standardized, machine-readable formats will enable machines to perform meta-analyses on demand. To build a semantically enhanced technology that embodies these functions, we developed the Cooperation Databank (CoDa)—a databank that contains 2,636 studies on human cooperation (1958–2017) conducted in 78 societies involving 356,283 participants. Experts annotated these studies along 312 variables, including the quantitative results (13,959 effects). We designed an ontology that defines and relates concepts in cooperation research and that can represent the relationships between results of correlational and experimental studies. We have created a research platform that, given the data set, enables users to retrieve studies …

Reference Staffing And Scheduling Models In Archives And Special Collections: A Survey Analysis Of Prepandemic Practices, Amanda K. Hawk

Faculty Publications

Reference services form the core function of any type of library. Even when faced with shrinking budgets and staff sizes, library and archives workers continue to provide reference services to meet the demands of researchers. Yet a critical analysis of the internal systems used for archival and special collections reference work is lacking compared to the robust body of research about users of collection materials. This article presents findings from a national survey about reference staffing and scheduling models in archival and special collections repositories conducted immediately prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey data revealed specific …

Disrupting Inequitable Practices In Special Education: Privileging Student And Family Voices, Armineh E. Hallaran

Theses and Dissertations

Black, Latinx, and other minoritized students have long been overrepresented in the high-incidence, subjective, disability classifications including Learning Disability, Speech and Language Impairment, Emotional Disturbance, and Intellectual Impairment. Special education places these students on trajectories that deny them access to quality education and the same postschool outcomes and opportunities as their nondisabled peers. Using Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), and grounded theory analysis this study foregrounds the voices of minoritized middle school students receiving special education under high-incidence classifications. DisCrit allowed for an investigation of how student’s intersecting marginalized identities impacted their experiences as special education students. Further, Education Journey …

Pumpkin Spice And Everything Nice? An Assessment Of Social Media Mentions Of Pumpkin Spice, Jin-A Choi, Bond Benton, Yi Luo, Harlan Cruz, Paulette Gando-Duenas, Jennnifer Russo, Therese Sheridan, Rayanne Yamout

College of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Pumpkin spice may only be a mix of a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves, but it has become an enduring staple of the transition to autumn for both consumers and brands. Cumulatively, pumpkin spice has a unique cultural space enhanced by the emergence of specific demographics, supported by sensory aspects of the trend, driven by nostalgia, and fostered by the illusion of scarcity from its time-bound availability. With that in mind, evaluating pumpkin spice’s space in terms of activities in social media is an important area of investigation for researchers and consumer brands. To that end, this …

Case Study 4: “We Really Need This”: Trauma-Informed Yoga For Veteran Women With A History Of Military Sexual Trauma

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

“Up to 70% of women service members in the United States report military sexual trauma (MST); many develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and co-occurring disorders. Trauma-informed yoga (TIY) is suggested to improve psychiatric symptoms and shown feasible and acceptable in emerging research, yet no work has evaluated TIY in MST survivors. The current quality improvement project aimed to examine TIY’s feasibility, acceptability, and perceived effects in the context of MST.”

Case Study 8: The Effects Of Aroma Essential Oil Inhalation On Stress, Pain, And Sleep Quality In Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy Patients

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Abstract Summary Purpose

“Patients undergoing cholecystectomy report experiencing stress related to the surgery, complaining of pain and poor sleep quality. Aromatherapy is known to have positive effects on these complaints. However, the effect of aromatherapy on cholecystectomy patients has yet to be determined. The aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the effects of aromatherapy on laparoscopic cholecystectomy patients’ stress, pain, and sleep quality.”

Massage Therapy And Trauma, Julie Karlinsey

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Trauma is the experience of, or perception of, something disturbing or dangerous. Examples may include witnessing a disturbing scene; physical, emotional or sexual abuse, vehicle accidents, wartime events, injuries, and many other situations.

Review: We Need Trauma-Informed Workplaces

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

We are seeing a growing number of articles about the need for organizations to support employees through trauma-informed approaches. “Organizations have had to confront issues they never expected and find new ways to support their employees through repeated traumatic experiences.”

Grading Injustice: Initial Appearance Report Cards, Malia N. Brink, Jiacheng Yu, Pamela R. Metzger

Deason Center Reports

Arrested people across the United States often wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. In November 2021, the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center published Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis, a comprehensive report about this ongoing crisis in pre-trial due process. That report described the devastating consequences of delayed and uncounseled initial appearances.

Now, these Initial Appearance Report Cards offer a closer look at the laws governing post-arrest procedures in each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. While the Deason …

Hope And Pessimism In ‘Classical’ 20th Century Civilizational Theory, David J. Rosner

Comparative Civilizations Review

This paper will involve an analysis of the relation between optimism, pessimism, and realism in 20th century classical civilizational theory, through the perspective offered specifically in Ernst Bloch’s magnum opus The Principle of Hope. Bloch, a German Jew and unorthodox Marxist, wrote The Principle of Hope during 1938–1947 in exile fleeing the Nazi holocaust. Today, humanity in its entirety now faces another set of crises — pandemic, overpopulation, climate change, political impasse, economic inequality, social unrest, growing lawlessness and nuclear threat. One can easily be tempted to give up on the future of our increasingly fragile and endangered world. …

Nationalism In The Context Of Globalization, Mariana Tepfenhart, M.A.

Comparative Civilizations Review

To understand the connection and consequences between nationalism and globalism, I will start with a basic definition of nationalism. According to Websters Dictionary, nations that are focused on national, not international goals, are nationalistic. A nation comprises the same language, customs, and traditions.

Some scholars have argued that nationalism has historical roots. People have been bonded by ethnicity and politics from ancient times. Others consider nationalism as a modern phenomenon due to industrialization, democratization, and modern technology. Jonathan Hearn1 from the University of Edinburgh has argued that some states are more homogeneous than others and they have strong senses of …