Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Addressing Hydrocephaly In Viet Nam: A Plausible Prevention And Intervention Medical Support Program Proposal, Chelle Mcintyre-Brewer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Families affected by hydrocephalus in Viet Nam have few options for sustainable treatment for a myriad of reasons, primarily centering on barriers to care prevalent to minority, underserved, and economically disadvantaged populations. High morbidity and abandonment rates often result from these circumstances. An interdisciplinary examination of the factors contributing to causal concerns reveals unique cultural considerations, language and literacy barriers, ethnic and geographic differences, as well as economic and governmental issues greatly impacting patient outcome for this condition. The author contends that a program that addresses sociological concerns, along with the medical treatment of the patient, proffers the opportunity for …

Learning Within The 311 Service Policy Community: Conceptual Framework And Case Study Of Kansas City 311 Program, Xian Gao

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The 311 non-emergency service system differs from traditional public service delivery in the unique emphasis on citizen participation and extensive use of data and technology. It is a policy community involves a diversity of actors, embraces the reactions among them, and cultivates necessary information, knowledge, and interests. Learning within the 311 service policy community is a process that the above resources of actors are devoted to the 311 system, in forms of service and information requests and relevant collaboration toward increased service efficiency and effectiveness. Previous scholarship on policy community and policy learning paid little attention to public service delivery …

Why Are European Countries Reluctant To Accept Syrian Refugees?, Halide Gorgun Kilinc

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The conflict in Syria has forcibly moved about 10 million people from their homes. About 5 million of these displaced people fled to four of Syria’s neighbor countries: Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Resettlement of Syrian refugees has become a significant public policy debate not only in the neighboring countries of Syria but also in Europe and the United States. Despite the fact that European countries are champions of international law and human rights, there is a strong resistance to acceptance of Syrian refugees. This study analyzes and attempts to explain the reasons why European governments are reluctant to receive …

Modeling And Predicting Serious Cwbs Using Improved Analytic Methods, Benjamin Thomas, Kyle Kercher

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Research seeking to study and prevent serious forms of employee misbehaviors has been stymied by low incident rates and non-normal responses. Polychoric (cf., Pearson) correlation -based analytic methods offer solutions to these kinds of data. This 2-study (N = 172; N = 454) research provides support for these analytic methods in building models that distinguish serious and minor CWBs.

The Ends Or The Means? An Interface To Investigate How Novice Designers Utilize Causal And Effectual Modes Of Thinking, Callen Hedglen

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Creativity is crucial to the success of the new product design process and is a driving factor in innovation and long-term economic viability. Prior work has shown that effectual modes of thinking, that is, leveraging existing resources to develop an innovative solution, can lead to more creative outcomes. A new web interface was developed to empirically test the impact of effectual thinking on the creativity of early phase design idea generation. A pilot study was conducted using this interface to investigate novice designers’ click-level behaviors with effectual and causal information.

Up In Flames: Criminal Expertise And Far-Left Extremism, Michael K. Logan

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This paper examines the decision-making processes of far-left extremists involved in arson and incendiary violence. The paper pays specific attention to the manner in which offenders draw upon prior knowledge and ‘expertise’ in planning and/or execution the attack. Drawing upon a sample of 195 self-reported communiques, the results suggest offenders rely on two types of criminal expertise to inform their decision to become involved in a violent act. First, perceptual expertise describes differential thinking patterns related to the crime setting. Second, procedural expertise involves the knowledge and skills aimed at enacting the offense itself. Overall, findings from this study suggest …

Gender Identity And Self-Esteem Within The Contexts Of The Same-Sex Peer Group, Nation, And Group Individualism And Collectivism, Mithra H. Pirooz

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Adolescence is a period of development during which needs and relationships shift (Sebastian, Burnett, & Blakemore, 2008). Issues of gender also become more salient, and gender identity has been related to different areas of psychosocial adjustment, such as self-esteem (Egan & Perry, 2001). The current study examined predictors of self-esteem among early adolescents in the context of a multilevel model. We considered felt pressure to conform to gender norms, gender typicality, and gender satisfaction as individual-level predictors within the contexts of the same-sex peer group, nation, and group levels of individualism and collectivism. Multilevel modeling was employed to account for …

Association Of Music With Young Children's Language Use And Play Skills, Diana Arp

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Music and language share similar features and learning language may be closely tied to musical attributes in that both music and language facilitate social closeness and rely on prosodic features (e.g., stress, intonation, pitch) for expression. The study aims to add to the empirical body of knowledge regarding the potential use of music in a therapeutic setting for speech-language pathologists assessing and treating children with language deficits through play-based interventions. Specifically, the study's purpose was to address the association of music type with observed language and play skills of young children at a critical development phase for both of these …

Phonemic Switching In Single And Dual Task Environments, Angeline L. Roth

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Deficits in the frontal lobes are the first and earliest signs of cognitive aging. Older adults activate the frontal regions in the brain that are not active in younger adults for performance on the same tasks. Verbal fluency is just one way to test cognitive functioning, with both phonemic (letters) and semantic (categories) fluencies used for testing. More specifically in dual task research, different age, education, and various cognitive abilities such as working memory, selective attention, episodic memory, executive control, and speed and information processing, while also engaging in the motor task of walking have provided various results based on …

Meeting Lateness And The Effects On Employees In The Workplace, Kathleen Stibbs

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A workplace meeting is an event or discussion that two or more individuals partake in with the goal of accomplishing work-related tasks. Half the time spent in meetings is wasted due to negative behaviors such as lateness. It is hypothesized that people who give an inadequate excuse for meeting lateness receive poorer outcomes/ratings than those who give no excuse, with an adequate excuse receiving the best ratings. An excuse can be considered inadequate in two ways: if another action was available and if it is considered unethical. A survey was administered to determine what feelings arise towards late individuals. Results …

Self-Care Among Social Work Educators, Shelby Connett

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Self-Care Among Social Work Educators combines the results of several academic projects completed to understand the intersections of self -care practice and teaching methods among social work educators and presents them as complete work, highlighting themes present throughout the projects and providing recommendations for further efforts.

Is Poverty Colorblind? Implications Of Imagery Used By International Nongovernmental Organizations In The United States, Abhishek Bhati

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) use images of the beneficiaries in their fundraising campaigns when soliciting donations. Often these images are negative and stereotype poor as victims and helpless. However, there is little empirical research to understand if such representation leads to stereotyping of the poor and subsequently contributes to racial biases. This paper aims at establishing this empirical link by answering the research question: Does the representation of beneficiaries by INGOs lead to stereotyping and racial biases. The study draws on data analysis of images from the 32 largest INGOs in the United States and experimental survey design to investigate …

Positive And Negative Affect As Potential Mediators Of The Associations Between Positive Social Support And Interactions On Satisfaction During Retirement, Kali Odd

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Social networks play a role in how retirees adjust to retirement and their overall well-being in retirement. However, the role that positive and negative social interactions and satisfaction with social support play in retirement satisfaction have yet to be fully explored. As such, the current study examined the mediating role of positive and negative affect on the associations between satisfaction with support and positive and negative social interactions as predictors of retirement satisfaction among retired older adults. Data were collected from 433 older adults (M_age = 59.20, SD = 5.21; 51.5% female) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The current …

Transforming Communities Through Policy: Bridging The Gap Between What We Know And What We Do, Danielle Galvin

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Abstract

Research findings are incorporated too slowly and inconsistently into social service practices. This gap between services and the research that informs them results in poorer outcomes for clients, and higher costs to taxpayers in the form of less effective treatments. Even evidence-based programs, if not delivered with fidelity to the research upon which they are based, can result in poor outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate solutions that support more rapid and effective implementation of research within agencies’ complex government, community, and organizational environments. The field of implementation science has emerged to study factors that influence …

Creativity In Two Types Of Violent Groups, Laramie Sproles

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Terrorism can be defined as a type of ideologically motivated violence that arises during asymmetrical conflict and has far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate target. This project seeks to isolate and examine one element of terrorism: ideologically-motivated violence. While malevolent innovation has been written about extensively over the past five years, little is known about correlates of creativity in actual violent individuals. At the broadest level, the current project focuses on personality profiles and creative problem solving of two different types of violent individuals. The goal of this study is to examine individual differences that characterize two types of violent …

Team Leadership Emergence And Team Outcomes, Ryan Royston

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Using sequential analysis, we observed how team problem solving and procedural communication differed by leadership (shared leadership, single leader, or leaderless). While all teams engaged in solution identification and elaboration, shared leader teams showed higher performance, and tended to draw more connections with solutions and engage in planning follow-up tasks.

Follow My Voice: The Future Of Phr Authentication, Jeanette M. Rose, Ryan Schuetzler, John R. Windle, Ann L. Fruhling

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The current electronic personal health record (PHR) has low patient adoption [1]. Increasing use and adoption of the PHR will improve patient-centered care. Users often have difficulty remembering passwords or share them, giving multiple people access to one account.

Utilizing biometrics for authentication is becoming more common in our daily lives – think of the fingerprint sensor on a smartphone or retina scanners at high security corporations. The quickly evolving technology that runs our lives calls for incorporating biometric authentication into more systems. Using biometric authentication can ensure that passwords would not need to be remembered and that only the …

Effect Of Mindful Meditation And Gratitude Journaling On College Student Stress And Well-Being Overtime, Stephanie N. Hines, Lisa L. Scherer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

College students are stressed out! Majority of students tend to use maladaptive mechanisms to cope with stress, which can potentially impact their academics and career planning. This study focused on the potential benefits of two mainstream Mindfulness Training interventions in reducing stress for college students. Specifically, Mindful Meditation and Mindful Gratitude Journaling were implemented into two separate conditions, in which data was collected from 30 Organizational Psychology students online who were randomly assigned to each condition. Students were required to answer a series of questionnaires at times one (pre-test) and times two (post-test) that measured demographics, levels of stress, and …

The Moderating Effects Of Structure In Evaluation Criteria On The Relationship Between Tolerance For Ambiguity And Idea Evaluation Accuracy, Vignesh Murugavel

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This study examined how participant’s tolerance for ambiguity affected the accuracy of their evaluations of ideas. Structure in evaluation criteria was used as a moderating variable. Participants assessed 15 solutions to an ambiguous problem and evaluated the originality of the solutions under three experimental conditions. Participants were either given no structure, limited structure, or more structure for evaluating solutions. Participants were also given a measure of tolerance for ambiguity. Tolerance for ambiguity had no bearing solution evaluation accuracy for the quality of a solution in any condition. Tolerance for ambiguity was negatively related to originality evaluation accuracy in the no …

Contextual Fear Learning And Memory In Alternative Stress Coping Styles, Matthew R. Baker, Ryan Y. Wong

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Animals frequently must overcome stressors, and the ability to encode and recall these salient experiences is essential to an individual’s survival. Across many taxa, studies have documented two alternative stress coping styles (proactive and reactive) that differ in behavior, cognition, stress physiology, and underlying neuromolecular mechanisms. The role of stress in cognitive traits (e.g. learning and memory) has been well documented, however, the influence of an animal’s stress coping style on learning and memory capabilities is only beginning to be understood. Here, we developed a contextual fear learning paradigm to characterize learning and memory differences between proactive and reactive stress …

Vocational And Life Skills Quarterly Report: Quarter 7 (January-March 2018), Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

The Vocational and Life Skills Program was created by Nebraska Legislative Bill 907 in 2014 with the goals of reducing recidivism and increasing employment for individuals who are incarcerated, who have been incarcerated within the prior 18 months or who are under parole or probation supervision. Participants must begin programming under these conditions, but they may continue programming as the program sees fit for his or her individual needs. Eight programs were funded in Grant Cycle 2, which runs from July 2016-June 2018. The Nebraska Center for Justice Research (NCJR) evaluation was initiated in May 2016 with the primary goal …

Vocational And Life Skills Monthly Data Update: March 2018, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

Grantees use an online data management system to submit data on participants served under their Vocational and Life Skills programming. This data is due monthly and reflects all services provided during the previous month to participants. Evaluators at the Nebraska Center for Justice Research work with grantees directly to correct any data errors on an ongoing basis during monthly update calls and regular site visits.

Data presented below is from the most recent monthly data extract. Because this data comes for an active database with live data being entered and updated daily, data, including previously submitted information, may fluctuate depending …

Bibliotech, March 2018, Dr. C.C. And Mable L. Criss Library, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

BiblioTech

UNO Libraries' Digital Newsletter, BiblioTech, March 2018, Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Vocational And Life Skills Program Area Descriptions And Program Success Overview, Uno Nebraska Center For Justice Research, Johanna Peterson

Reports

The following program area descriptions provide information on different services offered in each program. Each area details the services provided, the benefit or result a participant can hope to get from completing the area, the duration of programming, and the locations the program area is offered. Not all program areas or services are offered at all times and participants may not participate in all program areas during their programming. As each participant goes through programming differently based on their individual needs, these descriptions provide more insight into the program area participations reported. Program areas are updated quarterly to reflect what …

Adt Final Report: Alternatives To Detention, Douglas County, Center For Applied Psychological Services, University Of Nebraska At Omaha, Madison Schoenbeck, Joseph Mroz, Joseph Allen, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Ryan E. Spohn

Reports

About the Report The authors of this report are Madison Schoenbeck, Joseph Mroz, Dr. Joseph Allen, Dr. Roni Reiter-Palmon, and Dr. Ryan Spohn. This report includes a variety of new data sources, including interviews with service providers, a focus group with Douglas County intake officers, and a stakeholder survey distributed across Douglas County. Data for this report was collected between May 9, 2016 and November 15, 2017 unless otherwise specified. Funding for this evaluation was generously provided by Douglas County, NE and The Sherwood Foundation, in contract with UNO’s Nebraska Center for Justice Research.

Self-Continuity Moderates The Association Between Peer Victimization And Depressed Affect, Jonathan Santo, Alexa Martin-Storey, Holly E. Recchia, William M. Bukowski

Psychology Faculty Publications

Two longitudinal studies conducted with early adolescents (ages 10–13) examined the hypothesis that self-continuity, or the degree to which individuals feel that they remain the same person over time regardless of how their specific characteristics may change, would moderate the association between victimization and depressed affect. Both Study 1 (N = 141) and Study 2 (N = 100) provided evidence of the moderating role of self-continuity as a buffer on the effect of peer victimization. Study 2 confirmed that self-continuity had a moderating effect after controlling for academic performance, number of friends, self-esteem, self-concept clarity, hopelessness, and self-blame. …

Highlights From January 31, 2018 National Center For Health Statistics Report Titled “Births: Final Data For 2016” With Comparison To Prior Data On Births, David Drozd

Past Publications

This annual report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows a variety of statistics related to births and the characteristics of mothers. While trends in births by age of mother tend to get more attention, trends in the number and rate of births by race and ethnicity are also important. This summary describes such trends over time. Birth-related data by race and ethnicity using current standard definitions go back to 1989. However, rates influenced by population totals are more consistent from 1990 onward, given the availability of 1990 and subsequent decennial census results. Thus, we can readily compare figures …

Highlights From January 31, 2018 National Center For Health Statistics Report Titled “Births: Final Data For 2016” With Comparison To Prior Data On Births, David J. Drozd

Past Publications

This annual report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows a variety of statistics related to births and the characteristics of mothers. While trends in births by age of mother tend to get more attention, trends in the number and rate of births by race and ethnicity are also important. This summary describes such trends over time. Birth-related data by race and ethnicity using current standard definitions go back to 1989. However, rates influenced by population totals are more consistent from 1990 onward, given the availability of 1990 and subsequent decennial census results. Thus, we can readily compare figures …

“Let’S Try It!”: Library Outreach In A Culture Of Yes, Tammi Owens, Katie Bishop

Criss Library Faculty Publications

In the Research and Instruction Services department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha Libraries, a culture of yes drives our outreach efforts. This inclination to support non-traditional library services and events has allowed us to forge valued partnerships with student support services and learning communities, expanding the reach of the library into the university as a whole. In this column, we offer insight into how we have sustained a culture of yes as it relates to our student-focused outreach program. At the administrative level, defining the role of outreach for our organization and tying our outreach plan to the …

Exploring Officer Views Of Community Policing In Counterterrorism, Erin M. Kearns

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Recently there has been increased emphasis on actionable intelligence in counterterrorism. Building from the process-based model of regulation, police chiefs and scholars generally agree that community policing has promise in this regard. Yet, it is not clear the extent to which police officers concur. Since officers are in a position to implement community policing practices, it is important to understand variants in officer-level support. Using data collected from 741 officers in three departments, this project explores officer-level views of community policing’s utility to address terrorism and more common crimes. Overall, officers view community policing as appropriate to address both common …