Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Self-Esteem And Suicide In Adolescents, Sidney Brannam

Intersections Fall 2020

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among the adolescent population worldwide. The period of adolescence is a critical time of change and growth, and is especially important in the development of self-esteem. Self-Esteem is defined as the individual's subjective evaluation of her or his worth as a person. Positive view of the self is generally associated with successful work, relationships, and health. Some factors that may lead to a negative view of the self are stressful life events and changes and relationships. Self-esteem becomes more stable and more difficult to change in adulthood; therefore, it is critical to …

Experiencing Sexism And Young Women's Body Esteem, Debra Oswald, Stephen L. Franzoi, Katherine Frost

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

This two-study investigation examined the relationship between sexist attitudes and experiences with young women’s body esteem. Specifically, we examined whether young women's body esteem was related to their own and their parents' endorsements of benevolent and hostile sexist beliefs and also whether women’s body esteem was related to their actual everyday experiences with benevolent and hostile sexism. In Study 1, fathers' endorsement of benevolently sexist beliefs was positively correlated with daughters' weight-related and physical condition body esteem. No similar evidence was found for mothers or for either parent's endorsements of hostile sexist beliefs. In Study 2, young women’s body esteem …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Scotts Bluff National Monument, 2012 Annual Report, Isabel W. Ashton, Michael Prowatzke, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

the last remnants of native mixed-grass prairie in the region. The Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (NGPN) surveyed 8 long-term monitoring plots in Scotts Bluff National Monument in 2012 as part of an effort to better understand the condition of plant communities in the park. We measured plant diversity and cover, estimated tree and shrub density, looked for the presence of exotic species that are of concern to park management, and evaluated the amount of human and natural disturbance at all plots. This effort was the second year in a multiple-year venture to document the current …

Are Twitter Users Equal In Predicting Elections? A Study Of User Groups In Predicting 2012 U.S. Republican Primaries, Lu Chen, Wenbo Wang, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Existing studies on predicting election results are under the assumption that all the users should be treated equally. However, recent work [14] shows that social media users from different groups (e.g., “silent majority” vs. “vocal minority”) have significant differences in the generated content and tweeting behavior. The effect of these differences on predicting election results has not been exploited yet. In this paper, we study the spectrum of Twitter users who participate in the on-line discussion of 2012 U.S. Republican Presidential Primaries, and examine the predictive power of different user groups (e.g., highly engaged users vs. lowly engaged users, right-leaning …

The Ssn Ontology Of The W3c Semantic Sensor Network Incubator Group, Michael Compton, Payam Barnaghi, Luis Bermudez, Raul Garcia-Castro, Oscar Corcho, Simon Cox, John Graybeal, Manfred Hauswirth, Cory Andrew Henson, Arthur Herzog, Vincent Huang, Krzysztof Janowicz, W. David Kelsey, Danh Le Phuoc, Laurent Lefort, Myriam Leggieri, Holger Neuhaus, Andriy Nikolov, Kevin Page, Alexandre Passant, Amit P. Sheth, Kerry Taylor

Kno.e.sis Publications

The W3C Semantic Sensor Network Incubator group (the SSN-XG) produced an OWL 2 ontology to describe sensors and observations — the SSN ontology, available at http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ssnx/ssn. The SSN ontology can describe sensors in terms of capabilities, measurement processes, observations and deployments. This article describes the SSN ontology. It further gives an example and describes the use of the ontology in recent research projects.

Subsistence In The Shrinking Forest: Native And Euro-American Practice In 19th-Century Connecticut, William A. Farley

Graduate Masters Theses

Southeastern Connecticut in the 19th century represented a setting in which Native Americans living on reservations were residing in close proximity to Euro-American communities. The Mashantucket Pequot, an indigenous group who in the 19th century resided on a state-overseen reservation, and their Euro-American neighbors both utilized local and regional resources in order to achieve their subsistence goals. This thesis seeks to explore the differences and similarities of the subsistence practices employed by these two groups. It further seeks to examine the centrality of forest landscapes to both Mashantucket and Euro-American subsistence, and to interpret the importance of the reservation to …

Identifying Local Entrepreneurship Development System Policy In Rural Areas And How Local Context Shapes Entrepreneurship Policy Formation, Stacey Wright Mccullough

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As rural communities struggle to maintain a sustainable economic base in today's global economy, many are exploring strategies to encourage entrepreneurial development. The purpose of this study was to better understand how local public policy is being be used to support the creation of entrepreneurship development systems in rural communities and how local context shapes entrepreneurship public policy formation. In phase one of the study, a survey and analysis of documents available on the Internet were used to identify county and municipal policy actions associated with entrepreneurial development in 16 counties in North Carolina. In the second study phase, two …

Couples' Process Of Healing From Infidelity While In Therapy, Jordan Mark Staples

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Infidelity is one of the most common presenting problems for couples and marriage therapists. It is widely acknowledged to be a destructive phenomenon for a couple's relationship and is one of the most difficult presenting problems to treat. Treatment models for infidelity vary and have little empirical testing. The purpose of the proposed study was to investigate the client's perspective of the process for healing from infidelity. Additionally, the proposed study looked to qualitatively assess and amalgamate participants' experience of the healing process for infidelity. Themes and relationships among these themes were identified using open, axial, and selective coding processes. …

User Taglines: Alternative Presentations Of Expertise And Interest In Social Media, Hemant Purohit, Alex Dow, Omar Alonso, Lei Duan, Kevin Haas

Kno.e.sis Publications

Web applications are increasingly showing recommended users from social media along with some descriptions, an attempt to show relevancy - why they are being shown. For example, Twitter search for a topical keyword shows expert twitterers on the side for 'whom to follow'. Google+ and Facebook also recommend users to follow or add to friend circle. Popular Internet newspaper- The Huffington Post shows Twitter influencers/ experts on the side of an article for authoritative relevant tweets. The state of the art shows user profile bios as summary for Twitter experts, but it has issues with length constraint imposed by user …

Insights From Characterizing Extinct Human Gut Microbiomes, Raul Y. Tito, Dan Knights, Jessica Metcalf, Alexandra J. Obregon-Tito, Lauren M. Cleeland, Fares Najar, Bruce Roe, Karl Reinhard, Kristin D. Sobolik, Samuel L. Belknap, Morris Foster, Paul Spicer, Rob Knight, Cecil M. Lewis Jr.

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Publications

In an effort to better understand the ancestral state of the human distal gut microbiome, we examine feces retrieved from archaeological contexts (coprolites). To accomplish this, we pyrosequenced the 16S rDNA V3 region from duplicate coprolite samples recovered from three archaeological sites, each representing a different depositional environment: Hinds Cave (~8000 years B.P.) in the southern United States, Caserones (1600 years B.P.) in northern Chile, and Rio Zape in northern Mexico (1400 years B.P.). Clustering algorithms grouped samples from the same site. Phyletic representation was more similar within sites than between them. A Bayesian approach to source-tracking was used to …

The Impact Of Islam On Women In The Middle East A Discussion Of The Political Role Of Islam In Turkey, Saudi Arabia, And Lebanon, Elise Barimo

HIM 1990-2015

The social instability of the Middle East is often assumed to be consequential predominantly from the influences of extreme traditional Islamic practices; with substantial prominence placed upon the treatment of and violence against Middle Eastern women. This discussion seeks to directly prove the prevalence of Islamic influence on Middle Eastern politics and the resulting social instability. This assessment is designed around an interdisciplinary examination of coalescent factors. By assessing the political history, social and cultural lifestyle, and political and legal situation of the region, the assessment examines the contributors to the social instability of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Turkey. The …

New Framework And Decision Support Tool To Warrant Detour Operations During Freeway Corridor Incident Management, Jing Mao

Theses and Dissertations

As reported in the literature, the mobility and reliability of the highway systems in the United States have been significantly undermined by traffic delays on freeway corridors due to non-recurrent traffic congestion. Many of those delays are caused by the reduced capacity and overwhelming demand on critical metropolitan corridors coupled with long incident durations. In most scenarios, if proper detour strategies could be implemented in time, motorists could circumvent the congested segments by detouring through parallel arterials, which will significantly improve the mobility of all vehicles in the corridor system. Nevertheless, prior to implementation of any detour strategy, traffic managers …

Never Put Your Head Down Unless You Pray: The Stories Of African American Men In The Wisconsin Prison System, Julia Marie Kirchner

Theses and Dissertations

Prior research on offender narratives has not examined culture as a factor in how prisoners explain their crimes. This qualitative ethnographic research project explores the self-constructions of African American male prisoners using both participant observation with active gang members on the street and discourse analysis of over 300 letters written by incarcerated men. Focusing primarily on six prisoner consultants, this study investigates the claims that offenders make about themselves in reference to their identity. These convicted felons justify their crimes as rational under the circumstances prevalent in segregated inner cities. In reference to economic crimes such as drug dealing and …

Soft Power, Ngos, And The Us War On Terror, Layla Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Bringing together foreign policy literature and INGO (international non-governmental organization) scholarship, this dissertation seeks to explain geographic and temporal variation in the US government's use of hard, soft and smart power in the War on Terror. Making an important theoretical contribution, I revise Nye's concept of soft power, more rigorously conceptualizing it as a consciously-utilized strategy employing methods other than hard power (military or economic sanctions) to influence a target government or population to enhance US interests. Soft power is a strategic means of achieving a foreign policy goal. I conceptualize smart power as including both soft and hard power, …

Effigy Mounds, Social Identity, And Ceramic Technology: Decorative Style, Clay Composition, And Petrography Of Wisconsin Late Woodland Vessels, Jody Clauter

Theses and Dissertations

This ceramic analysis is focused on a combination of technical and decorative analyses involving energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) and petrographic data unused by or unavailable to previous researchers. The ceramics used in this study are non-collared forms of Late Woodland (AD 700 - 1200) types found across southern Wisconsin. Ceramic attributes from these data sets are analyzed using multi-variate statistical methods and the resulting clusters are plotted geographically. Results indicate regionalization of particular attributes with a major east-west trend noted in some cases. However, geographical plotting shows broad overlap among river valleys and locales. Importantly, EDXRF data demonstrates that …

Exploring Alcohol Expectancies In Korea And America Using The Holism Theory, Seokhoon Ahn

Theses and Dissertations

The present study examines what alcohol expectancies people in holistic and analytic cultures have, and how they affect alcohol consumption patterns. The past research on comparative studies of alcohol expectancies has lacked theoretical backgrounds that could identify the underlying factors that form different alcohol expectancies. The Holism theory was employed in order to investigate this research topic.

A survey was conducted in two large universities located in Korea and the United States. A total of 144 Korean students and 141 American students, ages 18-30, participated in the research. Results indicated that Koreans had higher social alcohol expectancies than Americans did, …

Behavior Analytic Goal Setting And Tracking At A Therapeutic Summer Camp: An Approach For Children With Autism Spectrum And Other Disorders, Whitney Victoria Boeder

Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by abnormal or impaired development with deficits in social interaction, communication, and a restricted repertoire of interests and activities. There are a number of treatment options available, such as individual or group therapies. Therapeutic summer camps provide a unique service to individuals with ASDs, as well as an opportunity to create, set, and track behavior analytic goals over the summer. Research has demonstrated that summer camps are a promising therapy environment. Research on goal setting and tracking has shown promising results for progress toward behavioral goals. There is limited research on …

Experiences Associated With Non-Suicidal Self Injury: An Internet Survey, Shana Anne Franklin

Theses and Dissertations

Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) is characterized as self-harm without suicidal intent. NSSI typically encompasses behaviors such as "cutting" or "burning" one's self. Recent research has found NSSI to be increasingly prevalent in young adults, particularly those of college age, and that NSSI is associated with significant negative health consequences. Current conceptualization of NSSI includes four distinct functions described as The Four Factor Model of NSSI (Nock and Prinstein, 2004). The present study surveys UWM students to assess for NSSI and to follow-up with additional questions relating to the Four Factor Model. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the two …

An Anaylsis Of Patient-Physician Discourse: Comparing Physician Diagnostic Scripts To Patient Social Script Expectations, Denis Grimes

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how participants interpret physicians' diagnostic discourse and physician interruptions during the patient's disclosure of problems and concerns. Using medical diagnostic scripts written for upper respiratory infections, participants' reactions to physician attentiveness and physician interruptions were measured. When physicians interrupt patients during the patient's disclosure of problems and concerns, interruptions violate patient's social script expectations and negatively affect patient satisfaction. Physicians' demonstrations of attentiveness and explanations of the purposes for the interruptions do not compensate for interruption's effects, and satisfaction with physician behavior is reduced.

Profession Of Faith: Congressional Websites And Religious Expression In The 112th Congress, Molly Jaye Mcguffee

Master's Theses

The idea of culture wars in politics suggests that American voters have polarized according to their positions on moral issues, and a religious gap in the electorate also contends that voters are polarized on these issues according to their religious beliefs and practices. Research shows that members of Congress send cues about their faith to their constituents, who in turn use the information to assess their representatives and determine their members' position on these moral issues. To determine how these cues are delivered and who delivers the information, I combed 100 Senators' and 435 Representatives' from the 1121 h Congress …

Aesthetics In Gao's Soul Mountain, Mabel Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Aesthetics in Gao's Soul Mountain" Mabel Lee analyses Nobel Laureate 2000 Xingjian Gao's aesthetics. Transnational conglomerates today control the book industry from publishing house to bookshop and through aggressive market strategies they exert considerable influence on readers. Nonetheless, there are writers who refuse to capitulate to market demands and seek only to actualize their aesthetic ideas in the creation of literary texts. One such writer is Gao, author of the novel Soul Mountain. Lee posits that Gao's aesthetics is founded on the close interrogation of both Chinese and European models and practices and explores specific …

Evans's The Turducken And Chekhov's The Seagull, Brian R. Johnson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Evans's The Turducken and Chekhov's The Seagull" Brian R. Johnson approaches The Turducken as a travesty of The Seagull, examining six iconic scenes from The Seagull, in order to explore the satirical effect of the altered scenes. In December of 2008, Bedlam Theatre of Minneapolis presented The Turducken, "a holiday dinner theater spectacular inspired by Anton Chekhov's The Seagull." Playwright Josef Evans takes Chekhov's 1895 work and turns the classic piece into a musical and farcical satire. The plot of The Turducken follows the plot of The Seagull, and some scenes …

Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter, Simona Mitroiu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

On Numerical Solution For Optimal Allocation Of Investment Funds In Portfolio Selection Problem, Yahaya Abubakar

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

In this article, we present a procedure for obtaining an optimal solution to the Markowitz’s mean-variance portfolio selection problem based on the analytical solution developed in a previous research that lead to the emergence of an important model known as the Black Model. The procedure is well presented, illustrated and validated by a numerical example from real stocks dataset obtainable from a popular European stock market.

An Evaluation Of Social Capital's Effect On Depression Among Adolescents, Ezechukwu Awgu

Dissertations

Mental illness has been described as a “global burden of disease,” and depression accounts for a large part of the burden (Aslund, Starrin, Nilsson, 2010). In 2009, 35.7 percent of the adolescent population in the United States who reported past-year symptoms of a major depressive episode, for example, feelings of sadness, discouragement, loss of feelings of self-worth, and loss of interest in social activities, also used illicit drugs including marijuana, inhalants, hallucinogens, cocaine, heroin, and prescription-type psychotherapeutics for non-medical purposes (SAMHSA, 2009, APA, 1994). Additionally, substance abuse due to alcoholism was among the major causes of death for adolescents aged …

Effects Of D-Galactose Treatment And Moderate Exercise On Spatial Memory In Rats, Amanda R. Austin

Dissertations

Cognitive decline is a process frequently associated with aging. Physical exercise appears to counteract cognitive decline, specifically spatial abilities, and decreases the effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) associated with aging. In addition, brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) are well recognized as chemical mediators of the neurophysiological benefits of exercise.

In order to study the impact of exercise on spatial memory and neurotrophic factors, this study utilized an animal model of accelerated aging involving chronic d-galactose administration. Specifically, previous research indicates daily injections of d-galactose for 6-10 weeks may increase ROS in mice and …

Behavior Based Sales: A Study Of Behavioral Techniques For Sales Performance Improvement, Peder Henrik Seglund

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of a behavior-based sales training package on sales performance for the sales divisions of two different organizations located in separate cities in the Midwestern United States. The independent variable was a package that included: behavior-based sales training; feedback; and reinforcement. The primary dependent variable was sales performance results, which is a measure of the participants’ closing percentage. Secondary dependent variables included income, participant attendance at sales meetings, participant satisfaction, and changes in knowledge (at site 2 only).

The intervention package was implemented at each site over a course of …

From Building Evaluation Capacity To Supporting Evaluation Capacity Development: The Cases Of Democratic Republic Of Congo, Niger, And South Africa, Michele Tarsilla

Dissertations

Building on both the current thinking among international development practitioners and the on-going scholarly debate on evaluation capacity development (ECD), this study aims to identify strategies that might help to strengthen national evaluation capacity in a variety of countries in a more inclusive and sustainable fashion in the future. Based on a case study design featuring an extensive literature review of specialized literature (both within and outside the evaluation field), a series of semi-structured interviews and three rounds of online validation sessions held with ECD researchers, funders and implementers; this study aims at three main objectives. First, in an attempt …

Performance On A Data Entry Task When Participants Receive Three Different Types Of Graphic Feedback, Sarah E. Vanstelle

Dissertations

This purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of three types of graphic feedback on worker performance and satisfaction. The first type displayed individual performance (IF), the second displayed individual performance and average group performance (SCF-GA), and the third displayed individual performance for each individual in the group (SCF-IP). Participants were 54 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. They performed a computerized data entry task that simulated the job of a medical data entry clerk. The primary dependent variable was the number of correctly completed patient records. Secondary dependent variables included: …

End Of The Line: Tracking The Commodity Chain Of The Electronic Waste Industry, Jacquelynn A. Doyon

Dissertations

This study examines the transfer of electronic waste (e-waste) from core to peripheral nations, specifically coastal nations in Africa. The theoretical perspective marries green criminology with world systems theory in examining the ways in which marginalized populations bear the burden of hazardous waste disposal across the globe. The study is comparative, looking at legislation in the United States as well as international legislation and enforcement, and also employs case study methodology, contrasting e-waste disposal in Nigeria and Ghana. The final intent of this research is to determine whether or not the violation of national and/or international legislation regarding the transfer …