13251 research outputs found
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Invites Only: Exploring Social Dynamics and Self-Image Through Oil Paint
No full textMy thesis work depicts the events of a fictional party. Using oil paint, I create multi-figure works that feature recurring characters, various narratives, complex relationships, and emotions associated with this fictitious evening. Within this painted realm, I portray a more confident, powerful version of myself; an alter ego, who exists alongside these various characters. Drawing inspiration from compositional strategies from Renaissance art history and Christian altarpieces, I paint on large-scale, shaped canvas and paper to suggest doors, windows, and other domestic, interior spaces. Additionally, these shapes allow me to juxtapose suggestions of prominence and divinity with satire, irreverence, and profanity. The narratives, characters, and text that I incorporate are often influenced by real life situations in which I wanted to come across as more self-assured. Ultimately, my work promotes keen social analysis, personal reflection, and confidence; I build a world in which the characters I create, including this second self, exist permanently
Evaluating the Normative Development and Efficacy of the LIFE Functional Module
No full textThe Life Functional Module (Dixon, 2020) is an all-encompassing assessment and curriculum designed to promote learner’s independence and well-being by teaching daily living, social, leisure, and other functional or meaningful skills. There is a wide variety of curricula that is currently used in applied-behavior analysis services and programming, including the Essentials for Living, Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS), and the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP). However, there is a lack of research in empirical evidence in regards to the efficacy of these curricula (Ackley et. al, 2019; Padilla et. al, 2023). The first manuscript of this thesis develops a normative sample for the Life Functional Module and compares this sample to a sample of learners with a diagnosis of autism or a related disability. Results from de-identified data that were collected (see IRB in Appendix A), show that there was a positive correlation between age and total Life score for the normative sample, but that there was no relationship between age and total Life score for the autism sample. These results fully support selecting developmentally appropriate targets for learners, regardless of their age. The second manuscript of this thesis evaluated the usage of adapted Life skills programs in order to instruct learners on the sequence of toilet training. The de-identified data collected were from multi-step chains, which were utilized to bring together these various programs, which were selected not only because of the learner’s age, but due to the appropriateness in development of targets (see IRB in Appendix B). These programs were brought together by using direct card training, then with the fading out of a discriminative stimulus
A PERMA-Framework Informed Measure of Academic Well-Being
No full textDefinitions and measurements of academic well-being vary widely across the literature. Consequently, research has failed to identify the factors that comprise and promote academic well-being. An initial effort to reconceptualize academic well-being within the PERMA framework (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments) proved promising, but a five-factor solution failed to arise, and items generally were not specific to educational contexts. The present study aimed to overcome shortcomings of this prior attempt by developing a psychometrically sound measure of academic well-being and evaluating the predictive and convergent validity of the proposed measure (A-PERMA). A-PERMA demonstrated adequate to good reliability statistics and significantly predicted both GPA and, negatively, school burnout. However, a five-factor solution, once more, failed to arise and fit statistics were generally less than adequate
Nanotoxicology of CDSE/ZNS Quantum DOT Alternatives in THLE-2 and HEPG2 Liver Cells
No full textFluorescent nanoparticles known as quantum dots (QDs) have unique properties that make them useful in biomedicine. Specifically, CdSe/ZnS QDs, while good at fluorescing, show toxicity. Due to this, safer alternatives have been developed. This study uses an XTT viability assay, ROS fluorescent imaging, and apoptosis to investigate the effect of QD alternatives InP/ZnS, CuInS2/ZnS, and carbon dots (NCD) in liver cells. The liver is a possible destination for accumulation of QDs making it an appropriate model for testing. A cancerous liver cell line known as HepG2, and an immortalized liver cell line known as THLE-2 were used. At a nanomolar range of 10-150, HepG2 cells demonstrated no reduced cell viability after 24 hrs. The XTT viability assay demonstrated that CdSe/ZnS and CuInS2/ZnS show reduced cell viability in THLE-2 cells with concentrations between 50-150nM. Furthermore, CdSe/ZnS and CuInS2/ZnS treated THLE-2 cells generated ROS as early as 6 hrs after treatment and elevated apoptosis after 24 hrs. To further corroborate our results, apoptosis assays revealed an increased percentage of cells in the early stages of apoptosis for CdSe/ZnS (52%) and CuInS2/ZnS (38%) treated THLE-2. RNA transcriptomics reveal heavy downregulation of cell adhesion pathways such as wnt, cadherin, and integrin in all QDs except carbon dots. In conclusion, carbon dots show the least toxicity toward these two liver cell lines. While demonstrating less toxicity than CdSe/ZnS, the metallic QDs (InP/ZnS and CuInS2/ZnS) still demonstrate potential concerns to liver cells. This study serves to explore the toxicity of QD alternatives and better understand their cellular interactions
Aromatherapies and Stress: An Examination of Saliva Sclarea in Acute Stress Conditions
No full textThe use of essential oils as an alternative medicine in the United States is becoming increasingly popular as more accreditation is given to its therapeutic values. With this increase in use, we must continue to examine the uses of essential oils, including associated risks. One unavoidable aspect of life is stress, both acute and chronic. This study aims to better our understanding of the stress-reducing properties of the essential oil clary sage (salvia sclarea) after an experimentally induced acute stress experience. The Trier Social Stress Test was used to elicit an acute stress response. Participants were given the scent of either clary sage essential oil or sweet almond oil post-stressor. Psychological and physiological measures of stress were measured. Paired samples independent t-tests (sweet almond oil control group; clary sage experimental group) were used to examine differences in salivary cortisol, blood pressure, and responses to the State Trait Anxiety Inventory. Current results indicate that clary sage does not affect the reduction of salivary cortisol presence. No significant difference in blood pressure has been observed at this time, though results are trending towards the clary sage group having a significant decrease. No difference in responses to the STAI was found following the administration of either clary sage essential oil or sweet almond oil. Further research is needed to understand the potential anxiolytic effects of clary sage, and its use as a secondary treatment for anxiogenic disorders
Assessing the Effects of Experimentally Contrived Negative Emotional Contexts on Affect, Willingness, and Impulsivity
No full textEmotions are a naturally occurring and unavoidable part of life. To investigate the role that negative emotional experiencing plays in transfer of stimulus function, relational behavior, and intervention effectiveness, this thesis combines and explores the implications of two manuscripts that examine the effects of negative emotional contexts. Specifically, the first chapter presents research demonstrating the ability of operant schedules of reinforcement and respondent relational training to result in acquired affective and willingness stimulus functions. A between groups design demonstrated that when paired with a frustration-inducing task, negatively valenced functions can be established for arbitrary stimuli, and when observational pairing was used to relate those stimuli with other stimuli, the stimulus functions not only transferred to those stimuli but the function appeared to diffuse across the stimuli, lessening the stimulus functions for the originally trained stimuli. Taking into consideration how behavior changes while experiencing a negative emotional context, the second chapter presents an experiment assessing the effects of brief mindful practice on impulsive responding while experiencing a stressful noise context. In this study, a Go/No-Go task is utilized as a measure of impulsivity to explore the generality of existing findings from research conducted through a delay discounting account of impulsivity (Dixon et al., 2019). Participants were assigned to either a mindfulness+ or mindfulness- intervention group, and participants from both groups completed a Go/No-Go task before and after their respective intervention. During one of the Go/No-Go task completions, a stressful noise context was introduced for the duration of the task. Findings suggest that impulsive responding did not change dependent upon intervention group or stress condition. Taken together, these results suggest a need for emphasis on understanding an individual’s emotional context and the extent to which it affects their behavior in order to better determine whether intervention is necessary and what type of intervention may be most meaningful for improving their context
Evaluating the Maintenance of Verbal Relational Operants Following PEAK Programming
No full textThe Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge (PEAK) Relational Training System is an assessment and curriculum tool developed for basic and advanced language skills using behavior analytic approaches (Dixon, 2016). Maintenance describes the retention of performance following the progression of time. In the present study, the purpose was to determine if maintenance was achieved on previously mastered PEAK programs, both in terms of the content and the verbal relational operant (i.e., generalization to new, untrained content). De-identified data were analyzed for five autistic learners (six to fourteen years old) receiving ABA services at a Midwestern clinic. Programs were selected from the previous two months from when probes began. First, a mastery probe was conducted on the mastered stimuli from an initial program. Second, a probe with a novel set of stimuli was conducted. In cases where the participants did not show mastery of the content or the operant, relational training was conducted with the novel stimuli followed by testing with the novel and the original stimuli. Results showed that maintenance of program content was inconsistent and generalization to novel stimuli was not observed. However, faster acquisition rates were observed for retraining and reinstatement of prior learning was observed in some cases
Online Assignment Submission Delay as a Behavioral Indicator of Procrastination
Full text linkProcrastination has long been recognized as an important topic in higher education, and various tools for measuring procrastination have focused on either behavioral or subjective components of the phenomenon. This study examines how online assignment submission delay, used as an objective measure of procrastination, relates to several conceptualizations of procrastination and pacing style measured through self-report questionnaires. It was hypothesized that median assignment submission delay would have a positive relationship with the included self-report measures, a positive relationship with the deadline action pacing style, and a negative relationship with the steady pacing style. Data was collected from 66 students in an online experimental psychology course across 14 lab assignments and six surveys. The analysis included correlations of median assignment submission delay with each of the self-report measures as well as number of assignments turned in and average exam score. A multiple linear regression was conducted with submission delay as the outcome variable and these same variables as predictors. The hypotheses were only partially and weakly supported in that submission delay correlated with some, but not all, measures and few predictors were uniquely significant in the regression model. Submission delay was positively related to the deadline action pacing style but not related in either direction to the steady pacing style. These results should be interpreted with caution due to a limited sample size and a dataset that failed many assumptions for parametric analysis
Effects of Gerrymandering on State Social Policy
No full textPartisan Bias occurs when an election results in a party gleaning a significantly different proportion of legislative seats than the proportion of votes cast for that party. It can be strategically produced via gerrymandering and is thought by many to threaten the basic principles of democracy. This research uses the 2022 state election results to compute statewide measures of Partisan Bias, then analyzes the correlation with controversial state social policies. Results showed that the redistricting method used and the percent of the party’s legislators were related to Partisan Bias. Analysis also showed that Partisan Bias explains significant levels of variance in four of the five social policies measured. The results demonstrate how gerrymandering of state districts can result in more extreme social policies than the majority of state voters prefers and suggest that gerrymandering suppresses their rights and freedoms, thus violating the principles of democracy
Saudi Arabia\u27s Nuclear Decision-Making in the Era of Mohammad Bin Salman
No full textStrategic culture plays a crucial role in shaping countries’ decision-making in regard to security and foreign policy. In the context of nuclear proliferation, strategic culture can significantly impact a country’s willingness to pursue nuclear weapons and how it calculates the risks and benefits of such a decision. This thesis examines Saudi Arabia’s decision-making under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has brought about significant changes in the country\u27s strategic culture through aggressive top-down reform. While much of Saudi Arabia\u27s traditional strategic culture has remained intact under MBS and his father, King Salman, some elements have shifted dramatically. This raises questions about whether Riyadh’s nuclear calculus has or will change. To address these questions, I summarize traditional Saudi Arabian strategic culture and nuclear thought, identify areas of Saudi strategic culture MBS has changed, and analyze whether these changes portend an evolution in Saudi nuclear thought. Ultimately, this study seeks to contribute to the existing literature on strategic culture and nuclear proliferation and fill a gap in the literature on Saudi Arabia\u27s defense and nuclear decision-making, which has yet to catch up to the country\u27s rapid evolution in recent years