18525 research outputs found
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Sexual Healing After Sexual Violence: Transcending Limitations and Creating Secure Attachments in Spiritual Care
No full textDivinity School Doctor of Ministry in Integrative Chaplaincy Final ProjectsThis project provides strategic clinical practices for spiritual counselors who work with adults who have experienced sexual violence. Licensed mental health professionals could benefit from this project to learn about clinical approaches for their religious and spiritual clients. Sexual violence can create traumas that negatively impact quality of life and the ability to engage in healthy sexual behaviors with oneself and/or with safe partners. This project identifies the biopsychosocial-religious/spiritual (biopsychosocial-R/S) approach to professional spiritual counseling. The concepts that will be discussed in this project are 1) the purpose and role of religion and spirituality, 2) evidenced-based practices (EBP), 3) professional leadership and challenges to spiritual care, 4) interdisciplinary networking, 5) integration of the arts into spiritual care sessions, 5) and care planning. The aim of this project is to help counselors make a positive impact in the lives of those who have experienced sexual violence (experiencer(s): E-SV)1 with the practical outcome for E-SV being an increase in personal agency to reclaim one’s sexuality and engage sex with comfort, satisfaction, and choice.
This is an introduction into one approach to integrative spiritual care. Additional training and education are required in order to understand EBPs and properly implement principles in a way that is appropriate for spiritual counseling and professional standards. Always abide by the standards and codes of your institution and discipline/vocation in which you are considered to be a professional
Children's and Adults' Concepts of Disabilities
No full textPersons with disabilities are a sizable minority in the United States, yet, there is sparse work on children’s and adults’ concepts of disability. Study 1 of this dissertation investigated children’s evaluations of and reasoning about classroom accommodations for children with physical and cognitive disabilities. Children saw stories where characters engaged in accommodation-related behavior (e.g., doing less classwork than other kids), evaluated how fair the behaviors were, and provided their reasoning about the behaviors. Nine-year-olds evaluated accommodations as significantly fairer than 5- and 7-year-olds. Across the age range, mentioning characters’ needs was associated with evaluating accommodations as fairer. Study 2 tested children’s and adults’ intuitions about intra-sensory dynamics for persons with a sensory impairment. In Study 2A, adults read vignettes about persons who varied in the strength of their vision or hearing, and rated the strength of those persons’ other senses. Participants demonstrated compensatory intuitions; e.g., persons with total or moderate vision loss were expected to have heightened hearing, and vice versa. In Study 2B, 5- to 10-year-olds’ intuitions about intra-sensory dynamics were investigated with vignettes (similar to Study 2A), as well as stories in which an object goes missing in the dark and children chose between a character who cannot see or a typically sighted character to find the object. Preliminary results suggest that, unlike adults, children demonstrated modest halo effects—characters with visual impairments were expected to have other sensory impairments and were less often selected to find missing objects
Diversity by Design: A Deep Dive into Duke University’s Pre-College Program
No full textLeadership Policy and Organizations Department capstone projectThis research paper delves into the multifaceted approach employed by Duke University's Pre-College Program to enhance diversity through recruitment, affordability, and programmatic structure. Drawing on qualitative data gathered through stakeholder interviews, focus group sessions, and survey analysis, the study sheds light on key strategies and challenges encountered in fostering a more inclusive pre-college environment. The findings reveal the critical role of strategic partnerships, transparent financial aid policies, and effective internal communication in promoting diversity within the program. Additionally, the paper discusses the influence of the organizational structure changes required to bridge the gap between program goals and operational realities. Through comprehensive analysis, this research offers valuable insights and recommendations for advancing diversity initiatives within Duke University’s Pre-College Program. Moreover, this work aims to provide the field of higher education with tools and resources to cultivate more inclusive learning environments.Peabody College of Education and Human DevelopmentDepartment of Leadership Policy and Organization
Co-Designing and Evaluating Adolescent Online Safety Nudges with Teens
No full textThere is growing concern regarding adolescent online risks posed by social media and emerging technologies. Prior work calls for a paradigm shift from restrictive approaches towards strength-based solutions that can empower teens to self-regulate their experiences. “Nudges” are one such promising solution that can provide intelligent assistance to teens without restricting their autonomy. Yet, there is limited understanding on how to design and evaluate effective resilience-based nudges which can serve as teachable moments when teens face an online risk. A review of the prior literature revealed a need for youth involvement in the design and evaluation of online safety interventions, with few ecologically valid evaluations of solutions. To overcome these gaps, this dissertation focuses on 1) co-designing interventions contextualized to teens online risks, 2) conceptualizing ecologically valid approaches for evaluating nudges with teens, and 3) evaluating the effectiveness of nudges for adolescent online safety in a simulated social media as an ecologically valid environment. Teens most often described facing risks such as information breaches, sexual risks, and cyberbullying. To help deal with these risks, teens designed real-time interventions which often resembled “nudges” that prioritized accountability, risk prevention and community safety. Yet, to move beyond designing interventions to evaluating them, an underlying challenge is the trade-offs between ecological validity and teen safety, as it is difficult to simulate online risks realistically. We conducted a meta-level research study with teens to assess whether the personas, risk scenarios, nudges, and social media tool that we created as study artifacts for a future evaluation were acceptable to teens. Using these findings, we developed a simulated social media to conduct an ecologically valid evaluation of nudges with teens using a Wizard-of-Oz approach. We found that teens find nudges to be most effective and beneficial in high-risk situations such as explicit content exposure and valued the long-term benefits of nudges in behavior change and education. Overall, this research is the first to evaluate adolescent online safety nudges in a realistic simulation, with important implications about how teens respond to nudges, and form trust online
Understanding the Visual Phantom Illusion Across the Visual and Motion Processing Systems
No full textIllusory visual phantoms are a form of perceptual completion that occurs when two low-contrast collinear drifting gratings are separated by a homogeneous region, leading to the ghostly impression of stripes extending across the gap. Here, we investigated whether visual phantoms elicit both a static motion aftereffect and a dynamic motion aftereffect. Each observer was adapted with two drifting collinear vertical gratings separated by a horizontal gap and tested with a grating in the blank gap. Participants were instructed to report whether the test grating moved in either direction. Both static and dynamic motion aftereffects could be induced by the visual phantom illusion, suggesting that moving visual phantoms are likely represented at multiple stages of visual processing.
Rivalry suppression occurs when different stimuli presented to the two eyes compete for perceptual dominance and is thought to originate in the early visual system. In this second project, we asked whether rivalry suppression can be induced by the visual phantom illusion over a competing stimulus. Our display consisted of a pair of grating inducers oscillating sinusoidally displayed to one eye, and a low contrast grating patch displayed to the other eye. Subjects were instructed to report the level of visibility of the competing grating patch. The visual phantom illusion increased the proportion of fully faded percept switches, implying that the visual phantom illusion influences lower stages of visual processing.
Finally, there is a debate as to whether perception and action are similarly influenced by visual illusions. Here, we investigated this question by measuring smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEMs) while observers tracked a moving visual phantom illusion. Our displays consisted of two collinear vertical gratings that oscillated sinusoidally, separated by a gap. Participants were instructed to follow, through horizontal SPEMs, the shifting position of a specific stripe above and below the gap along the gap region. SPEMs following visual phantom eliciting stripes were not improved compared to a no-phantom control condition.
Thus, we report that moving visual phantoms appear to be represented at multiple levels across the visual system but do not seem to operate like real stimuli regarding the motor system
Exploring Persistence Factors of Black Males at NSCC
No full textThis study explores the factors associated with the persistence of Black males at Nashville State Community College by examining the relationships between student engagement, college GPA, and persistence using longitudinal retrospective data for students attending 7 campuses across Nashville, TN (n=14,161). Data sources also include student-level information from the most recent Community College Survey of Student Engagement, Focus Groups with Black male students on two campuses, and surveys administered to Black males during the Fall 2023 semester. The findings indicate that Environmental Pull (Financial Concerns), Academic Integration, and Pre-College Skills (Academic Achievement) were the primary factors of concern impacting the persistence of Black male students at Nashville State Community College. The data collected and extant research suggest that career development/exploration, heightened engagement, and community collective impact strategies can lead to compensatory effects for Black male students
Synthetic Strategies Toward Complex Molecule Synthesis: from Glycan Mimetics to Complex Terpenoids
No full textGlycans are ubiquitously expressed on the surface of cells and are responsible for mediating a host of critical cellular interactions. Specifically, bacteria have evolved to produce a diverse array of carbohydrate structures including lipopolysaccharides, capsular polysaccharides, and cellulosic polysaccharides which are key components for bacterial survival and virulence. A major thrust in glycobiology is to understand how specific glycan structures contribute to mechanisms of pathogenesis. Phosphoethanolamine cellulose (pEtN cellulose) is a newly identified cellulose derivative produced and excreted into the extracellular matrix by gram negative bacteria such as uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC)- the major causative agent of urinary tract infections. The discovery of this zwitterionic, modified cellulose has prompted studies into the functional significance of this glycan and its role in pathogenesis. However, the insolubility of pEtN cellulose and its poorly defined phosphoethanolamine modification pattern have hindered the elucidation of specific structure-activity relationships for this glycan. To address these limitations, we designed a set of well-defined synthetic glycopolymers as chemical tools to evaluate pEtN cellulose based on the hypothesis that these glycopolymers would mimic the native polysaccharide. The glycopolymers were prepared through ring-opening metathesis polymerization of a monomer containing the minimal repeat unit of pEtN cellulose detailed in Chapter 2. The glycopolymers were evaluated for their biofilm modulating properties and demonstrated biofilm repression in E. coli laboratory strain 11755T and UPEC strain 700415 in a size dependent manner. Scanning electron microscopy analyses further revealed that glycopolymer treatment resulted in changes in E. coli cell morphology and surface appendages. Our results indicate that the pEtN cellulose mimics exhibit varying biofilm modulating properties similar to native cellulosic polysaccharides. Chapter 3 details our synthetic efforts towards the total synthesis of Yaretol, a norditerpene isolated from the Chilean shrub Azorella madreporica, which features an unprecedented tetracyclic carbon skeleton. The chapter outlines several generations of synthetic strategies to arrive at a key intermediate for the crux of the synthesis- an intramolecular Diels-Alder cycloaddition (IMDA) between an unsaturated carbonyl and a furan diene to forge the tetracyclic scaffold. Lastly, initial exploration of the IMDA are described which lay the groundwork to access Yaretol
“To the Good Children of the United States of America”: Isaiah Thomas’s Use of Children’s Literature to Foster Nationalism in the Early American Republic
No full textCollege of Arts and ScienceDepartment of Histor
CHATBOTS AT THE CROSSROADS: ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING IN AI AND DRIVERLESS VEHICLES
No full textAutonomous vehicles represent a transformative innovation poised to reshape transportation and mobility. As this emerging technology matures, researchers must critically evaluate the aptitude of artificial intelligence (AI) systems tasked with operating driverless cars. Accordingly, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the intersection of autonomous vehicles and AI chatbots.
Leveraging the classic trolley problem thought experiment, the first study presented herein probes the ethical reasoning capabilities of leading chatbots when faced with complex moral dilemmas involving human lives. Their responses reveal differing priorities, inconsistencies, and varying approaches to different scenarios. The second study then utilizes real dashcam footage to simulate dynamic driving situations. When exposing chatbots to these vivid scenes, their visual comprehension, hazard recognition skills, and overall readiness for real-time decision-making are analyzed across key categories.
Together, these dual investigations highlight the current capabilities and limitations of AI chatbots for autonomous vehicle applications. While today’s largest language models display great promise and have made considerable progress compared to earlier models, gaps persist compared to human drivers, especially in ethical judgment, visual understanding, and dynamic decision-making. As AI advances, researchers must continue developing solutions to bridge these gaps for safer autonomous systems that align with human values. In support of such solutions, by identifying the performance of modern chatbots in vehicular contexts, this paper provides key insights that will inform and guide future progress at the intersection of language AI and driverless cars
Defective Mitochondrial and Peroxisomal Fission Dynamics Impair Neurogenesis
No full textMitochondrial and peroxisomal dynamics driven by DRP1 are integral to many cellular functions. Mutations in DRP1 lead to a devastating neurodevelopmental disease known as encephalopathy due to defective mitochondrial and peroxisomal fission (EMPF1), which presents with a spectrum of symptoms including developmental delay, seizures, and microcephaly. To interrogate the molecular mechanisms by which DRP1 mutations lead to developmental defects, we used induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived models with patient mutations in different domains of DRP1. Given that EMPF1 patients present with a spectrum of neurodevelopmental abnormalities, we differentiated iPSCs into neural progenitor cells and neural organoids. DRP1 mutant neural progenitor cells express lower levels of critical identity transcription factors, such as PAX6 and TBR2. Intriguingly, neural organoids with mutations in the stalk domain of DRP1 take on a choroid plexus identity instead of following a cortical development trajectory. Our results show that EMPF1 associated DRP1 mutations lead to metabolic dysregulation, which may cause changes in neural cell fate during early corticogenesis. Understanding these mechanisms will give insight into the role of mitochondrial and peroxisome dynamics in neurodevelopment, as well as the mechanisms underlying the rare disease EMPF1