JBC Commons (New College of Florida)
Not a member yet
9773 research outputs found
Sort by
Understanding Yourself as a Learner (UYL): An Educational Intervention to Help Students Articulate Their Learning
No full textUnderstanding Yourself as a Learner (UYL) is an educational tool combining videos on active learning strategies and cumulative concept maps. I created UYL with the goal of innovating previously supported tools by adding instruction of neuronal mechanisms of learning and implementation of active strategies through the cumulative concept maps. The research question in mind is “to what extent are students able to articulate their learning experience?” I conducted semi-structured interviews with students who participated in courses implementing UYL: Behavioral Endocrinology, Intermediate Python, and Organic Chemistry. In the end, there were seven participants, and their interview texts were coded and reviewed for themes. Overall, the interviews showed that students were putting in energy into their study routines, that the concept maps helped establish connections between concepts, and that implementing spaced practice is difficult but the desired habit. Adaptions from UYL can be used in other courses to help give students tools to help them learn better
SINGLE-AGENT AND MULTI-AGENT BANDITS
No full textThis thesis provides a friendly introduction to the field of multi-armed bandits as a framework to consider the exploration-exploitation dilemma. We summarize recent literature that combines the established theory of bandits with recent ideas involving Bayesian-persuasion from algorithmic economics to consider a three-pronged exploration-exploitation-persuasion trade-off. We include initial empirical results concerning the Bayesian regret bounds for a recent incentive compatible bandit algorithm. We also provide an outline of ideas for future study in the area of incentivized multiagent bandit exploration
“THERAPY? WHAT AM I, A GIRL?”: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN WILLINGNESS TO TRY DIFFERENT FORMS OF THERAPY TO TREAT ANXIETY
No full textAnxiety is an extremely prevalent mental disorder that can be treated in a multitude of ways. Both clinician-led therapies and minimal contact therapies have shown great efficacy in reducing anxiety symptomology. Factors that influence this efficacy include past experiences with therapy, opinions towards therapy, and individual levels of self-disclosure. Additionally, all of these factors have been shown to differ by the gender identity of the patient. The current study sought to explore if there were any gender differences in one’s willingness to try these different forms of therapy to help better manage their anxiety. The current study hypothesized that men would be less willing than women to try clinician-led therapy to treat their anxiety, based on past research. A sample of 117 participants completed a survey that measured, among other variables, their willingness to try clinician-led and minimal contact therapies and their tendencies towards self-disclosure. While the data generally followed the hypothesis, the gender differences in willingness to try clinician-led therapies were not statistically significant. In addition, tendency toward negative self-disclosure and willingness to try clinician-led therapies shared a positive relationship. Future research should investigate possible explanations for gender differences in attitudes towards therapy, along with other possible demographic differences in therapeutic attendance
Native Representation in Typee and Heart of Darkness: An Examination of the Intersection of Anti-Imperial Critique and Ethnography
No full textNo abstract provided
SLEEPING WITH THE (CUTTLE)FISHES: MEASURING SLEEP THROUGH AROUSAL THRESHOLD IN THE DWARF CUTTLEFISH, SEPIA BANDENSIS
No full textSleep is a fundamental part of life, not only for humans, but for countless species. Using behavioral criteria, sleep has been found to occur in species from a large range of phyla, including Mollusca. So far it has been found that one octopus species displays sleep behaviors, and one cuttlefish species fulfills multiple behavioral criteria for sleep. This study uses Sepia bandensis, the dwarf cuttlefish, to test a remaining criterion: an elevated arousal threshold that provides evidence of sleep behavior in cuttlefish. To test arousal threshold, the magnitude of stimuli required to evoke a response, when in and out of quiescence (a state of resting or inactivity), three increasing levels of stimulation, two increasing water vibration levels, and one physical touch level were applied on cuttlefish in quiescence and on cuttlefish in a wakeful state. Cuttlefish in a waking state responded to the first level of stimulation 70.37% of the time and responded to the second level 29.63% of the time (n=27). Cuttlefish in a resting state did not respond to the first level of stimulation, responded to the second level 18.52% of the time and responded to the third level of stimulation 81.48% of the time (n=27). The data provide evidence that dwarf cuttlefish have an elevated arousal threshold when in quiescence which supports the hypothesis that cuttlefish display sleep behavior
FEDERALISM UNDER CRISIS: AN ANALYSIS OF FEDERAL COUNTRIES’ INNER WORKINGS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
No full textCovid-19 continues to affect millions globally over two years after it first emerged in Wuhan, China. As viruses spread in our globalized world it is imperative to analyze how political structures, actors, and institutions more broadly contributed to the spread or containment of Covid-19. One such government structure – federalism – at first blush seemed to hinder containment of Covid-19. Intergovernmental cooperation is required to effectively combat the virus in federal systems, and the existence of multiple, self-interested officials in central governments and subnational governments makes cooperation much harder. I hypothesize that the manifold interests of officials nationally and locally beget a fragmented, piecemeal, and languid response to Covid-19. I estimate using an OLS regression the effect of federalism on the stringency of Covid-19 response in individual countries. Finding inconclusive results, I look for differences between federal countries to determine how some developed more successful containment policies than others. In doing so, I rely on the “nested analysis” methodology conceptualized by Lieberman to produce a novel theory pertaining to effective federal response to Covid-19 (2005). This framework was utilized because, when parsing the data, there appeared a large difference in Covid-19 response among federal countries within my data. I identify four factors that tend to affect federal governments’ responses to Covid-19. These four factors are intergovernmental cooperation, decentralization, partisanship, and differences in subnational governments’ capacity. The last three seem to be affected by and mediated through the dynamics of intergovernmental cooperation
Overlapping Biopsychological Underpinnings and Brain Regions that Mediate Neurocognitive Processes Relevant to Entrepreneurship and Parenting
No full textNeuroentrepreneurship research findings have shown parallels between entrepreneurship and parenting that provide novel insights into the biological and neurocognitive underpinnings of entrepreneurial decision making - but only in fathers and male entrepreneurs. There is a distinct gap in the literature in regards to female entrepreneurs and whether or not the neural basis of entrepreneurship and parenting transcends sex. A literature review to explore and bridge the gap between existing neuroentrepreneurship research and previously observed sex differences in parenting is conducted. Results of previous studies suggest a neurocognitive overlap between parenting and entrepreneurship that stems from heightened emotionality and the brain’s reward system, specifically in regards to risk taking and opportunity recognition. A model of Overlapping Biopsychological Underpinnings and Brain Areas that Mediate Neurocognitive Processes Relevant to Entrepreneurship and Parenting is proposed with the overarching goal of encouraging researchers to use neuroimaging to help level the disparity in the number of sex-specific business studies and foster a continuation of the conversation regarding women in positions of executive control within their fields. Lastly, this model and the research presented recasts parenting and entrepreneurship as relying on a specific subset of broadly distributed human neurobehavioral characteristics mediated by a heightened emotionality within the brain’s reward system while underscoring how the parallels in activation between them can lead to a better understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings that contribute to success as parents and as entrepreneurs
EDUCATING THE BODYMIND IN DICKENS’S OUR MUTUAL FRIEND AND MCCAFFREY’S THE SHIP WHO SANG
No full textMy thesis asks how we as humans relate to the world through the “body” and “mind or “bodymind.” The “bodymind” can be explored through good and bad education, as one way we relate to the world is through knowledge. But, there is also the knowledge of our body through the senses which is our first form of knowing. As we gain knowledge, we make sense of our initial sensations of being and from these processes we form our-Self. Using Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend and Hard Times, through the lens of Paulo Freire’s educational existentialist theory of knowledge; I consider the difference between mechanical knowledge and mystical knowledge. Secondly, I relate ideas of embodiment in Anne McCaffery’s The Ship Who Sang using Rene Descartes’ “body-mind problem” and Margaret Price’s term the “bodymind.” Disability studies show us that not everybody can know the world in the same way. Therefore, we must educate everyone according to the function of their own “bodymind.” Education is not simply for one “body” or one kind of “body,” and the same goes for the “mind” in which there are also many different kinds. So, ultimately this thesis is about educating the “bodymind.
SEX DIFFERENCES IN GREB1 EXPRESSION IN XENOPUS LAEVIS
No full textTranscriptomic studies are a great tool for trying to understand the molecular support mechanisms for behavior and physiology. This thesis builds on a previous transcriptomic study that was done in Xenopus (African clawed frogs). Xenopus use sex- and species-specific vocalizations to mediate reproduction. Differences in vocalizations are supported by the sexually dimorphic larynx, the muscle responsible for vocalizations. Work to understand Xenopus laryngeal physiology and morphology had found sex differences in the fiber type, size, and density. Our past transcriptomic study found greb1 (growth regulation by estrogen in breast cancer 1) to be differentially expressed between males and females in two species. This thesis used immunohistochemistry to look for GREB1 protein expression in Xenopus laevis laryngeal muscle. I found that there is increased GREB1 protein expression levels in males compared to females. Additionally, GREB1 expression was not found to be fiber type specific. This finding lines up with the findings of the transcriptomic study, highlighting the biological relevance of this gene. There are multiple proposed mechanisms of action for how greb1 is contributing to sex differences in laryngeal physiology, and future work can seek to understand this. More broadly, this work highlights how tissue growth and development can be impacted by hormones