University of North Carolina at Greensboro
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Air passenger demand and metropolitan economies : key predictors in the pandemic era
Full text linkGiven the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on air passenger demand in the early 2020s, this paper attempts to establish if the traditional link between metropolitan economies and air passenger demand has been fundamentally altered during the pandemic era. It is hypothesized that as the employment share in tradable service sectors increases, air passenger demand will accordingly increase. Only those metropolitan areas that included airports that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) defined as air traffic hubs in 2021 were included in this analysis. Data were collected from the FAA and Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The top ten metropolitan areas that generated the largest air passenger demand in 2021 collectively accounted for nearly half of all passenger enplanements. A stepwise analysis was performed to examine the relationship between air passenger demand and a group of predictor variables using SPSS. In the final regression model, 41.2% of the variation in air passenger demand by metropolitan area was accounted for by four predictor variables: the percent of the workforce in Information, Transportation and Warehousing, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services or PST, and Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate or FIRE. These results appear to confirm some of the earlier research which articulated that a regional workforce with a strong tradable services sector can substantially impact air transport provision. Even during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain business activities on the ground, particularly tradable services, can still help to generate additional air passenger demand and enhance competitive advantage
Give me space
Full text linkGive Me Space is a body of work born out of my genuine curiosity of the world around me. This thesis explores my journey of rediscovering my relationship to my art practice, my identity and the world. I am reflecting on the personal culture shock of transitioning from predominantly Black and Brown spaces to UNCG which has a significantly smaller African American population. The mundane spaces I depict, my apartment, my studio, and the city of Greensboro have all served as places of reflection for me and have become important parts of my development as an artist thus far. The depiction of these, what many would consider, “boring” everyday places are transformed using bright colors which are influenced by the artist collective AfriCOBRA. Through painting and collage, I create confusing and disorienting spaces that are not only representative of the experiences of people of color in spaces where they are considered “other”, but also the psychological human experience. With this work I want the viewer to join me in this disorienting experience and ask themselves “what is reality?”
Mindfulness and free improvisation : a holistic approach to cultivating creativity and awareness
Full text linkThis document shares a holistic teaching approach to free improvisation by integrating mindfulness and conventional free improvisation teaching strategies. Within current yet limited resources for teaching free improvisation, none incorporate mindfulness practices—a pivotal aspect of my own journey as a free improviser. At its core, the primary research question that guided this study is: “What methods exist for teaching free improvisation?” My investigation into existing literature, instructional materials, and pedagogical approaches uncovered two significant areas of insight. First, an examination of expert Western classical improvisers revealed five distinct categories of improvisation teaching strategies. Second, an observation of notable free improvisation pedagogues (including Pauline Oliveros and Fred Frith) provides a pedagogical and philosophical framework for free improvisation teaching. These two studies provide a theoretical framework for my analysis of free improvisation teaching resources by Jeffrey Agrell, Marilyn Crispell, Sarah Stiles, Alice Kanack, and Nicole Brockmann. Each resource was contextualized through the five strategy categories established by the expert Western improvisers. Beyond a detailed analysis of these texts, two suggested mindfulness resources from Jon Kabat-Zinn and Rick Rubin are discussed and applied to themes in free improvisation teaching. Consequently, I advocate for the integration of mindfulness strategies as a transformative means to deepen the free improvisation journey. This study introduces a blended teaching sequence that harmonizes free improvisation techniques with mindfulness practices, offering a contemporary and enriched approach to the teaching and learning of free improvisation. Keywords: free improvisation, mindfulness, free improvisation teachin
Penalized weighted methods for robust offline and online learning
Full text linkData contamination is a prevalent issue in real-life data sets, with approximately 10% of observations being affected, as noted by Hampel et al. in 1986 [32]. The presence of data contamination undermines the assumptions underlying existing machine learning algorithms. In this dissertation, we address this challenge by employing a penalized weighted method to enhance Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and Random Forest (RF) models for regression analysis, particularly when mean-shift data contamination is present in the data set. The penalized weighted method assigns individual weights to observations in the training data set, and a Lasso-like penalty is applied to the individual weight. These individual weights, ranging from 0 to 1, govern the contribution of each training observation to the estimation of model parameters or the prediction of response variables. We present a novel approach, Penalized Weighted Stochastic Gradient Descent (PWSGD), designed for simultaneous outlier detection and accurate parameter estimation in regression problems. Furthermore, we introduce the Penalized Weighted Random Forest (PWRF) method, which adapts the RF model to enhance its robustness against systematic or trend contamination present in the training set. Both methods assess the impact of contamination in the training set based on the squared residual of each training observation, providing flexibility in handling unknown data contamination. Through numerical experiments and real data analysis, our observations indicate that the proposed methods exhibit competent performance, either yielding comparable results or outperforming benchmarking methods
Distraction-Free Zone: Decreasing Distractions During Emergence from Anesthesia
Full text linkBackground: The operating room (OR) is a complex and noisy environment. Induction and emergence are perhaps considered the most critical phases of anesthesia. Excessive distractions not only adversely impact OR personnel, but hinder patient safety when communication is jeopardized between providers. Reducing background noise and decreasing distractions should be an anesthesia priority. Purpose: The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice project was to reduce observed distractions during the emergence phase of anesthesia by implementing an educational intervention that summarized the existing evidence on workplace distractions, their adverse impact on patient safety, the phases of anesthesia, and common sources of distractions. Methods: This quality improvement project consisted of the pre-intervention measurement of observed distractions during anesthesia emergence, an educational intervention, and post-intervention repeated measurements of observed distractions. Perioperative staff were also surveyed pre-intervention and post-intervention regarding their opinions, attitudes, and behaviors towards distractions in the operating room. Results: The average number of observed distractions during anesthesia emergence pre-intervention was 13.2 and increased to 13.35 following the educational intervention. The opinions of OR personnel toward auditory distractions did not change post-intervention. Recommendations and Conclusion: Findings do not suggest that a single educational intervention is an effective tool to decrease distractions during emergence from anesthesia. Repeated educational sessions, visual cues, and extended time for study may produce more favorable results
Keeping up with the Joneses : Progressive Era revivalism in the South and the rise of the Christian Right
Full text linkThis dissertation examines the development of the Christian Right (also known as the New Christian Right) in the late twentieth century by focusing on its roots in Progressive Era revivalism and, in particular, the careers and beliefs of Samuel Porter Jones (1847-1906), better known as Sam P. Jones, and Robert Reynolds Jones, Sr. (1883-1968), or Bob Jones. While Sam Jones is largely forgotten today, and Bob Jones is most remembered for the bastion of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism that bears his name (Bob Jones University), both evangelists became household names during their respective careers. As their campaigns crisscrossed Progressive Era America, these men attracted audiences of thousands and filled the pages of newspapers from Honolulu to Hoboken with reprints of and excerpts from their dramatic and quotable sermons. Sam Jones and Bob Jones also became inextricably connected with Progressive reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both evangelists were leading proponents for local and, ultimately, national Prohibition. Additionally, both Sam Jones and Bob Jones campaigned for gubernatorial candidates and involved themselves in municipal politics, and Sam Jones was even (briefly) a candidate in the 1898 Georgia gubernatorial election. For the Joneses, the sawdust trails of tent revivals and the campaign trails of their political allies all led to the same destination – a Christian America. Sam Jones and Bob Jones shared remarkably similar visions for what that America should look like. First, and most importantly, these evangelists viewed the Evangelical home as the foundation of a righteous society. For this idealized home to persist, men, women, and children each had their own vital obligations. The Joneses believed that fathers should be sober, hardworking, and devout, mothers should be submissive, domesticated, and pure, and children should be obedient. Christian manhood and womanhood were major concerns of these religious leaders. No threat to this vision of domestic life could be tolerated, and both men viewed their political activism as crusades to protect the home. Second, the Joneses were committed to racial separation and white supremacy. They believed that God had established racial differences and that attempts to force integration or social equality would end in disaster. Finally, Sam Jones and Bob Jones advanced the idea that Christians had a divine mandate to reform society not only through religious conversion but also through political action. A Christian America would be created both by salvation and legislation. These beliefs aligned closely with the ideology of the Progressive Movement. The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the 1910s and 1920s led many Evangelicals, like Bob Jones, to focus on building distinctly Evangelical institutions (including colleges). Still, these beliefs persisted into the post-World War II period and were reborn in the 1970s and 1980s as the Christian Right, which, like the Progressives of the Gilded Age, sought to reform society and rescue American homes from the threats of modern life. Ultimately, Christian Nationalists of the twenty-first century, the Christian Right of the 1970s and 1980s, and Progressive revivalists like Sam Jones and Bob Jones are united by a common purpose – to create (or preserve) a Christian nation through both the transformative power of religious conversion and the coercive power of the state
Experiences and forecasts of the big-fish-little-pond effect
Full text linkResearch on the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) indicates that students evaluate themselves more favorably when they have high rank in low rank schools than low rank in high rank schools. In this integrated dissertation, I provide three empirical papers examining experiences and forecasts of this effect. BFLPE experiences refer to the impact of having either high rank in a low rank group or low rank in a high rank group on one’s own self-evaluations and performance-related affect. Forecasts of the BFLPE refer to the predicted impact of these same social comparison conditions on another person’s self-evaluations and performance-related affect. In empirical paper one, we examined whether experienced BFLPEs occur in different regional groups (i.e., at the school, state, and country level). In empirical paper two, we tested whether growth mindsets, that is, the belief that one’s abilities are malleable and capable of change, ameliorate the negative effects of having low rank in a high rank group. In empirical paper three, we examined whether the BFLPE occurs in empathic forecasting. In sum, this program of research contributes to our understanding of the conditions and contexts in which the BFLPE is likely to emerge, provides additional support for the robustness of the BFLPE, further establishes the causal nature of the effect, and indicates that intergroup comparison neglect is a key mechanism underlying the BFLPE
Educational Intervention on Mentoring Improves, Competence, Confidence, and Readiness for Practice in Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists
Full text linkBackground: Student Registered Nurse Anesthetists (SRNAs) face significant personal and professional stressors during their nurse anesthesia program. The literature has demonstrated strong peer mentorship programs can help lessen stress, increase confidence, and enhance a student’s academic performance. Purpose: To provide an early education session which reinforces the personal and educational benefits of mentorship, provides peer mentor training to help better prepare mentees, and, to assess the impact of this intervention on mentee’s clinical confidence, clinical performance, and patient outcomes. Methods: An education intervention was conducted with mentees and mentors, from the matriculation classes of 2025 and 2026, which focused on the importance of peer mentorship, provided tips to mentors to better prepare mentees for clinicals rotations. Student mentee perceptions were obtained using a survey, which was distributed following the initiation of their clinical rotations. The survey assessed the mentees perception of how peer mentorship impacted their confidence and stress levels, their clinical preparedness, and patient interactions. Results: Thirty-eight out of forty students (95%) completed the survey. Most respondents either ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that mentors interactions provided them helpful guidance around communication practices with preceptors and surgical staff, improved their sense of clinical preparedness, and improved their confidence levels. Conclusions: Peer mentorship helps students feel better prepared as they transition into clinical rotations by decreasing stress levels, improving confidence, and sense of preparedness. Additional research is required to help maximize the type(s) and length of educational intervention(s) required to maximize this benefit, and to better define the timing, structure, and requirements of peer mentorship program
The impact of COVID-19 on one rural middle school band in North Carolina
Full text linkThe purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of one rural middle school band program in North Carolina during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research questions for this study were: (a) How do rural middle school band program stakeholders in North Carolina describe challenges in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic? (b) How do rural middle school band program stakeholders in North Carolina describe benefits in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic? Semi-structured interviews, documentation and archival data, and researcher field notes were utilized as data. Triangulation ensured credibility between and among data types. Data were viewed and presented through a pragmatic lens. Emergent themes included Adapting Instructional Approaches, Allocating Resources, and Social-Emotional (SE) and Mental Health (MH) Responses. Results were consistent with previous research related to pre-COVID norms in rural areas such as funding, recruiting/retention, transportation, SE and MH responses, and rurality in general. Recommendations for practice included using the case school band program processes during Emergency Virtual Instruction and Plan B periods as best practice. SE and MH resources are needed in rural middle school band programs in NC. Recommendations for future research included SE and MH research, virtual instruction best practice, and multiple case study and phenomenological inquiry of rural middle school bands in NC as related to COVID-19. Keywords: Rural, COVID-19, North Carolina, case study, emergency virtual instruction, social emotional, mental health, middle school ban
Objective measures of childhood emotional neglect
Full text linkResearch has shown that maltreatment in childhood can have serious effects on mental health outcomes in adulthood. While physical maltreatment has been well studied, the effects of childhood emotional maltreatment are less researched. This may be because emotional maltreatment does not leave visible signs or injuries, making it harder to identify and study (Kumari, 2020). Emotional maltreatment can take the form of either childhood emotional abuse or childhood emotional neglect. Emotional abuse is defined by behaviors such as yelling and swearing at the child and belittling them. Emotional neglect is the omission of behaviors that are required to meet the emotional needs of a child and may include lack of affection, ‘coldness’ toward the child, and not listening to their needs (Li et al., 2019). Childhood emotional neglect has often been overlooked or combined with childhood emotional abuse. When it has been studied independently, it is often measured with subjective questions, such as “I felt loved.” This is in contrast to all other forms of physical and emotional abuse, which are measured based on objective life events, rather than on the respondents’ subjective feelings as they reflect on their childhoods. The current study inquired if an objective measure of childhood emotional neglect would be more highly correlated with the expected adverse outcomes of depression, anxiety, and suicidality than subjective questions. This study used Steiger Z tests to determine if questions focused on objective historical events of emotional neglect would be more correlated with outcomes than questions focused on subjective feelings. It also used hierarchical linear regression to determine if objective measures of childhood emotional neglect had greater predictive power, over and above those of physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and subjective measures of emotional neglect in the prediction of depression, anxiety, and suicidality outcomes. Results indicated that objective measures of childhood emotional neglect were not more highly correlated with outcomes than subjective measures and did not have greater predictive power over and above those of physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and subjective measures of emotional neglect. This indicates that objectively worded questions do not add specificity and, therefore, currently used measures that use more subjectively worded questions may be appropriate to use in both clinical and research settings