Middle Tennessee State University
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Hybrid Lee-Carter Model: An Analysis of Mortality Rate Prediction Using ARIMA and Deep Learning Techniques
No full texte Lee-Carter model, is a fundamental approach in mortality forecasting that estimates and projects mortality rates based on historical data. While deep learning
techniques have been extensively explored in mortality prediction, most of the studies have focused on Long Short-term Memory within the family of recurrent neural
networks. This thesis investigates the application of the four different Deep Learning
models, namely Long Short-Term Memory, Gated Recurrent Unit, Bidirectional Long
Short-Term Memory and Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit in mortality rate prediction, both independently and in hybrid combinations with Lee-carter model. The
proposed models are evaluated using yearly mortality data categorized by genders
from nine census divisions in the United States. Through the out-of-sample testing, our finding indicates that all the model outperform the traditional Lee-Carter
model in terms of two selected error metrics, mean absolute error (MAE) and root
mean square error (RMSE). The Gated Recurrent Unit hybrid model produces the
most accurate estimations among the hybrid models, while the Bidirectional Gated
Recurrent Unit model has the best overall performance.M.S
Psychedelics for Mental Health Issues: The Experiences of Military Veterans with Stress and Trauma-Related Disorders
No full textABSTRACT
Combat veterans experience a higher rate of post-traumatic stress disorder than the general population. Most experience relief using therapy and medication. However, there are those who require another form of treatment, and they find relief using psychedelics, more specifically, Ayahuasca. The purpose of this study was to obtain the lived experiences of veterans who sought relief through nontraditional means to treat their mental health. Ten veterans were interviewed about their lives before, during and after their time in the military. Research findings were consistent with previous research in that stigma plays a role in the decision to either keep silent about worsening mental health symptoms or reveal them. The major themes presented in these stories are experiences with childhood and combat trauma, self-reliance and failure of mainstream treatment, suicide ideation, and managing layers of stigma related to worsening mental health and Ayahuasca treatment. My research extends our understanding of the experiences of stigma, mental illness, and alternative treatment among veterans.M.A
Book Tile: This Is Just An Example (full text)
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Pretty Lies, Clear skies and turquoise seas: A study of the Bahamas tourism industry in print advertising, 1960- 2020s.
No full textThe thesis examines the complex relationship between tourism development, representation, and the national identity in the Bahamas, a nation heavily reliant on tourism for economic growth. The Caribbean region has historically been recognized as one of the most tourism-intensive areas globally, particularly since the emergence of mass tourism. This study provides a critical analysis of the influence of economic dependence on the tourism sector, investigating the advantages and disadvantages associated with it. Drawing on extensive historical and contemporary sources, including print advertisements and academic discourse from 1960 to 2015, this study displays how the representation of the Bahamas in tourism advertisement has influenced the Bahamian national identity. The visual communication strategies employed by the Bahamas tourism industry, primarily through print advertisements, serve as a powerful tool in shaping the perceptions of the Caribbean as a paradise destination. By dissecting the representation of local residents in these advertisements and evaluating their impact on the community, this study offers fresh insights into the dynamics of power and identity within the Bahamian tourism landscape. The results of this study not only make a valuable contribution to the academic discourse on Caribbean tourism but also offer tangible benefits for policymakers and stakeholders who are interested in effectively managing the challenges faced by economies reliant on tourism.M.S
We Are Done Dying: The NAACP Cultural Campaigns of the Early Twentieth Century
No full textThe NAACP Cultural Campaigns of the Early Twentieth Century is a historical consideration of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s, NAACP, use of the arts as a stage for a racially empowering counternarrative. This dissertation traces the understudied history of the NAACP's use of the arts and humanities to support campaigns advocating for African Americans. The organization’s cultural work acted as a counter-narrative to popular media, which aided in the normalization of race-based violence by presenting blacks as characters that mocked their humanity and placed whites as the ideal image of humanity. The NAACP understood that to combat oppressive policies, an attack of racist rhetoric and cultural practices must coincide. Thus, the organization supported a counternarrative that educated the public on African American history, culture, and contributions to American culture. The research will augment historiography that connected art and creativity to African American humanity and citizenship as a response to racist oppression by analyzing the NAACP's discourse and campaigns.Ph.D
Discrimination Against Black Women in Reproductive Healthcare
No full textCenturies of racial and gender oppression have coalesced into the discrimination
against Black women in reproductive healthcare. Since its founding on the plantations of
the Antebellum South, American gynecology has viewed Black women as less than
human. Despite achievements in the Civil Rights and women’s rights movements, Black
women continue to face high rates of maternal morbidity, mortality, and mistreatment in
reproductive healthcare settings. The purpose of this study was to determine how
discrimination against Black women manifests in reproductive healthcare, to create
practical solutions for decreasing this discrimination based on knowledge obtained from
Black women, and to potentially inform Black women of the current resources they can
utilize to ensure they are receiving non discriminative, quality reproductive healthcare.
Qualitative interviews were conducted with six Black women between the ages of
twenty-seven and fifty-three who reside in Tennessee. The interviews were conducted to
understand their lived experiences as patients and to ascertain ways their experiences in
reproductive healthcare can be improved. The data indicate that participants of various
backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses experienced discrimination. The participants
offered several solutions for improving the quality of care Black women receive as
reproductive health patients: training practitioners to be empathetic and culturally
conscious toward Black female patients, increasing the numbers of female doctors and
doctors of color, and creating a welcoming environment through active listening and
engagement with patients. The centering of Black women’s voices in the discussion of
improving reproductive healthcare is essential for service improvement
EQUITY FOR THE ANCESTORS: AFRICAN AMERICAN CEMETERIES IN SOUTHERN URBAN SPACES AND THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
No full textFor much of our nation’s history, local governments in the United States strove to keep White and Black people separate from one another and, in many ways, to oppress African Americans in order to preserve the economically and politically dominant White culture. Officials in many cities historically treated Black cemeteries poorly or maliciously, or erased burial grounds by relocating individual graves into a mass grave elsewhere or simply removing grave markers and paving or developing over the site. Today, city officials may still give lower priority to African American cemeteries as local governments struggle to pay for the upkeep of all historic burial grounds that have long since stopped generating income.
Such lack of attention extends to scholarly literature in history, archaeology, material culture, and folklore studies, which have largely included only brief mentions of African American culture and burial customs within larger examinations in which White cemetery history and symbology are treated as the default. Studies of Black funereal traditions have been generally limited to the nineteenth century and, especially, the antebellum period, with an emphasis on the potential West African genesis of burial practices documented within the Southern United States.
This investigation—through both primary historical/archival research, a close reading of secondary sources, and contemporary data collection methods—seeks to address this gap. It first considers the various ways in which cities came to be in charge of African American cemeteries, and how typical conditions in city-owned African American cemeteries may affect whether those sites are perceived as historic. It next argues that listing in the National Register of Historic Places plays an important role in either facilitating or hindering the recognition of historic cemeteries, which is directly related to funding for physical improvements. Moreover, I assert that the National Register is designed to limit the listing of Black cemeteries. Finally, the dissertation considers approaches to equitable treatment for city-owned African American cemeteries and provides a case study for one city that is attempting to repair past harms.
This investigation is particularly timely due to the enactment by the U.S. Congress in December 2022 of the African American Burial Ground Preservation Act and the subsequent implications for cemeteries that might receive grant funds through the National Park Service. Questions of integrity and eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places are immediately pertinent to the preservation and possible restoration of city-owned African American cemeteries, because current assessment guidelines may present institutional barriers that impede efforts to manage, maintain, and improve these cemeteries in an equitable way.Ph.D
Gendered Violence in Indigenous Literature of Australia and Oceania: Surveying Archie Weller’s Day of the Dog, Keri Hulme’s the bone people, and Joseph Veramu’s Moving through the Streets
No full textViolence in Indigenous communities has often been studied in ways that attribute such violence to colonial conquest—when Indigenous land and autonomy were stripped away and replaced by a set of Western standards and rules. Colonialism and its effects contribute to Indigenous pain and feelings of unbelonging, as seen in many literary texts including the ones in this study; however, colonialism alone does not account for the complex and multi-faceted presence of violence within Indigenous communities and literary texts. The following study discusses three works by Indigenous authors—Archie Weller’s Day of the Dog from Australia, Keri Hulme’s the bone people from Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Joseph Veramu’s Moving through the Streets from Fiji—to demonstrate how literary depictions of the daily lives of Indigenous men offer valuable insights about different ways violence manifests itself in the present.
For Weller, critics have misread the violence in his work by isolating it from other lived experiences. While violence and moments of disparity exist, Weller wants his readers to see the beauty and richness of Aboriginal lives that exist alongside violence. Next, Hulme brings attention to ways that the colonial imposition of Western conceptions of gender and sexuality continue to impact expressions of violence. Her novel calls into question the ways that performing and reasserting manhood can contribute to current family violence and explores ways to counter the erasures of non-binary genders and sexualities. Veramu’s novel also sees violence in a gendered context but looks at the ways performativity of gender and messages from the West about what a successful man looks like can affect the ways that young Indigenous Fijian men enact violence in their contemporary communities.
While I approach these works as a Western critic, I practice a two-pronged approach of analyzing literary texts by using both Western and Indigenous scholarship in order to locate Indigenous knowledge at the center of the study and address ways that Western knowledge production impacts conversations about colonial and contemporary violence. I juxtapose texts from multiple nations with differing experiences of colonization to facilitate connections across contexts, but I also look at a variety of texts to reflect the rich diversity of experiences, perspectives, and literary production and counter tendencies to homogenize Indigenous men.Ph.D
The Effects of Critical Feature Handwriting Intervention on Early Literacy Skills
No full textABSTRACT
This study was conducted by utilizing an experimental handwriting intervention using eight critical features as identified by Reutzel et al. (2019). The intervention used lower-case letters to group letters with similar features for instruction for preschool-age children. These features were used to facilitate instruction with letter-writing fluency, letter-writing quality, letter names and letter sounds in a pre-K (3–4 years of age) classroom. The critical features of letters include short and long lines, short and long hooks closed and open curves, and a U-turn/hump and dot. This study examined the impact of a handwriting intervention using critical features on acquisition of letter names, letter sounds, phonemic awareness, and handwriting fluency and quality. This study included 29 pre-K students in private school settings, randomly assigned to form an experimental and a control group for each center. The intervention lasted 8 weeks, at 30-minute sessions per group. Small group instruction of the handwriting intervention took place in both centers with the experimental group. There were 2 small groups, n = 29, 15 in the experimental group and 14 in the control group. Quantitative data collection consisted of data from the pre-and post-handwriting analysis and FastBridge assessments for letter recognition and letter sounds. At posttest, ANCOVA analyses demonstrated statistically significant differences between the intervention group and control group on all measures (i.e., phonological awareness, handwriting quality, handwriting fluency, letter names, and letter sounds).
Keywords: handwriting, critical features, letter sound fluency, letter recognition, letter writing qualityPh.D