Revision of the self; revision of societal attitudes feminist critical approaches to female rape memoir

Rape is a social, cultural, and criminal phenomenon around the world. The statistics pertaining to rape, in the United States alone, demonstrate what a serious problem it is. Silence and shame have previously shrouded the thousands of victims of rape who have met with distant, cold, and often disbelieving reactions to their experience. Innate discomfort and fear of rape leads many to turn their backs on rape survivors and, as a result, far too many women have chosen to remain silent about their horrific experiences. Lucky by Alice Sebold, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison, and After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back by Nancy Venable Raine are all examples of the contemporary female memoir about rape; many are now being published and are beginning to break down this wall of silence by presenting graphic and sometimes disturbing, but extremely important details about rape and its effects. Each demonstrates the effects of such trauma both physically and mentally. Rape survivors, after their sexual assault, lose touch with the person they were before the experience, and usually spend many years enduring symptoms of denial, self-loathing, self-blame, and even suicidal feelings, exemplifying Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Only in facing the pain of their experience head on, revising their sense of self, and accepting that they cannot be the women they were before being raped, can they rebuild their lives. With self-acceptance and eventual embrace of their newly developed selves calm, inner peace, and resolution can be found. Despite the outmoded theories of Sigmund Freud et al. that suggest rape is a fulfillment of women’s deepest sexual fantasies, contemporary memoirs are detailing the brutal reality of rape and the severe psychological impact this personal violation has upon its victims. Patriarchal societies around the world have had limited understanding of rape and the way in which it destroys lives, often choosing to ignore its reality. In adopting a narrative that speaks on behalf of all rape victims, a universal “I”, these memoirists, among others, are giving a voice to rape survivors and forcing its presence into the face of society

Archetype, hybrid, and prototype : modernism and House beautiful's small house competition, 1928-1942

"Domestic architecture lagged behind commercial architecture in accepting new forms of architectural representations and styles, including Modernism. This thesis undertakes the initial question of when and how Modernism began to appear in domestic architecture. House Beautiful's Small House Competition serves as the primary evidence of residences built in America by professional architects for specific clients between the years of 1928 and 1942. By documenting the competition, the research also confronts the question, not simply of Modernism as an architectural form, but Modernism as an accepted means of representation for architects and critics, in the magazine, and the reception of their definition by House Beautiful readers. The thesis traces how the architectural process changes over time from one accepted form (archetype) to another (prototype), using Maxwell's "Two-Way Stretch" theory to uncover the changes. The research shows that, during the course of the competition, archetypes of traditional buildings yielded to hybrids that combined traditional architecture with Modern ideas."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Correlation of Clinical Signs/Symptoms and Oxygen Saturation in the Hypoxic Patient

Hypoxia is a condition in which the body lacks oxygen, and is a problem for some populations. Hypoxia in otherwise healthy adults normally happens in situations that would prohibit the use of standard diagnostic tools, such as underwater diving and aviation. Furthermore, the loss of consciousness that follows untreated hypoxia has a high chance of being fatal in these situations. Certain programs like NASA and some military training centers induce hypoxia in their students so they can understand firsthand what signs/symptoms occur, and that they need to fix a problem. However they do not provide a concise progression to these signs/symptoms, so it is impossible to know how severely an individual has become hypoxic. This implies a population that is in need of a way of knowing when they or their partner are beginning to suffer hypoxia without the use of an electronic device or tool, and to know how severe the hypoxia is

An investigation of the prediction of success in women's field hockey

The purpose of this study was to determine what, if any, predictive qualities could be identified in a group of skilled women field hockey players. The specific areas investigated were anxiety, visual perception, manual dexterity, ball control, and dynamic balance. Years of experience and playing position served as a secondary focus in the study. A total of 106 women field hockey players served as subjects. They were grouped according to the level of selection each achieved as a participant in the international selection and training camps sponsored by the United States Field Hockey Association during the summer of 1978. Players who entered one of the Level C camps (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) but were not selected to participate at the Level B camp (State College, Pennsylvania) were classified as the least successful group of skilled players. Those players who were selected from the Level B camp to participate in Level A camp were identified as the most successful group of field hockey players

A quantitative examination of the ways parents and families interact with their students’ college following campus-sponsored engagement opportunities: events, e-newsletters, and a daily blog

Historically, a college or university’s main constituencies of interest were students, faculty, staff, and alumni (Bok, 2013; Donovan & McKelfresh, 2008; Wartman & Savage, 2008). In recent years, parents and families have claimed their own place in the university ecosystem: “the student-parent-institution dynamic has evolved from the doctrine of in loco parentis, with parents expecting the university to take care of their children, to this new situation where parents have a direct relationship with the university” (Sax & Wartman, 2010, p. 220). Colleges have responded to families’ desire for engagement by creating parent and family relations offices that provide programs and services for families (Savage & Petree, 2017). However, little empirical research exists to measure the relationship between parents and families and their student’s college, or the ways in which parent and family engagement could impact behaviors of interest to the school. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which parents and families interact with their students’ college following institutionally-sponsored engagement opportunities, and the resulting behavioral outcomes or attitudes that follow. This study used two-step cluster analysis to classify undergraduate parents and families (N = 1,001) at Wilson University (a pseudonym), the Southern, mid-sized university that was the focus of this study. Clustering of families was based on three types of school-sponsored engagement: attendance at Orientation (one-time engagement), readership of a monthly e-newsletter (semi-regular engagement), and readership of the Family 411 (pseudonym) daily blog (continuous engagement). Specific outcomes that were measured were parent and family intervention with administrators on the student’s behalf, sense of satisfaction with the institution, and charitable giving. This study draws upon Uses and gratifications theory and Organization-Public Relations (OPR) in examining family behaviors. Findings from the study show that there were statistically significant differences in intervention, satisfaction, and charitable giving among six clusters of Wilson University families. Post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed that those differences tended to be concentrated among clusters who had sizeable differences in their consumption of the Family 411 blog, or who did or did not attend Orientation. Overall, the families who were most engaged via Orientation attendance, blog reading, and e-newsletter reading intervened less, were more satisfied with the school, and made more charitable contributions. Further research is needed to determine how demographic differences between clusters may have contributed to those family behaviors. This study contributes to the literature by being the first known empirical study that investigates how a daily blog relates to the behavior of college parents and families, and begins to fill a gap in the knowledge of how to use blogs as a family engagement tool. Implications for practice include encouraging family relations offices to consider adding blogs to their family engagement offerings to create continuous engagement and using cluster analysis to understand the unique needs and behaviors of segments of their parent and family population

A visual and textual analysis of transnational identity formation and representation

"This dissertation is an exploration of identity formation when crossing national boundaries and confronting disparate cultures and histories. Working with the assumption that identifying (or not) with local discourses informs behaviors and values, this study examines what questions emerge when one is immersed in discourses that were created beyond one's locality. Through weekly interviews with two exchange students who came to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from Mexico, this inquiry explores how they situate themselves within and against their local discourses before, during and after the transnational experience. The author uses bricolage and brings together different ways of knowing: visual, textual, historical, personal, and analytical in order to explore this encounter with difference. Crossing national boundaries is an experience in which fixed notions are called into question through exposure to disharmonious realities. The purpose of using bricolage is to expose the readers to disharmony in hopes that their own questions emerge about the representation of culture and nature. Rather than leading the reader down a path in which an argument is built vertically, bricolage immerses the reader into a conversation and encourages the reader to make his or her own meaning in their engagement with the texts. By exploring the students' experiences through both a visual documentary and a textual discourse analysis, a comparison between the different forms of representation arises. Different questions and meanings emerge depending on which method the researcher is using. Different paradigms exist at the same time. The pedagogical implications challenge typical definitions of education. Rather than thinking about education as coming from an authority figure that has categorized phenomena for an audience to consume, this dissertation explores the educative experience of pulling apart fixed categories and meditating on the resulting dissonance. The former isolated notion of education complements the written media and the classroom environment. The latter notion considers visual media an important place to raise questions. It deems experience, i.e., traveling, educative and difficult questions central. And it regards considerations about the opportunities and limitations of visual texts, as well as, the opportunities and limitations of written texts as a priority."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

A history of the Southern Business Association

Business Education had its beginning in the United States in the seventeenth century when the curricula, offered by a private instructor engaged by Plymouth Colony in 1635, included reading and writing, and for those who intended to engage in simple mercantile pursuits of the times, casting of accounts. Although there are no records to confirm it, there seems to be little doubt that bookkeeping, navagation, and surveying were taught in Boston and New York City prior to 1700.

The complexity of mating decisions in stalk-eyed flies

All too often, studies of sexual selection focus exclusively on the responses in one sex, on single traits, typically those that are exaggerated and strongly sexually dimorphic. They ignore a range of less obvious traits and behavior, in both sexes, involved in the interactions leading to mate choice. To remedy this imbalance, we analyze a textbook example of sexual selection in the stalk-eyed fly (Diasemopsis meigenii). We studied several traits in a novel, insightful, and efficient experimental design, examining 2,400 male–female pairs in a “round-robin” array, where each female was tested against multiple males and vice versa. In D. meigenii, females exhibit strong mate preference for males with highly exaggerated eyespan, and so we deliberately constrained variation in male eyespan to reveal the importance of other traits. Males performing more precopulatory behavior were more likely to attempt to mate with females and be accepted by them. However, behavior was not a necessary part of courtship, as it was absent from over almost half the interactions. Males with larger reproductive organs (testes and accessory glands) did not make more mating attempts, but there was a strong tendency for females to accept mating attempts from such males. How females detect differences in male reproductive organ size remains unclear. In addition, females with larger eyespan, an indicator of size and fecundity, attracted more mating attempts from males, but this trait did not alter female acceptance. Genetic variation among males had a strong influence on male mating attempts and female acceptance, both via the traits we studied and other unmeasured attributes. These findings demonstrate the importance of assaying multiple traits in males and females, rather than focusing solely on prominent and exaggerated sexually dimorphic traits. The approach allows a more complete understanding of the complex mating decisions made by both males and females

Moments of awareness

The history of writing would be enriched if it were known who wrote or told the first story. Yet, it hardly need be imagined that the first story was short, and that the first art form — the transformation of reality through means of the imagination — was the tale or brief story. It is one genre that has had many changes and any effort to classify it rigidly spells failure, for immediately there is the discovery of some classic which defies the rules. But this is not unusual; any attempt to catalogue forms of artistic expression is post facto; hence, more for the critic than for the creator

Early-onset vs. late-onset colorectal cancer trends among veterans

The purpose of this study was to evaluate trends in the incidence and mortality of early-onset CRC (age at diagnosis < 50), vs. late-onset CRC (age at diagnosis = 50). A secondary objective is to compare characteristics and outcomes among Black and White Veterans among patients with early-and late-onset CRC. This study was a retrospective analysis of a national cohort of Veterans identified in the Veterans Administration (VA) Oncology database with a diagnosis of CRC between 2012 and 2017. The PRECEDE model was used to guide this study. Descriptive statistics were used to compare characteristics among early-onset and late-onset patients and evaluate Black and White differences within both groups of CRC patients. Chi-square analyses, logistic regression, and Kaplan-Meier methods were the statistical analyses used to answer the research questions. In this cohort of 13,940 patients, early-onset accounted for approximately 4% (N=604) and remained consistent each year, while late-onset represented approximately 96% (N=13336) of patients and remained stable over the years. The sample was majority male (96.06%). The females were majority early-onset (12.09%) compared to 3.01% late-onset. The Black-White race distribution was (28.48%/71.52%) in early-onset and (19.84%/80.16%) for late-onset. The following predisposing factors (age, race, marital status, tobacco history, health conditions, and BMI) and the enabling factors treatment and additional health insurance were statistically significant among early-versus late-onset CRC (all p<0.0001). Findings from this study emphasize the importance of distinguishing between early-onset CRC and late-onset CRC to understand the unique characteristics of early-onset disease better, and factors contributing to racial differences in both early-and late-onset CRC