Attitudes Toward Seeking Help from Instructors

This thesis reports research concerning the attitudes of students toward seeking help from an instructor outside of regular classroom sessions. The following hypotheses were tested: (1) there will be a positive relationship between the student\u27s academic achievement level and the degree to which he perceives seeking help from an instructor outside of class as complex, and (2) there will be a positive relationship between the student\u27s academic achievement level and the degree to which he perceives seeking help from an instructor outside of class as desirable and beneficial. The population for this research was 216 freshman women who were living in the women\u27s dormitories at Fort Hays Kansas State College at the time of the investigation. The following areas were investigated: (a) the complexity with which the student perceives seeking help from an instructor, (b) the degree with which the student perceives seeking help from the instructor as desirable and beneficial, and (c) the degree with which the student perceives his peers seeking help from instructors. These areas of investigation were studied in their relationship with academic achievement level, operationally defined as grade point average. Both hypotheses were supported, the data being statistically significant beyond the .01 level of confidence. Other interesting data were obtained and discussed; further areas of research were suggested

Völlig Losgelöst!? Bodies, Space and Digital Games

In digitalen Spielen geht es mehr als nur darum, Helden aufzubauen und Monster zu erschießen. Spieler sitzen zudem nicht einfach passiv tagelang vor einem Bildschirm. Build ‘em Up – Shoot ‘em Down untersucht in der Folge die Rolle des Körpers innerhalb und außerhalb digitaler Spiele; er präsentiert 18 Beiträge in deutscher und englischer Sprache und deckt Themen wie Identität, Interface, Gender und Tod in digitalen Spielen ab. Die Beiträge erörtern verschiedene Forschungsmethodologien, Spielgenres und Kontexte aus je unterschiedlichen Disziplinen und Perspektiven. Sie bieten dabei nicht nur komplexe Antworten auf Fragen der Körperlichkeit in digitalen Spielen, sondern decken auch weitere Forschungsfelder auf. Letztlich zeigen sie, mit welcher Komplexität und Vielfältigkeit digitale Spiele Körperlichkeit einbeziehen, um erfolgreich zu sein.Digital games involve more than building up heroes and shooting down monsters. And gamers do not simply sit passively in front of a screen for hours or days on end. Build ‘em Up – Shoot ‘em Down explores the role of the human body, both within and in front of digital games. This anthology includes eighteen essays in both English and German that cover topics such as identity, interfaces, gender, and death in games. The essays offer various methodologies of exploration, analyses of multiple game genres and different contexts of use from numerous disciplinary fields and perspectives. They produce not only a number of insights into questions of corporeality in games, but also uncover further questions for future research. Finally, they reveal the profuse and complex ways digital games induce the human body to states of play

Quality of Life for Women with Chronic Lyme Disease: A Socioeconomic Investigation

This is a mixed methods investigation of how chronic Lyme disease, including Lyme-like diseases and co-infections, affects the quality of life of women who have chronic Lyme. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used during three phases of research: a 91-question survey instrument followed by focus group discussions and written narratives. The research considered the socioeconomic impact on quality of life in five areas: obtaining a diagnosis, relationships and personal support systems, struggles with the medical system, the ability to work, and access to treatment. There were 500 responses to the survey, of which 373 were analyzed; 11 participants in the focus groups; and 22 written narratives. The data collected during the quantitative phase supported the design of the qualitative phases and added validity to the findings. The research demonstrated that chronic Lyme disease has a predominantly negative impact on women’s quality of life across all five domains. Among the consequences highlighted by the survey responses were difficulty obtaining a timely diagnosis (72% had multiple misdiagnoses before being diagnosed); stressed relationships (57% reported that family and friends do not understand the impact of the disease); difficulty securing appropriate treatment (86% indicated that primary physicians did not know numerous treatment options); adverse impact on professional lives (75% reported that Lyme interfered with their ability to work); and difficulty finding and paying for treatment (54% did not see a specialist due to affordability). Through collecting and analyzing the data, it also became increasingly apparent that the medical industry operates in a way that does not believe chronic Lyme disease exists. In both focus groups and narratives, most participants recounted experiences of repeatedly having their concerns and symptoms trivialized, dismissed, or disbelieved by health care providers; the combination of deteriorating health and gaslighting led to a sense of worthlessness, feelings of hopelessness, episodes of depression, and more. Financial stability and relationships suffered, sometimes with devastating impact. While my own struggle with chronic Lyme disease was the impetus for this study, the research findings demonstrate how pervasive and deep the challenges are, with consistently negative socioeconomic consequences for women’s quality of life

A Non-Manual for Developing Responsible Selfhood

Wie kann der durchschnittliche Bürger die Verantwortung für Terror und Verbrechen in der Vergangenheit übernehmen? Wie kann man sich aktiv daran beteiligen, ohne dabei selber Gewalt und Macht auszuüben? Dieses Buch fragt interdisziplinär wie man ein verantwortliches Selbst konstruiert. Um dies zu erreichen, verortet es seine Untersuchung in Deutschland im Dritten Reich. Durch die Kombination geschichtlicher, literaturwissenschaftlicher, philosophischer und theologischer Expertise erkunden die vier Autoren die Rolle von Mythen, Lügen, Nonkonformismus und Ironie in den Konstruktionen des Selbst. Durch die Erörterung der Ambiguität hinter diesen Konzepten und der inhärenten Labilität des Selbst, präsentieren die Autoren Strategien für die Entwicklung von verantwortlichen Individuen, die bereitwillig die Bürde der Geschichte tragen.How can average individual citizens take responsibility for past crimes against humanity? How can they take active part in developing solutions without participating in the same systems of violence they struggle against? This book takes an interdisciplinary look at questions of responsible selfhood, and places its inspection on Germany during the Third Reich. Combining backgrounds in history, literary criticism, philosophy and theology, the four authors investigate the role that myths, lies, non-conformity and irony play in the construction of the “self”. By discussing the ambiguity behind these concepts, as well as the inherent instability of the self, the authors present strategies for developing responsible individuals who are happy to bear the burden of history

Contrast enhancement using grey scale transformation techniques

The object of this thesis has been to examine grey scale transformation techniques in order to incorporate them into a system for automatically selecting a technique to enhance the contrast in a given image. In order to include existing techniques in the system it was necessary to examine each in detail, and to understand under what conditions it gave good results. It was found that a number of techniques had only a limited scope or suffered from some problem in its design. This led to the development of a new technique based on the display capabilities of a monitor; the adaptation of another technique, globed histogram equalisation, to make it applicable to a wider range of images and the modification of the local histogram equalisation algorithm to smooth different sized regions of the image to the same degree. The resultant algorithms, together with those existing in the literature, were included in the system. The system provides an interactive environment for selecting grey scale transformation techniques. The usual method of choosing a contrast enhancement technique is to apply it, look at the result, discard it if the result is not suitable, or if there is a parameter value to be set, modify its value, and try the technique again. Here a more systematic approach is tried using ideas from Knowledge Based Systems and Object Oriented Systems. A model of the way contrast enhancement techniques are selected is encoded into the system and is used with information obtained by analysing the image (either automatic analysis done by the system, or interactive analysis done with the aid of the user) to select the most appropriate techniques. The techniques selected by the system have to fulfil three quite demanding criteria, ensuring that the system is a reliable and useful tool