Policing in the Era of Increased Awareness of Wrongful Convictions: Police Officers' Reflections on Institutional Change, Public Pressures and the Nature of Modern Policing

The purpose of this research is to first establish an increase in the level of public awareness of wrongful convictions between 1996 and 2005. The second objective is to assess law enforcement officers' experiences in their jobs given the increased levels of awareness of wrongful convictions. Through interviews with North Carolina law enforcement officers, I analyze their experiences and examine how they perceive their jobs in light of changes that have come about in response to the increased awareness of wrongful convictions. The interviews reveal that officers are cognizant of the increased awareness of wrongful convictions and that they view law enforcement as the primary cause of wrongful convictions. Officers agree that although wrongful convictions have had a negative effect on the public's view of law enforcement, they have led to reforms and improvements in law enforcement strategies and techniques

The relationship of social support networks and support network function to the health status of older widowed black females

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among personal characteristics, situational characteristics, network structure, network function, and network adequacy and their relationships to the health of older widowed black females. The Convoy of Social Support Model, (Kahn & Antonucci, 1980) a life course theoretical approach, was modified to reflect culturally relevant variables to examine family life and support networks of older widowed black females. Health status was defined as the widows' ability to perform instrumental activities of daily living with or without assistance. Widowed female participants (N = 110) who lived as community dwellers in Guilford County, North Carolina were selected to determine the extent of dependency on family members and others. The participants were recruited from congregate luncheon sites, senior housing complexes, churches, single family and multifamily dwellings

The effects of learning on bodily stress reactions

During the twentieth century in education, the concept of "training of the intellect" has been replaced by the relatively new concept of "educating the whole individual." It was with this underlying philosophy that Metheny (36:27) defined the educated person as "one who has fully developed his ability to utilize constructively all of his potential capacities as a person in relation to the world in which he lives." She more specifically defined the "whole individual" as a psychosomatic unity of mind-body-emotions. (36

Reflections of environmental images

My thesis show consists of oil paintings of my neighborhood environment. I attempted to paint the residential landscape around me as it exists without adding to or taking away any of its objects. In no way did I try to consciously or deliberately interpret any underlying character of the neighborhood and impose personal feelings in my paintings. I began working outdoors following a period spent in drawing from the figure to overcome some inadequacies in my drawing. In working from the figure, I discovered the value of close observation in relating its various parts, each equally important to the whole. When my interest turned to landscape painting, I considered each scene as an integrated object made up of related parts, each part as important as any other to the existence of the whole. So with my earlier experience with the figure, I assigned each element equal importance, painting everything before me

The study of "Loop" Markov Chains

The purpose of my research is the study of ”Loop” Markov Chains. This model contains several loops, which could be connected at several different points. The focal point of this thesis will be when these loops are connected at one single point. Inside each loop are finitely many points. If the process is currently at the position where all the loops are connected, it will stay at its current position or move to the first position in any loop with a positive probability. Once within the loop, the movement can be deterministic or random. We’ll consider the Optimal Stopping Problem for finding the optimal stopping set and the Spectral Analysis for our ”Loop” system. As a basis, we’ll start with the Elimination Algorithm and a modified version of the Elimination Algorithm. None of these algorithms are efficient enough for finding the optimal stopping set of our ”Loop” Markov Chain; therefore, I propose a second modification of the Elimination Algorithm, the Lift Algorithm. The ”Loop” Markov Chain will dictate which algorithm or combination of algorithms, would be appropriate to find the optimal set. The second part of this thesis will examine the Analysis of the Covariance Operator for our ”Loop” Markov Chain system

Maternal sensitivity and physiological processes as predictors of infant emotion regulation

The current study examined the way in which regulatory processes of the central and parasympathetic nervous system are associated with one another, and linked to behavioral regulation, during both mild and moderate frustration. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of emotion regulation and the process through which it develops, the current study also examined the associations between maternal sensitivity and infants' physiological and behavioral regulation, in addition to assessing the influence of maternal sensitivity on the development of infants' physiological and behavioral regulation across early infancy. Finally, the current study assessed whether physiological regulation was a mediating mechanism through which maternal sensitivity was associated with infant's behavioral regulation. Results demonstrated that vagal withdrawal and EEG activation were only associated at 10 months during mild frustration; as vagal withdrawal increased EEG activation also increased indicating more active processing in the right hemisphere. This positive association suggests that by 10 months of age, when infants encounter a frustrating situation that is at least moderate in intensity, cortical and autonomic processes respond in similar ways. At 5 months, there was a negative association between vagal withdrawal and observed distraction during mild frustration and a positive association during moderate frustration. This inconsistent pattern suggests that the mildly frustrating task may have been more interesting than frustrating for 5 month-old infants. EEG activation at 5 months was not associated with any observed regulatory behaviors during mild or moderate frustration, but was associated positively with mother reported infant regulation; this positive association conveys that infants who increased in active right frontal processing from baseline to task were also likely to be reported by their mothers as better able to recover from peak distress, excitement, or general arousal. During moderate frustration at 10 months, EEG activation and vagal withdrawal were associated positively with infant's mother orientation behaviors and associated negatively with infant's distraction behaviors; this suggests that 10 month-old infants thought to be better physiologically regulated may use more co-regulatory strategies when engaging in an novel and intense frustration task rather than employing more independent self-regulatory strategies. Maternal sensitivity at 5 months was associated with increases in vagal withdrawal during moderate frustration from 5 to 10 months but was not associated with increases in EEG activation or behavioral regulation from 5 to 10 months. It is possible maternal sensitivity at 5 months may help infants' manage physiological arousal in a way that facilitates greater myelination of vagal fibers and subsequently greater vagal regulation from 5 to 10 months. No indirect effects were found for maternal sensitivity on behavioral regulation via infant's physiological regulation

This is How We Do: Living and Learning in an Appalachian Experimental Music Scene

This ethnography traces Appalachian identity through the history of American indie music in order to broaden popular conceptions of Appalachian culture and make largely unexplored connections between Appalachian Studies and an international music underground similarly dissonant with “mainstream” American cultural understandings and projects. This thesis then explores how this history intersects with Boone, North Carolina’s local history of alternative music scenes before examining Boone’s current experimental scene. In seeking to understand the intentions and motivations of this current “non-Appalachian, Appalachian,” music scene, I explored this central question: How does learning happen in a local experimental music scene collectively engaged in negotiating and remaking disparate alternative music worlds

Effect of Inter-Repetition Rest on Kinetic and Kinematic Variables in the Power Clean

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effect of IRR on kinetic and kinematic variables in the power clean during a multiple set exercise protocol. 10 male, recreational weightlifters participated in 4 testing sessions. Subjects performed 3 sets of 6 repetitions at 80% 1RM with 0 (P0), 20 (P20), or 40 seconds (P40) IRR with 3 min. rest between sets. Peak power, force, and velocity significantly decreased to a greater extent during P0, whereas were maintained during P20 and P40. In all variables, P0 was significantly different from P20 and P40. Significant differences were found in horizontal displacement (bar path) for all 3 sets of P0. No significant differences were found in horizontal displacement for all 3 sets of P20. Significant differences were found in horizontal displacement for 2 sets of P40. The addition of IRR periods may allow for a greater volume of training while reinforcing proper movement mechanics

African American parents’ racial and emotion socialization profiles and young adults’ emotional adaptation

The current study aimed to identify parents’ profiles of racial and emotion socialization practices, to determine if these profiles vary as a function of family income and young adult child gender, and to examine their links with young adults’ emotional adaptation. Participants included 192 African American young adults (70% women) who ranged in age from 18 to 24 years (M = 19.44 years). Four maternal profiles emerged: cultural-supportive (high cultural socialization and supportive responses to children’s negative emotions), moderate bias preparation (moderate preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and nonsupportive responses to negative emotions), high bias preparation (high preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and nonsupportive responses), and low engaged (low across racial and socialization constructs). Three paternal profiles emerged: multifaceted (moderate across racial and emotion socialization constructs), high bias preparation, and low engaged. Men were more likely to have mothers in the high bias preparation and to have fathers in the multifaceted or high bias preparation profiles. Individuals with higher income were more likely to have mothers in the cultural-supportive profile and to have fathers in the multifaceted profile. Young adults whose mothers fit the cultural-supportive profile or the moderate bias preparation profile had lower levels of depressive symptoms than young adults whose mothers fit the high bias preparation profile

Gender and ethnic differences in young adults’ emotional reactions to parental punitive and minimizing emotion socialization practices

This study examined differences in how African American and European American participants (N = 553) recalled feeling when their parents engaged in punitive and minimizing emotion socialization practices during childhood. We conducted this study to replicate and extend previous empirical work by using a more generalizable sample containing both male and female participants and by asking participants to report separately on their mothers and fathers. Results indicated that African American participants reported feeling less hurt and ashamed than European American participants when their mothers and fathers engaged in punitive and minimizing practices. African American participants also reported feeling more loved than European American participants when mothers engaged in punitive and minimizing practices. In addition, gender differences suggested that women feel more hurt and less loved than men when both mothers and fathers engaged in punitive and minimizing emotion socialization behaviors