Archived data was utilized for the present study which examined self-injurious behaviors in a college population. College students, who engage in non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI, were expected to evidence a higher knowledge base for the behavior than those who do not. The demographic variables of gender and sexual orientation were predicted to be over represented in the NSSI group. Further, this study examines the perceived riskiness of the behavior in individuals who self-injure, as well as their perceptions of others who engage in NSSI. The survey consisted of four sections: demographics, knowledge ofNSSI, experience with NSSI, and perceptions ofNSSI. Individuals who engage in or have a history of NSSI evidence a higher mean score or better knowledge of the behavior than those who do not. The NSSI population evidences disproportionate numbers of females and individuals with gay, lesbian, and questioning sexual orientations. Further, when examining the perceived riskiness of self-injury, the NSSI group views the behavior as less risky than the non self-injury group. Results are discussed in relation to the need for accurate knowledge about NSSI and additional research directions.

The current study addressed whether there were differences in relational aggression in 9- to 10-year-old boys and girls in Hungarian and German samples. There has been very little empirical research conducted comparing children of diverse cultures in their use of relational aggression. The current study used teachers’ reports of different aggression styles observed in their 9- to 10-year-old students (N = 269). The purpose of this study was to examine the incidence and styles of aggression used in a 9- to 10-year-old culturally diverse population, as it was hypothesized that culture would be a factor in the incidence of relational aggression as well as a difference in boys’ verses girls’ relational aggression within native Hungarian cultures. Data were collected from classroom teachers using the Children’s Social Behavior Scale – Teacher Form (Crick, 1996). Six sets of analyses were conducted, including the evaluation of teacher reports of relational aggression among all 160 Hungarian and all 109 German students, the evaluation of teacher reports of physical aggression among Hungarian and German students, the evaluation of teacher reports of prosocial behavior among Hungarian and German students, the evaluation of teacher reports of relational aggression among Hungarian boys and girls, the evaluation of teacher reports of physical aggression among Hungarian boys and girls, and the evaluation of teacher reports of prosocial behavior among Hungarian boys and girls. Results confirmed 2 out of 2 hypotheses. Teachers reported greater incidence of relational and physical aggression among German students. Teachers reported a greater incidence of prosocial behavior among Hungarian students. Hungarian teachers reported a greater incidence of physical aggression among boys and a greater incidence of prosocial behavior among girls. This research failed to find any differences in Hungarian boys’ and girls’ use of relational aggression in this sample. Overall, the current findings support that cultural differences exist in relational aggression, physical aggression, and prosocial behavior among a 9- to 10-year-olds. It also supported the position that gender differences exist in the use of physical aggression and prosocial behavior among a native Hungarian sample.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether men with a large amount of Muscle Dysmorphia symptoms had a more favorable outlook and opinion of body work. Participants in the current study were a convenience sample of men recruited from undergraduate classes at Western Kentucky University and the community of Bowling Green Kentucky and Somerset Kentucky. A total of 215 men completed the study. Participants completed the Muscle Dysmorphia Inventory (MDI) and the Attitude-Behavior Questionnaire (ABQ). Results indicate scores on the MDI were significant predictors of scores on the ABQ. This suggests that men with a high number of Muscle Dysmorphia symptoms have a more favorable outlook and opinion of body work.

Affective intra-individual variability (IIV) and affective psychological flexibility (PF) are both types of within-person variability. Affective IIV is defined as the range of emotions experienced by an individual assessed at multiple time points. PF is defined as the ability to vary one’s responses in a contextually dependent manner in order to appropriately meet situational demands. Currently, there are no comparisons between affective IIV and PF demonstrating how these constructs might be uniquely different from each other. The current study proposed to examine affective IIV and PF in order to establish discriminant and convergent validity, and stability data for each construct. The National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) waves 1 and 2, an 8-day daily diary portion of the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS I) and MIDUS II surveys was used for this study (n =793 adults completed both waves of the NSDE). Affective IIV was related to higher mean NA and neuroticism, and lower perceived control. Affective PF was related to lower mean NA, neuroticism, and higher mean PA and perceived control. Higher affective IIV was associated with more psychological distress when assessed concurrently at both waves and predicted more psychological distress and physical ill-health 10 years later. Higher affective PF was related to less psychological distress and physical ill-health when assessed concurrently at wave 1 and less psychological distress and physical ill-health 10 years later. When situational context is included in the calculation of emotional variability, changes in emotional response may represent emotional complexity and increased control rather than emotional lability and are related to better psychological and physical outcomes.

It is well-established that personality not only affects physical health and longevity, but also mental health and coping mechanisms. One area of limited research is the relationship between cancer pain and personality. This study examined how personality traits affect reported cancer pain severity in older patients (N = 150) receiving outpatient treatment at a comprehensive cancer center. Participants were interviewed regarding their pain severity, personality, affect, and self-efficacy for pain management. Symptom data were collected from the Brief Pain Inventory, while personality data were gathered from the Ten Item Personality Inventory and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Self-efficacy for pain management was collected from the Chronic Pain Self-efficacy Scale. Analyses included descriptives, Chi-square tests, t-tests, stepwise linear regressions, and moderation analyses. The mean age of the sample was 65.38 ± 7.72 years. Seventy-nine percent of the sample was White. Analyses indicated that the average pain was 4.15 ± 2.01 (0-10 scale; with 10 being worst pain), with the sample recording means of 6.53 ± 2.57 and 2.45 ± 2.15 on worst and least pain, respectively. Regression analyses showed extraversion (â = -0.21, p < .01) and openness to experience (â = 0.18, p < .05) to be significant predictors of higher current and average pain severity, respectively. Agreeableness (â = 0.18, p < .05) was found to be a significant predictor of higher self-efficacy for pain management. Conscientiousness and extraversion were significant moderators in the relationship between self-efficacy for pain management and worst pain severity. These findings indicate that different personality types and personal affect may influence reports of pain severity. More empirical research is needed to understand the impact of personality and its relationship with pain severity and self-efficacy for pain management in more diverse and marginalized cancer populations across the age continuum. Finally, the results may be used to design more individualized interventions on pain management, depending on personality type, an application that has never been done in older adults with cancer.

This dissertation adds to the growing body of research on L2 academic discourse socialization in classroom contexts. Although the importance of students' writing in socializing them into their target discourse communities has been well documented, much less has been made of how students learn through online activities when the division between more and less knowledgeable individuals are blurred. Addressing this gap, this qualitative extended case study explored the experiences and perspectives of novice L2 graduate students in academic literacy practices that involved online writing activities. The focal participants included five first-year female graduate students from different cultural backgrounds enrolled in a graduate class during fall 2008 semester. Data sources included interviews with focal students and with the professor, class observations, field notes, questionnaires, handouts, and students' reflective essays. Anchored in language socialization theories (Duff, 1996, 2003; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986) and the notion of community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), this study provides an ecological perspective on these five L2 students' socialization into academic literacy activities. The findings revealed how the students negotiated competence, relations, and identities to participate legitimately as competent members of their classroom communities. This study also contributes to an understanding of the changing role of novice learners in a given academic community by analyzing how they variably exercise their agency and develop their subject positioning in academic literacy activities that are imbricated in social, cultural, and discoursal contexts. Ultimately, this study enriches the notions of academic discourse socialization by demonstrating the dialogic and transformative nature of academic literacy practices mediated by online discourses in order to highlight ever more contextual information. / text

This paper lays the historical background for why women and leadership is an important topic today in order to discuss gender differences in communication styles, influence tactics, and leadership styles. This paper also outlines barriers women face when trying to attain and succeed in leadership positions. The analysis should provide a greater understanding of how men and women differ, especially in leadership and management positions, and what companies can do to help women overcome gender bias and discrimination in the workplace.

The regulation of gene expression at the right time, place, and degree is crucial for many cellular processes such as proliferation and development. In addition, in order to maintain cellular life, cells must rapidly and appropriately respond to various environmental stimuli. Sequence-specific transcription factors (TFs) can recognize functional regulatory DNA elements in a sequence-specific manner so that they can regulate only a specific group of genes, a process which enables cells to cope with diverse internal and external stimuli. Human has approximately 1,400 sequence-specific TFs whose aberrant expression causes a wide range of detrimental consequences including developmental disorders, diseases, and cancers; therefore, it is pivotal to identify the binding sites of each sequence-specific TF in order to unravel its roles in and mechanisms of gene regulation. Even though some TFs have been intensively studied, the majority of TFs still remain to be studied, particularly the tasks of identifying their genome-wide target genes and deciphering their biological roles in specific cellular contexts. Many questions remain unanswered: how many sites on the human genome a sequence-specific TF can bind; whether all TF-bound sites are functional; how a TF achieves binding specificity onto its targets; how and to what extent a TF is involved in gene regulation. Comprehensive identification of the binding sites of sequence-specific TFs and follow-up molecular studies including gene expression microarrays will provide close answers to these questions. Chromatin Immunoprecipitation coupled with recently developed high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq) allows us to perform genome-scale unbiased identification of the binding sites of sequence-specific TFs. Here, to gain insight into gene regulatory functions of TFs as well as their influences on gene expression, we conducted, in diverse cell lines, genome-wide identification of the binding sites of several sequence-specific TFs (CTCF, E2F4, MYC, Pol II) that are involved in a wide range of biological functions, including cell proliferation, development, apoptosis, genome stability, and DNA repair. Analysis of ChIP-seq data provided not only comprehensive binding profiles of those TF across the genome in diverse cell lines, but also revealed tissue-specific binding of CTCF, MYC, and Pol II as well as combinatorial usage among these three factors. Analyses also showed that some CTCF binding sites were inherited from parents to children and regulated in an individual-specific as well as allele-specific manner. Finally, genome-wide target identification of several TFs will broaden our understanding of the gene regulatory roles of these sequence-specific TFs. / text

The research done in this study was motivated by the notion that individuals (or societies) create their own reality through the specific space they occupy at a certain moment in time. This concept of reality implies an "interspace" between (con)texts that could be described as a hybrid (a term that is used to describe the mixing or intermingling of different aspects or liminal space between various (con)texts. As the notion of identity is closely related to the interaction of the individual with a specific context, the main aim of the research was to promote hybridity as a form of identity by exploring the relationship or dialogue between literature (novel) and film as texts. For this purpose, a comparison was made between the formation of identity in the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and its twentieth century counterpart in film produced by Twentieth Century Fox (directed by Alfonso Cuaron and adapted by Mitch Glazer). The main difference between the two texts, the different periods in which the works were produced, constituted an important point of departure for this study. It also revealed that the main character of the respective texts, Pip/Finn, possesses a type of "core personality" of a sense of values that refuses to be repressed, despite the character's interaction with context as reflected in the interplay between the similarities and differences between the texts. The methodological approach was based on the Brockmeier model which suggested an imbrication of theories such as narratology, semiotics and intertextuality that could all contribute, in some way, towards the formation of "textual" identity. The analysis ,first identified three (con)textual aspects/constants in the formation of identity, namely ideological influences, strategies of writing and social reality, in the novel Great Expectations, and then proceeded to illustrate the transformation of these contextual markers in the twentieth century film version. 'The comparison indicated an expansion of the narrator's/protagonist's historic consciousness in the film that correlated with the cultural dominants of the specific time: the film's realist mode as opposed to the postmodernist expansion or fusion of boundaries. The two texts were perceived to be engaged in a dialogue with no conclusive interpretation, an aspect familiar to the postmodernist approach. / Thesis (Ph.D. (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

English language learners (ELLs) develop their reading by engaging in diverse literacy activities in the learning contexts of multiliteracies. I investigated ELLs' experiences and their use of strategies when they read computer-based texts at home and in school. In addition, I identified a variety of influential factors that affected the ELLs' use of reading strategies when they read computer-based texts in both research contexts. This research was conducted at homes and at three public elementary schools. Participants were two fourth-grade and two fifth-grade ELLs, four parents, and five classroom teachers. The study included observations, interviews, verbal reports, documents, field notes, and reflective journals. My data analysis processes consisted of five steps and resulted in an understanding of the ELLs' use of strategies and literacy experiences when they read computer-based texts in home and school contexts. I collected data from April 2010 through December 2010. The findings indicated that the ELLs used 15 strategies when they read diverse computer-based texts. All the ELLs created their multi-dimensional zone of proximal development (ZPD) and dialogued with others, themselves, and texts in both non-linear and dynamic ways. The ELLs' specific patterns of using the strategies contained both similarities and differences in each context. In addition, (1) ELLs' electronic literacy knowledge and experiences, (2) parents' and teachers' guidance and interest for computer-based text readings, (3) ELLs' purposes for reading computer-based texts, (4) the language of computer-based texts, and (5) technology equipment in the contexts all influenced the ELLs' use of reading strategies at homes and schools. There are two implications for parents and teachers. First, even though limitations exist, parents and teachers need to play more active roles in supporting their children's efficient and productive use of strategies and computer technology for their computer-based text reading. Second, to enhance the ELLs' literacy development in the learning contexts of multiliteracies, a home-school connection is necessary.