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The purpose of this study was to examine whether cueing strategies embedded in computer delivered text messages affected the recall and comprehension of students who differed in their field dependent-independent cognitive style orientations. Two hundred thirty-eight undergraduate students of Virginia Tech participated the study, and 219 sets of valid data were used for the statistical analyses. All participants were given the Group Embedded Figures Test to determine their level of field dependence-independence. They were then randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups that varied in their use of cueing strategy. The first treatment group featured computer delivered text messages with color-highlighted-keywords, the second group featured the same textual content with color-highlighted-key-phrases, and the third group was a control group that featured the same content and employed no cueing strategy. Participants were administered two tests following the treatments, one that assessed knowledge of terminology and another that assessed comprehension. A 3 x 3 Analysis of Variance was conducted to explore the main effects for field dependency and cueing strategy and any interaction effect between the two factors. The results showed that field independents outperformed field dependents in all tests. There were no significant differences for the three treatments; the cueing strategies employed in this study had no effect on participants' learning. A significant interaction was seen between field dependency and cueing strategy. However, the results of a one-way ANOVA are unexpected: the cueing strategies employed did not improve field dependents' performance on the assessments and actually hindered the performance of field independents. / Ph. D.

Attempts by behavior scientists to test interventions designed to promote environmentally-responsible behavior (ERB) have been documented for decades. Numerous behavioral scientists have looked to community-based interventions to decrease environment-destructive behaviors, as well as to increase environmental-protective behaviors (Geller, 1995). Litter is one of the most obvious examples of environmental degradation. Litter, defined here as misplaced waste material (Geller, Winett, & Everett, 1982), is a form of environmental pollution that not only degrades the quality of the environment but also proves costly to taxpayers. A wide variety of ecological and monetary benefits result from a decrease in litter. The current research examined the effectiveness of positive vs. negative antecedent messages to reduce littering behavior. A methodology similar to that used by Geller, Witmer, and Orebaugh (1976), in which handbills containing weekly supermarket specials and special anti-litter message prompts were distributed at local community shopping centers, was used in the current research. In the first study, handbills with no anti-litter messages were distributed for a one-week period to determine percentage of handbills that were littered, and to serve as a baseline. The total percentage of handbills littered was 38.5. A second, web-based, study was conducted to determine the six specific (three positive or gain-framed, and three negative or loss-framed) anti-litter antecedent messages to be added to the handbills. In the third study, handbills with anti-litter messages were distributed for a two-week period. Upon addition of anti-litter prompts, results revealed 36.09% of distributed handbills were littered. Although no significant interactions were found, several significant main effects were found for store location, distribution period, and gender. The gender effect, indicating women littered at significantly higher rates than males, is notable. Survey research in the area of gender differences related to environmental concerns often has often shown modest differences between men and women, with women frequently displaying greater levels of environmental concern as compared to men. Based on behavioral observations (instead of self-report measures frequently used in previous research), the present research demonstrated significantly more women littering than men. Although slightly more handbills, in terms of total handbill numbers, containing positive antecedents were littered as compared to those containing negative antecedents (which might be interpreted as stronger impact of loss-framed messages), this difference was not statistically significant. Similarly, there were no statistically significant differences found among each of the six anti-litter messages. Comparisons of Study 1 (baseline) and Study 2 (prompting intervention) revealed significantly more littered handbills in the baseline condition as compared to the anti-litter message condition. These results indicate a beneficial anti-litter effect of the prompts added to handbills. Conclusions based on the findings of the three studies within the present research are discussed. Implications for policies, public campaigns, and follow-up research designs are noted. Suggestions for future research involving message prompts and ERBs are offered. / Ph. D.

<p dir="ltr">Mentorship between faculty members and graduate students is critical for students’ success, especially when it includes career and psychosocial support (Byars-Winston & Lund Dahlberg, 2019; Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Paglis et al., 2006). When mentors offer both types of support, mentees benefit in professional and personal ways (Gardiner et al., 2007; Johnson, 2007). Mentoring occurs through the communication messages that mentors transmit to mentees, but research on mentoring has failed to explore faculty mentor messages (Buell, 2004).</p><p dir="ltr">This study aimed to analyze mentor messages from the perspective of Latino graduate alumni from Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) programs, a continuously growing group in graduate programs (Solinas-Saunders et al., 2023). To study these messages, this study utilized the theory of memorable messages (ToMM) (Cooke-Jackson & Rubinsky, 2022; Knapp et al., 1981). This study aimed to not only identify what memorable messages mentors communicate to students but also the potential impacts of these messages. This study was also concerned with identifying whether mentor memorable messages also support students’ development of resilience. According to the communication theory of resilience (CTR), resilience may be supported through five communication processes (Buzzanell, 2010).</p><p dir="ltr">Thematic analysis of 40 semi-structured interviews with Latino alumni with degrees from various STEMM disciplines revealed four types of memorable messages, positive and negative, from primary faculty mentors. These messages ranged from short verbal messages to longer conversations and included non-verbal communication such as memorable behaviors. Participants recalled messages of invalidation and validation of their academic, interpersonal, and cultural identities. Messages of career and life advice were also recalled. Lastly, messages of mentor red flags were remembered and focused on three specific red flags: manipulative behaviors based on power, emotional manipulation, and unprofessional behaviors.</p><p dir="ltr">This study showed that negative messages were more easily recalled, nearly word for word, than positive messages, and the impact of these messages had a deep lasting effect on students’ sense of self-worth. Positive messages, however few, had the ability to counter negative messages even in mentoring relationships that were nearly completely negative. Regarding resilience, all five communication processes of resilience from CTR were exemplified in the data. The data showed that there were very few examples of negative messages that spurred resilience and that many participants learned from memorable messages to develop emotional resilience, particularly those in mostly negative mentoring relationships.</p><p dir="ltr">These findings expand existing mentoring literature by illustrating how faculty mentor messages can either facilitate or impede graduate students’ development in STEMM. They also support ToMM’s suggestion that memorable messages can be nonverbal and include behaviors. This data also extends how certain memorable messages may serve as a catalyst for developing emotional resilience. Finally, recommendations are offered for faculty for more intentional communication with graduate students that may result in supportive memorable messages.</p>

Cette thèse est composée de trois volumes : le mémoire principal et deux volumes d’annexes. Elle présente une étude comparée d’images (photographies, dessins de presse, cartes, publicités) parues dans L’Express et Le Nouvel Observateur depuis 1967 (guerre des Six Jours) à 1983 (élimination politique de Yasser Arafat de la scène proche-orientale). Il ne s’agit pas de réécrire une nouvelle histoire des relations israélo-palestiniennes mais plutôt de comprendre comment l’agencement de l’image dans l’article de presse oriente notre perception de l’information. Ainsi l’image instrumentalisée devient un outil indispensable non seulement pour critiquer l’attitude du gouvernement israélien mais aussi pour condamner le terrorisme palestinien. Nous avons dégagé huit objets iconographiques regroupés en deux catégories : « l’image-illustration », « l’image-message ». Nous avons analysé la place de l’image dans l’article, l’importance de l’agencement de celui-ci pour mettre en évidence les liens existant entre les différents objets le composant. Ces images, seules ou multiples et scénarisées, ne cessent d’interpeller sur le danger de la colonisation des territoires occupés. Elles dénoncent aussi l’inanité des actes terroristes. Par contre, elles célèbrent tout espoir de paix, si ténu soit-il. / This thesis is made up of three volumes : the main dissertation and two volumes of appendices. The study outlines a comparative study of images (photographs, sketches, maps, ads) published in L’Express and Le Nouvel Observateur, from 1967 (Six Day War) to 1983 (Yasser Arafat’s political demise on the Middle-Eastern stage). The intention is not to re-write the history of the Israeli-Palestinian relations, but rather to understand how images in the print media influence our perception of the information. The use of images thus become an essential tool, not only to criticize the Israeli Government’s attitude, but also to denounce Palestinian terrorism. We have selected eight iconographic objects which we further divided into two categories : "illustration-image″ and "message-image″. We have analyzed the place of the image in the article and the text relating to it in order to highlight the sum of the constituent parts. Such images, single or multiple and scripted, never cease to stress the dangers of the colonization of the occupied Territories. They also condemn the pointlessness of the terrorist acts. On the other hand, they celebrate every potential hope for peace, no matter how faint.

Message Authentication Codes (MACs) are valuable tools for ensuring the integrity of messages. MACs may be built around a keyed hash function. Our main motivation was to prove that universal hash functions can be employed as underlying primitives of MACs in order to provide provable security in ultra-low-power applications such as the next generation self-powered sensor networks. The idea of using a universal hash function (NH) was explored in the construction of UMAC. This work presents three variations on NH, namely PH, PR and WH. The first hash function we propose, PH, produces a hash of length 2w and is shown to be 2^(-w)-almost universal. The other two hash functions, i.e. PR and WH, reach optimality and are proven to be universal hash functions with half the hash length of w. In addition, these schemes are simple enough to allow for efficient constructions. To the best of our knowledge the proposed hash functions are the first ones specifically designed for low-power hardware implementations. We achieve drastic power savings of up to 59% and speedup of up to 7.4 times over NH. Note that the speed improvement and the power reduction are accomplished simultaneously. Moreover, we show how the technique of multi- hashing and the Toeplitz approach can be combined to reduce the power and energy consumption even further while maintaining the same security level with a very slight increase in the amount of key material. At low frequencies the power and energy reductions are achieved simultaneously while keeping the hashing time constant. We develope formulae for estimation of leakage and dynamic power consumptions as well as energy consumption based on the frequency and the Toeplitz parameter t. We introduce a powerful method for scaling WH according to specific energy and power consumption requirements. This enables us to optimize the hash function implementation for use in ultra-low-power applications such as "Smart Dust" motes, RFIDs, and Piconet nodes. Our simulation results indicate that the implementation of WH-16 consumes only 2.95 ìW 500 kHz. It can therefore be integrated into a self- powered device. By virtue of their security and implementation features mentioned above, we believe that the proposed universal hash functions fill an important gap in cryptographic hardware applications.