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This dissertation utilizes three independent research projects to examine one overarching theoretical question: How do people understand, contest, negotiate, and / or rationalize the ways in which bodies-human, animal, and microbial - are socially constructed as commensurate, or not, in science? Using three unique projects focusing on either the human, animal, or microbial body, this dissertation broadly explores the social processes inherent in the construction of "bodies" for scientific research. This dissertation explores the complexity of how bodies are used in science, how this is understood by individuals, and the impacts this has not only on science but also the intertwined lives of animals, humans, and their microbes. Each paper explores a key set of questions drawing from a shared set of theoretical lenses, including local biology and biolooping, commensuration, the biovalue of bodies, and the microbiome. Specifically this dissertation presentation will explore these questions: 1) How are Japanese bodies socially constructed as different from other bodies in ethnobridging clinical trials?; 2) How is local biology employed as a technique of commensuration at the site of the Japanese body, by the government, and the global pharmaceutical industry and what does this mean for scientific studies utilizing it in this way?; 3) How do scientists construct nonhuman primates as appropriate proxies for humans in biomedical research experiments?; 4) How do individuals understand themselves and their health in relation to pet dogs and microbes?; and 5) How do humans understand the ways in which humans, animals, and microbes co-create their biological and social worlds? This dissertation shows how the construction of the body as an object of scientific study is negotiated, contested, and taken up in daily life, and how this is flexible, malleable, and not at all uniform. It explores the ways in which biomedical knowledge of the body is socially constructed and how it co

This study used a multiple probe across participants design to examine the effects of concrete-representational-abstract sequence of instruction on solving equations using inverse operations with high school students with mild intellectual disability. Results demonstrated a functional relation between the Abstract sequence of instruction and students ability to solve equations using inverse operations. Students were also able to maintain the skills learned up to four weeks post-intervention. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are described.

In this dissertation, I look to contemporary menopause management in the Southwest, United States, as an ideal case study of the 'real world' negotiation of a widespread contemporary conundrum--characterized by discourses of risk, proliferation of information and choice, chronic doubt, and personal responsibility for decision-making. While there have been previous studies of menopause in the US, this circumstantial ethnography seeks to understand contemporary menopause management in an era characterized by a massive shift in the biomedical risk discourses about menopause, the explosion of therapeutic choice in a burgeoning pluralistic health care environment, and the broad expansion of women's identities, body projects, and life priorities over the last several decades.I report on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2007 and 2008 with menopausal women and health care providers in the southwestern US. Research components included ethnographic interviews (N=60) and focus groups (6 groups with 27 participants) with midlife women, interviews with health care providers across a range of therapeutic modalities (N=20), and observation of emerging discourses of menopause in science, media and marketing.This dissertation illustrates that contemporary menopause management is a recursive process characterized by the ongoing re-evaluation of the impact menopause is having on one's life--in context. Participants described the unfolding of the lived-experience of menopause over time--even years beyond the end of menstruation. Risk discourses are not embodied en masse but reflect the concerns most salient in women's lives. While women access various expert and lay resources, they favor personal experts--sources deemed professionally sound and personally relevant--and their own embodied knowledge. For their part, health care providers described themselves as "normalizing" menopause and practicing patient-centered care aimed at empowering women to make their own d

Postpartum Fatigue is a predominant concern of women after childbirth. Postpartum Fatigue is a pervasive and distressing experience that has negative health-related effects on women, infants, and families. Using grounded theory this study explored the process of postpartum fatigue in 13 women from diverse contexts in the six-week period after childbirth. The human process of Persevering emerged from the data. Persevering explained how participants continued Caregiving in the face of all but the most debilitating Postpartum Fatigue. Caregiving of the infant and older children was the outcome of the Persevering process. The need and ability to persevere emerged out of relationships between Postpartum Fatigue, Self-Transcendence, and Coping Techniques.Persevering is depicted by the model "Persevering through Postpartum Fatigue." The model has five major concepts: Influencing Factors, Postpartum Fatigue, Coping Techniques, Self-Transcendence, and Caregiving. Influencing Factors is a group of factors that participants identified as having the most influence on Postpartum Fatigue across the first six weeks postpartum. The three Influencing Factors were: Maternal-Infant Sleep Pattern Conflict, Infant Characteristics, and Fatigue Limiting Factors.Postpartum Fatigue was characterized by four dimensions: Mental, Physical, Stress-Worry, and Frustration. Each of these dimensions had empirical, context-dependent manifestations. Participants responded to Postpartum Fatigue by using a wide variety of Coping Techniques. Coping Techniques helped women manage Postpartum fatigue. Self-Transcendence was an ongoing human capacity called upon by the women to facilitate perseverance. Through the meaning and purpose ascribed to their infants and children, participants found the strength to persevere in caregiving through all but the most debilitating Postpartum Fatigue.The process of Persevering is explained through the relationships of Postpartum Fatigue, Coping Techniques, and Self-Trans

The relationships surrounding well-being, spiritual perspective, self-transcendence, health status, and fatigue in homeless persons have not been studied from a nursing perspective. This original descriptive study explored relationships among well-being, spiritual perspective, self-transcendence, health status, and fatigue in a sample of 61 homeless men and women in two shelters. A conceptual model based upon Rogers' Science of Unitary Human Beings and Reed's Theory of Self-Transcendence was constructed and tested. Multiple significant correlations were calculated between the study variables indicating that health status and spiritually-related variables correlate positively with well-being. Additionally, sell-transcendence and health status were significant predictors of well-being in this sample. Significant differences were also found between the long-term and short-term housed participants on spiritual perspective, self-transcendence and well-being. Clinical implications and research recommendations are provided.

This dissertation applies imitation theory to the problem of domestic violence. The original research examines the effects of exposure to violent football games and exposure to media accounts of violence by players off the field on incidence rates for domestic violence. The link between viewing violent sports and spectator violence is also discussed. Data from the Lincoln Family Violence Council of Lincoln, Nebraska are used, as well as articles from the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper. Multiple classification analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Limited support for imitation effects on domestic violence is shown by this research. Incidents of domestic violence are more frequent on days that articles appeared in the paper relating to incidents of violence by football players off the field than other days when seasonal and weekly fluctuations are controlled. These data support prior research on the imitation effect of publicized violence (Phillips 1983; Phillips and Bollen, 1985). Implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations for further research, identified.

The relationships surrounding well-being, spiritual perspective, self-transcendence, health status, and fatigue in homeless persons have not been studied from a nursing perspective. This original descriptive study explored relationships among well-being, spiritual perspective, self-transcendence, health status, and fatigue in a sample of 61 homeless men and women in two shelters. A conceptual model based upon Rogers' Science of Unitary Human Beings and Reed's Theory of Self-Transcendence was constructed and tested. Multiple significant correlations were calculated between the study variables indicating that health status and spiritually-related variables correlate positively with well-being. Additionally, sell-transcendence and health status were significant predictors of well-being in this sample. Significant differences were also found between the long-term and short-term housed participants on spiritual perspective, self-transcendence and well-being. Clinical implications and research recommendations are provided.