Ed.D., Antioch University, 2025, Education

The persistent health disparities faced by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the United States are deeply rooted in systemic racism embedded within medical education and clinical practice. Historical acceptance of racial supremacy in the United States has shaped both the foundations and continued practices of medical education, leading to entrenched biases that affect healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. This dissertation critically examines the intersection of race, education, and health by analyzing how historical and contemporary understandings of race and ethnicity shape medical curricula, healthcare practices, and patient care. Through the integration of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), and ScT, this study deconstructs racialized knowledge systems in medicine and examines their impact on health equity. CRT provides a lens to analyze how systemic racism is embedded within medical education and practice, illuminating the ways racial bias is institutionalized and perpetuated in healthcare structures. SCT contributes by exploring how individuals internalize societal norms and beliefs, which influence the attitudes and behaviors of both medical practitioners and patients. Finally, ScT emphasizes the role of social networks and relationships, highlighting how disparities in access to healthcare resources and support systems affect health outcomes in marginalized communities. Together, these theories offer a comprehensive framework for understanding the layered and interconnected influences of race, education, and healthcare, guiding the study's aim to challenge and dismantle biased practices within medical training and clinical care. Chapters I and II introduce the research problem and establish a comprehensive foundation, outlining key theoretical frameworks—CRT, SCT, and ScT—while exploring the historical roots of racialized practices in medicine, including the legacy of unethical experimentation and the Flexner Report (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Higher Education (Education)

The changes in medical education have not kept pace with societal expectations and the rapidly evolving business model for healthcare delivery. Meanwhile, the socialization process in medical education has remained relatively unchanged. This has resulted in physicians with a high level of technical competence but lacking a comprehensive understanding of the ethical pitfalls of being a physician. It is crucial for medical school leaders to develop proactive strategies that are coherent, coordinated, and explicit in training physicians capable of navigating conflicting values and managing transient stressors. The findings in this study challenge the fundamental premise that it is enough for medical school leaders to simply view professionalism as an array of behaviors expected of others who offer services according to a social contract. Nor is it sufficient to promote teaching professionalism guided by directives of prescribed and prohibited activities or by guidance from aspirational goals. Moreover, the means of assessing any behaviors deemed problematic or unprofessional are varied and imprecise, and they do not account for those behaviors that are hidden or unobservable. This study examined two relevant theoretical frameworks within moral psychology and social learning theory. Specifically, they include professional identity formation and communities of practice. These frameworks present different facets for viewing the fostering of professionalism in medical education through the lens of moral psychology and social learning theory. They provide greater detail, build upon, and occasionally challenge established theories based on cognitive theory and moral development. They may also serve as a beacon to higher education leaders by influencing support efforts to form the students' professional identity and identify communities of practice in the professional journey of medical students.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

This study investigated perceptions about the correlation between the college people attend and long-term happiness. Its inquiry into whether college graduates believe where they go to college affects the chance for long-term happiness is a response to the growing concerns of high school students who are anxious about acceptance into an elite undergraduate college. There is substantial literature demonstrating that graduates of elite schools earn more money and professional success than graduates of standard schools (Rumberger & Thomas, 1993). At the same time, there is evidence that individuals who attend a lower tier school while having similar characteristics to those who qualify for a top school are often as successful and prosperous as are their top-school counterparts (Dale & Krueger, 2011). This study addresses a gap in the existing literature about perceptions of the correlation between the college a person attends and his or her long-term happiness. The data indicates more than one-third of well-off participants in surveys report below-average levels of happiness (Pavot & Diener, 2013). Using a ranking system with four tiers of colleges based on admission rates, an anonymous survey with a seven-point Likert scale and an open-ended question was sent to a class of successful people (community college presidents) to determine respondents' perceptions of the correlation between the college they attended and their long-term happiness. The findings of the survey were clear. Seventy-three percent of respondents indicated that attending Tier 1 and 2 schools has no correlation to long-term happiness. Additionally, the survey results indicate that there is no tier of college attended that diminishes the chance for lifelong happiness. The significance of this study lies in gaining a greater understanding of the importance of the tier of college one attends and in providing the basis for future investigations into the value proposition of higher tier colleges. This dis (open full item for complete abstract)

EDD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Health Sciences

MBA programs and their graduates have been accused as complicit in the decline in corporate ethics that began with Enron. How have business schools responded to these challenges? Few studies have looked at this question, particularly through the dual perspectives of those instructing MBA programs and their graduates. The primary aim of the study was to investigate business ethics instruction with MBA program faculty and administrators in Northeast Ohio, and with MBA graduates, to understand if graduate business schools have risen to meet modern ethics challenges through attempting to produce more ethical business leaders. Open-ended 25–93-minute interviews with 12 questions were presented to 25 MBA program faculty and administrators and 26 MBA graduates practicing in their careers. The convergent mixed-methods study produced qualitative data, analyzed using in vivo first cycle coding, second cycle coding, and after second cycle coding producing patterns and categories. The interview questions also produced descriptive statistics. The key findings of the study were business ethics instruction has been widely embraced by MBA programs during the 21st-century post-Enron in terms of quality and quantity compared to the 1980s and 1990s. Business ethics should be required instruction. Business schools and their graduates feel they are creating ethical future business leaders, prepared to face ethical challenges within their careers. The significance of these findings indicated business schools and their prestigious accrediting body, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), have responded to the corporate ethics crisis through prioritization and enhancement of ethics instruction in MBA programs.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, English

This dissertation, Examining Programmatic Practices of First-Year Writing at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), focuses on the various ways writing programs at HSIs and emerging HSIs (eHSIs) serve and support their minoritized student populations. Because federal law (Higher Education Opportunity Act, 2008) defines HSIs based on enrollment percentages alone, writing program administrators (WPAs) can experience challenges when seeking to enact policies and practices with an explicit aim to serve and support their students. The scholarship of writing studies at HSIs has typically examined what it means to serve students at the classroom level (Baca, Hinojosa, and Wolff Murphy, 2019; Kirklighter, Cardenas, and Wolff Murphy, 2007); however, my research focuses on what servingness means at the programmatic level through various practices that WPAs employ across their programs. Using a mixed-methods approach such as an Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), I conducted an analysis of archival materials, recent surveys from 98 WPAs from HSIs and eHSIs across the country, and 42 one-on-one semi-structured interviews. I present research-driven narratives of writing program administrators (WPAs) who discuss existing program-level practices related to placement procedures, program goals, culturally relevant and sustaining curricula and instruction (Paris & Alim, 2017), instructor training activities, and program assessment structures in the context of their HSI or eHSI designation. Overall findings reveal that possessing an HSI or eHSI designation does not mean that a first-year writing program supports students equitably and inclusively. It is up to the individual choices and leadership decisions that administrators make to make meaning of their designation and take action through program-level practices. With the ongoing shifts of student demographics in higher education and with more students entering such institutions, I expand upon (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

COVID-19 changed how faculty members approached teaching in higher education in the United States. This study specifically looks at the changes in faculty-student interaction (FSI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. While extensive literature exists on the topic from the student perspective, the disruption in education necessitated a more extensive study of the faculty perspective. A multiple-case study methodology was employed to explore the experiences of a small cohort of faculty members at a single institution and how they fostered positive interactions with students from Spring 2019 through Spring 2023. The data collected included semi-structured interviews, course syllabi, teaching philosophies, and a pre-interview questionnaire with demographic data. The findings revealed that faculty initially faced hurdles engaging with students but swiftly devised strategies to adapt. Their approaches primarily emerged from internet searches and conversations with other faculty in their communities of practice. Additionally, faculty members who taught prior to the pandemic used their prior teaching experience but also credited having access to course materials designed for online learning as a strategy for positive interaction. Finally, returning to in-person teaching with social restrictions presented significant challenges in comparison to teaching online. A key implication for practice is requiring faculty to teach asynchronous courses periodically to ensure familiarity with best practices for online learning and access to updated teaching materials. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Contemporary Music

This paper explores the intersection of U.S. graduate music student experiences and mental health. A literature review discussing nineteenth-century mechanist piano pedagogy practices, Carl Seashore's Measures of Musical Talent, the impact of neoliberal capitalism on students, and an overview of current U.S. studies on university music student mental health underscore the need for further inquiry into the student experience. I held eight semi-structured interviews with current or former U.S. graduate music students focused on their experiences as a music major. Through poetic inquiry and qualitative content-coding, the interview transcripts were analyzed and organized into poetic portraits representing the collective essence of the lived experiences of the interviewees. The set of eight poems, “Portraits of a Wonderful Musician,” explores uncovered codes including: identity, self-perception, pressure, expectations, urgency, anxiety, the pursuit of perfection, guilt, depression, criticism, comparison, and burnout. Grounded in phenomenology, this paper foregrounds the subjective lived experiences of those interviewed and demonstrates how these rich understandings can inform current music education trends and practices. Poetic inquiry and coding revealed a correlation between traditionalist pedagogical practices and students exhibiting fixed mindset traits, which are associated with the negative lived student experiences. Influenced by the historical, social, and cultural constraints of music pedagogies, teachers and students can benefit from student-centered learning approaches, deliberate practice strategies, and modeling growth mindsets to proactively challenge detrimental traditions.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

This dissertation project used an interpretivist qualitative research design to study how the right-to-read claim made by seven teenagers attending Detroit public schools in 2016 reflects, addresses, or describes contemporary discussions about educational access. Using situational analysis (SA) as a theory/method, the entirety of the claim comprises the situation of the social phenomenon being studied, not the people. This research combines critical race theory (CRT) with Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems and uses situation analysis to map historical discourses to conduct a study that examines the history of a present situation of inquiry as presented by this question: How does the 2016 right-to-read claim made by high school students in Detroit, Michigan reflect, address, or describe contemporary discussions about educational access? The study collected data to allow me to construct a prosopography that articulates an answer to the question that claims access to literacy is a public school policy right. Because situational analysis (SA) is designed to open research data to aspects of a circumstance that may have been overlooked, marginalized, or silenced, I was not certain the research results would answer this exact question. Additionally, critical theory and SA were used to conduct this qualitative research, examining historical data that addresses the right-to-read claim as a Foucaultian programmatic social problem. As such, it seeks to understand the complexities of recurring and historically situated education practices that limit actualizing U.S. education policies that embrace access to basic literacy skills as a human right. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2024, Educational Administration (Education)

This study seeks to investigate and illuminate what Superintendents perceive to be their democratic ethos and how they maintain their orientation in the context of school board interactions and/or relationships. A democratic ethos is seen by this study as the intrapersonal convictions needed to enable Superintendents to continually drive forward with their practices, even when policy, school-boards, and the community seem to falter. The schoolboard-Superintendent relationship represents a microcosm of American society and overarching democratic values. The research is concerned with the relational synthesis of two concepts by Superintendents as a mechanism for sustaining a system of governance and ensuring the longitudinal growth and progress of the educational systems they work in. Approached as a multiple-case analyses, this study presents the narratives of a group of 10 Superintendents who self-identify democratically. This research sees the concepts of political literacy and social democracy as intertwined. The study has implications for informing the leadership of practicing Superintendents as well as leadership preparation programs, both for K-12 settings as well as post-secondary institutions and can extend to inform the practice of any individual who is charged with organizational leadership throughout the course of their daily demands.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis essays to study and interpret a small body of poems from Southern Gaul which respond to the breach of the Rhine frontier and subsequent crises from 406-418 AD. After demonstrating contemporary literary conventions in both secular and Christian discourses, the paper will survey how the poems in question came to terms with recent catastrophe and thereby rearticulated differing ideas of empire and meta-history which drew upon the Latin Epic tradition but deployed them in a context that was increasingly Christian and destabilized. While this will shed limited light on the political events, it will primarily serve to situate the beginnings of the Fall of the Western Empire in their intellectual context and indicate how they served as agents of the transformation of the Classical World and the draining of the secular.

EDD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Health Sciences

Scripted/narrowed curricula are tangled in the webs of school reforms and standardization. Teachers are experiencing a monumental challenge: the deprofessionalization of their roles as educators. I sought teachers' understandings of how scripted/narrowed curricula impact their curriculum autonomy, specifically, their professional responsibility and pedagogical artistry. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from K–12 public educators in Rhode Island using an adapted Curriculum Autonomy Survey and Curriculum Autonomy interviews. I analyzed the quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistics, which provided a broader picture of the experiences of Rhode Island educators faced with teaching scripted/narrowed curricula, and a second group emerged: teachers who develop their own curricula. Interview questions asked teachers to reflect on their experiences with the curriculum. By coding and conducting thematic analysis, I analyzed the interview transcripts, and multiple themes emerged after the data proved consistent across the survey and interview. Teachers using scripted/narrowed curricula are experiencing a loss of their curriculum autonomy. Their professional responsibility is being challenged because they are no longer stakeholders in the curricular and pedagogical decisions or curriculum changes for their content areas. This lack of decision-making has led to questioning the equity of curricula and questioning the breadth and depth of subjects and topics in curricula. These educators are facing challenges to pedagogical artistry, meaning they cannot modify/accommodate student needs or create lessons to promote cultural and social learning opportunities, and they have felt a loss of creativity in building lessons to ensure students are learning skills to be citizens of the world.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Educational Studies

Disabled individuals in Western history have encountered barriers, both physical and attitudinal, that limit their potential in society. These barriers are both constructed intentionally and unintentionally, according to disability studies. They have been unintentionally built as the disabled have been specifically excluded, making the need for variability in the construction of physical spaces including buildings unnecessary. Likewise, when resources are limited, the disabled are among those who lose the most. If we view disabled history in this light, we can better understand how bathroom stall doors were not made for non-normative bodies, for example. This history shows the process that led to the exclusion and then later inclusion of traditionally disabled college students in the U.S. The roots of this history begin in religious, theological, as well as philosophical work used to enlighten populations throughout Western history. In the Bible, historical perceptions and treatment helped define the disabled individual as an “other,” which led to their being defined as such politically. In medieval Europe, the low perceptions of the disabled made them appropriate for and worthy of charity. Later during the Enlightenment, the Protestant work ethic and enlightened principles clashed with the historically charitable position of the disabled within the Catholic church. The social positioning of the disabled in European history explains much of the incommensurability between disabled college students and higher learning. Several social mores and traditions of European higher education evolved to become the modern equivalent of higher learning in the United States. Historically, disabled individuals in England and later in British North America were not encouraged or expected to better themselves with education, let alone higher education, and the low social positioning of the disabled in Europe and England was easily adopted by colonial society as American individual (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Educational Studies

“Education and Autobiography: The History, Practice, and Pedagogy of Autobiographical Narrative in Higher Education” explores the intersections of autobiography and education through three major areas: history, creative practice, and pedagogy, each of which is investigated in one of three papers that comprise this dissertation. The first paper, “Programming the Personal,” narrates the disciplinary history of creative nonfiction between the years 1930-2015, detailing how creative nonfiction rose to become a major genre track in graduate creative writing programs. The second paper, “Distance and Desire,” essays the experience of the educated split self and the “feeling” of education by integrating personal narrative with analyses of Tara Westover's Educated and Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory. The third paper, “Stretching the Truth,” explores the limitations of teaching autobiography with pedagogical aims external to literary analysis, such as instilling critical thinking skills or teaching religious experience. These papers are guided by several inquiries: What does it mean to be educated when education fundamentally changes who we are? Which autobiographers have taken up this deep change of education, and how have they narrated it? How is writing autobiographical narrative itself an educative endeavor? What educative possibilities emerge from teaching autobiography, and with them, what limitations? How is it that there is space carved out in our institutions of higher education—a place where we tend towards the objective and the scholarly—where we prioritize teaching the art of personal narrative? By probing this variety of relationships between education and autobiography, this dissertation offers new ways of thinking about how autobiography informs our conceptions and experiences of education, and how education informs our appreciation and practice of autobiography.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, American Culture Studies

In 2021-2022, once routine school board meetings erupted into intense showdowns because of the presence of what many believed to be Critical Race Theory within the school curriculum, Comprehensive Sex Education, disagreement over gender identity, and the nature of parents' rights. There were shouting matches and accusations that schools, board members, and parents were racists, hated America and members of the LGBTQ community, were trafficking in communism, and were harming children. Commenters made fiery pledges to remove board members, and board members received hate mail including death threats. This research project interrogates parents', guardians', and concerned community members' publicly expressed beliefs and anxieties about Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender identity, and Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), at 10 geographically diverse K-12 public school board meetings in the U.S. available online in 2021-2022. It considers what their comments at the board meetings reveal about their understanding of the world, of America, American identity, and of their own values, hopes, and fears. The methodology used in the project is anthropological. There is close textual analysis to better ascertain the content, context, and meanings of the discourse formations and cultural codes. These are the primary sources analyzed: comments at the school board meetings, written and televised speeches, personal letters, newspapers, op-eds, slogans, protest signs, campaign commercials, websites, and social media. In addition, historical and archival research trace the genealogy of these discourse formations within American culture among the secular and white evangelical Religious Right. The anti-CRT commenters and those who hold to traditional gender ideologies want to maintain a particular culture, an ordering of the world, including ideology and theology that is rooted in hierarchy, exclusion, and particular gender norms heavily influenced by the Southern way of life. (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, EDU Policy and Leadership

The central question of this dissertation is: what significance do Thomas Kuhn's ideas have for science education and for civic education? Thomas Kuhn is widely known in the areas of history, philosophy, and science. His biggest impact on these areas was his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which had a large influence outside of his intended audience. The significance of this book has influenced our everyday language when we use words such as “paradigm” and “paradigm shift,” despite most people being unaware of why these words became part of the common vernacular. His influence, however, is mostly within the philosophy of science and according to Kuhn is only applicable to the hard sciences. I make the argument that Kuhn's ideas are applicable outside of the hard sciences, and ultimately to us as human beings. I use Kuhn's ideas such as normal science, revolutionary science, and incommensurability as they relate to science, science education, civic education, and personal beliefs. Kuhn's ideas create a space within science and civic education to practice overcoming differences both within science and within society. The science education and democratic classrooms provide the arena for the ideas to be discussed and practiced, where a framework to respect each other and find ways to overcome our differences is established to provide a mechanism for a meaningful classroom community.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2023, Foundations of Education

This study is an educational biography about Lawrence A. Cremin (1925-1990). Archival research and an oral history provided data that formulated the study's findings. The study utilized data collected from Cremin's personal journal in conjunction with other sources, and a theoretical framework where leadership is understood as an inclusive process, to make interpretations about his career in higher education. Study findings illuminated his thoughts and practices about leadership throughout his over 40-year career at Teachers College in New Yor City. The study first analyzed his formal leadership position in a United States Army Air Corps cadet training program during World War II. The study transitioned to explore how he conceptualized leadership when working as a new faculty member after he joined Teachers College in 1949. The study highlighted his changing thoughts about leadership after becoming a chair for the Department of Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education in 1958. Study findings culminated with lucidity that Cremin, when serving in the Teachers College presidency from 1974 to 1984, determined his leadership style centered on holding and exercising power.

Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2023, Educational Administration (Education)

This study explored the Deming System of Profound Knowledge as a method of leadership and management in K-8 education. The study focused on the process of acquiring and understanding Deming's teachings as they related to the principalship and educational leadership. Using autoethnography as methodology, I leverage personal qualitative data and related educational leadership literature to present my personal journey of becoming an educational leader who practices Deming's System of Profound Knowledge as their primary method for leading and managing a school. Upon reflection and analysis, I found W. Edwards Deming's System of Profound Knowledge practical and valuable as a leadership method in today's schools. Though the mastery of Deming's teachings was a long, complex process, it greatly improved my leadership practice. The findings highlight essential knowledge and skills required to understand and practice the System of Profound Knowledge. It connects educational leadership and Deming's method and recommends further research.

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Organizational Leadership , Franklin University, 0, International Institute for Innovative Instruction

The Black-White achievement gap has been an acknowledged problem in American public education since the 1960s with the release of the Coleman Report (1966). Academic optimism has been linked to student achievement since its development in 2006. This study seeks to confirm the link between academic optimism and student achievement, and to see if there is a connection between academic optimism and the Black-White achievement gap in an urban public-school setting.164 high school teachers from an urban school district in Ohio were surveyed to assess the level of academic optimism in their schools. This variable was then compared to the difference in math and ELA test scores between Black and White students at each school. The results of this study confirmed a significant positive correlation between academic optimism and student achievement, as well as between each of the three components of academic optimism (academic emphasis, collective efficacy, and faculty trust) and student achievement. However, there was no significant correlation found between academic optimism and the Black-White achievement gap, nor between the factors of academic optimism and the Black-White achievement gap.

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), University of Findlay, 2023, Education

Only two percent of teachers in the United States are African American males (Wallace & Gagen, 2019). If this trend continues, the vast majority of students in America will never encounter an African American male teacher (Burns Thomas, 2020). The purpose of this research study was to explore the motivations and obstacles that African American males encounter as they enter the teaching profession. This qualitative study consisted of interviewing eight African American male educators regarding their motivations and obstacles on their journey to the classroom. Participants were asked open ended questions to afford them an opportunity to share their lived experiences. A narrative analysis was conducted of participants' interviews. The major findings of this study revealed that African American males are motivated to become teachers by family, by wanting to become role models, as an extension of coaching, and through the influence of teachers throughout their educational experience. Participants shared that lacking a support system, not pursuing rigorous college preparatory coursework, and isolation and exclusion were major obstacles they had to overcome. This study suggest that stakeholders have to be intentional in the recruitment and support of potential African American male teachers. Stakeholders can use the information gained from this study to create policies, provide academic and financial supports, and mentoring opportunities that are tailored to the recruitment of African American male teachers.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2023, Educational Leadership

Over time, Lincoln Heights High School has seemingly been erased from history. With the exception of a Facebook group and a few articles about state championships that were won during its final year of operation, there is no information on the internet or in published books or research about the high school. This research project aims to fill the void in the literature about Lincoln Heights High School. Data for this project were collected through a combination of oral histories and archival documents to unpack the trials and triumphs of a school that aimed to provide a quality education for its students despite having insurmountable budget issues that inevitably led to its closure. The purpose of this research is to understand the unique case of Lincoln Heights High School as it was one of the few Black schools in Ohio. What were the experiences of Black educators who taught at Lincoln Heights High School? The teachers' narratives highlighted that the staff was more than willing to work with the limited resources that they had in an attempt to educate students and build community. From the archival documents, the main takeaway is that there were so many external forces attempting to hinder the Lincoln Heights community. The battles over land and industrial tax revenue caused Lincoln Heights to be a landlocked community without the opportunity of expanding or generating substantial tax dollars from industry. Gerrymandering was the legal method used to ensure that thriving communities around Lincoln Heights were able to create the hopeless situation for the largest all Black town in the United States. Policies are the reason for the dire situation that the Lincoln Heights community and high school found themselves in. These findings indicate the need for an analysis of school funding in Ohio. The funding model that Ohio utilizes has been deemed illegal, but the model still exists. This model is what also forced the closure of Lincoln Heights High School and con (open full item for complete abstract)