Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Head Start On Parenting: A Systematic Literature Review, Julia Alotta

Public Administration & Policy

Head Start (HS) is federally funded early childhood development program that provides services, including daycare and parenting classes for low-income families. However, debates exist over its efficacy in improving child development outcomes throughout the child’s life course. This research aimed to review the evidence that Head Start improves parenting skills, which, in turn can foster improved health through a systematic review of recent empirical literature on Head Start and parenting. The study identified nine studies measuring the impact of parental involvement in HS on child outcomes. After reviewing these articles, we conclude that the HS program allows for parents to …

The Relationship Between Group Identification And Perceived Control Under Stressful Conditions, Fanshu Jin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Group identification provides important psychological resources. One potential benefit is that it may relieve individuals’ strain in stressful situation by increasing their perceived personal control. The current research explores the different roles that group identification plays in reaction to stressful performance situations. In particular, it investigates the extent to which group identification impacts perceived control in performance contexts. It was hypothesized that activating group identification prior to performing a challenging task will bolster perceptions of personal control, thereby sustaining or improving performance. An experimental study was conducted that manipulated salience of group identification, either before or after exposure to a …

Three Essays On Health Economics, Jihye Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis focuses on various factors affecting health of American adults and the elderly based on the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In chapter 1, I examine the role of educational and racial differences in life expectancy (LE) and health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) for Americans at ages 45-64 using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) during 2000-2016. I compute severity-weighted prevalence of diseases with comorbidity adjustments based on the Global Burden of Disease (2015), and map onto the information on 17 doctor-diagnosed diseases and four self-rated disabling health conditions from HRS. This approach allows us to evaluate the importance of major …

Sins Of Our Fathers : Assessing Parental Incarceration As A "Turning Point" In The Lives Of Young Adults, Melissa Elizabeth Noel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Coupled with other disadvantages, parental incarceration negatively impacts outcomes for children. Researchers have examined the consequences of parental incarceration mainly for children and adolescents, but it remains unclear about the long-term consequences as these children emerge into adulthood. Parental incarceration can affect social relationships and life attainments, increase labeling and stigmatization, and influence perceptions about society for young adults. Thus, this research study sought to examine parental incarceration as a “turning point” in which life outcomes of young adults are weakened or strengthened through this experience. Semi-structured interviews with 19 young adults were conducted and analyzed to examine: (1) whether …

The Effects Of Metformin On High-Fat Diet-Induced Neuroinflammation And Cognitive Impairment, Caleb Levine

Psychology

Chronic high-fat feeding is associated with neuroinflammation, cognitive impairment, and anxiety-linked behaviors in rats. Metformin, a popular treatment for type II diabetes, has been shown to attenuate metabolic dysregulation and weight gain associated with an obesogenic diet. We demonstrated that HFD caused elevated fasting blood glucose, glucose intolerance, and increased body weight without cognitive impairment or anxiety as measured by novel object recognition and open field testing. Further, we demonstrated that metformin did not produce cognitive impairment, which was a concern associated with its chronic use. Further work will elucidate the impact of chronic HFD and metformin treatment on molecular …

The Societal Perception And Judgements Of Sexual Violence Targeting Victims From Varying Demographic Backgrounds, Hanna Bogart

Psychology

Abstract Sexual violence affects people of all color and gender, but extant research has mostly focused on reactions toward female (and often White) survivors. With a sample of 77 undergraduate University participants (Mage = 18.82), the current study examined the effects of survivors’ race and gender on recommended punishment of the sexual violence incidents. The results indicated that severity of the assault and recommended punishment for the perpetrator had a significantly positive relationship, such that individuals’ recommended more severe punishments for more severe sexual violence incidents. Furthermore, sexual violence incidents involving female victims were recommended more severe punishments than those …

Behavioral Effects Of Early Postpartum Offspring Removal In Rats, Jayda Melnitsky

Psychology

The maternal experience has been associated with alterations in behavior and in many different areas of the brain. Soon after giving birth and throughout the postpartum period, maternal behavior and care of offspring in particular have been shown to stimulate the dopaminergic system in postpartum women and rats alike. Around 15% of women who give birth develop postpartum depression (PPD), which has been associated with downregulation of dopamine activity. This experiment tested whether the removal of offspring immediately after parturition would alter the anxiety and depressive-like behavior of dams, as well as the expression of dopaminergic neurons. Adult female Sprague-Dawley …

Examining Terrain Effects On Upstate New York Tornado Events Utilizing High-Resolution Model Simulations, Luke Lebel

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

The region at the intersection of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys of New York is characterized by complex terrain. It has been hypothesized that this complex terrain may have an impact on the development and evolution of severe convection in the region. Specifically, previous research has hypothesized that terrain-channeled flow in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys contributed to increased low-level wind shear and instability in the valleys during past severe weather outbreaks. However, a lack of observations in the region prevented this hypothesis from being robustly tested.

The goal of this study is to further examine this hypothesis and complement …

Explaining Variation In Levels Of Corruption Between Us States, Michael Allain

Public Administration & Policy

This study seeks to build upon the limited body of research that focuses on the causes and effects of governmental corruption. With an emphasis on supplementing previous findings and expanding their scope, this study seeks to identify factors that explain variations in the level of corruption between different jurisdictions. This study uses federal conviction data from the 50 US states to measure corruption, controlling for population and government employees, the latter of which has not been done previously. To identify and quantify independent variables, this study employed various governmental, scholarly and nonprofit sources. New variables were employed while also enlisting …

Family Annihilators: The Psychological Profiles Of Murderous Fathers, Taylor Oathout

Criminal Justice

Yardley, Wilson, and Lynes (2014), in their study of British family annihilators between 1980 and 2012, established four profiles of familicide offenders: self-righteous, disappointed, anomic, and paranoid. This paper located 39 cases of familicide within the United States between 2009 and 2019 using LexisNexis. Familicide is defined as a domestic crime where a father murders at least one of his biological children and the children’s mother. Cases were categorized by analyzing the relationship between the offenders’ primary motives and features of the crime and offender. Primary motives were family breakdown, appearance, financial distress, mental illness, and protection. Features included domestic …

A Comparative Analysis Of Identity Theft Within America And Australia, Vincent Alagna

Criminal Justice

Identity theft is a very prevalent crime within the United States that has substantial repercussions on society. This study analyzes factors that potentially contribute to America’s elevated rate of identity theft in relation to Australia in order to reveal its cause. It was ultimately found that the United States experiences a greater amount of computer usage within its country, has the ability to implement a stricter prison sentence on those convicted of committing identity theft in accordance with its legal code, and has a greater conviction rate while Australia has a higher prosecution rate. These findings, when applied in the …

U.S.- China Policy: How Mistreatment Of The Uighurs Affects Foreign Policy, Divya Forbes

Political Science

The United States and China have a complex relationship that is influenced by security issues, climate change, combatting terrorism, strategic stability, and human rights violations. The United States has held the position that China is a crucial trading partner due to the vast level of economic interdependence between the two nations. However, the United States is a protector of human rights and has not shied away from intervening to protect persecuted religious groups from human rights violations. This paper seeks to distinguish the plight of the Uighur Muslim population in the Xinjiang province in China. It discusses how United States …

The True Capabilities Of American Education Policy, Mirren Galway

Political Science

This paper is an analysis of today’s American education system, how it has come to be, and why it seems to consistently fall behind when compared to other countries. Beginning with an evaluation of American education today, this paper follows the implementation of recent policy, the deep issues facing the education system and what can be done to address them. Specifically, it explores why, despite such bipartisan legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act, many students and teachers are still being left behind, and why common arguments about education policy continue to fail students. I argue that, although new …

The Intersection Of Free Speech And Abortion: How Federal Courts Are Influencing Doctrine To Further Anti-Abortion Goals, Gina Tan

Political Science

Maintaining the accessibility to abortion has been a longstanding battle. While funding for Crisis Pregnancy Centers is increasing, states are cutting funding for abortion clinics (Ludden, 2015) and they are closing at a rate of 1.5 each week (Redden, 2015). Since Roe v. Wade (1973), hundreds of cases have been brought to challenge its legality and limit it as much as possible. The inability to challenge Roe directly has led many conservative legislators to play abortion politics by proxy, regulating what goes on inside and outside clinics, and the federal courts’ play a pivotal role in reviewing these regulations. During …

How Political Engagement Helps Indigenous Communities In Their Fight For Rights, Danielle Duguid

Political Science

How does political engagement help indigenous communities in fighting for their rights? Indigenous communities have faced immense levels of oppression and discrimination throughout history. A growing global trend shows that more communities are fighting back and gaining their rights through political means. This paper looks at the multiple ways communities have mobilized, focusing specifically on non-violent, political methods of resistance. This is done by examining politically active indigenous populations from North, Central, and South America and the states that they reside in. Even though the Inuit, Mayan, and Quechua communities have faced similar discrimination, have the same goals, and reside …

Twice Migration And Indo-Caribbean American Identity Politics, Jessica Ramsawak

Political Science

Being an Indo-Caribbean American can be a confusing and inspiring experience. It is marked with a desperation for understanding oneself and one’s mother, while simultaneously traumatized and burdened with a history of displacement. Migration history can inform the ways in which members of ethnic communities view themselves, their heritage, and their ethnic identity. This is particularly true of the first-generation Indo-Caribbean community in America. The term Indo-Caribbean describes the waves of Indian indentured laborers that were sent to the Caribbean in the early 1800s, developed an Indo-Caribbean culture, and then emigrated in the 1980s to join the Indian diaspora in …

Gender Journeys : Arts-Based Participatory Action Research With Non-Binary Young Adults, Darren Thomas Cosgrove

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Increasing attention to the social and health disparities faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people has ushered in much needed attention to issues related to sexuality and gender diversity within social work literature. Among this burgeoning focus has been a particular emphasis on the experiences of transgender people. Such work is particularly relevant to social workers given the heightened rates of harassment and discrimination that transgender people face. Increased scholarly attention presents opportunities for new knowledge to inform social work policy and practice in service to transgender communities. While this expansion in literature addresses several significant needs, …

The Rise Of The New Left: Amlo’S Mexico In The 21st Century, Gina Andrade

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, commonly known by his initials as AMLO, was voted to be the next Presidente de Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos in the country’s general election on July, 1 2018. On July 1, 2018, AMLO won a landslide electoral victory and he assumed presidential office on December 1, 2018. This was AMLO’s third time running for president and many like to think he should have won the first time he ran but Mexico’s corruption problem is big and that 2000 presidential election is often believed to have been rigged. AMLO’s win is significant because of how unexpected it …

Modeling An Open Data Ecosystem : The Case Of Food Service Establishments Inspection In New York State, Mahdi Mirdamadi Najafabadi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Open Government Data (OGD) is becoming an increasingly popular initiative around the world. OGD initiatives have a broad number of stakeholders from different sectors and are influenced by many political, societal, and technological factors. In this thesis, I used the notion of Open Government Data Ecosystem (OGDE) as a holistic perspective to the OGD phenomenon, which encompasses important actors, their reciprocal interactions, and their impacts on the OGD environment.

Cross-Cultural Validation Of The Korean Version Of The Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale-Racial Diversity Form (K-Mcse-Rd) For Korean Counselors, Sung Yong Park

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Faced with growing racial and ethnic diversity in South Korea, the demand for culturally competent counseling services by multicultural clients has increased. The current study aims to contribute to the research of multicultural counseling and multicultural counselor training by examining psychometric properties of the culturally adapted Multicultural Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale-Racial Diversity form for use in South Korea. The purposes of the study were threefold: (a) establish content validity during the translation and cross-cultural adaptation stage for the MCSE-RD to the context of multicultural counseling in South Korea; (b) test plausible underlying factor structures and report internal consistency reliability estimates of …

Naral And The Art Of Playing Defense : How Interest Groups Act When They Seek To Protect The Status Quo Of Public Policy, Katherine Elaine Slye-Hernandez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Why do interest groups take certain actions in policy debates and not others? How do groups seeking to protect the status quo of policy act? These questions, and others, cannot be answered well by the current interest group literature, and this dissertation seeks to delve into this line of research with a case study of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). While certain aspects of the interest group literature, and a large part of the venue shopping literature specifically, can help scholars understand some actions of groups like NARAL, there are a whole host of actions NARAL took that …

Making Good : World War I, Disability, And The Senses In American Rehabilitation, Evan Patrick Sullivan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study looks at how disabled American soldier-patients and the US Army used the senses as tools of rehabilitation after the Great War. Contemporaries argued that, when the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers came home wounded or sick after the Great War, the men needed to make good. The phrase “making good” meant that sacrifice in the war was not enough, and veterans had to become socially and economically independent, and return to heterosexual relationships. In an effort to return to normalcy, the US Army relied on rehabilitation, which aimed to medically and socially re-integrate the men into society.

The Evocative Effects Of Child Temperament On Parenting Stress And Behaviors, Laura Welch

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite recognition that parents contribute to child development, much remains to be clarified about ways child characteristics shape parents’ behaviors. For example, temperamental characteristics such as negative affectivity elicit more parenting stress (Oddi, Murdock, Vadnais, Bridgett, & Gartstein, 2013) and less effective parenting behaviors (Laukkanen, Ojansuu, Tolvanen, Alatupa, & Aunola, 2014). On the other hand, children’s effortful control is known to reduce psychological risks associated with negative affectivity (Gartstein, Putnam, & Rothbart, 2012) yet no studies have investigated whether this may consequently reduce parenting stress. Furthermore, stressed parents are more likely to engage in harsh parenting strategies (Martorell & Bugental, …

Patrons Of Violence : Drivers And Dimensions Of State Support For Rebel Groups, Nakissa Jahanbani

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Why do some states support rebel groups? This area of study has garnered more attention in the aftermath of the Cold War, as states continue to leverage proxy groups against one another. To understand the causes and consequences of state support, this dissertation builds on existing work in the state sponsorship, terrorism, and interstate rivalry literature. The research questions in this dissertation ask: (1) why states provides specific types of sponsorship; (2) what, if any, is the effect of interstate rivalry on the global network of state support; and (3) why are some Islamist rebel groups more violent than others. …

Protective Behavioral Strategies For Cannabis Use : Findings From A Web-Based Intervention, Rachel Rose Luba

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Cannabis is one of the most commonly used psychoactive substances in the United States. Perceived risks of cannabis appear to be declining, while use rates continue to rise, especially for adolescents. Heavy, frequent cannabis use is associated with negative outcomes. Efforts have emerged to identify effective harm-reduction strategies, with a recent emphasis on protective behavioral strategies (PBS). PBS emphasize straightforward cognitive and behavioral strategies that can help cannabis users develop less heavy, more planful use of the plant. Previous findings suggest that PBS for marijuana (PBSM) are negatively associated with frequency of use, quantity of use, and cannabis-associated problems.

Crisis, Legitimation And Contention : China's Environmental Health And Safety Crises In Global Public Spheres, Haoyue Cecilia Li

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

My project focuses on China’s environmental health and food safety crises to examine the changing interrelations among the Chinese state, media, civil society organizations and the international society. The debate on the environment-society relationship generates two conflicting theoretical explanations. While political economy theorists emphasize the non-compatible relationship between economic development and environmental improvement, the modernization theorists, especially in the traditions of risk society/reflexive modernity and of ecological modernization, contend that risks drive the changes of state-media-civil society relationship in a positive way towards a more compatible environment-society relationship. By investigating multiple cases, including the 2005 Songhua River Chemical Spill, the …

A Reinvestigation Of The Source Dilemma Hypothesis, Douglas Allan Kowalewski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In a recent article, Bonin, Trainor, Belyk, and Andrews (2016) proposed a novel way in which basic processes of auditory perception may influence affective responses to music. According to their source dilemma hypothesis (SDH), the relative fluency of a particular

Three Essays On Model Selection, Fangning Li

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In empirical research, we often need to address the issue of what model to use given a collection of candidate models. Conventionally, we use model selection to choose one best model from the collection of candidate models based on some model selection criteria. Model averaging is a generalization of model selection in the sense that it assigns weights to candidate models and uses a weighted average to construct an aggregated model. Usually model averaging provides better performance than model selection which chooses a single candidate model based on AIC or BIC.

Does Common-Sense Communication And The Interpersonal Relationship Predict Oral Health Self-Management?, Kieran J. Maestro

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study sought to understand how patients’ perceptions of the nature and manner of communication with dental health professionals may impact their health self-management quality and habits in the context of preventable illness. Specifically, this study investigated the distinct and overlapping impacts of (a) communication based in the Common Sense Self-Regulation Model (CSM; Leventhal et al., 1980), and (b) the interpersonal relationship between the patient and the dental health professional provider on patients’ oral hygiene quality and habits. It was hypothesized that the interpersonal relationship would positively moderate a positive relation between CSM-based communication and patients' oral health self-management and …

When Life Gives You Diversity... : A History Of Racial Diversity And Conflict In Four Philadelphia Neighborhoods, 1960 - 2015, Jeaneé C. Miller

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The U.S. population has changed significantly since the 1950s, becoming markedly more racially diverse. Still, a large portion of America’s neighborhoods remain racially segregated – even in large, racially diverse cities, such as Philadelphia (Logan & Stults, 2011). As a result, there is a well-established body of research that has shown that residential segregation consistently produces negative effects for neighborhoods (Massey & Denton, 1993). In response, many scholars and policymakers have suggested that the most promising response to inequality due to segregation is racial residential integration (Denton, 2010; Ellen, 2000; Galster, 1992; Roisman, 2008). However, social science research has produced …