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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Constructing The Panama Canal: A Brief History, Ian E. Phillips May 2021

Constructing The Panama Canal: A Brief History, Ian E. Phillips

The Downtown Review

Seeking to commemorate the construction of the Panama Canal, an engineering marvel widely considered a contender for the eighth wonder of the world, this article attempts to retell the story of the Canal's construction by synthesizing a narrative centered on the Canal under French and American leadership, worker segregation, and labor conditions at the Isthmus.

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Big Five Personality Traits And Political Orientation: An Inquiry Into Political Beliefs, Ian E. Phillips May 2021

Big Five Personality Traits And Political Orientation: An Inquiry Into Political Beliefs, Ian E. Phillips

The Downtown Review

Personality research centered on the Big Five personality traits has heavily impacted our understanding in regards to what forces orient a person on a political spectrum. Examining how personality differences interact with political orientation, this research seeks to provide information on what makes someone either more or less likely to be liberal or conservative based on their temperament. In this paper, previous personality research is synthesized into one discussion, centered on what the effects of each trait are and how they impact political orientation, the heritability of personality, and what implications there are for such research in the realm of …

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Pharyngeal Constriction As A Cause For Late Acquisition And Speech Sound Disorders Of Rhotic Sounds In English, Spanish, And French, Connor Mahon May 2021

Pharyngeal Constriction As A Cause For Late Acquisition And Speech Sound Disorders Of Rhotic Sounds In English, Spanish, And French, Connor Mahon

The Downtown Review

This paper attempts to explain why rhotic sounds are cross-linguistically late developing among the sound inventory of children. Included is a summary of the current literature regarding classification of rhotic sounds, an examination of the articulatory movement of the tongue root, and an overview of the clinical implications on the field of speech-language pathology. The evidence presented supports the hypothesis that pharyngeal constriction is characteristic of rhotic sounds in many languages, and that it is related to the relative late acquisition and higher rate of speech sound disorders, as seen in English, Spanish, and French.

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Argumentative Synthesis Essay On Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Gwendolyn D. Wheatley Apr 2020

Argumentative Synthesis Essay On Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Gwendolyn D. Wheatley

The Downtown Review

This essay discusses enhanced interrogation techniques. For reference, enhanced interrogation techniques are interrogation techniques that involve “physically coercive interventions” (Duke & Puyvelde, 2017). The U.S. government supported these techniques after the attacks on September 11, 2001. This essay argues that enhanced interrogation techniques should not be used in interrogations because they are unethical, ineffective, and negatively impact the mental health of the interrogators using these techniques. Additionally, the essay references articles on the varied viewpoints as well as explains information on these interrogation techniques. Also, the essay argues that enhanced interrogation techniques encourage people to be cruel and inhumane. Moreover, …

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An Examination Of The Death Penalty, Alexandra N. Kremer Dec 2018

An Examination Of The Death Penalty, Alexandra N. Kremer

The Downtown Review

The death penalty, or capital punishment, is the use of execution through hanging, beheading, drowning, gas chambers, lethal injection, and electrocution among others in response to a crime. This has spurred much debate on whether it should be used for reasons such as ethics, revenge, economics, effectiveness as a deterrent, and constitutionality. Capital punishment has roots that date back to the 18th century B.C., but, as of 2016, has been abolished in law or practice by more than two thirds of the world’s countries and several states within the United States. Here, the arguments for and against the death …

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Organ Donation: A Comparison Of Altruistic And Market-Based Systems, Cameron Caputi May 2017

Organ Donation: A Comparison Of Altruistic And Market-Based Systems, Cameron Caputi

The Downtown Review

One of the most heavily regulated aspects of the Health Care industry is the organ donation system (“Legislation and Policy”). Regulations in this area ensure the quality of the organs and morality of the process through which they were procured. This system, however, is failing in at least one sense; the number of patients requiring organ transplants is increasing, but the number of donors remains stagnant (Gordon, Patel, Sohn, Hippen, Sherman , 2014). Due to the lack of available transplant organs, a debate has been sparked on whether the United States government should allow for the purchasing of these organs.

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Unreplicable: The Unscientific Nature Of Science Journals, Ernest M. Oleksy May 2017

Unreplicable: The Unscientific Nature Of Science Journals, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Academia shapes the way our species looks at veracity and defines what is deemed as well-founded science. The platform for researchers to make their work known is academic journals. The prerogative of these journals is to disseminate technically sound work so that the public may be informed of up-to-date advances in scientific fields. However, these journals are products on the market whose ultimate purpose is to garner a following that will make the producers money. This results in research that does not have statistically significant findings, or replications of past experiments which are integral to supporting the findings of the …

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The Chemistry Of The Flint Water Crisis, Ernest M. Oleksy Dec 2016

The Chemistry Of The Flint Water Crisis, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Politics and science do not always go hand-in-hand. Nowhere was this more clear than in the Flint Water Crisis. Negligence towards growing levels of lead poisoning in drinking water led to incredibly deleterious effects on Flint's citizens. The chemistry of equilibrium and the shortcomings of local leaders led to Flint's water becoming a crisis.

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The Impacts Of Elephant Grazing On Plant Succession In Tropical Forests Of Africa, Nadia Swit May 2016

The Impacts Of Elephant Grazing On Plant Succession In Tropical Forests Of Africa, Nadia Swit

The Downtown Review

Succession occurs in an ecosystem when there is a change in the species structure and diversity in an ecological community over time. While this can allow for greater biodiversity, occasionally diversity can be stunted based on the level of disturbance and the invasiveness of the first pioneering species. As in the case of arrested succession, continual disturbance prohibits changes in the environment and suppresses species establishment. The effects of this continued disturbance are seen in the tropical forests in national parks in Uganda and Tanzania in Eastern Africa with African elephants (Loxodonta africana). The continuous browsing on trees …

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Estimated Effects Of Climate Change On The Reproductive Fitness Of The Northern Spotted Owl, Strix Occidentalis Caurina, Nadia Swit May 2016

Estimated Effects Of Climate Change On The Reproductive Fitness Of The Northern Spotted Owl, Strix Occidentalis Caurina, Nadia Swit

The Downtown Review

In this paper, the trends for current and future climate change were utilized to evaluate the potential reproductive success of the Spotted Owl, particularly the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) subspecies. As breeding season would exert additional stressors on the animal, a time period of five months, from January to June, was selected for the spring breeding season in which to evaluate temperature change. Previous research performed by Weathers and colleagues (2001) concerning the California Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) formulated a thermodynamic equation that was utilized to compare the metabolic rate of the owl at …

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The Ecological Impacts Of Non-Native Species On River Otter Populations, Nadia Swit May 2016

The Ecological Impacts Of Non-Native Species On River Otter Populations, Nadia Swit

The Downtown Review

Most nonindigenous species invasions can have negative consequences on an environment. Trophic systems may become altered as prey sources are depleted, which can have further implications on community and habitat structure. However, some species invasions can be positive as it can provide another food source for key stone species. The effects of invasive species are reviewed in the following paper for the North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) and the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra). In the case of the North American river, the introduction of the lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) has negatively impacted otter …

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Jainism And Nonviolence: From Mahavira To Modern Times, Lana E. Sims Jan 2016

Jainism And Nonviolence: From Mahavira To Modern Times, Lana E. Sims

The Downtown Review

The research contained in this paper focuses on the religion of Jainism, its main principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, and how that philosophy has evolved over the years, eventually inspiring today’s nonviolent movements. First, a look will be taken at the origin of Jainism, with a brief explanation of its most important principles and beliefs. Then, ahimsa is explained as it has been traditionally perceived by Jains. The recent evolution of the meaning of ahimsa and its impact on modern nonviolence movements is discussed, with a focus on the influence of second-generation Jains in the United States on the …

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