Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Is Wildlife Poaching Changing In Uganda And How Can We Understand The Contribution Of Wildlife Protection Efforts At Multiple Scales: Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda., Ingrid Nyonza Nyakabwa

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Wildlife poaching is a critical global issue that poses significant threats to biodiversity, ecological balance, and the long-term sustainability of wildlife in Sub-Saharan Africa. The illicit trade in wildlife and their derivatives continues to grow, fueled by various socio-economic, cultural, and environmental factors. As the demand for wildlife products persists, it is imperative to understand the underlying causes, impacts, and potential solutions to combat this detrimental practice.

This research examined the dimensions of wildlife poaching in and around the area of Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, the largest and oldest National Park in Uganda. Uganda has experienced success in …

Did That Help? Harnessing Natural Language Processing To Uncover Characteristics Of Peer Feedback And Their Impacts On Teamwork-Skills Learning., Annamaria V. Wolf

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Peer Evaluation Systems (PESs) allow members of student teams to provide one another with computer-mediated feedback in the form of qualitative, open-ended comments. The current research leverages unsupervised Natural Language Processing (NLP), namely Biterm Topic Modeling (BTM) and sentiment analysis, to uncover latent topics and degree of positivity and negativity expressed in peer feedback, respectively. BTM results revealed a 6-topic model that was reliably replicated over 10 Gibbs initializations 80% of the time. Topics were labeled Timely Communication, Idea Generation, Coordination & Adaptation, Work Quality, Team Support & Focusing, and Work Accountability. Qualitative comparison suggests that these topics demonstrate …

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence For Team Cognition In Human-Ai Teams, Beau Schelble

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Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have enabled AI to be applied across a wide variety of new fields like cryptography, art, and data analysis. Several of these fields are social in nature, including decision-making and teaming, which introduces a new set of challenges for AI research. While each of these fields has its unique challenges, the area of human-AI teaming is beset with many that center around the expectations and abilities of AI teammates. One such challenge is understanding team cognition in these human-AI teams and AI teammates' ability to contribute towards, support, and encourage it. Team cognition is …

Integrating Sensor Development, Risk Assessment, And Community Engagement To Support Environmental Justice In The Rural Community Of El Tiple, Colombia, David Bahamon Pinzon

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In Colombia, ethnic communities have traditionally been responsible stewards of natural resources. They recognize the importance of these resources for their livelihood, as well as their ancestral and cultural heritage. El Tiple, a rural Afro-Colombian community, has been affected by the incursion of private corporations that promoted the expansion of sugarcane monocrops in their territory. Since the introduction of the monoculture industry, local freshwater sources have been depleted due to intensive water use for irrigation of the sugarcane crops. Additionally, the intensive usage of agrochemicals has been linked with loss of native flora, damages to family farms, and pollution of …

An Examination Of Neurodevelopmental Outcomes, Healthcare Utilization, And Stigmatizing Language In Populations With Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (Nas), Farah Tahsin

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Substance use disorder (SUD) during pregnancy, which includes opioid use disorder (OUD), has developed into a significant medical and social concern, as it can cause a range of complications for pregnant women, fetuses, and infants. One common condition resulting from OUD is neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a withdrawal syndrome experienced by infants after being exposed to opioids in the womb. NAS can cause visual physiological or neurodevelopmental complications or outcomes in newborns. Unfortunately, large-scale studies focusing on long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants with NAS are minimal. NAS consists of indications and symptoms that can also affect the autonomic nervous, gastrointestinal, …

Coming Home: Challenges Of Reintegration For Returned Migrant Women In Northern Albania, Marsida Tafilica

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Return migration is the movement of people from host countries to their country of origin after spending a period of time abroad. The aim of this doctoral research is two-folded: Firstly, it aims to explore migration and return migration experiences of Albanian women in order to understand the difficulties experienced during and after migration and how they handled obstacles. Secondly, it analyzes how women migrants perceive successful reintegration.

Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews of 19 Albanian women who returned to the city of Shkodra, the research seeks to answer the following questions: (1) Upon return, what are the perceptions of …

All Hands On Deck: Choosing Virtual End Effector Representations To Improve Near Field Object Manipulation Interactions In Extended Reality, Roshan Venkatakrishnan

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Extended reality, or "XR", is the adopted umbrella term that is heavily gaining traction to collectively describe Virtual reality (VR), Augmented reality (AR), and Mixed reality (MR) technologies. Together, these technologies extend the reality that we experience either by creating a fully immersive experience like in VR or by blending in the virtual and "real" worlds like in AR and MR.

The sustained success of XR in the workplace largely hinges on its ability to facilitate efficient user interactions. Similar to interacting with objects in the real world, users in XR typically interact with virtual integrants like objects, menus, windows, …

Parental And Individual Correlates Of Work Ethic In Young People In Albania, Eljona Elmazi

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the work ethic strength, dimensions, and correlates in young people in Albania. The review of the available research concluded that, regardless of the attention that youth-related topics have received in the last decade, there was a considerable gap in the understanding of the state and correlates of the work ethic in this group. Using the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile – Short Form, the work ethic strength and dimensions were explored in an Albanian sample of (N = 501) 18 to 24 years old, otherwise known as Generation Z. Data were collected via …

Belonging By Design: The Exploration Of Architecture Learning Environments And Their Role In The Sense Of Belonging And Field Identity Of Black Architecture Students, Stacy Scott

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This research offers a comprehensive analysis of the various dimensions of belonging, isolation, and the role of identity in architecture learning environments (ALEs) for Black architecture students. In a multi-site case study, the study analyzes the experiences of Black students in the habitus that forms these ALEs at three universities with fifteen participants. Through qualitative investigation and thematic analysis, this research evaluates the obstacles these students face when endeavoring to establish meaningful connections.

The results of this study provide a greater understanding of the impact that isolation, lack of representation have on students and the significance of support-seeking activities in …

The Effects Of Primary And Secondary Task Workloads On Cybersickness In Immersive Virtual Active Exploration Experiences, Rohith Venkatakrishnan

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Virtual reality (VR) technology promises to transform humanity. The technology enables users to explore and interact with computer-generated environments that can be simulated to approximate or deviate from reality. This creates an endless number of ways to propitiously apply the technology in our lives. It follows that large technological conglomerates are pushing for the widespread adoption of VR, financing the creation of the Metaverse - a hypothetical representation of the next iteration of the internet.

Even with VR technology's continuous growth, its widespread adoption remains long overdue. This can largely be attributed to an affliction called cybersickness, an analog to …

“If I Was That Cop…”: Improving Attitudes Toward Police Through An Educational Intervention For Use-Of-Force Knowledge And Empathy, Randle Aaron Molina Villanueva

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While public outrage in response to excessive force is appropriate and understandable (e.g., Rodney King), there are also use-of-force instances which may be misconstrued as excessive by civilians due to a lack of understanding of the law, policies, and procedures for police use of force (UOF). This can lead to negative perceptions of police officers. This poses a threat to healthy police-community relations, as positive perceptions of the police are reliable predictors of compliance and voluntary cooperation with them (Choi, 2021). To balance overly negative perceptions of police who are following protocol and potentially increase the positivity of perceptions, this …

Conceptual And Technological Advancements In Visitor Use Management Of Coastal And Estuarine Environments, Tyler Cribbs

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This dissertation demonstrates the exploration and use of conceptual and technological advancements in the science of visitor use management (VUM). The goal of this effort is to help better understand visitors to park and protected areas (PPAs) and more specifically, better manage our coastal and estuarine environments (i.e., coastal protected areas (CPAs). These concepts and techniques are 1) further implementing the use of cellphone data in recreation ecology and VUM, 2) assessing the use of advanced imagery, virtual reality (VR), in visual-based methods to determine visitor indicators and thresholds, and 3) assessing visitor’s awareness of PPAs and how it influences …

Social Distortion: Disinformation, Polarization, And The Politics Of Identity In An Online World, Jennifer Duck Brown

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This dissertation addresses three issues that intertwine: Disinformation, polarization, and the politics of identity. Social media currently dominates how we receive our news and information. This coincides with a disinformation pandemic full of false news and propaganda running rampant online. What often ensues is a social distortion that poses as reality. Seventy-two percent of all Americans use some type of social media according to Pew Research. Not all social media is nefarious, but the design of the social platforms further aggravate how people learn and communicate. Through original and peer-reviewed mixed methods research on topics including the conspiracy theories of …

Circumventing Ableism: A Grounded Theory Study Exploring Caregiver Strategies To Promote A Positive Identity, June Furr

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This qualitative research study explores how caregivers and persons with disabilities navigate the rhetoric of disability and caregiving through the interviews of fifteen caregivers and fifteen persons with disabilities using the lens of grounded theory and Burke’s (1952) dramatistic pentad. Significant findings describe how focused disability description can circumvent ableism when rhetorical resources that assist caregivers and persons with disabilities to navigate the rhetoric in disability descriptions are provided. Disability description theory includes the three stages that define, collaborate and revise, and practice and apply a disability description. This qualitative research offers an introduction into the phenomenon of …

Contrasting Public And Private Approaches To Private Land Conservation In The United States: Local Government, Land Trust, And Landowner Viewpoints, Anna Overby

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In the United States (US), low-density, non-contiguous development, termed sprawl, has long been of widespread concern. Since the 1970s, rural residential sprawl, or exurban sprawl, has grown faster than any other development pattern. Exurban sprawl is development beyond the urban/suburban fringe with ties to the urban environment, such as employment and consumption, rather than to rural economies. Exurban sprawl is highly consumptive of land and has implications for conservation, natural resource management, agriculture, and communities. This study explores two main avenues of exurban sprawl prevention in the US: voluntary conservation easements and local government growth management regulations. The use of …

Understanding Job Satisfaction In The National Park Service, The Needs Of Black Employees, And The Decision-Making Of Managers, Akiebia Hicks

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According to the 2020 U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the National Park Service (NPS) was ranked the 353rd best place to work out of the 411 government agencies surveyed, with an engagement score of 61.3%, which was lower than the 69.0% average amongst government agencies. This survey is performed annually and asks employees to score their employer in the following categories: leadership, empowerment, pay, teamwork, innovation, recognition, response to COVID-19, and work-life balance. The scores are divided by a quartile key. In every category except “innovation,” the NPS landed in the lower quartile, causing the need …

Essays In Urban Economics, Terrence Jewell

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My dissertation focuses on the impact of housing demand shocks on neighborhood change and internal migration. My first chapter uses house prices to measure the amenity value households place on new stadium construction in a hosting city. The second chapter studies the impact of two amendments to California’s Proposition 13. Namely, Proposition 60 and Proposition 90 allowed individuals over age 55 to transfer the assessed value of their homes to a replacement dwelling of equal or lesser value in the same county or different county, respectively, without a change of ownership reassessment. In this chapter, I study the removal of …

The Role Of Attention Control In Automation Performance, Claire Textor

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Research in human-automation interaction has demonstrated that some individuals are more severely impacted by the negative effects of unreliable automation (i.e., exhibit lower performance) than others. A body of work has sought to explain this variability through individual differences, primarily investigating the role of working memory. However, not all studies have demonstrated a clear relationship between working memory capabilities and performance when using automation. Engle’s (2002) controlled attention theory of working memory posits that the relationship between working memory and other cognitive constructs such as fluid intelligence can be explained through a shared reliance on attention control. Studying the role …

Essays On Labor Market Size And Job Match Quality, Lan Lan

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This dissertation is comprised of two essays that delve into the construction of a major-related labor market and its correlation with college graduates’ job match quality. Investigating the job match quality of college graduates for different majors in large cities is crucial, as it provides evidence on which majors tend to yield better job matches. This contributes to the study of the return on major while also shedding light on how city size impacts individuals’ ability to find jobs that align with their educational level and major, thereby enriching the study of the benefits of agglomeration.

The first chapter examines …

Validating A Human Trafficking Screening Tool For Women Returning To Uganda From The Middle East, Jason Pope

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Human trafficking is a global issue. Denying its existence creates an atmosphere where it can thrive. Therefore, visibility is a key step in prevention. Human trafficking screening tools bring visibility to this hidden issue. Identifying individuals who have experienced human trafficking is essential for preventing it from happening in the future. Identifying survivors of trafficking allows them to be provided aftercare and opens the doors for prosecuting those who perpetrate harm against others.

This study validated a human trafficking screening tool and developed a standard for interpreting the results. This study aimed to develop a tool that could identify human …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

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I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

Exploring The Interpretation Of Difficult Heritage At Football Grounds In Spain, Portugal, And Germany, Felipe Bertazzo Tobar

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European football heritage-based attractions such as stadium tours and museums, often characterized by an uncritical, celebratory, and nostalgic approach to football pasts, have become highly visited attractions important to cultural and commercial interests of football clubs. As the heritage field in Western countries experiencing a period of reckoning after numerous social movements challenged the meanings and interpretations of difficult pasts, this study aimed to comprehend how and why football clubs interpret their difficult heritage linked with European authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century. Specifically, this dissertation sought to understand what role local cultural, political, and/or economic considerations played in the …

Meaning Matters: Cognitive Crafting As A Sensemaking Mechanism And Motivational Process To Enhance Gig Driver Well-Being, Gwendolyn Paige Watson

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As the gig work sector of the workforce continues to grow, organizational psychologists must actively contribute to raising the bar for gig drivers (e.g., ride-hailing, food delivery) so that they are not merely surviving but also thriving through their work. In my dissertation, I tested cognitive crafting as a positive meaning-making process that helps gig drivers make sense of their interactions with customers, generates positive, motivating states such as work engagement, and promotes positive outcomes such as work-related well-being and job satisfaction. My dissertation employed a mixed-methods design. The daily diary built on qualitative data results that identified interesting - …

Essays On Manufacturing And Growth, Hugo Vaca Pereira Rocha

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The first chapter of this dissertation studies the role of human capital in generating economic convergence through its impact on manufacturing productivity growth and allocation of labor across sectors of the economy. I confirm and extend existing results showing that productivity in manufacturing – unlike its economy-wide counterpart – has exhibited convergence; that is, countries further behind the technology frontier tend to catch up to those on the frontier. I then show that the convergence in manufacturing is (a) somewhat accelerated by countries’ tertiary education levels and (b) faster in high-tech industries. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not driven by tertiary …

Two Essays In Human Capital, Illia Polovnikov

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This dissertation is comprised of two essays on human capital. I analyze how early-life human capital boost shapes micro-level outcomes among disadvantaged children in the US. In the second chapter, I study the productivity convergence among OECD countries and evaluate to what extent the labor force’s sectoral allocation (due to different human capital profiles across countries) contributes to it. In the first chapter, which is joint work with Jorge Garc´ia and William Dougan, we analyze a large-scale trial of an early-childhood education program targeting premature, low-birthweight children, thereby oversampling twins. We find that failing to account for this oversampling obscures …

“We Felt Powerful And Rebellious”: Contested Spaces, Lesbian Identity, And The Evolution Of Separatism, Sarah Cooper

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Drawing on theoretical perspectives from lesbian studies, queer theory and studies and, feminist rhetorics while using rhetorical analysis, interviews, and archival research, this project traces the relationships lesbians have had to place, through case studies. To date, research on how space occupancy or land practices have contributed to the constitution of a contemporary lesbian identity in the United States lack scholarly attention. My following chapters ask: how has separatism historically and at present contributed to the constitution of lesbian identity? To answer, I turn to archival evidence of women’s lands in Southern Oregon, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, and Olivia Travel. …

Essays On The Economics Of Sports Wagering Markets, Jacob Lamb

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Economists have long been enamored with using wagering markets and sports data to answer various economic questions. Wagering market data are readily available to answer any number of questions relating to sports and economics. However, most studies surrounding wagering markets have focused on searching for inefficiencies and, consequently, profitable betting strategies against the house. This dissertation takes a different approach, focusing on the information that can be extracted from efficient wagering markets and using that information to answer economic questions. Rather than hunting for inefficiencies, this dissertation confirms the efficiency of wagering markets and uses wagering markets to answer questions …

Investigating And Addressing Tiger Conservation In The Himalayas, Pramod Kumar Yadav

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In 2010, tiger conservation received global attention following a dangerously low estimation of 3,200 tigers in the wild. In response, leaders from the 13 tiger range countries committed to doubling the wild tiger population by 2022. In recent years, tiger numbers have increased considerably in the Himalayan region as the species is venturing into higher-altitude landscapes. As the tiger and human populations increase in the region, the probability of the two species interacting also increases. Therefore, this dissertation, comprised of three independent studies, aimed to identify, and address tiger conservation issues in the Himalayan region from a social science perspective. …

The Perceived Role Of School Counselors In Ramp And Non-Ramp Schools, Rob Rhodes

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The purpose of this study is to explore the perceived roles of elementary and secondary school counselors within schools with comprehensive school counseling programs and those without such programs. Central to this study are questions of how school counselors’ roles are perceived differently within Recognized ASCA Models Program (RAMP) schools and non-RAMP schools. I this study, I examined the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Professional Mindsets and Behaviors (see Appendix 1), as outlined in the ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2012), as well as school counselors’ professional practices and perceived roles in RAMP and non-RAMP schools.

Through interviews and comparative analysis, …

The Myth Of Perfection: Charting The Rhetoric Of Veteran Disability For A Course To Stability, Nicholas Rader

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This dissertation rhetorically analyzes discrimination in Western institutional discourses and documentation procedures, such as architectural texts and procedures, through a historiographic lens. An analytical methodology will be offered to show how discrimination of intersectional bodies is historically informed and reaffirmed by the manipulation of Western myths and mythos. Specifically, by mapping navigational mathematics and cartographic methods over rhetorical, architectural, and historiographic theory, it will be shown how the manipulation of Western myths establishes and reifies patriarchal discrimination that eventually fissions into eugenicist logics in nineteenth and twentieth century France, England, and the United States. In modernity, the practice of manipulating …