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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

An Overview Of American Ginseng Through The Lens Of Healing, Conservation And Trade, Margaret Wulfsberg May 2019

An Overview Of American Ginseng Through The Lens Of Healing, Conservation And Trade, Margaret Wulfsberg

Lawrence University Honors Projects

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) is an herbaceous plant found in the eastern United States and Canada. Due to the high demand for ginseng roots on the Chinese market, it has been harvested at unsustainable rates. If this continues, overharvest along with other environmental factors will lead it to become extinct in the wild. American ginseng became popular due to its similarities with Asian ginseng, (Panax ginseng), a related plant that has been used in Chinese medicine for hundreds of years. Since there is so little Asian ginseng left in the wild, American ginseng now helps satisfy …


Understanding Zika Virus In Rural Costa Rica: Integrating Medical Anthropology And Public Health, Hailey Bomar May 2018

Understanding Zika Virus In Rural Costa Rica: Integrating Medical Anthropology And Public Health, Hailey Bomar

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Framed by critical medical anthropology, this applied study utilizes political economic theory and ethnographic methods to contextualize and evaluate the implementation of a global health initiative at the local level, as well as critically evaluates the response of state and international health agencies to the Zika epidemic in Costa Rica. The prevalence of arboviruses including Zika and the potential for epidemics and future population-level health consequences are examined by a multiaxial approach that incorporates themes of culture, socioeconomic context, issues of power and control, and human impact on the natural environment. By combining an interdisciplinary approach that considers the economic, …


Everybody Wants To Belong: Comparing The Relative Impact Of Social Capital On Happiness At An International Level, Elana Lambert May 2017

Everybody Wants To Belong: Comparing The Relative Impact Of Social Capital On Happiness At An International Level, Elana Lambert

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Subjective well-being has become increasingly more important as a guide for policy and welfare. This paper uses data from the World Bank Indicators and the World Values Survey to look at the intricate relationship between subjective well-being data, social capital, and the relative nature of human happiness. Subjective well-being data has recently become widely accepted in economics research and analyzed using econometric methods. In this study, I look at specific aspects of social capital across countries to easily compare individuals within countries with a standardized scale. I look at economic determinants and social capital determinants and their impact on happiness. …


Increasing Access To Potable Water: A Question Of Economics And Governance In Bo District, Sierra Leone, Alissa M. Heiring Jun 2016

Increasing Access To Potable Water: A Question Of Economics And Governance In Bo District, Sierra Leone, Alissa M. Heiring

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This paper analyzes existing supply gaps that are impeding rural water access in Bo District, Sierra Leone. On a national and district level, Sierra Leone has failed to meet the target of 70% access to potable water inspired by the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals. This paper focuses on Bo District due to its near total inclusion in the Sewa River basin and split urban and rural population. Given the existing political and economic constraints, this paper identifies the most feasible way to sustainably increase access to potable water in Bo. To develop the recommendations, current supply gaps in rural …


Who Cares What They're Saying: Participation In International Development Analysis, Sari N. Hoffman-Dachelet Jun 2016

Who Cares What They're Saying: Participation In International Development Analysis, Sari N. Hoffman-Dachelet

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Participatory methods are the established methodology in international aid and development. Within this paradigm things that are more participatory are thought of as being more impactful, however, the actual success or failure of any given international project is measured by its evaluation team. These evaluations are vitally important in regards to funding, both for future programs and continuing programs, and in shaping the methodology of future programs. These evaluations are also non-participatory. Do the evaluations impact the lives of participants and how do they reflect “good” development? The measures of impact differ from the measures of success, this project looks …


A Game Theoretic Analysis Of International Justice Disputes, Mishal Ayaz Jun 2016

A Game Theoretic Analysis Of International Justice Disputes, Mishal Ayaz

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This paper works toward analyzing international justice disputes, through a game theoretic lens. The result of such an analysis is an accurate working model for the international justice dispute resolution process, limiting its scope to those disputes that fall under the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction post 1986. This time limitation on the explanatory power of the model was deduced from all of the court’s findings since its inception. The game can be formed in four ways: perfect information, incomplete information, no information, and partial information, all of which have their own unique equilibria, which are formed and discussed individually.


Development Of Utility Theory And Utility Paradoxes, Timothy E. Dahlstrom Jun 2016

Development Of Utility Theory And Utility Paradoxes, Timothy E. Dahlstrom

Lawrence University Honors Projects

Since the pioneering work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in 1944 there have been many developments in Expected Utility theory. In order to explain decision making behavior economists have created increasingly broad and complex models of utility theory. This paper seeks to describe various utility models, how they model choices among ambiguous and lottery type situations, and how they respond to the Ellsberg and Allais paradoxes. This paper also attempts to communicate the historical development of utility models and provide a fresh perspective on the development of utility models.


On Multiethnic Schools In Consociational Democracies: A Comparative Analysis Of Brčko District And Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jusuf Šarančić Jun 2016

On Multiethnic Schools In Consociational Democracies: A Comparative Analysis Of Brčko District And Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jusuf Šarančić

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement both ended the Bosnian War and created the consociational democracy that exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina to this day. The ethnic autonomy created by the Dayton Agreement has resulted in a frozen conflict between ethnic groups that has manifested itself in the country’s monoethnic education system. This study explores the short-term stability under consociationalism and the long-term stability under a multiethnic education system. Additionally, this study explains the importance of the country’s only multiethnic education system in Brčko District and how it came into existence.


Does Conscription Affect War Duration? A Study Of Military Manpower Systems, Regime Type, And Interstate Wars, Alan W. Duff Jun 2014

Does Conscription Affect War Duration? A Study Of Military Manpower Systems, Regime Type, And Interstate Wars, Alan W. Duff

Lawrence University Honors Projects

While the causes of war have long been studied, the same scrutiny has not been applied to war duration. Recent empirical studies have found that similar variables correlate with both war outbreak and duration, thereby hinting at new areas for war research that can be conducted with a fresh perspective. One variable that stands out for this type of interrogation is conscription (especially when considered alongside regime type), as research on the subject has generated contradicting and inconclusive results. Given that many states around the world are replacing conscription with all volunteer forces, asking if conscription increases or decreases the …


Co-Infected Diseases And State Health Policy: Botswana And South Africa's Response To Hiv And Tuberculosis, Margaret H. Schmidt May 2012

Co-Infected Diseases And State Health Policy: Botswana And South Africa's Response To Hiv And Tuberculosis, Margaret H. Schmidt

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The emergence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has led to the growth of co-infection with other illnesses including tuberculosis. Many states are now attempting to address the problems presented with co-infected patients from a variety pathogens. In particular sub-Saharan Africa has suffered exponentially more from HIV and TB co-infection than other parts of the world. Thus, why have Botswana and South Africa not created national health policies to treat these diseases together? The following describes the process of how World Health Organization recommendations are translated into state policy. In turn, while donorship and international policy alterations create strong punctuations, the …


Mosques In The U.S. And Europe: The Growth Of Westernized Islam, Thomas P. Smith May 2012

Mosques In The U.S. And Europe: The Growth Of Westernized Islam, Thomas P. Smith

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This Honors Project is a comparative study of mosques in the Midwestern United States and two cities in Western Europe. My research was based on observations I made and interviews I conducted at three mosques in Dearborn, Michigan, one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, two in London, England, and two in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Relying on the theories of French sociologist of religion Olivier Roy, I developed a framework to measure the level of acculturation or exculturation in each mosque. By looking at three signs of deculturation: language, the presence of women, and the retention of cultural traditions, I was able to map …


The Abaya: Fashion, Religion, And Identity In A Globalized World, Elizabeth D. Shimek May 2012

The Abaya: Fashion, Religion, And Identity In A Globalized World, Elizabeth D. Shimek

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The abaya is a traditional robe worn by women in the Arab Gulf states as both a symbol of national identity and as a part of Islamic veiling customs. Over the last twenty years, partly due to exposure to Western couture fashion, the abaya has changed from a plain, voluminous black robe to a unique signifier of personal taste through variations in fabrics, cuts, colors, and detailing. This study explores both the physical and symbolic changes the abaya (and the industry surrounding it) has undergone, as well as how these changes both reflect and provoke the conflicts in identity residents …


Mr. Crump And His Successors: A Study Of The Negro In Memphis Politics, Jack H. Morris Jan 1960

Mr. Crump And His Successors: A Study Of The Negro In Memphis Politics, Jack H. Morris

Lawrence University Honors Projects

For nine decades voters in the South have cast their ballots
 in a spirit of defiance to the union. Since 1876, the eleven Confederate States have segregated themselves from the rest of the nation by their extreme faithfulness to the Democratic Party. After reconstruction, the Party became the only effective voice of the section in national affairs, and more important, the primary means of limiting the political strength of their newly acquired colored citizens. Thus two recent studies of the political South, Southern Politics in State and Nation by V. O. Key, Jr., and A Two-Party South? by Alexander …