Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Role Of Sensation Seeking In Sensitivity To D-Amphetamine Reinforcement, Mollie E. Patrick

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Psychomotor stimulant abuse is a significant public health problem. While many individuals experiment with stimulants, there is marked variability in individuals' behavioral and subjective response to these drugs and these differences may be associated with their risk for abuse. One characteristic shown to be associated with drug abuse is sensation seeking, defined as the seeking of novel sensations and experiences and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experiences. While observational studies have shown that individuals with elevated sensation seeking are more likely to report stimulant use and abuse, less clear is whether subjective and behavioral response …

Examining Delay Discounting And Response To Incentive-Based Smoking-Cessation Treatment Among Pregnant Women, Alexa Ashley Lopez

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Delay discounting is considered by many to be a risk factor for substance use disorders and other health-related behavior problems. While these health-related behavior problems are often treated with incentive-based interventions, little is known about whether delay discounting (DD) moderates response to that treatment approach. The present study examined how response to incentive-based smoking-cessation treatment varied as a function of baseline DD scores among pregnant women participating in randomized controlled clinical trials examining the efficacy of financial incentives. Women were assigned to a condition wherein they earned vouchers exchangeable for retail items contingent on abstinence from recent smoking or to …

The Effects Of Reinforcer Distribution During Response Elimination On Resurgence Of An Instrumental Response, Scott Timothy Schepers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Resurgence is the relapse of an extinguished instrumental behavior that can occur when an alternative behavior that was introduced to replace it is itself extinguished. In a typical resurgence experiment, rats are trained to make a response (R1) for food reinforcers. In a second phase, responses on R1 are no longer reinforced, but a new response (R2) is introduced and responses on it are reinforced. During a third phase, reinforcement for R2 is removed and behavior on R1 often returns (or "resurges") despite remaining on extinction.

The current experiments were designed to examine the effects of the temporal distribution of …

Turf Wars And Corporate Sponsorship: Challenges In The Food System And The Academy Of Nutrition And Dietetics, Kristin K. Smith

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the leading professional organization for registered dietitians (RDs)--globally--with over 75,000 members. Professional organizations are often overlooked in communication scholarship. However, the Academy offers a rich setting for researching occupational identities, health activism, and neoliberalism.

I used semi-structured interviews to explore how taken-for-granted discourses, power relationships, and unquestioned norms are challenged, reinforced, and (re)constructed within the Academy. Specifically, this study analyzed two challenges to the Academy and the dietetics profession: claims to professional expertise and a debate surrounding the Academy's corporate sponsorship. My findings suggest that the profession, which happens to be predominantly female, …

Assessment Reactivity Within The Context Of A Web-Based Brief Intervention For Alcohol Use, Tera Leigh Fazzino

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Introduction: Unhealthy alcohol use is a substantial problem among college students and can lead to a variety of negative consequences. Commercially available web-based brief alcohol intervention (WBI) programs have demonstrated efficacy in a range of student groups and have been widely disseminated to colleges to address this issue. However, the majority of published WBI studies required participants to complete baseline research assessments (RA) about their alcohol use before the WBI and reactivity to the RA may have inflated WBI efficacy estimates in these studies. The present study tested whether there was an additive effect of RA administered online plus a …

The Cortisol/Dhea Ratio And Sexual Function In Women With And Without A History Of Depression, Carolyn Marie Dundon

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The comorbidity between female sexual dysfunction (FSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) is well documented; however, the mechanism(s) underlying the relationship between these disorders has not been defined. The literature has associated the adrenal hormones cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) with FSD and MDD, suggesting a biological mechanism that may elucidate the comorbidity between these disorders. Based on evidence pointing to a high cortisol/DHEA ratio (C/D Ratio) in MDD and low DHEA in FSD, this study investigated if the potential association between a high C/D Ratio and FSD would be greater for women with a history of MDD when compared to …

Measuring Streetscape Design For Livability Using Spatial Data And Methods, Chester Wollaeger Harvey

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

City streets are the most widely distributed and heavily trafficked urban public spaces. As cities strive to improve livability in the built environment, it is important for planners and designers to have a concise understanding of what contributes to quality streetscapes. The proportions and scale of buildings and trees, which define the three-dimensional extents of streetscapes, provide enduring, foundational skeletons. This thesis investigates how characteristics of such streetscape skeletons can be quantified and tested for appeal among human users.

The first of two journal-style papers identifies a concise set of skeleton variables that urban design theorists have described as influential …

Ofdm Coupled Compressive Sensing Algorithm For Stepped Frequency Ground Penetrating Radar, Mohamed Metwally

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Dating back to as far as 1940, the US road and bridge infrastructure system has garnered quite the status for strategically connecting together half a continent. As monumental as the infrastructure's status, is its rate of deterioration, with the average bridge age coming at a disconcerting 50 years. Aside from visual inspection, a battery of non-destructive tests were developed to conduct structural fault assessment and detect laminations, in order to preemptively take preventive measures.

The mainstream commercially favored test is the impulse time domain ground penetrating radar (GPR). An extremely short, high voltage pulse is used to visualize cross-sections of …

Renewable Energy Zoning: Cutting Green Tape While Improving Ecological Outcomes For Renewable Energy Projects, Joanna Elizabeth White

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change creates an imperative to develop renewable energy infrastructure, and the state of Vermont has committed to developing new renewables. However, renewables pose significant threats to natural systems because of the dramatic changes to ecosystems that occur with development. Public outcry over new developments and dissatisfaction with the current process used for siting indicate that the old regulatory process may be outdated. This thesis seeks to bridge the divide between ecology and law in renewable energy infrastructure siting. Using the state of Vermont as a case study, it suggests a new, proactive energy planning process that would use spatial …

An Exploratory Statistical Analysis Of Nasdaq Provided Trade Data, Michael Foley

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Since Benoit Mandelbrot's discovery of the fractal nature of financial price series, the quantitative analysis of financial markets has been an area of increasing interest for scientists, traders, and regulators. Further, major technological advances over this time have facilitated not only financial innovations, but also the computational ability to analyze and model markets.

The stylized facts are qualitative statistical signatures of financial market data that hold true across different stocks and over many different timescales. In pursuit of a mechanistic understanding of markets, we look to accurately quantify such statistics. With this quantification, we can test computational market models against …

Transforming Organic Waste Into A Marketable Product: A Conjoint Analysis Of Bulk Compost Preferences And Strategies For Expanding The Compost Market In Vermont, Daniel Colin Keeney

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Organic waste management presents challenges and opportunities alike for community-based economic development. Waste-to-compost transformation can be socially and economically successful by employing ecological design principles, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and values-based supply chains (VCs). An analysis of commercial buyers' preferences for compost will inform approaches to forming effective partnerships of public, private and nonprofit stakeholders to develop a market for local waste resource products. The thesis summarizes the results of a consumer preferences survey of current and prospective bulk compost purchasers and discusses strategies for implementing new organic waste management policies that will strengthen a local market for compost, build social capital …

Diversification Activities Of Vermont Dairy Farmers: A Study Of Raw Milk And Local Beef Processing In The State., Ryan Leamy

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The vast majority of earned agricultural dollars in Vermont come from the dairy industry, but with volatility in the market in recent years, including rising costs of feed and the fluctuating price of milk, state officials have begun to recommend diversification of farm activities to instill resiliency into the system. The research presented in this thesis explores two avenues for diversification, farm-to-consumer sales of raw milk and local beef production.

The second chapter utilizes diffusion theory to understand the prevalence of raw milk consumption in Vermont, develop a profile of the raw milk consumer, document the motivations of raw milk …

Exploring Relationships Between Building And Transportation Energy Use Of Residents In U.S. Metropolitan Regions, Timothy Pede

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There is much potential to decrease energy consumption in the U.S. by encouraging compact, centralized development. Although many studies have examined the extent to which built environment and demographic factors are related to household energy use, few have considered both building and transportation energy together. We hypothesized that residents living further from city centers, or urban cores, consume more energy for both purposes than their inner city counterparts, resulting in a direct relationship between building and transportation energy usage. This hypothesis was tested with two case studies.

The first focused on New York City. Annual building energy per unit of …

Expanding Citizenship: Workplace Democracy And Citizen Engagement In Food Cooperatives, Cecile Reuge

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Food cooperatives play a central role in the local food movement. In addition to supporting the local economy, the cooperative movement lists "concern for the community" among their seven core principles (Healthy Foods Healthy Communities Report, 2012). Food cooperatives, however, are typically consumer-owned and primarily assert democratic control over buying practices rather than workplace operation (University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, 2009). Therefore, unless allocated a separate means for advocacy, cooperative workers often have less autonomy than they would if they were organized and had the means to collectively negotiate their benefits and work environment. This article argues that the …

An Exploratory Analysis Of Twitter Keyword-Hashtag Networks And Knowledge Discovery Applications, Ahmed A. Hamed

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The emergence of social media has impacted the way people think, communicate, behave, learn, and conduct research. In recent years, a large number of studies have analyzed and modeled this social phenomena. Driven by commercial and social interests, social media has become an attractive subject for researchers. Accordingly, new models, algorithms, and applications to address specific domains and solve distinct problems have erupted. In this thesis, we propose a novel network model and a path mining algorithm called HashnetMiner to discover implicit knowledge that is not easily exposed using other network models. Our experiments using HashnetMiner have demonstrated anecdotal evidence …

Makers And Mongers: Exploring Social Networks Of Vermont Artisan Cheese, Rachel Anne Distefano

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Vermont is widely-regarded as a hub for artisan cheese production, with more cheesemakers per capita than any other US state. Despite significant local and statewide support, out-of-state markets are essential to the long-term success of these small-scale producers. In spatially extended supply chains, retailers occupy a pivotal position. This thesis aims to examine the intermediary role of retailers in building social networks between producers and consumers. Consumers appreciate Vermont artisan cheese, in part, because it is embedded in a complex network of social values and relations related to where and how it is produced. Guided by social theories of consumption, …

Emotion Regulation Strategies In Binge Eating Disorder: Rumination, Distress Tolerance, And Expectancies For Eating, Lilya Sitnikov

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating without the use of compensatory behaviors. Functional accounts of BED propose that negative affect is an antecedent to binge eating because binge eating serves to alleviate negative affect. However, previous studies investigating the association between negative affect and binge eating have yielded inconsistent findings, perhaps due to individual vulnerability factors that moderate the effects of negative affect on binge eating behavior. As one candidate, the current study investigated emotion regulation strategies that may be implicated in the maintenance of binge eating in BED, particularly under conditions of negative …