Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Evaluation Of Unmanned Aerial Systems And Structure-From-Motion For Fluvial Large Wood Sensing And Risk Assessment, Daniel Gerke

Masters Theses

This research aims to show Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and Structure-from-Motion (SfM) technology can, in combination, improve on traditional large wood (LW) monitoring techniques. More temporally and economically efficient data collected at a finer spatial resolution and greater spatial extent will increase the effectiveness of management plans and risk assessment for LW by providing decision-makers with a complete picture of the river.

Contemporary practices are too inefficient in time and labor for large-scale monitoring of fluvial LW with anything more than the most general management or risk assessment in mind. The paradigm of river research, the river continuum concept (RCC), …

Functional Analysis In The Home Setting Of An Older Adult With Neurocognitive Disorder, Emily Norton

Masters Theses

Currently within the behavioral gerontology literature there are no published studies that include a functional assessment in the home setting. The primary goal of the present study was to address this gap by conducting a functional analysis on a challenging behavior of an older adult with neurocognitive disorder in the home. This study occurred in two phases. During phase one, researchers conducted an antecedent functional analysis on the bizarre speech of an 81-year-old female with suspected dementia across four conditions (television on, no interactions initiated; television on, interactions initiated; television off, no interactions initiated; television off, interactions initiated). Results from …

The Wrongful Conviction Program: A Program Evaluation, Ashley M. Chlebek

Masters Theses

The Western Michigan University Wrongful Conviction Program (WCP) operated under a grant awarded by the Department of Justice (DOJ) from 2015 through 2018. The WCP partnered with the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School’s Innocence Project (WMU-CIP) to assist in the screening, review, and investigation of claims of innocence. The WCP trained undergraduate students to conduct case investigations and supported WMU-CIP in several ways.

The evaluation presented here examines the activities of the WCP to understand the ways in which it achieved its intended goals, as well as the ways in which it impacts participating students and the innocence movement. …

A Comparison Of The Efficacy Of Gutter Pan And Curb Top Placement With A Full Gateway Configuration Of The In-Street Sign On Driver Yielding To Pedestrians, Erik Newton

Masters Theses

Driver yielding behavior at crosswalks directly affects pedestrian safety. In this study we examined whether the placement of the signs in the gutter pan or on top of the curb, while using a full gateway configuration of the in-street sign, influenced the efficacy of the treatment. Data were collected at sites using both in gutter and on top of curb full gateway configurations. The gutter pan configuration resulted in a higher percentage of driver yielding behavior to pedestrians in the crosswalk. The gateway treatment was shown to be more effective in the gutter pan configuration than the curb top configuration …

Is There A Need For Restoration Of Justice In Democratic India?, Abraham Sekhar

Masters Theses

Justice means giving all persons their due. Justice is the quality of being fair and reasonable. India has the largest democracy in the world. It has become noticed globally by most other countries, on the one hand, for its significant economic growth during the past two decades; and on the other hand, for its domestic unrest among people of different religions and castes. Under the rule of the present political party, India’s economic growth has experienced a sudden decline during the past three years. This drew my attention to find out the reasons for such a decline. A literature survey, …

Analysis Of Advance Placement Distance Of The Gateway In-Street Sign On Increased Yielding Distance, Joshua Turske

Masters Theses

The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (2018) reported approximately 6,000 pedestrians were fatally injured by vehicles in 2016, with an increasing trend in fatalities over the past decade. The gateway configuration of In-Street signs has been shown to produce an increase in the percentage of drivers yielding right-of-way to pedestrians; this study examined at what distance in advance of the gateway the configuration was most effective in inducing drivers to yield right of way further in advance of the crosswalk. This study also counterbalanced time of day across placement distances. Data were collected on all vehicles that passed through the …

Envisioning Pathways Toward Transformative Food Systems Change: Understanding The Role Of Multi-Stakeholder Engagement At The Culinary And Nutrition Center In Springfield, Ma, Kristen Whitmore

Masters Theses

The alternative food movement claims varied goals such as building environmental sustainability, strengthening local economies, and promoting health equity, yet critics argue that the movement’s transformative potential is threatened by a lack of shared vision. Literature suggests that community-based multi-stakeholder coalitions are a useful tool for building consensus around food systems futures. But what kinds of futures? Home Grown Springfield is a school food initiative aimed at reducing hunger in Springfield, MA by serving healthy, homemade, and locally-sourced meals via the Culinary and Nutrition Center, a brand-new full-service commercial kitchen and storage facility. This qualitative case study examines the engagement …

The Role Of International River Basin Organizations In Facilitating Science Use In Policy, Kelsey Wentling

Masters Theses

Transboundary watershed management seeks to reconcile the dichotomy between political lines and the resources that flow freely over such borders. Transboundary waters cover half of the earth’s surface and define the natural communities of over 40% of the global population. Because water plays an integral role in every culture and society, international entities seek to identify the principles and methods that minimize conflict and maximize harmonious water resource management across borders. Successful management practices to date have aimed to incorporate relevant scientific literature throughout the basin using alternate governance structures. International River Basin Organizations (IRBOs), independent governing structures, provide one …

How Perception Of Decision Environment And Future Information Affects Changes In Delay Discounting Rates: Differences Across U.S. And China, Differences Before And After The U.S. 2018 Midterm Elections, Fran Walsh

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I will explore the idea that choices between present, smaller value options and future, larger value options depend on how much individuals trust the future to deliver the reward. Due to this aspect of trust, the individual must build their estimate of trust based on information for their present environment and their future expectations. This estimate of future trust can change across different time points in the same environment (i.e., before and after a national election) and between environments in the same time point (i.e., between two countries experiencing different economic rates of change). In this set …

Relationships Between Personality Type And Cognitive Ability In Marmoset Monkeys (Callithrix Jacchus), Zachary Marciano

Masters Theses

Personality refers to multiple traits that are thought to be stable over time and across situations. It is recognized that personality has a neural basis and is associated with health outcomes. Whether personality is also associated with cognitive ability, however, is still a matter of intense debate. One way to examine these potential relationships is to use a nonhuman primate model for which complexities present in humans can be minimized. Recent research into the varying personality types of marmoset monkeys suggests that there are predominantly three to five core primary domains that most marmosets and other primates can be categorized …

Using Visual Media To Empower Citizen Scientists: A Case Study Of The Outsmart App, Megan E. Kierstead

Masters Theses

To be successful citizen science projects need to do two key things: (1) they need to meaningfully engage the public and they must also provide people with the tools, expertise, and/or training needed to participate in rigorous research that can be used by the scientific community. In some ways, these requirements are potentially at odds. Emphasis on rigor and expertise risks excluding members of the public who do not feel qualified to participate in esoteric or technically difficult scientific research. Conversely, projects that eschew rigorous methods in favor of wider participation might lead to bad data that cannot be used …

Sequential Encoding In Visual Working Memory: In The Absence Of Structure, Recency Determines Performance, Jeffery Durbin

Masters Theses

Most prior investigations of visual working memory (VWM) presented the to-be-remembered items simultaneously in a static configuration (e.g., Luck & Vogel, 1997). However, in everyday situations, such as driving on a busy multilane highway, items (e.g., cars) are presented sequentially and must be retained to support later actions (e.g., knowing if it’s safe to change lanes). In a simultaneous presentation, the relative positions of items are apparent but for sequential presentation, relative positions must be inferred in relation to the background structure (e.g., highway lane markings). To examine sequential encoding in VWM, we developed a novel task in which dots …

Archery's Lasting Mark: A Biomechanical Analysis Of Archery, Tabitha Dorshorst

Masters Theses

The physical demands of archery involve strenuous movements that place repetitive mechanical loads on the upper body. Given that bone remodels in response to mechanical loading (Ruff, 2008), it is reasonable to assume that repetitive bow and arrow use impacts upper limb bone morphology in predictable ways. The introduction and increased use of archery have been suggested to impact bilateral humeral asymmetry (Rhodes and Knüsel, 2005; Thomas, 2014). However, this claim is yet to be tested in vivo. This project aims to use kinematic and electromyographic approaches to validate claims inferring that, 1. archery places mechanical loading on the non-dominant …

Playing By The Rules: A Look Into The Relationship Between Regime Type And War Crimes, Kelsey Anderson

Masters Theses

The current literature tends to looks at regimes in only two categories; democracy and autocracy. Recognizing that this limits the scope of what is measured, and limited the practical applicability of this research, I chose to combine the current research on war crimes with more modern research on how to measure regime type. I integrate James Morrow and Heyran Jo’s comprehensive dataset on war crimes from 1900 to 1991 with Carston Anckar and Cecilia Fredriksson’s dataset on Political Regimes of the World, and run statistical tests to determine the relationship between these more specific categories of regime type and the …

Job Mobility, Gender Composition, And Wage Growth, Youngjoon Bae

Masters Theses

To explain the gender wage growth gap, sociologists tend to focus on gender segregation among/within jobs whereas economists put emphasis on individual job mobility. This study adopted a concept combining both segregation and mobility. The concept helps to take the gender segregation before and after job mobility into account to strictly measure the mechanisms of wage growth. For analysis, this study used 6-year personnel data of a firm, which allows researchers to track employees’ job mobility, wages, and job information at the most accurate level. The concept of combining segregation and mobility was operated through the gender composition of jobs …

A Study Analyzing The Correlation Between One’S Knowledge Of The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Mbti) And The Chaplain’S Ministry Resiliency, Johnie Preston Joyce Ii

Masters Theses

Military Chaplains are at an increased risk for professional burnout and there is a need to improve the training that is provided to prepare them for occupational burnout and compassion fatigue. This study analyzes the effect that the chaplain’s knowledge of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has on his or her ministry resiliency. The purpose of this study is to discover if there is a correlation between the military chaplain’s level of resilience and his or her knowledge of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Literature on, compassion fatigue, ministry burnout, military chaplaincy, chaplaincy resiliency, personality testing, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator …

Ethical Implications Of Codis, Lucy Grogan

Masters Theses

CODIS stores and maintains numerous DNA profiles, and is used as a tool by the criminal justice system in order to help solve crime. Deoxyribonucleic Acid, or DNA for short, is the genetic material that an individual inherits from one’s parents (NIH, 2019). Certain portions of this genetic material are selected for use within the CODIS database due to their lack of medically relevant information. There is an immense amount of power associated with DNA and the CODIS database that it is held within, which allows for many ethical issues to arise. In order to create a usable and safe …

“We Are The Walking Dead”: Morality In Robert Kirkman’S Comics Series, Amy L. Jacobs

Masters Theses

Despite widespread cultural success, Robert Kirkman’s comics series, The Walking Dead, has received little critical attention in the literary canon. The limited critical attention it has received fails to provide an in-depth examination of the work’s morality. This could be a result of the ever-present influence of Frederic Wertham’s claims in his 1954 work, Seduction of the Innocent. However, when viewed through the frameworks provided by John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction and Wayne C. Booth’s The Company We Keep, Kirkman’s zombie narrative exhibits morality in multi-layered and complex ways with every turn of the page. Through the …

Cisgender Fragility, Zachariah Graydon Oaster

Masters Theses

Cisgender people in the United States are socialized in an environment that shields them from gender-identity-based stress. Like the construct of white fragility (DiAngelo, 2011), cisgender persons exhibit defensive behavior in response to encountering any gender-identity-based discomfort. Once triggered, defensive acts and false claims are deployed in an attempt to return to a state of comfort and normalcy. The stress that cisgender persons feel, and the defensive actions that they take upon encountering such gender-identity-based discomfort is what I refer to herein as Cisgender Fragility.

This theoretical construct of Cisgender Fragility is nuanced through intersectional synthesis of queer and race …

Inequality, Patronage, Ethnic Politics And Decentralization In Kenya And Botswana: An Analysis Of Factors That Increase The Likelihood Of Ethnic Conflict, Rei Gordon

Masters Theses

Scholars have recommended numerous institutional arrangements for mitigating ethnic conflict in divided societies. Electoral systems are often considered to have an impact on ethnic conflict, and scholars have recommended both proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems for their respective effects on mitigating ethnic tensions. However, in a cross-national analysis of 18 sub-Saharan democracies, I find no impact of electoral systems on ethnic conflict. Countries employing proportional representation systems and majoritarian systems are compared according to three measures of ethnic conflict, yet neither electoral system correlates with higher or lower levels of conflict. In the interest of identifying factors that do …

The Philosophical Underpinnings And Negative Consequences Of The Indian Child Welfare Act, Elizabeth Sharon Morris

Masters Theses

This paper will examine the philosophical underpinnings of current federal Indian policy and its physical, emotional, and economic consequences on individuals and communities. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found in 1990 that “[T]he Government of the United States has failed to provide civil rights protection for Native Americans living on reservations” (W. B. Allen 1990, 2). As Regan (2014) observes, individuals have been denied full title to their property – and thus use of the property as leverage to improve their economic condition (Regan 2014). Tribal executive and judicial branches have been accused of illegal search and seizures, denial of …

Design Your Career - Design Your Life, Joshua R. Beal

Masters Theses

This research investigates the current plague of unemployment and underemployment that nearly half of qualified individuals in the field of Visual Communications are met with after graduation. Students who major in this field dedicate a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy toward developing a broad skillset that resolves critical matters of communication through visual solutions. Research has demonstrated that despite conditions that are subject to ongoing change of economy, industry, and marketplace there are contributing factors that must be addressed to overcome un/underemployment regardless of circumstances. These include an underdeveloped network of professional contacts, deficiency in recognizing or responding …

Discourse, Meaning-Making, And Emotion: The Pressure To Have A “Feminist Abortion Experience”, Derek Siegel

Masters Theses

During interviews with self-identified feminists (n=27), respondents express discomfort when their abortion experiences fail to match perceived expectations from the pro-choice movement. They describe a “feminist abortion experience” as eliciting a sense of relief, empowerment, and detachment. An “anti-feminist abortion,” on the other hand, involves sadness, ambivalence, and a high attachment to the pregnancy. Respondents not only self-police this boundary but also perform emotion work to change an undesirable emotional state. First, I ask how pro-choice norms and constructed and perpetuated? I find that people learn what is expected of them from the contents of pro-choice discourse and learn about …

Changes In Color Guidance Over The Course Of A Complex Visual Search, Ryan Papargiris

Masters Theses

When searching for an object, we store a mental representation of the target, which guides our search through the use of attention. The effectiveness of this search guidance varies depending on the task and the relationship between target and distractors. With a better understanding of how search guidance changes over time within a trial, we can better compare the differences between experimental conditions. Eye tracking data from a variety of search tasks were analyzed to determine how color guidance varied over the course of the trial. Color guidance for a given fixation was evaluated based on the distance in color …

To Defend Or Not To Defend--The Low Glorifier's Question: The Relationship Between Low Glorifiers' Defensiveness Of Ingroup-Perpetrated Harm And The Tangibility Of Intergroup Conflict, Quinnehtukqut Mclamore

Masters Theses

Members of groups in conflict are often defensive of ingroup-perpetrated violence, especially if they glorify their ingroup. While past literature has established that high glorifiers are unconditionally defensive of their ingroup, findings regarding low glorifiers are mixed, with some studies finding low glorifiers to be similarly defensive as high glorifiers and others finding low glorifiers to not be defensive or even critical of the ingroup. Across six studies, I investigated whether perceiving a conflict to be tangible (rather than intangible) drives defensiveness among low glorifiers. I tested this hypothesis across two national contexts that were naturally closer (Israel) or farther …

Ecological Considerations And Application Of Urban Tree Selection In Massachusetts, Ashley Mcelhinney

Masters Theses

Trees provide countless environmental, economic, and societal benefits to the urban environment, and may become increasingly important to maintaining environmental quality and human well-being in the face of increasing urbanization and climate change. However, trees in these urban areas are rapidly diminishing across the United States. Much of this loss can be prevented with proper planning and management, focused on selecting tree species that are both well-suited to the area’s growing conditions and able to survive the many stress factors in an urban setting. Choosing which tree species to plant in Massachusetts is especially challenging considering the lack of resources …

One Year Change In Cognitive Function In Male And Female Common Marmosets (Callithrix Jacchus), Brianna Healey

Masters Theses

Long term cognitive studies in humans and nonhuman primates such as macaques are difficult because of their long lifespan. The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a non-human primate who shares with humans many features characteristic of primates, including a complex brain and cognitive function. They also have a short lifespan (~10 years) that makes them a great model in studies of cognitive aging. This study focuses on the rate of decline in cognitive function in male and female marmosets based on performance on reversal learning tasks over 2 years of testing.

We found that marmosets improved their overall …

Planning For Industrial Land And Industrial Jobs: An Evaluation Of New York City's Industrial Business Zone Program, Jennifer Davis

Masters Theses

In recent years, industrial preservation policies, which aim to preserve urban industrial activity and industrial employment often through the preservation of industrial land, have emerged as a flashpoint in cities across the country that have implemented these policies. While critics contend that industrial preservation policies amount to smokestack chasing in “post-industrial” cities like New York City, industrial preservationists argue that such policies help to preserve well-paying, middle-class jobs and thus represent a tool to mitigate rising income inequalities in cities. Despite considerable attention to these policies, minimal research has evaluated the effectiveness of industrial preservation policies as land use and …

Stigma In Class: Mental Illness, Social Status, And Tokenism In Elite College Culture, Katie R. Billings

Masters Theses

The majority of mental illness on college campuses remains untreated, and mental illness stigma is the most cited explanation for not seeking mental health treatment. Working-class college students are not only at greater risk of mental illness, but also are less likely to seek mental health treatment and hold more stigmatized views toward people with mental illness compared to affluent college students. Research on college culture suggests that elite college contexts may be associated with greater stigmatization of mental illness. This study bridges the social status and college culture literatures by asking—does social status and college context together predict students’ …

Spatial Variation Of Low Birth Weight And Its Association With Socioeconomic Status, Housing Types, And Accessibility In Kalamazoo County, Eugene Kojo Opare Ahwireng

Masters Theses

Infants with low birth weight due to early delivery or fetal growth restriction face an increased risk of health conditions and deaths. These risk factors and the cost associated with healthcare for infants makes low birth weight a major public health problem. Understanding early precursor challenges expectant mothers face before delivery would help in planning interventions to reduce low birth weight among infants.

This study investigated and evaluated the spatial variation of low birth weight incidence with respect to socioeconomic status, housing types and accessibility in Kalamazoo County. In a broader scope, this research study examined the geographic patterns of …