Digital Commons Network^™

"Where Are The Bathrooms?": Academic Library Restrooms And Student Needs, Stephanie Margolin, Jennifer Poggiali

Publications and Research

This article investigates bathrooms, paying specific attention to those in academic libraries. The authors describe how bathrooms have been considered in the library literature for the past century and challenges to changing the status quo. Finally, this work sets the stage for future inquiry. Research materials come from a range of sources: historical library literature, building codes, social science theory and research that address the issues around bathroom taboos, and checklists for assessing bathrooms. The authors propose librarians and library administrators reconsider all aspects of their own bathrooms: location, features, equity/inclusiveness, and maintenance in service to their patrons.

The Shrine System: Votive Culture And Cult Sculpture, Enshrining Space In 11th To 13th Century France, Kristen N. Racaniello

Theses and Dissertations

Possible relationships between northern and southern French shrines are examined in this paper through case studies of the shrines at Chartres and Conques. The materiality of cult statues and votive objects, the body as performative tool, and institutional motivations are considered for their bearing on the shrine as a system.

Two Types Of Gods: Narratives And Imagined Orders Of Islamic Spain, Brian Beegan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role in contemporary Spanish cultural politics of two historical narratives from Spain’s Islamic era: St. James and Convivencia. I argue that these narratives serve different political agendas as Spain comes to terms both with its past and the challenges of Muslim immigration in the present.

Oldest Skeleton Of A Plesiadapiform Provides Additional Evidence For An Exclusively Arboreal Radiation Of Stem Primates In The Palaeocene, Stephen B. Chester, Thomas E. Williamson, Jonathan I. Bloch, Mary T. Silcox, Eric J. Sargis

Publications and Research

Palaechthonid plesiadapiforms from the Palaeocene of western North America have long been recognized as among the oldest and most primitive euarchontan mammals, a group that includes extant primates, colugos and treeshrews. Despite their relatively sparse fossil record, palaechthonids have played an important role in discussions surrounding adaptive scenarios for primate origins for nearly a half-century. Likewise, palaechthonids have been considered important for understanding relationships among plesiadapiforms, with members of the group proposed as plausible ancestors of Paromomyidae and Microsyopidae. Here, we describe a dentally associated partial skeleton of Torrejonia wilsoni from the early Palaeocene (approx. 62Ma) of New Mexico, which …

Cooperative Membership And Community Engagement: Findings From A Latin American Survey, Sangdong Tak

Publications and Research

Cooperatives as organization have mainly been explored in the field of business and management due to their operation in the business sector, and studies of nonprofit organizations have given little attention to them. Consequently, cooperatives studies have tended to examine economic outcomes, such as productivity and job security, comparing them to conventional business firms. Nevertheless, cooperatives are membership associations and have organizational characteristics in common with other types of voluntary associations. Furthermore, one explicit organizational principle of cooperatives is concern for community, and their contributions to the community have been covered frequently by media. Therefore, it is imperative to examine …

Mortality And Artifact, Alexander Perrelli

Theses and Dissertations

Questioning one's death is questioning the invisible. Our innate fear and anxiety mechanisms enable us to navigate crises, yet can ruin us. Minute psychological transitions can spark ingenuity, the key to individual and species survival. But improvisation is uncertain. Our vulnerability defines us. I seek to better understand my fears.

The Anthropocene, Overview, Scott W. Schwartz

Open Educational Resources

This presentation offers an overview of the developing concept of The Anthropocene -- a term coined to describe our current geological epoch, in which human impact on the planet will leave a permanent trace.

What Does Silence = Now? An Analysis Of Past And Present Discourse Surrounding Hiv/Aids, Emily A. Moner

Theses and Dissertations

This essay examines how the HIV/AIDS epidemic was first addressed in the context of politics, media and the general public and subsequently how that compares to the ways in which it’s currently being discussed using popular forms of communication such as Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media.

Food And Negotiation Of Identity Among The Russian Immigrant Community Of Brighton Beach, Elena Starkova

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the construction of ethnic identity among Russian immigrants in New York, by examining how it has been negotiated and articulated through foods, including traditional and non-native foods as a vehicle for their shifting identities and for reaffirming their position and participation in mainstream American society.

Forget-Me-Not: American Consumerism And Its Impact On Philadelphia Gravestones, 1800-1930, Melissa A. Elgendy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the relationship between the growing consumer ideology brought about by the American Industrial Revolution and changing gravestone characteristics in Philadelphia, PA between 1800-1930. Examining their connection uncovers how consumerism impacted individual’s sense of self and viewed their place in society, which are then reflected in material culture.

Towards Telepathic Ecologies: A Presentation Of Sources For Image Production Within Information, Lewis A. Longino

Theses and Dissertations

Telepathy through information systems, Yutaka Matsuzawa,with Ilya Prigogine, Roger Caillois, Susan Howe, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Aase Berg, images and artists today form telepathic ecologies through information,Aaron Flint Jamison, Dora Budor, Sb Fuller, Andrea Crespo.

Understanding The Whole Student: Cuny Undergraduates’ Lived Experiences, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

This presentation is a broad overview of research into how CUNY undergraduates fit their academic work into their lives, focusing on study locations, the technology they use, and how they engage in the research process.

Does Genotype Correlate With Phenotype? Evaluating Ruffed Lemur (Varecia Spp.) Color Vision Using Subject Mediated Automatic Remote Testing Apparatus (Smarta), Raymond Vagell

Theses and Dissertations

Ruffed lemur (Varecia spp.) color vision research was conducted using a multidisciplinary approach: psychophysics, genetic analysis, technology, and animal training. The behavioral manifestation of Varecia spp. trichromacy was shown using a touchscreen apparatus (SMARTA). Trichromats performed better than dichromats when discriminating red from green (G₂ = 78.10, p < 0.001).

Free To Serve? Emergency Food And Volunteer Labor In The Urban U.S., Maggie Dickinson

Publications and Research

Since the 1980s, cutbacks to welfare programs, widespread economic insecurity, and increased federal funding for nonprofit agencies have led to a massive expansion of emergency food providers (EFPs) such as soup kitchens and food pantries across the United States. These anti-hunger organizations are often staffed exclusively or predominantly by volunteers who are empowered to care for their communities. But, like all caring labor, volunteer work is shaped by race, class, and gender inequalities. Hunger and poverty motivate poor women to become volunteers, and contradictions around how this labor should be remunerated, recognized, and regulated create conflicts within EFPs. By mobilizing …

Report On Mandated Committees, Cuny John Jay College, Task Force On Committees, John Jay College

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

From email by President Jeremy Travis 4/05/2017:

The decision to create the Task Force grew from the recognition that we spend an enormous amount of time working in committees. Now is a good time to ask whether our committees are efficient, transparent, and reflective of the values of our college.

The Report represents the first step in that discussion. In 2015, the Task Force conducted two surveys eliciting information about committees at John Jay. They created a database and analyzed the data that were collected. This report focuses on only one category of committees- those that are mandated by CUNY …

From Plato To Nato. 2,500 Years Of Democracy And The End Of History, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Tracing A Gypsy Mixed Language Through Medieval And Early Modern Arabic And Persian Literature, Kristina Richardson

Publications and Research

In this paper I will analyze and trace samples of a tribal dialect that thrived in medieval Islam and has survived into the modern period. It is a mixed language or para-language that takes the form of embedding a substitutive vocabulary into the grammatical structure of other languages and it has historically been spoken within communities of peripatetics and commercial nomads, or Gypsy 1 groups. In 10th-century Arabic sources produced in Būyid Iraq and Iran, non-speakers named this language lughat al-mukaddīn (the language of the beggars), another demonstration of an outsider’s perspective. However, speakers of this language called it lughat …

Zooarchaeology Of The Scandinavian Settlements In Iceland And Greenland: Diverging Pathways, Thomas Mcgovern, Konrad Smairowski, George Hambrecht, Seth Brewington, Ramona Harrison, Megan Hicks, Frank J. Feeley, Brenda Prehal, James Woollett

Publications and Research

The Scandinavian Viking Age and Medieval settlements of Iceland and Greenland have been subject to zooarchaeological research for over a century, and have come to represent two classic cases of survival and collapse in the literature of long-term human ecodynamics. The work of the past two decades by multiple projects coordinated through the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) cooperative and by collaborating scholars has dramatically increased the available zooarchaeological evidence for economic organization of these two communities, their initial adaptation to different natural and social contexts, and their reaction to Late Medieval economic and climate change. This summary paper provides …

Medieval Iceland, Greenland, And The New Human Condition: A Case Study In Integrated Environmental Humanities, Steven Hartman, A.E.J. Ogilvie, Jón Haukur Ingimundarson, A.J. Dugmore, George Hambrecht, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

This paper contributes to recent studies exploring the longue durée of human impacts on island landscapes, the impacts of climate and other environmental changes on human communities, and the interaction of human societies and their environments at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, the paper addresses Iceland during the medieval period (with a secondary, comparative focus on Norse Greenland) and discusses episodes where environmental and climatic changes have appeared to cross key thresholds for agricultural productivity. The paper draws upon international, interdisciplinary research in the North Atlantic region led by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and the Nordic …

As’Lem: An Ethical Diagnosis Of The Contemporary, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

In recent scholarly literature, refugees have proliferated: they are the “political figures par excellence” and “border concepts”; they are understood through their infrastructures, both camps and laws; and they are approached as suffering subjects. But Fassin, Wilhelm-Solomon, and Segatti have a different approach: they understand asylum—or as’lem, the term used by asylum seekers in South Africa—as a form of life.

Guest Studies The Diversity Of New York’S Chinatown., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Chinatowns are common sights in almost every major city in the U.S. To westerners, they appear to be homogeneous places where one goes to find good Chinese food and a little more. However, researchers have found that there is much more to them than that. It turns out that these Chinese communities can tell us a lot about not only the Chinese immigrants but also the cities where they are located.

One of those researchers is Dr. Ken Guest. He comes from a very religious family from New Jersey. “My mother is the fourth generation of United Methodist ministers in …

T-Complex Measures In Bilingual Spanish- English And Turkish-German Children And Monolingual Peers, Tanja Rinker, Valerie L. Shafer, Markus Kiefer, Nancy Vidal, Yan H. Yu

Publications and Research

Background Lateral temporal neural measures (Na and T-complex Ta and Tb) of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) index maturation of auditory/speech processing. These measures are also sensitive to language experience in adults. This paper examined neural responses to a vowel sound at temporal electrodes in four- to five-year-old Spanish-English bilinguals and English monolinguals and in five- to six-year-old Turkish-German bilinguals and German monolinguals. The goal was to determine whether obligatory AEPs at temporal electrode sites were modulated by language experience. Language experience was defined in terms of monolingual versus bilingual status as well as the amount and quality of the …

Gait Changes In A Line Of Mice Artificially Selected For Longer Limbs, Leah M. Sparrow, Emily Pellattt, Sabrina S. Yu, David A. Raichlen, Herman Pontzer, Campbell Rolian

Publications and Research

In legged terrestrial locomotion, the duration of stance phase, i.e., when limbs are in contact with the substrate, is positively correlated with limb length, and negatively correlated with the metabolic cost of transport. These relationships are well documented at the interspecific level, across a broad range of body sizes and travel speeds. However, such relationships are harder to evaluate within species (i.e., where natural selection operates), largely for practical reasons, including low population variance in limb length, and the presence of confounding factors such as body mass, or training. Here, we compared spatiotemporal kinematics of gait in Longshanks, a long-legged …

Body Size And Lower Limb Posture During Walking In Humans, Martin Hora, Libor Soumar, Herman Pontzer, Vladimír Sládek

Publications and Research

We test whether locomotor posture is associated with body mass and lower limb length in humans and explore how body size and posture affect net joint moments during walking. We acquired gait data for 24 females and 25 males using a three-dimensional motion capture system and pressure-measuring insoles. We employed the general linear model and commonality analysis to assess the independent effect of body mass and lower limb length on flexion angles at the hip, knee, and ankle while controlling for sex and velocity. In addition, we used inverse dynamics to model the effect of size and posture on net …

Plekon Looks At The Evolution Of Religious Beliefs., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Abraham Lincoln once said, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” He sounds like a precursor of today’s millennials, who, although they do not feel attracted to any organized religion, still have a space for spirituality and righteousness in their hearts.

Someone who looks at religion from many different viewpoints is Dr. Michael Plekon, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College of the City University of New York.

Solo Performance: An Extension Of Vocal Pedagogy, Monica J. Harte

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this study, I examine the significance of the solo performance opportunity in vocal pedagogy at the tertiary level. In order to discover tangible correlations between solo performing and applied lessons, I designed and implemented a case study that focused on fourteen subjects rehearsing, performing, and recording roles in the children’s opera, Mambo. The findings stem from my theoretical analysis of substantive data collected through forty-one interviews and three months of observations. The data collected disclosed that whether the participants advanced within a particular performance practice (such as presentation), or developed a specific vocal technique (such as coloratura), Mambo …

From Rochel To Rose And Mendel To Max: First Name Americanization Patterns Among Twentieth-Century Jewish Immigrants To The United States, Jason H. Greenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a dearth of investigation into the distribution of and the alterations among Jewish given names. Whereas Jewish surnames are a popular topic of study, first names receive far less analysis. Because Jewish immigrants to the United States frequently changed their names, this thesis can serve as a guide to genealogists and other scholars seeking to trace the paths of Jewish immigrants from Europe. Data was drawn from about 1500 naturalization records from Brooklyn in order to determine the correspondences between the given names featured on passenger lists and their Americanized counterparts. More than three-quarters of surveyed immigrants …

The Fantastic Manifesto: Monstrosity Of Memory And Epiphany Of Selfhood In The Spirit Of The Beehive (1973), Layla Blodgett Carrillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish culture of storytelling suffered under the nearly forty-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The government-regulated cinema welcomed propaganda and melodrama, and denied the fantastic, the legendary, and the magical. These carefully manipulated histories, which served to romanticize the ideologies of the regime, also served to eulogize the delinquent and the depraved. In the early 1970s, at the heels of the collapse of Franco’s reign, the people of Spain bore witness to a new national cinema. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), the feature debut from Victor Erice, exists at the threshold between a storied history of Spanish dictatorship and …

Zooarchaeological And Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction Of Newly Excavated Middle Pleistocene Deposits From Elandsfontein, South Africa, Frances L. Forrest

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Increased consumption of animal tissue is arguably one of the most important adaptive transitions in early hominin behavior. A dietary shift toward regular tool-assisted meat consumption and increased competition with the carnivore paleoguild likely helped shape many important hominin adaptations such as foraging patterns, habitat preferences, and social behaviors. Yet, the ecological and behavioral implications for increased hominin carnivory remain poorly understood. This dissertation examines the zooarchaeological and paleoenvironmental history of an important Acheulean hominin locality, Elandsfontein, South Africa (ca. 1.0 – 0.6 Ma). The goal is to begin addressing under-investigated aspects of Acheulean hominin behavioral ecology and place Acheulean …

A Canada In The South: Marronage In Antebellum American Literature, Sean Gerrity

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation considers maroons—enslaved people who fled from slavery and self-exiled to places like swamps and forests—in the textual and historical worlds of the pre-Civil War United States. I examine a counter-archive of US literature that imagines marronage as offering alternate spaces of freedom, refuge, and autonomy outside the unidirectional South-to-North geographical trajectory of the Underground Railroad, which has often framed the story of freedom and unfreedom for African Americans in pre-1865 US literary and cultural studies. Broadly, I argue that through maroons we can locate alternate spaces of fugitive freedom within slaveholding territory, thereby complicating fixed notions of the …