Digital Commons Network^™

Make The Kind Choice, Gina R. Foster

Open Educational Resources

During the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Gina Rae Foster, Teaching & Learning Center Director at John Jay College of Criminal Justice wrote a series of emails to faculty to support and guide instructors in helping their students and in redesigning their courses in the midst of lockdowns and racial violence. This guide is intended to address multiple interests and needs: as an informal and partial teaching guide, as an edited historical artifact, as a developing set of perspectives on social justice, and as a reminder that our individual and collective wellbeing can be reciprocal and can be amplified.

Artificial Intelligence And The Situational Rationality Of Diagnosis: Human Problem-Solving And The Artifacts Of Health And Medicine, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

What is the problem-solving capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) for health and medicine? This paper draws out the cognitive sociological context of diagnostic problem-solving for medical sociology regarding the limits of automation for decision-based medical tasks. Specifically, it presents a practical way of evaluating the artificiality of symptoms and signs in medical encounters, with an emphasis on the visualization of the problem-solving process in doctor-patient relationships. In doing so, the paper details the logical differences underlying diagnostic task performance between man and machine problem-solving: its principle of rationality, the priorities of its means of adaptation to abstraction, and the effects …

The Communicative Function Of Gender In Italian, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

An analysis of gender in modern literary Italian based on attested examples from various genres. The evidence-based hypothesis, thoroughly noncanonical, proposes a system of morphologically signaled meanings, and these are not the traditional categories "feminine" and "masculine." Even the familiar and misleading term "gender" is replaced. The analysis concerns primarily what is typically called "grammatical gender, although it stands to inform too the use of Italian in communication having to do with human cultural gender. The analysis concerns primarily what might be called "variable gender" (essentially adjectives) although it stands to inform too the problem of "invariable gender" (essentially, nouns).

Anth 101 Introduction To Cultural Anthropology, Antonia M. Santangelo

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Disability And Star Trek: Analyzing Half A Century Of Science Fiction, Heather Rose Harris

Student Theses

This Master's thesis looks at the intersection between disability and Star Trek. More specifically, it analyzes the way that disability was represented within Star Trek over the last half century and investigated how shifting disability history, advocacy movements, and general sentiment towards disability within society may have affected the way that Star Trek told disabled stories within their works. The author used three disability groups to perform this analysis - blindness, mental illness, and intellectual disability.

Assessment Literacy: Using Computer Adaptive Test Data, Ogechi Iwuoha Njoku

Theses and Dissertations

This study employed a quantitative research design to examine teacher assessment literacy and its relationship to external and internal factors. The researcher sought to describe the level of assessment literacy that teachers demonstrate when using score report data from computer-adaptive interim assessment and to analyze whether teachers’ assessment literacy seems to be affected by: a) the quality of professional development training received; b) teachers’ level of self-efficacy; c) teachers’ attribution to student effort, that is their perception of the importance of student effort; and d) teachers’ attribution to context, specifically their perception of the importance of tests. For this study, …

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Cis/Sta 3920 (Data Mining For Business Analyitics), Vinayak Javaly

Open Educational Resources

Data Mining is the process by which useful information is extracted from large amounts of data. This course is designed to provide students with the necessary tools and techniques to perform data mining and business analytics. This course is intended as an introductory module targeted at individuals who plan to work with data (modeling, data management) as well as towards those who will work with data scientists. While the course will primarily focus on modeling and evaluation, it will also include data preparation and examination. Modeling techniques covered include decision trees, clustering, and other methods. Emphasis will be placed on …

Techne Issue 06, Michael Duddy, Farai Matangira, Sanobar Nazirova, Ololade Tolu Owolabi, Darwin Diaz

TECHNE

INTRODUCTION Sanjive Vaidya, RA, Department chair

“Midnight on Feb. 5, 1952, a cross was burned in front of Stoughton Hall, where the 11 black members of the Harvard Class of 1955 lived… One of the 11 black students was the late J. Max Bond ’55, who became one the nation’s leading black architects, stressing socially progressive themes and public service.” -Hartman, Chester. “Cross burning in Harvard Yard?” The Harvard Crimson, 17 Sept 2014.

Symbolizing structural and social barriers for minorities and people of color accessing higher education, this violent scene is heightened by its setting. The venerated campus represents a …

The Importance Of Low Iq To Early Diagnosis Of Autism, Kristina Denisova, Zhichun Lin

Publications and Research

Abstract
Some individuals can flexibly adapt to life’s changing demands while others, in particular those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), find it challenging. The origin of early individual differences in cognitive abilities, the putative tools with which to navigate novel information in life, including in infants later diagnosed with ASD remains unexplored. Moreover, the role of intelligence quotient (IQ) vis-à-vis core features of autism remains debated. We systematically investigate the contribution of early IQ in future autism outcomes in an extremely large, population-based study of 8000 newborns, infants, and toddlers from the US between 2 and 68 months with over …

Small Molecule Modulation Of Microbiota: A Systems Pharmacology Perspective, Qiao Liu, Bohyun Lee, Lei Xie

Publications and Research

Background

Microbes are associated with many human diseases and influence drug efficacy. Small-molecule drugs may revolutionize biomedicine by fine-tuning the microbiota on the basis of individual patient microbiome signatures. However, emerging endeavors in small-molecule microbiome drug discovery continue to follow a conventional “one-drug-one-target-one-disease” process. A systematic pharmacology approach that would suppress multiple interacting pathogenic species in the microbiome, could offer an attractive alternative solution.

Results

We construct a disease-centric signed microbe–microbe interaction network using curated microbe metabolite information and their effects on host. We develop a Signed Random Walk with Restart algorithm for the accurate prediction of effect of microbes …

Female Inmates: Coping With Imprisonment And Separation From Family And Friends, Katarzyna Celinska, Irina Fanarraga, Michael Cronin

Publications and Research

In this study coping with imprisonment among female inmates, and how it relates to experiencing separation from family and friends, is being explored. Data was collected via a survey of 194 female inmates in a Northeastern state correctional facility for women. The self-reported data included the Brief COPE assessment, as well as demographic and “contact” variables: visits, phone calls, and letter writing. The findings indicate that female prisoners tend to utilize adaptive coping methods to deal with their imprisonment. Specifically, letter writing was found to be positively associated with adaptive coping. However, visits from family members and from children were …

Novel Technologies To Characterize And Engineer The Microbiome In Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Alba Boix-Amorós, Hilarly Monaco, Elisa Sambataro, Jose C. Clemente

Publications and Research

We present an overview of recent experimental and computational advances in technology used to characterize the microbiome, with a focus on how these developments improve our understanding of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Specifically, we present studies that make use of flow cytometry and metabolomics assays to provide a functional characterization of microbial communities. We also describe computational methods for strain-level resolution, temporal series, myco - biome and virome data, co-occurrence networks, and compositional data analysis. In addition, we review novel techniques to therapeutically manipulate the microbiome in IBD. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these technologies to increase awareness …

Effect Of Body Mass Index, Testosterone, And Insulin On Breast Cancer: A Mendelian Randomization Study And Investigation Of Selection Bias, Kezhen Fei

Dissertations and Theses

BACKGROUND: Female breast cancer is the most studied cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer death in women, whose aetiology is still not completely clear. The parallel increase of incident obesity and breast cancer in women worldwide raises the question of the role of adiposity, measured by body mass index (BMI), and of major anabolic hormones, such as insulin and testosterone, on breast cancer. Observational studies are open to confounding making it difficult to clearly demonstrate causal effects. Several mendelian randomization (MR) studies have shown inverse association of BMI with breast cancer. To assess selection bias in MR …

Markovnikov Alcohols Via Epoxide Hydroboration By Molecular Alkali Metal Catalysts, Guoqi Zhang, Haisu Zeng, Shengping Zheng, Michelle C. Neary, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Publications and Research

Summary

Creative Writing Introduction, Keith Gandal

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Do Autistic People’S Support Needs And Non‑Autistic People’S Support For The Neurodiversity Movement Contribute To Heightened Autism Stigma In South Korea Vs. The Us?, So Yoon Kim, Kristen Gillespie‑Lynch

Publications and Research

We examined stigma towards vignette characters representing diverse autistic characteristics (social, non-speaking, or repetitive interests or restricted behaviors; RIRB) among 259 South Korean and 240 American participants (age range=18~74).Within each domain, participants were randomized to read a vignette depicting low or high support needs. Koreans reported greater stigma towards autistic characteristics and less awareness of and support for the neurodiversity movement thanAmericans. Autistic characters’ support needs and rater characteristics (autism knowledge, neurodiversity endorsement, and contact quantity) predicted stigma in at least one domain, and after accounting for these variables, participants’ nationality was suggestively associated only with stigma towards social characteristics …

Activity Measure For Post-Acute Care “ 6-Clicks ” Basic Mobility Scores Predict Discharge Destination After Acute Care Hospitalization In Select Patient Groups: A Retrospective, Observational Study, Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, Divya Rajaraman, Sarah Taylor, Kirollos Agayaby, Suzanne Babyar

Publications and Research

Objectives

To establish cutoff scores for the Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care “6-Clicks” standardized Basic Mobility scores (sBMSs) for predicting discharge destination after acute care hospitalization for diagnostic subgroups within an acute care population and to evaluate the need for a second score to improve predictive ability.

Design

Retrospective, observational design.

Setting

Major medical center in metropolitan area.

Participants

Electronic medical records of 1696 adult patients (>18 years) admitted to acute care from January to October 2018. Records were stratified by orthopedic, cardiac, pulmonary, stroke, and other neurological diagnoses (N=1696). Interventions: None

Main Outcome Measure

Physical therapists scored patients’ …

Disrupting Inequitable Practices In Special Education: Privileging Student And Family Voices, Armineh E. Hallaran

Theses and Dissertations

Black, Latinx, and other minoritized students have long been overrepresented in the high-incidence, subjective, disability classifications including Learning Disability, Speech and Language Impairment, Emotional Disturbance, and Intellectual Impairment. Special education places these students on trajectories that deny them access to quality education and the same postschool outcomes and opportunities as their nondisabled peers. Using Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), and grounded theory analysis this study foregrounds the voices of minoritized middle school students receiving special education under high-incidence classifications. DisCrit allowed for an investigation of how student’s intersecting marginalized identities impacted their experiences as special education students. Further, Education Journey …

Function Of Atm And Msh2 During Dna Repair And Recombination, Emily Sible

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Class switch recombination (CSR) produces secondary immunoglobulin isotypes and requires AID-dependent DNA deamination of intronic switch (S) regions within the immunoglobulin heavy chain (Igh) gene locus. Non-canonical repair of deaminated DNA by mismatch repair (MMR) or base excision repair (BER) creates DNA breaks that permit recombination between distal S regions. ATM-dependent phosphorylation of AID at serine-38 (pS38-AID) promotes its interaction with APE1, a BER protein, suggesting that ATM regulates CSR through BER. However, pS38-AID may also function in MMR during CSR, although the mechanism remains unknown. To examine whether ATM modulates BER- and/or MMR-dependent CSR, Atm^-/- mice …

The Behavioral And Gene Expression Effects Of Loss Or Exhaustion Of Sonic Hedgehog From Dopamine Neurons, Dustin R. Zuelke

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mesencephalic dopamine neurons (DAN) signal motivation and reward prediction errors. Their collective functions are considered critical for the translation of thought into context appropriate actions. Dopaminergic dysfunction has severe consequences: (1) DAN degeneration is a major determinate of Parkinson’s Disease (PD), (2) disturbed dopaminergic signaling in schizophrenia leads to unorganized learning, and (3) chemically induced dopaminergic signaling results in impulse control disorders (ICDs) and life-threatening addictions. The use of the dopamine (DA) precursor L-Dopa for DA replacement therapy in PD patients produces motor and behavioral side-effects such as L-Dopa induced dyskinesias (LID), ICDs, and a propensity for opioid addiction. Despite …

Critical Social Foundations Of Education: Advancing Human Rights And Transformative Justice Education In Teacher Preparation, Magnus O. Bassey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Understanding Distruptive Change In Health Care: Perspectives From The Front Lines Of Covid, Wendy Vaughon

Dissertations and Theses

COVID-19 dramatically stressed an already overburdened healthcare system. Physicians, susceptible to burnout, bore the brunt of this threat as frontline providers. Limited data are available describing how the pandemic may have affected physician perceptions and beliefs, including experiences of burnout and plans to exit the field. Reddit, a social media website, allows physicians the ability to interact with their peers pseudonymously on a purpose-driven, publicly viewable subreddit (r/medicine). By providing a space for “physicians and other medical professionals” to interact, it is possible to observe unfiltered discourse.

This dissertation explores physician-peer discourse on Reddit prior to and during the COVID-19 …

How Many Mutex Bugs Can A Simple Analysis Find In Go Programs?, Fumi Takeuchi, Hidehiko Masuhara, Raffi Khatchadourian, Youyou Cong, Keisuke Ishibashi

Publications and Research

In open-source software, it is known that there are many concurrency bugs. A previous study in Go revealed that a considerable number of such bugs are simple (for example, 9% of the bugs are the ones that forget to unlock a mutex,) through a manual program investigation. This paper tries to detect such bugs by applying a simple analysis to see how far such a tool can match the manual analysis. We built a simple intraprocedural control flow analysis in Go, and evaluated its performance concerning the open source programs with concurrency bugs reported in the previous study. Consequently, as …

Development And Characterization Of A Novel, Genetically- Encoded Sensor To Image Sonic Hedgehog Signaling In Functional Circuits, Sonia Bernal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dynamic neurotransmitter and neuromodulator signaling in functional circuits is the neural substrate of animal behavior and cognition. The study of said circuits requires tools with sufficient spatiotemporal dynamics that can probe complex signaling patterns and decode their functional relevance by coupling the signal to behavioral output, ideally in awake, behaving animals. Much is known about the role of classical neurotransmitters such as dopamine in behavior, but a wide variety of peptides and small molecules also regulate neuronal transmission. One of these is Shh, whose presence has been observed in a variety of brain regions known to modulate movement, perception, and …

Refusing Rehabilitation: Outlaw Epistemologies And The Carceral-Therapeutic State In Nyc, Nadja Eisenberg-Guyot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During an historic re-articulation of incarceration in New York City, Refusing Rehabilitation: Outlaw Epistemologies and the Carceral-Therapeutic State explores how gender, race, and class have been transformed at the intersection of criminal legal system reform and the overdose crisis. I take up how multiracial groups of criminalized women—thrown together by the state, not by choice—refuse forms of state control and violence, and imagine together alternative “outlaw” horizons of justice, healing, drug use, and escape from carceral-therapeutic capture. Countering the individualizing mandate of rehabilitation, women in rehab articulate visions of healing grounded in interdependence, collective safety, and an end to structural …

"Cerulean Skies" By Maria Schneider: A Formal And Semiotic Analysis, Jonathan Heim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Expressivity, imagery, and narrativity have long been touted as hallmarks of big band composer Maria Schneider’s style. This perception is widely accepted by critics and casual commentators, but are these attributions merely metaphorical or do they speak to observable dimensions of Schneider’s compositional style? This dissertation aims to address the narrative and expressive dimensions of Schneider’s music by combining aspects of formal analysis with concepts from music semiotics. The centerpiece is an analysis of “Cerulean Skies” (2006), the longest work to date in Schneider’s oeuvre with a duration of approximately twenty-two minutes. “Cerulean Skies” is distinct in its expansiveness and …

Humoring The Third Republic: Le Rire In French Politics And Popular Culture, 1894–1918, Andrew C. Kotick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the illustrated satirical periodical Le Rire in its historical context between its debut during the Dreyfus Affair and the conclusion of World War I. Adopting a multivalent approach to the historical study of graphic humor, it argues that Le Rire constitutes a significant corpus of evidence for understanding the political, commercial, social, and cultural novelties of its time, and maintained an ambivalent relationship with the young institutions and functionaries of the French Third Republic. As France’s leading satirical periodical, Le Rire served as a powerful medium for broadcasting nascent and extreme ideas to a mass reading public …

"Secession's Moving Foundation": Fugitive Slave Rendition And The Politics Of American Slavery, Evan Turiano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the political conflict over fugitive slave rendition from the era of the American Revolution through the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. It pays particular attention to the struggle over the legal rights due to African Americans accused of being fugitive slaves. Slaveholders claimed an absolute property right over accused fugitive slaves and argued that any recognition of legal remedies for accused runaways threatened that right. Free African Americans and their allies in the abolitionist movement asserted that Black people accused of having escaped slavery were due a legal process. This was a vital protection against …

The Moral Economy Of Ordinary Belarussians And A Critical Examination And Re-Evaluation Of The 2020 Post-Electoral Uprising, Geoffrey Blank

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is three studies in one: First, a qualitative study of the moral economy of ordinary Belarussians based on E.P Thompson’s class-based economic conception of moral economy, as applied to complex socio-economic systems by Reinarman (1987). Second, a critical and broad examination and re-evaluation of the August 9, 2020 post-electoral uprising. And third, an examination of both the West’s hostility toward Belarus’ largely state-owned socially-oriented economic model (often considered market socialism) and toward President Lukashenka, and, of the West’s commitment to overthrowing President Lukashenka and Belarus’ largely state-owned socially-oriented economic model, through its sponsorship of color revolution, “democratization,” regime …

Neuroanatomy In Mild Cognitive Impairment: Relationship To Functional Skills, Treatment Expectancy, And Comorbid Depression, Sara Rushia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a neurocognitive disorder defined by cognitive decline in older adults. Although MCI has been studied for decades, there remain important areas to be explored in order to adequately characterize aspects of this disorder that provide information valuable for possible interventions and disease progression to dementia, including a better understanding of the neuroanatomical variables relevant to this disorder. Such neuroanatomical variables include cortical thickness, hippocampal volume, and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs). This dissertation consists of three separate studies aimed at addressing gaps in the literature on MCI in relation to brain morphometrics and under-studied characteristics involved …