Digital Commons Network^™

Is Lying Contagious? Spatial Diffusion Of High-Yield “Satellites” During China’S Great Leap Forward, Hongwei Xu, Geng Tian

Publications and Research

Situated in China’s Great Leap Forward (GLF) campaign in 1958, this study examines the spatial diffusion of “launching high-yield satellites”— exaggerating grain yields, which contributed to the 1959–61 GLF famine that claimed millions of human lives. The authors conceptualize exaggerating grain yields as a political innovation adopted by local cadres to endorse the GLF and signal political loyalty to their superiors. Using geocoded county-level event history data from historical newspaper archives, the authors found that the diffusion of exaggerating grain yields across the country was primarily driven by the interaction between geographic proximity and political proximity.

The Cultural Dual Identity In Cristina Garcia's Dreaming In Cuban And Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Azahria John-Otway

Dissertations and Theses

Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban and Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents are two novels that explore the effects immigration can have on the development of one's identity, respectively. Throughout both novels, it is understood that in order for an immigrant to have a sense of belonging, an exploratory journey of the self must be made. In making this journey, literally and figuratively, the immigrant person begins to appreciate their homeland and immigrated home, thus feeling a sense of belonging and accepting they are of a cultural dual identity.

From Neoliberalism To Socialism: Reimagining Socialism In Africa, Kiiru Gichuru

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract. For many scholars, pundits, policy makers, and citizens alike, Africa’s persistent maldevelopment has continued to defy the usual International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and foreign aid prescriptions that are, at times, peddled as silver bullets to the African conundrum. Beginning in the late 1970s, loans from the IMF and World Bank required African governments to implement certain conditions that were supposed to address public sector mismanagement, illiberal trade policies, low foreign investment, and state development. These austerity measures were designed to usher in an era of financial growth that would enable Africa to join the ranks of developed …

Emergent Women's Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints, Aoife Meehan

Dissertations and Theses

“Emergent Women’s Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints” seeks to trace why and how female political leaders emerge at the global level. Evidence points to certain cultural factors, often expressed by laws, constraining or supporting women as they seek political advancement. Data shows women leaders are emerging more and more, though slowly, as political leaders around the world. Reviewing women’s participation and representation regionally and nationally in parliaments, as ministers, and as heads of governments and states confirms that women can and do emerge as political leaders. Finally, learning about and examining women leaders themselves, their style and substance, proves …

Political Representation For Indigenous Peoples In The Andes, Jessica Yepez

Dissertations and Theses

For years, there has been a lack of representation for indigenous peoples in communities, and most importantly in parliament. This is a very common trait in the South American Andes, which houses the largest number of indigenous groups in the continent. This thesis focuses on Ecuador and Bolivia due to their indigenous population and their history, or lack thereof, with indigenous people in parliament. For my hypothesis, I argue that parliamentary representation of indigenous peoples, can help ensure that their rights are protected, and their unique interests are heard and translated into relevant policies, while at the same time preventing …

The Battle For The Battle Of Adwa: Collective Identity And Nation-Building, Joseph A. Steward

Dissertations and Theses

Abstract

On March 1^st, 1896, an Ethiopian army lead by Emperor Menelik II dealt a shocking defeat to the invading Italian forces in the Battle of Adwa. In victory, Menelik was able to exert his authority over a vast territory which included both the historical, ancient kingdoms of the northern and central parts of Ethiopia, and also the vast, resource-rich territories in the west and south which he had earlier conquered. The egalitarian nature of the victory united the various peoples of Ethiopia against a common enemy, giving Menelik the opportunity to create a new Ethiopian nation.

The …

Impacts Of Vegetation Density And Distance From The High Tide Line On Raccoon Predation Of Diamondback Terrapin Nests In Jamaica Bay, Ny – A Preliminary Study, Zvi Teitelbaum

Dissertations and Theses

Diamondback terrapin turtles (Malaclemys terrapin) have been culturally and economically important since at least the nineteenth century. However, due to overharvesting, this became a species of conservation concern. While extensive data are available to describe its natural history, some conditions that impact nest predation are poorly understood. In this exploratory study, vegetation type and distance to the high tide line were examined to determine their potential impact on predation of diamondback terrapin nests by raccoons. For that, terrapin scented water was used to construct 50 artificial nests at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. These artificial nests were placed in …

Free-To-Play? An Examination Of Intrinsic Motivation And Gaming Behaviors In U.S. Female Mobile Gamers, Margot Goldblum

Dissertations and Theses

The prevalence of U.S. female gamers has skyrocketed in recent years, largely due to the popularity of mobile games; however, this population is underrepresented in academic research. The present study aimed to close this gap in the literature by focusing on the motivations and behaviors of adult female mobile gamers in the U.S. It also aimed to capture changes in gaming motivation and behavior resulting from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. An online sample of 354 American women 18 to 77 years of age (M = 36.79, SD = 12.38) were surveyed about their motivations for mobile gaming, …

Toward Closing The Urban Surface Energy Balance Using Satellite Remote Sensing, Joshua Hrisko

Dissertations and Theses

The energy exchanges at the Earth’s surface are responsible for many of the processes that govern weather, climate, human health, and energy use. This exchange, commonly known as the surface energy balance (SEB), determines the near-surface thermodynamic state by partitioning the available energy into surface fluxes. The net all-wave radiation is often the primary energy source, while the heat storage and sensible and latent heat fluxes account for the majority of energy distributed elsewhere. While the SEB of various natural environments(trees, crops, soils) has been well-observed and modeled, the urban surface energy balance remains elusive. This is due to the …

Contemporary Art And Food: An Examination Of Three Case Studies Using Anthropology And Diaspora As Key., Viridiana S. Mayagoitia

Dissertations and Theses

Food-related artworks are as crucial to understanding culture as other mediums in art like painting, installation, sculpture, and drawings. From Greek and Roman mosaics, Egyptian banquet scenes, to Renaissance frescoes and Flemish still-life paintings, the depiction of food and meals has had multiple meanings. Food as a medium in Western contemporary art was introduced in the 1930s by the Italian Futurists’ banquets, which celebrated modernity and technology underlying social and political commentary. It continued throughout the 1960s with performance art, conceptual art, and happenings, and in the 1970s with the Fluxus movement’s exploration of the boundaries between art and life. …

The Coloniality Of Disaster: Race, Empire, And The Temporal Logics Of Emergency In Puerto Rico, Usa, Yarimar Bonilla

Publications and Research

This essay uses the case of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to discuss “the coloniality of disaster”: how catastrophic events like hurricanes, earthquakes, but also other forms political and economic crisis deepen the fault lines of long-existing racial and colonial histories. It argues that disaster capitalism needs to be understood as a form of racio-colonial capitalism and that this in turn requires us to question our understandings of both “resilience” and “recovery.” The article focuses on the “wait of disaster” as a temporal logic of state subjugation and on how Puerto Ricans responded to state abandonment through modes of autogesti� …

The Labour Of Austerity: Absurdity, Performative Resistance, And Cultural Transformation, Nora Almeida

Publications and Research

This essay explores the social-psychic toll of prolonged austerity on academic librarians and the range of strategies that have (or could) serve as tools of resistance. Using a combination of theoretical analysis and autoethnography, I examine the emotional impact of bottomless and invisible labour imposed by austerity and the ways institutions use emotional coercion to promote self-surveillance, meta-work, and hyper-productivity. Following this analysis, I discuss the ways that oppressive institutional cultures silence dissent and absorb common resistance tactics advocated by educators. Finally, I introduce several examples of performance-based resistance projects and explore how creative, personal, and absurd forms of protest …

Teaching World Communities As Cultural Translation: A Third Grade Unit Of Study, Hanadi Shatara, Debbie Sonu

Publications and Research

This article bridges scholarship in global education with ele-mentary classroom teaching by presenting a series of lessons that challenge the idea of national culture as fixed and stable. The land we share is most certainly affected by its political borders, but it is also constructed out of the multiplicity of social relations that exist both within and on either side of a border. Yet very often, when teaching about another country, we tend to rely on misappropriated generalizations around food, holidays, and folktales that do not honor how culture moves, changes, and becomes translated by its unique and varied peoples.

Easily Overstated: Estimating The Relationship Between State Justice Policy Environments And Falling Rates Of Youth Confinement, Douglas N. Evans, Gina Moreno, Kevin T. Wolff, Jeffrey A. Butts

Publications and Research

Researchers used state-level data on youth justice policies and practices to explore the association between state policy environments and recent changes in the use of residential placements for adjudicated youth (i.e., confinement). The study assigned a score to each of the 50 states based on the extent to which their youth justice policy environments could be considered "progressive" as opposed to punitive or regressive. Using data from the National Center for Juvenile Justice's compendium of justice system characteristics, "Juvenile Justice, Geography, Policy, Practice & Statistics" (JJGPS), the research team created an index that accounts for 16 policies that are more …

Did Juvenile Domestic Violence Offending Change During Covid-19?, Michael T. Baglivio, Kevin T. Wolff, Joan A. Reid, Sherry L. Jackson, Alex R. Piquero

Publications and Research

The current study adds some of the first light into the initial impacts of the largest global health crisis in a generation on family and domestic violence, the long-term repercussions of which may take decades to unpack. Statewide trends in juvenile arrests for domestic violence (DV)-related offending are examined, taking into account school closures for in-person learning in March 2020 and the subsequent mandate for an in-person learning option in Florida in August 2020. Additionally, trends by sex, race/ethnicity, and severity of the offense are examined. Contrasting with growing studies demonstrating an increase in DV-related arrests among adults, we find …

Emotional Intelligence And Knowledge Management: A Necessary Link?, Isabel Rechberg

Publications and Research

This theoretical paper studies the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on individuals' participation in knowledge management (KM) practices. Individuals are the sources of knowledge, and EI may advance individuals' self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship-management skills, which in turn positively impacts their knowledge processing behavior. The argument is made that knowledge creation is enabled through individuals' ability to recognize and correctly interpret emotional and environmental clues. Knowledge sharing is facilitated through individuals' interpersonal, communication, and team-working skills, enabled through self-awareness and social awareness. Knowledge is retained in organizations where EI enacts individuals' corporate citizenship behavior, adaptability, and job satisfaction. Where …

The Heterogeneity And Change In The Urban Structure Of Metropolitan Areas In The United States, 1990–2010, Stefan Leyk, Deborah Balk, Bryan Jones, Mark R. Montgomery, Hasim Engin

Publications and Research

While the population of the United States has been predominantly urban for nearly 100 years, periodic transformations of the concepts and measures that define urban places and population have taken place, complicating over-time comparisons. We compare and combine data series of officially-designated urban areas, 1990–2010, at the census block-level within Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with a satellite-derived consistent series on built-up area from the Global Human Settlement Layer to create urban classes that characterize urban structure and provide estimates of land and population. We find considerable heterogeneity in urban form across MSAs, even among those of similar population size, indicating …

Visualization And Analysis Of Environmental Data, Sean Macdonald

Publications and Research

The virtual exploration of place has been employed in a variety of learning environments across many disciplines, creatively expanding upon the experience of place. This chapter explores the value of mapping environmental data as a tool that can enhance students’ virtual exploration of place as they investigate local environmental policies and problems within their own urban surroundings. This visualization project engages students in making meaningful connections between the theoretical study of local and global environmental problems and the “observation” and investigation of these data using mapped data. The virtual learning environment is viewed as one that is interactive, exploring how …

The Battle For Bushwick, And Beyond: Inside The Radical Grassroots Movement To Reshape Urban Planning In New York City, Chase Brush

Capstones

Mi Casa No Es Su Casa, Take Back The Bronx, Northern Manhattan Is Not For Sale -- in neighborhoods all across New York City, a movement is afoot to take back community control of the urban planning process. These groups and others, faced with increasing gentrification in their own neighborhoods, are fighting back against city-led rezonings that they say would further exacerbate the displacement of longtime residents. Among those leading the charge is Mi Casa No Es Su Casa, a team of social justice activists using the tools of radical grassroots organizing to oppose a slate rezoning of Bushwick, a …

Unique New York: Examining The Impact Of Breed Labels, Phenotypic Variations, And Geography On Length Of Stay In A Multi-Location New York Limited Intake Animal Shelter, Nicole Passmore

Theses and Dissertations

New York City (NYC) is a unique area for a shelter welfare as it has limited dog-friendly housing and an abundance of dogs. A common barrier to entry for NYC dog adopters trying to rent apartments is the breed label the shelter assigned to their dog, despite the fact breed labelling is primarily based off intuition and physical appearance. Following research by Gunter, Barber and Wynne (2016) that saw adoption rates at a Florida animal shelter increase following the removal of breed labels from the shelter’s kennel cards, some shelters ceased using breed labels. One was Bideawee, a limited admission …

Mapping Urban Performance Culture: A Common Ground For Architecture And Theater, Ting Chin, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

Our co-taught course focuses on theater history, with an emphasis on performance architecture. Assignments are designed to illuminate the ways in which architectural design and technology inform performance practices and audience reception. The pivotal assignment for exploring interdisciplinarity is a three-week module on mapping historical theaters in New York City. Open-source Global Information Systems (GIS) software serves as a common mechanism for students to situate theatrical productions in the context of the built urban environment, deepening their understanding of the social, economic, and artistic forces that contributed to performance culture. Mapping is a shared pedagogy for analyzing and presenting research …

Convergence Of Human And Old World Monkey Gut Microbiomes Demonstrates The Importance Of Human Ecology Over Phylogeny, Katherine R. Amato, Elizabeth K. Mallott, Daniel Mcdonald, Nathaniel J. Dominy, Tony Goldberg, Joanna E. Lambert, Larissa Swedell, Jessica L. Metcalf, Andres Gomez, Gillian A. O. Britton, Rebecca M. Stumpf, Steven R. Leigh, Rob Knight

Publications and Research

Background

Comparative data from non-human primates provide insight into the processes that shaped the evolution of the human gut microbiome and highlight microbiome traits that differentiate humans from other primates. Here, in an effort to improve our understanding of the human microbiome, we compare gut microbiome composition and functional potential in 14 populations of humans from ten nations and 18 species of wild, non-human primates.

Results

Contrary to expectations from host phylogenetics, we find that human gut microbiome composition and functional potential are more similar to those of cercopithecines, a subfamily of Old World monkey, particularly baboons, than to those …

Residential Household Yard Care Practices Along Urban-Exurban Gradients In Six Climatically-Diverse U.S. Metropolitan Areas, Dexter H. Locke, Colin Polsky, J. Morgan Grove, Peter M. Groffman, Kristen C. Nelson, Kelli L. Larson, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, James B. Heffernan, Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Sarah E. Hobbie, Neil D. Bettez, Sharon J. Hall, Christopher Neill, Laura Ogden, Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne

Publications and Research

Residential land is expanding in the United States, and lawn now covers more area than the country’s leading irrigated crop by area. Given that lawns are widespread across diverse climatic regions and there is rising concern about the environmental impacts associated with their management, there is a clear need to understand the geographic variation, drivers, and outcomes of common yard care practices. We hypothesized that 1) income, age, and the number of neighbors known by name will be positively associated with the odds of having irrigated, fertilized, or applied pesticides in the last year, 2) irrigation, fertilization, and pesticide application …

Land Surface Temperature Variability Across India: A Remote Sensing Satellite Perspective, Satya Prakash, Hamidreza Norouzi

Publications and Research

Land surface temperature (LST) plays a key role in the surface energy budget computation and land surface process studies. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors onboard the Aqua and Terra satellites provide comprehensive global LST estimates at a fine spatial resolution. The MODIS products were recently upgraded to Collection 6, and shown to be more accurate than its predecessor Collection 5 products. In this study, LST and its variability have been examined across India from Collection 6 of the Aqua MODIS data at 0.05° spatial resolution for the period of 2003 to 2017. All-India mean LST characteristics show distinctive …

Supporting The Changing Practices Of Teaching In Business At Queens College, City University Of New York, James Tasato Mellone, Edward F. Wall Iii, Qiong Xu

Publications and Research

This investigation sheds light on the teaching practices of Queens College (QC) faculty in Business. It identifies the Business faculty’s teaching support needs in order to develop ideas for improving Library services to them. This report is the result of research conducted under the guidance of Ithaka S+R, and in accordance with Office of Regulatory Compliance procedures at QC. Using a grounded theory approach to qualitative research, the investigators conducted in-person audio-recorded semi-structured interviews of seven full-time QC faculty who teach Business courses. Evidence derived from the transcribed interviews informed analysis of the current state of QC’s Business teaching experience, …

Beyond Europeanization: The Politics Of Scale And Positionality In Lithuania’S Alternative Food Networks, Renata Blumberg, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

This article brings geographical insights to understanding the Europeanization of agri-food politics in new European Union member states. Most literature on agri-food policy and law in the European Union has conceptualized policy making and implementation as an institutional process involving multiple levels of governance. In this perspective, Europeanization is understood as a process through which stakeholders formulate, negotiate, and implement legal principles and procedures across various institutions at different levels of governance. By employing the conceptual tools developed in geographical research, we contribute a spatial and historical dimension to these studies. Our analysis shows how the politics of scale and …

Rasp 4: Ancestral State Reconstruction Tool For Multiple Genes And Characters, Yan Yu, Christopher Blair, Xingjin He

Publications and Research

With the continual progress of sequencing techniques, genome-scale data are increasingly used in phylogenetic studies. With more data from throughout the genome, the relationship between genes and different kinds of characters is receiving more attention. Here, we present version 4 of RASP, a software to reconstruct ancestral states through phylogenetic trees. RASP can apply generalized statistical ancestral reconstruction methods to phylogenies, explore the phylogenetic signal of characters to particular trees, calculate distances between trees, and cluster trees into groups. RASP 4 has an improved graphic user interface and is freely available from http://mnh.scu.edu.cn/soft/blog/RASP (program) and https://github.com/sculab/RASP (source code).

The Concurrent Decline Of Soil Lead And Children’S Blood Lead In New Orleans, Howard W. Mielke, Christopher R. Gonzales, Eric T. Powell, Mark A. S. Laidlow, Kenneth J. Berry, Paul W. Mielke Jr., Sara Perl Egendorf

Publications and Research

Lead (Pb) is extremely toxic and a major cause of chronic diseases worldwide. Pb is associated with health disparities, particularly within low-income populations. In biological systems, Pb mimics calcium and, among other effects, interrupts cell signaling. Furthermore, Pb exposure results in epigenetic changes that affect multigenerational gene expression. Exposure to Pb has decreased through primary prevention, including removal of Pb solder from canned food, regulating lead-based paint, and especially eliminating Pb additives in gasoline. While researchers observe a continuous decline in children’s blood lead (BPb), reservoirs of exposure persist in topsoil, which stores the legacy dust from leaded gasoline and …

Hypertension And Hiv In An Urban Slum Setting, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, Olga Tymejczyk

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Rapidly growing urban slum settings increasingly face co-occurring communicable and non-communicable health crises, against the backdrop of extreme poverty, and social and environmental vulnerability. In Haiti, sparse data suggest a growing burden of hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD), along with substantial prevalence of HIV, increasingly recognized as a major CVD risk factor. As life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART) is extended to more people living with HIV (PLWH), their risk of CVD increases with longer life expectancy and possibly cumulative ART exposure. Pregnant HIV-positive women may face additional cardiovascular vulnerability, due to the risk of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia. Integration of …

Spatial Upscaling Of Forest Response To Drought, Wei Fang, Peipei Xu, Tao Zhao, Xiang Zhao, Hui Luo, George Hendrey, Chuixiang Yi

Publications and Research

We have integrated the observational capability of satellite remote sensing with plot-scale tree ring data to up-scale the evaluation of forest responses to drought. Satellite data, such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), can provide a spatially continuous measure with limited temporal coverage, while tree Ring Width Index (RWI) provides accurate assessment with much longer time series local scales. Here, we explored the relationship between RWI and NDVI of three dominant species in the Southwestern United States (SWUS), and predicted RWI spatial distribution from 2001 to 2017 based on MODIS 1-km resolution NDVI data with stringent quality control. We detected …