Digital Commons Network^™

New Skull Material Of Taeniolabis Taoensis (Multituberculata, Taeniolabididae) From The Early Paleocene (Danian) Of The Denver Basin, Colorado, David W. Krause, Simone Hoffman, Tyler R. Lyson, Lindsay G. Dougan, Holger Petermann, Adrienne Tecza, Stephen B. Chester, Ian M. Miller

Publications and Research

Taeniolabis taoensis is an iconic multituberculate mammal of early Paleocene (Puercan 3) age from the Western Interior of North America. Here we report the discovery of significant new skull material (one nearly complete cranium, two partial crania, one nearly complete dentary) of T. taoensis in phosphatic concretions from the Corral Bluffs study area, Denver Formation (Danian portion), Denver Basin, Colorado. The new skull material provides the first record of the species from the Denver Basin, where the lowest in situ specimen occurs in river channel deposits ~730,000 years after the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, roughly coincident with the first appearance of legumes …

Paranormal Pandemic: My Covid Exorcism, Parker Herren

Capstones

In less than two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has unceremoniously taken the lives of millions worldwide as the disease continues to evolve and wreak havoc. Mental health concerns have reached a state of emergency as reported diagnoses of anxiety and depression swell. The resultant mélange of death and distress have created a simultaneous outbreak of supernatural encounters. But the increase of paranormal activity during the COVID-19 years isn’t unprecedented. Throughout humanity’s death-plagued history, tales of spooks and specters have followed events of mass death from ghostly legends of the Bubonic Plague to reality TV after 9/11. https://www.parkerherren.com/capstone

Onlyfans Is Booming. But For Whom?, Allison Smith

Capstones

Although the news often reports on the windfalls content creators make on OnlyFans, especially since the start of the pandemic, the reality is that most sex workers on the site undergo hours of unpaid later — from brand building and search engine optimization to video editing and production. Since the passage of SESTA/FOSTA in 2018, a bill that was ostensibly designed to curtail online sex trafficking, it has been harder to get started in the sex industry and the divide between those who are successful versus those who are just scraping by has widened. Link to capstone: https://allisonnicolesmith.github.io/capstone/

Engaging Black Girls And Women From The Capital Region, Neimra Coulibaly

Capstones

Black girls and women sit at the intersecting identities of being Black and women in an anti-Black, patriarchal, misogynistic society. There are certain experiences that Black women in the United States endure due to historically negative perceptions of Black women.

When I decided to be a part of the engagement journalism program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, I decided to cover the community of Black girls and women from Schenectady, New York, and the rest of the Capital Region or what I call the (518)

For the past year and a half, I have covered the …

America's Homeschool Lobby, Harrison Parker

Capstones

An NYC News Service examination of public filings and other documents shows the HSLDA and its state allies, while pushing to increase homeschooling, simultaneously pushes for legislative changes that have seemingly nothing to do with homeschooling -- in the past year alone, it has been fighting vaccination requirements, opposing a national child abuse registry and limiting the ability of children to get medical treatment.

Link: https://harry-parker.com/2022/01/16/homeschool-lobby/

Safe At Home?, Mary Steffenhagen

Capstones

Homeschooling is rising in America at an unprecedented rate. This investigative story package examines some of the regulatory bounds of the practice, challenges it poses to child welfare interests, and how those issues impact the everyday lives of children being homeschooled. It was produced in Andy Lehren’s investigative reporting class, with an audio component produced in Narrative Podcast. You can read and listen to it at www.marysteffenhagen.com/capstone (password protected).

How The Dream Paralyzes Hollywood Assistants, Alexandra White

Capstones

https://alexandrawhite86.github.io/narrative-capstone/

Tucker Carlson, Oann And A White Nationalist: A Quantified Look At The Disinformation Pipeline Surrounding Covid-19, Juliet Jeske

Capstones

A quantitive exploration of extremist media and its effect on misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harmful “Body-Checking” Trends Have Come To Tiktok, Ibtasam Elmaliki, Breona Couloote

Capstones

The relation between social media and teen girls’ body image is nothing new. Studies have been made on platforms like Facebook, and Instagram having a negative impact on young girls.

However, with the inception of TikTok, perpetuations of unrealistic body goals are harder to detect, masked underneath comedic trends on the app. “Body checking” trends are popular on the app, trends in order for one to draw attention to the size and shape of their bodies. It’s a method of encouraging thinspo, the inspiration of being thin. Thinspo which was created on Tumblr, is now evolving on TikTok. In the …

Building Trust And Community With Sex Workers On Instagram, Madeline Faber

Capstones

This Engagement Journalism project examines how sex workers communicate on social media after the 2018 passage of SESTA/FOSTA laws (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). Through building a sex worker-positive Instagram profile, I learned from sex workers how they share information with each other under the radar of Instagram. This bears relevance for journalists who seek to understand the limits of content moderation machines, which imprecisely censor vulnerable groups.

(Engagement J/Will share link later)

No One Told Me What Infertility Would Be Like For A Black Man. That's Because Nobody Knows., Keith "Jared" Wright, Zachary Smith

Capstones

I am a 34-year-old, 6-foot-3 Black man who weighed over 330 pounds. In navigating my infertility journey, I noticed a major disparity in donors throughout sperm banks all over the country. Additionally, I noticed that while male infertility is rarely discussed in general, it is significantly more suppressed in Black and Brown communities. An open dialogue and more transparency can hopefully ensure that those suffering from this condition can have an easier road in their journey than their predecessors.

https://zacharysmith90.github.io/capstone/

"Cultura Gamer: Esteriotipos De América Latina"., Roberto Bolanos Pinela Mr.

Capstones

La intención de “Cultura Gamer: Estereotipos de América Latina”, es presentar dos diferentes aspectos de representación que se tiene la hora de hablar de América Latina; Por un lado, los videojuegos hechos en Estados Unidos, nos estereotipan como países llenos de conflictos armados, donde manda el desorden y el caos, como lo vemos en juegos de Far Cry 6, y Tom Clancy. Pero por otro lado, estamos viendo un aumento en desarrolladores de videojuegos en América Latina, que intentan acabar con estos estereotipos; y están creando juego con la intención de dar a conocer nuestra cultura, mitos e ideología, acabando …

Growing Pains On Onlyfans: A Coming Of Age Story, Natalie M. Hernandez, Ivannia A. Morton

Capstones

OnlyFans, a content creation platform where creators can perform sex work, has been making headlines since its internet debut. Its relationship to youth culture is complicated as it’s still developing. “Growing Pains on OnlyFans: A Coming of Age Story” looks into the life of a young woman who went viral for criticizing the glamorization of OnlyFans, and how the platform shaped her self discovery. This story analyzes the life cycle of entering digital sex work as a teenager, and exiting as an adult.

Working With West African Hair Braiders In Nyc, Houreidja Tall

Capstones

This project is a culmination of collaboration efforts with a group of West African hair braiders in Harlem, New York City. Through listening efforts, a WhatsApp group was formed.

https://houreidja-tall.medium.com/reflections-on-working-with-west-african-hair-braiders-in-nyc-5086a173ac9c

Tiktok Has Influenced The Way We Buy Beauty, Keira R. Wingate, Angela Palumbo

Capstones

The purpose of this capstone project is to show how the popular social media platform, TikTok, is influencing and changing the way consumers buy and the companies sell beauty products.

Since the start of the pandemic, a record number of people logged into TikTok, which has become one of the top social media platforms in the world. While the app grew, so did the number of users who made videos reviewing and using makeup products. Soon, TikTok went from an entertainment platform to a marketing opportunity for large companies in the beauty industry.

Now, hundreds of influencers are paid large …

Bk Eviction Freeze, Terrence Fraser

Capstones

BK Eviction Freeze is a multimedia campaign that spreads awareness about the COVID-19-fuelled housing crisis. BK Eviction Freeze helps people find legal advice, organizing support, and also creates public awareness about legislative solutions in the NYS legislature. It’s a highly collaborative venture that rests on the cooperation and support of community residents, legal service providers, and activists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaq9t8HjgM4

Designing A Knowledge-Based System (Kbs) To Study Consumer Purchase Intention: The Impact Of Digital Influencers In Pakistan, Sherbaz Khan, Aamir Rashid, Rizwana Rasheed, Noor Aina Amirah

Publications and Research

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to present a complete framework that defines the link between choices and decision criteria based on existing research on digital influencers (DIs) connected to consumer purchase intentions. The primary goal of this article is to assess the effect of DIs on customer purchase intentions via the creation of an integrated knowledge-based system (KBS).

Design/methodology/approach – The suggested KBS is based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which creates a link between DI elements and their overall effect on consumer purchase intentions.

Findings – With the help of a KBS, the performance …

Open Educational Resources In History: A State-Of-The-Field Essay, Katherine Tsan

Publications and Research

History practitioners are making steady progress adopting, adapting and creating open educational resources. However, most historians do not have a holistic view of the materials that exist in the open sphere due to poor discoverability and professional standards that still hamper their uptake. This state-of-the-field article discusses the challenges and opportunities of engaging with history OERs as divided into three categories: 1) textbooks and teaching modules, 2) informational websites and interactive experiences, and 3) digital tools for collaborative research. The flexibility and adaptability of these resources, afforded by their open licenses, are key points in their prospects for longevity and …

Linguistically Responsive Instruction In Corequisite Courses At Community Colleges, Heather B. Finn, Sharon Avni

Publications and Research

English Learners (ELs) attend community colleges at a greater rate than four-year schools, making community colleges primary sites of ESL education in American higher education. These institutions’ recent embrace of the corequisite structure – a pairing of a non-credit developmental course with a credit-bearing disciplinary content course in order to accelerate students’ progress in their coursework – has direct implications for ELs. As corequisites are enacted in a wide range of content areas, professors will need to attend to students’ language development in a wide range of disciplinary courses. This qualitative study applies Linguistically Responsive Instruction as a framework to …

The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact On Sports Public Relations, Joseph Derosa

Student Theses and Dissertations

This study defines the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on sports public relations at a professional level. Determining how the COVID-19 pandemic changed sports public relations by challenging the industry to think more creatively and in what ways organizations would affect the sports community. This research paper aims to explore how sports publicists and their organizations reacted to the stoppage of their events during the COVID-19 pandemic, the eventual return to play without fans, and how this would alter the future of the industry. Analyzing sports public relations during this time gives new insight into the successes and failures of …

Discovery Of Phosphotyrosine-Binding Oligopeptides With Supramolecular Target Selectivity, Ana S. Pina, Leonor Morgado, Krystyna L. Duncan, Sara Carvalho, Henrique F. Carvalho, Armenio J. M. Barbosa, Beatriz De P. Mariz, Ines P. Moreira, Daniela Kalafatovic, Bruno M. Morais Faustino, Vishal Narang, Tong Wang, Charalampos G. Pappas, Isabel Ferreira, A. Cecılia A. Roque, Rein V. Ulijn

Advanced Science Research Center

We demonstrate phage-display screening on self-assembled ligands that enables the identification of oligopeptides that selectively bind dynamic supramolecular targets over their unassembled counterparts. The concept is demonstrated through panning of a phage-display oligopeptide library against supramolecular tyrosine-phosphate ligands using 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl-phenylalanine-tyrosine-phosphate (Fmoc-FpY) micellar aggregates as targets. The 14 selected peptides showed no sequence consensus but were enriched in cationic and proline residues. The lead peptide, KVYFSIPWRVPM-NH2 (P7) was found to bind to the Fmoc-FpY ligand exclusively in its self-assembled state with KD = 74 ± 3 μM. Circular dichroism, NMR and molecular dynamics simulations revealed that the peptide interacts with Fmoc-FpY …

Lookism: An Examination Of Inequality In Appearance Within Diversity Practices, Hynndie Ozirus, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis

Publications and Research

During the formation of the United States, much of unification has centered on power and the privileged. This history is often painful to speak on in the communities with people of color. Rhodes (2010) discussed cultural injustices of being unattractive in a society appearance- obsessed with potential for “looks” to influence hiring practices, such as better career options and higher pay. The purpose of this was to investigate the issue of how lookism is defined and studied in the media especially in regards to people of color. The review of literature examines the relationship between income, education, as well as …

Factors Influencing Academic Self-Efficacy Among Nursing Students During Covid-19: A Path Analysis, Shinhi Han, Koun Eum, Hee Sun Kang, Kathleen Karsten

Publications and Research

Introduction: The shift to online learning owing to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is posing an additional challenge to academic success, particularly for students who speak English as a Second Language (ESL). This study aimed to examine the factors that contribute to academic self-efficacy among ESL nursing students.

Method: This was a cross-sectional study using path analysis with 113 undergraduate ESL nursing students in New York City. Data were collected online using self-report measures of the study variables: academic self-efficacy, perfectionistic concerns, acculturative stress, and e-learning stress. A hypothetical path model was tested using AMOS 26.0.

Results: …

Memoria Y Fractura Social En El Ruido De Las Cosas Al Caer De Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Luis Mora-Ballesteros

Publications and Research

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivos el análisis de algunas características de la memoria en la novela El ruido de las cosas al caer de Juan Gabriel Vásquez, establecer vínculos entre la novela y la narrativa de la sicaresca colombiana y caracterizar el trauma experimentado por algunos de sus personajes. Se trata de una novela con características que la incluyen dentro de la ficción contemporánea colombiana que a su vez forma parte de la sicaresca: un concepto clave sobre violencia, criminalidad, derechos humanos y narcotráfico expresados en la novela colombiana.

Memory Distortion For Footage Of An Emotionally Disturbing Police/Civilian Encounter: Investigating The Influence Of Bias And Trauma, Eric A. Korzun

Student Theses

Although body-worn cameras (BWCs) are expected to be objective tools for increasing police transparency and accountability, research refutes the idea that people can objectively view footage. Instead, research shows that people’s personal biases—for example, the extent to which people view the police like themselves, measured by the Identification with Police Scale (IPS; Tyler & Fagan, 2008) —shape how they view and interpret BWC footage (Jones, Crozier, & Strange, 2017). Additionally, studies of memory distortion reveal that people can come to remember traumatic events as worse than they originally experienced (Strange & Takarangi, 2012). Taken together, then, when viewing traumatic BWC …

The Impact Of Covid-19 On The Thai Probation Department, Thanaphon Nunphong

Student Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic had a crucial impact on the Thai criminal justice system. While it may be true that the Department of Probation has proposed preventive and responsive measures in response to COVID-19, relatively little is known about the practical applications of these measures as well as the impact of COVID-19 on probation personnel, probationers, and parolees. The goal of this study is to explore the policies and practices of Thai probation agencies as they respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study surveyed probation officers in Thailand (N = 534; 60.6% Female) in March to April 2021, focusing on …

The Influence Of Demographic Information On Public Attitudes Towards Individuals Who Commit Sexual Offenses, Emily Bogdan

Student Theses

Research exploring the factors that shape public attitudes towards individuals who commit sexual offenses is needed to inform policy and reduce stigma that these individuals face as they reenter society. Prior research has explored demographic factors of those who offend and have been victimized, but few have studied how these variables may interact with one another to shape attitudes toward people who commit sexual offenses. The current study explores whether offender gender, victim gender, and victim age shape the public’s attitudes towards these individuals. Participants were presented with a vignette describing the offense and then they were asked to respond …

Support For Militant U.S. Foreign Policy: The Role Of Authoritarianism And International Xenophobia, Brandon M. Garcia

Student Theses

Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) has been studied extensively in the domestic socio-political context, but its potential impact on foreign policy is still poorly understood. The current study replicated the putative two-factor model of the construct (Authoritarian Aggression/Submission and Conventionalism) and examined the associations of each factor with perceptions of overall danger to the U.S. posed by other countries and with the support for more militant U.S. foreign policy. As expected, both RWA factors correlated with self-reported levels of political conservatism (r = 0.32, r = 0.33; p < .001) Additionally, Authoritarian Aggression and Submission (but not Conventionalism) were correlated with increased perceived danger from foreign countries (r = .35; p < .001) and increased support for a more militant U.S. foreign policy (r = .25; p < .001). Participants higher in RWA were more likely to view the world as a hostile and threatening place, and in turn support more aggressive military action in response to those fears.

God And Kant’S Suicide Maxim, Carlo Alvaro

Publications and Research

Kant’s argument against suicide is widely dismissed by scholars and often avoided by teachers because it is deemed inconsistent with Kant’s moral philosophy. This paper attempts to show a way to make sense of Kant’s injunction against suicide that is consistent with his moral system. One of the strategies adopted in order to accomplish my goal is a de-secularization of Kant’s ethics. I argue that all actions of self-killing (or suicide) are morally impermissible because they are inconsistent with God’s established nature and order. It is argued that the existence of God as the locus of moral value and duty …

Textq—A User Friendly Tool For Exploratory Text Analysis, April Edwards, Marylyn Sullivan, Ezrah Itkowsky, Dana B. Weinberg

Publications and Research

As the amount of textual data available on the Internet grows substantially each year, there is a need for tools to assist with exploratory data analysis. Furthermore, to democratize the process of text analytics, tools must be usable for those with a non-technical background and those who do not have the financial resources to outsource their data analysis needs. To that end, we developed TextQ, which provides a simple, intuitive interface for exploratory analysis of textual data. We also tested the efficacy of TextQ using two case studies performed by subject matter experts—one related to a project on the detection …