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El Presidente, Su Relación Con México Y Los Inmigrantes, Rocío Carranza Brito, Berenice Darwich

CUNY Mexican Studies Institute

No abstract provided.

From “Build The Wall” To “Mass Deportations” In Contemporary U.S. Political Discourse, Anthony Salazar Vazquez

CUNY Mexican Studies Institute

No abstract provided.

Info 7009 / Lbsci 709: Research In Library And Information Studies, Ping Li

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus of INFO 7009 / LBSCI 709: Research in Library and Information Studies. Funded in part by the CUNY OER Initiative, this class uses open educational resources or zero-textbook-cost materials.

Swk 200: Introduction To Social Work Syllabus, Samantha Norris

Open Educational Resources

This Open Educational Resources (OER) syllabus was created for Introduction to Social Work (SWK 200) at the College of Staten Island, thanks to support from the CUNY Graduate Center’s Open Knowledge Fellowship.

The focus of SWK 200 is on introducing students to the profession of social work. This course examines the profession of social work, its value base, areas of practice, and societal role. Major social problems; philosophies of social welfare, provision, program and policy initiatives; and the response of social work as a profession are addressed. The obligation of professional social workers to promote social and economic justice on …

“Voices Of Tomorrow”: A Youth Participatory Action Research Study Of A Middle School Advisory In An Urban Public Charter School, Seth Hull

Theses and Dissertations

Urban middle schools often grapple with how to create spaces that affirm students’ identities and foster authentic engagement within a broader landscape shaped by standardized testing and accountability pressures. This dissertation examines Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and advisory as two relationally grounded practices that can address these challenges. Grounded in critical hope (Zembylas, 2013), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim, 2017), and community responsive education (Duncan-Andrade, 2022), the study explores the experiences of 12 middle school students who spent seven months investigating their school’s advisory program as student-researchers, as well as the findings that emerged about advisory. Data sources …

Catalytic Synthesis Of Protoberberine Alkaloids And Their Evaluation As Selective Dopamine Receptor Ligands, Ashok Reddy Gudipally

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dopamine regulates motor control, cognition, reward, motivation, and neuroendocrine signaling. Disruption of dopaminergic neurotransmission is closely linked to central nervous system disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, addiction, and related neuropsychiatric conditions. Because these functions are mediated by multiple dopamine receptor subtypes with distinct roles in physiology and disease, the discovery of subtype-selective ligands remains an important goal in neuropharmacology. Within this context, protoberberine alkaloids, particularly tetrahydroprotoberberines (THPBs), are attractive molecular frameworks because they combine structural complexity with broad biological relevance, including measurable activity in CNS-related diseases. Prior work from our laboratory and others established (–)-stepholidine (1.60) as an important lead …

Allyship And Affect: Qualitative Investigations Into Social Transformation, Michael Lucinda Jane Greer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Allies have faced several critiques in feminist philosophy. Some have argued that they lack the requisite political interests to be motivated to dismantle the social structures from which they stand to benefit. Others have argued that the epistemic limitations resulting from their social privilege are insurmountable. Yet others have argued that allyship is too individualistic a concept, preferring a more collectivist concept like solidarity. However, there remain privileged individuals who understand themselves as complicit in perpetuating oppressive forms of life, and who wish to transform themselves and work in coalition across difference to dismantle structural oppression. How ought these individuals …

Alzheimer’S Disease And Related Dementias Risk Profiles And Health Literacy Among South Asian Seniors, Sandra A. Kennedy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) pose significant health challenges globally, with South Asian seniors in the United States facing elevated risks due to high rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and limited health literacy. This study assessed dementia literacy and the prevalence of cardiovascular, psychosocial, and lifestyle risk factors among South Asian seniors in New York City, utilizing community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles in collaboration with India Home, a community-based organization. Fifty-six (N=56) South Asian seniors aged 55 and older (M = 69.05, SD = 6.36), primarily of Indian or Bangladeshi origin, participated in the study. Data collection involved a …

Distinguishing Between Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Role Of Childhood Maltreatment, Catherine Harris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current study examined whether court-substantiated childhood maltreatment may be associated with increased risk for Complex PTSD (CPTSD) and whether individuals with CPTSD and individuals with PTSD could be distinguished in terms of complex trauma exposure. Children with documented cases of abuse and neglect prior to age 11 were matched on age, race, sex, and approximate family socioeconomic status with children without documented histories of maltreatment (controls) and both groups were followed prospectively into adulthood. Participants (N = 1,196) were assessed using a DSM-III-R based structured interview of PTSD symptoms and other self-report measures of psychiatric symptoms at mean age …

Social And Structural Factors In The Development Of Baltimore's Low Back Vowels, Aidan J. Malanoski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is concerned with the low back vowels of Baltimore English: what low back systems occur, and how these systems have changed among Black and white Baltimoreans. I draw on two sources of data: 48 interviews that I conducted with natives of Baltimore and its inner suburbs, and 18 oral history interviews that were conducted from 1978 to 1981. In Chapter 3, I argue for the inclusion of the pre-rhotic sets START and NORTH in typologies of English low back vowels. With these sets included, several previously unattested low back systems are found in Baltimore. These are united by …

Vibe Diggers: The Sampling Of Brazilian Music In Hip-Hop, Romulo De Carvalho Moraes Barbosa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the trend of musical borrowings of 1970s MPB (música popular brasileira) by contemporary American hip-hop producers, especially in terms of what they have called a “Brazilian vibe.” A lot has been said about sampling already from legal, sociological, and historical points of view, but less has been said about its aesthetic procedures, and even less about the wider implications of a tendency for using transnational sources. In the case of MPB, hip-hop artists seem to understand the music they sample through an often vague, intuitive representation, which fuses qualities of those recordings with an intersubjective mood, a …

Possibilities Of Being: Black Women's Storytelling As Archival Undoing, Dasharah Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs a discursive genealogy of Black women’s storytelling, positioning its art and aesthetics as a form of colonial archival undoing. Each chapter explores how transmission and documentation can transform—and circumvent—traditional colonial archives. Beginning at the start of the twentieth-century to present, this project traces the discursive legacies of Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, and Staceyann Chin, examining each writer as a site of becoming as they individually (and collectively) seek to articulate an expansive idea of a Black world that constitutes a broader understanding of Black freedom. They each share a common goal of creating a …

"Is This America?" Fannie Lou Hamer, Humanity, Citizenship And The Struggle For Inclusive Democracy, Rhonda Chambers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the life, political rhetoric, and enduring legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer, focusing on how her lived experiences under Jim Crow shaped the development of a distinctive political voice grounded in dignity, moral conviction, and democratic struggle.  Born into a Mississippi sharecropping family and denied the educational and political opportunities afforded to white Americans, Hamer developed an understanding of injustice through the realities of racial and economic oppression. Her experience with segregation, voter suppression, violence, and the Black church became central to the way she understood citizenship and was able to articulate the demands of freedom.

Through an …

Analyzing Harmony In Bulgarian And Bulgarian-Influenced Choral Arrangements From The Radio To The Screen, Annie Beliveau

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates developments in arrangements and compositions made for Bulgarian choirs between 1950 and 2025. Arrangements from Bulgaria’s communist period (1944-1989), when musical radio broadcasts were tailored to promote nationalist sentiment, eventually reached the ears of foreigners on the other side of the Iron Curtain via recordings and ensemble tours. These obrabotki (arrangements of folk tunes) became popular in the “world music” boom of the 1980s, and foreign composers soon began to create new compositions for Bulgarian choirs to sing on albums and in scores for film, television, and video games. Over time, the uses of Bulgarian choir in …

Panopticism And Pan-Oticism: Sound-Power From Foucault To Deleuze, Eric Dillenberger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From Muzak to long range acoustic devices (LRADs), the contemporary proliferation of sonic technologies for governing moods, behaviors, and potentialities complicates the virtual absence of sound within Michel Foucault's primarily visual modality of disciplinary power in Discipline and Punish, exemplified by his central conceptual model of the panopticon. This thesis develops the corollary concept of pan-oticism to theorize the transformation of sound-power and its political function within administered sonic ecologies from Foucault's disciplinary societies to Gilles Deleuze's societies of control. Within the enclosed spaces constitutive of disciplinary societies, sound-power remains subordinated to Foucault's visual logic of panopticism, extending …

Waltzing Into Silence: Time, Space, And The Afterword In Ravel’S Valses Nobles Et Sentimentales In Comparison With Schumann’S Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, Nora I. Bartosik

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation undertakes an analysis of Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales for piano against the backdrop of Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, a work with significant parallels in structure, character, and narrative. The Davidsbündlertänze are examined as a model for the Valses nobles et sentimentales, with an emphasis on the two works’ use of the waltz form, their structure as a series of miniature dances composed as a single cohesive work, and their inclusion of an afterword, or epilogue. The analysis draws from the extensive literature on Schumann’s piano cycles in order to apply similar techniques to …

Riluzole As A Dual-Targeted Radiosensitizer For Osteosarcoma: Targeting Tumor Cells And Angiogenic Vasculature To Enhance Single High-Dose Radiotherapy Efficacy, Pooja P. Rao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Osteosarcoma (OS), the most common primary bone malignancy of children and young adults, is intrinsically radioresistant, and outcomes for patients with unresectable or metastatic disease have not improved in over four decades. Single-dose radiation therapy (SDRT) is a potent modality against radioresistant, highly vascularized sarcomas, but its application in OS is constrained by dose-dependent normal tissue toxicity. Radiosensitizers achieving tumor control at lower doses therefore offer a direct route to widening the therapeutic window. Critically, OS radioresistance is not tumor-cell-autonomous. It emerges from two coordinated compartments: aberrant DNA repair and antioxidant capacity intrinsic to the tumor cell, and a radioprotective, …

Towards Identifying Fear And Safety Network States Across Sex, Rhonda Kolaric

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a trauma- and stressor-related disorder with a lifetime prevalence of 5-6% in men, and 10-12% in women (National Center for PTSD). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a highly prevalent anxiety- and depression-related psychiatric disorder with a lifetime prevalence of 1-2% in men, and 3-4% in women (National Institutes of Health). Both of these disorders disproportionately affect women. A hallmark feature of both disorders is the maladaptive generalization of fear, in which defensive responses extend beyond the original traumatic or threatening stimulus to neutral or unrelated cues. This overgeneralization can become debilitating, disrupting cognitive, emotional, and …

Analysis Of Diterpenoid Alkaloids From American Aconitum Using Lc-Ms Metabolomic Methods, Yi Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Analysis of Diterpenoid Alkaloids from American Aconitum Using LC-MS Metabolomic Methods

by

Yi Zhao

Advisor: Edward J. Kennelly

Aconitum plants have been used as a traditional medicine in Asian countries for millennia to treat pain, rheumatism, syncope, fever, and other conditions. These therapeutic effects are mainly due to the bioactive diterpenoid alkaloids accumulated in the roots. Comparing with the large records and studies of Asian Aconitum and their medicinal use and the broad bioactive compounds, American Aconitum has been rarely investigated, not to mention how American Aconitum has been used medicinally. Based on previous phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic studies of Aconitum …

Architects Of Mrna Fate: Molecular And Cellular Control Of P-Body Organization In The Drosophilia Melanogaster Female Germline, Samantha Milano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Processing bodies (P-bodies) are cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein condensates that regulate mRNA storage, translational repression, and decay. While the biochemical principles governing condensate assembly have been extensively studied in vitro, how P-body organization is established and dynamically regulated in vivo to control specific mRNA populations remains poorly understood. This dissertation investigated the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern P-body architecture and function in the Drosophila melanogaster female germline. First, I identified the conserved LSm protein Trailer Hitch (Tral) as a central organizer of P-body architecture. Using quantitative confocal and super-resolution microscopy combined with chemical perturbations, I showed that Tral coordinates the …

Unraveling Hemispheric Specializations In The Mouse Auditory Cortex: From Diseased Model Comparisons To Development, Demetrios Neophytou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hemispheric specialization is a fundamental organizing principle of mature auditory cortical function, allowing the left and right Auditory Cortex (ACx) to perform complementary computations on complex sounds. This division of labor is conserved across species, and mice recapitulate key forms of auditory cortical lateralization, providing access to the synaptic and circuit mechanisms that generate it. Disrupted hemispheric organization is also associated with neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by severe communication impairments, including Rett Syndrome (RTT). Despite this, we know little about how lateralized auditory circuits are assembled during development or why they become differentially vulnerable to neurodevelopmental disruption. Here, using a mouse …

Performing Hybridity: Solo Cello Works By Diasporic Korean Composers Isang Yun And Younghi Pagh-Paan, Sarah Song

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation follows my personal exploration of solo cello works by Korean diasporic composers Isang Yun and Younghi Pagh-Paan. While the study of postwar Korean music has long been discussed within an “East meets West” framework, my research aims to abandon such divisive binaries and explores the activity between two musical cultures during learning and performance. By engaging with a wide network of meaning (e.g., score-based, extra-musical knowledge, historical context), I track cumulative layers of discovery while considering a multitude influences from Korean and Austro-Germanic cultures as a second-generation Korean American. My methodology includes a reflective approach categorized in two …

Object (Im)Permanence: Toward A Hauntology Of The Violin, Pala Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Object (Im)permanence goes looking for the violin’s ontological uncertainties, its persistent historical specters, and its relation to things not fully present, no longer, or yet to come. Drawing on the history of the author’s own instrument as an inherited object, this study explores the violin’s strangest affordances: its capacity to hold a psychic charge, sustain absent presence, remotely activate somatic memory, and invite reciprocal relationality. Adapting the Derridean concept of “hauntology” as a framing for the violin’s spectral vitality, Object (Im)permanence imagines how a hauntology of the violin can account for its ontological uncertainties, logic of absent presence, and persistent …

Behind The Score: The Influence Of Neighborhood Policy Contexts On New York Regents Exam Performance Across New York City Public High Schools, Philip J. Kovacevic

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study used a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to test whether New York City neighborhood zoning and land-use characteristics independently predict school-level performance on the New York State Regents Examinations, after controlling for school demographic and organizational characteristics, and Regents mean scores, both drawn from the NYC DOE's Regents Exam Results file (NYC Public Schools InfoHub, 2024). Using NYC Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (PLUTO) 2025 data, a Neighborhood Educational Quality (NEQ) index was built for each of the city’s 42 community districts by combining the commercial floor area ratio (CommFAR) and the proportion of lots zoned residential …

Cavity Optomechanics Via Mechanically Induced Coupling Of Optical Modes, Satyam S. Jha

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis introduces a transverse, symmetry-breaking mode of optomechanical coupling that departs from the conventional dispersive and dissipative interactions, taking its motivating platform from whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators, where a mechanical displacement lifts the near-degeneracy of azimuthal mode pairs and couples them. After reviewing the standard optomechanical model and the sideband-cooling phenomenology it underlies, we derive the Hamiltonian for the transverse-coupling system and first study its Hamiltonian dynamics, without drive or dissipation. Recast in terms of Schwinger pseudospin operators, the model exhibits a Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation separating stable and unstable dynamical regimes. In the stable regime, the mechanical nonlinearity permits controlled …

Skipping Town: An Examination Of Fugitive Travel Patterns, Flight Duration, And "Journey-From-Crime", Shun Q. Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Purpose: Existing research on fugitive mobility has largely examined fugitive travel patterns and flight duration as separate phenomena, often relying on limited geographic areas or a cross-section of the fugitive population. This dissertation addresses these gaps by examining where fugitives travel relative to their originating county, and how long they avoid apprehension. Utilizing a national sample of fugitives with data provided by the United States Marshals Service (USMS), the study investigates how individual characteristics, situational warrant factors, and county-level characteristics influence fugitive travel patterns across a broader, more comprehensive scope.

Methods: Using data from the Justice Detainee Information System (JDIS) …

Modeling Large Language Model Cognition, Eleni Angelou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project builds three core directions in a philosophy of cognitive science for large language models (LLMs): 1) interpreting LLM behavior, 2) analyzing the system in terms of Marr’s three levels, and 3) mapping the correspondence between behavioral outputs and the internals of the system. It consists of the following three chapters accordingly:

Dennettian Stances and Large Language Models

The aim of this chapter is to argue that there are convincing grounds for applying Dennett’s framework of stances to LLMs against worries that doing so produces “counterfeit people”. After introducing the intentional and design stances, I take sycophancy as a …

Intracommunity Social Capital Systems Of Class And Caste In South Asian Intimate-Partner Violence Survivor Outcomes, Vriddhi Vinay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study theorizes how caste and class function as transnational forms of social capital that structure intimate partner violence (IPV) outcomes among South Asian diasporic women in the New York City metropolitan area. While existing IPV scholarship foregrounds migration status, gender, and legal precarity, it often treats South Asian communities as internally homogeneous and overlooks how intracommunity hierarchies mediate access to support. Drawing on social capital theory and postcolonial feminist frameworks, this research positions caste and class stratification as underexamined axes of stratification within United States-based IPV analysis. Using survey data from 24 South Asian woman-identifying IPV survivors in New …

Teaching Third Graders To Read Multisyllable Words: Segmentation Versus Whole Word Reading, Jolie D. Heath

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the early years of elementary school when children are still learning to read, they are presented with words of increased syllable length, and orthographic and morphological complexity in the texts they read.  Although multisyllabic words comprise 90% of words in the English lexicon and carry important linguistic information for expanding vocabularies and comprehension of content, few studies have focused on teaching middle elementary children to read multisyllabic words.  Many children lack strategies to identify these longer more complex words accurately and easily, leading to reading difficulties that place weaker readers at higher risk for school related problems and limit …

The Role Of External Factors In Shaping Carbohydrate Conformational Landscapes, Murat Yaman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Carbohydrates (glycans) are among the most structurally diverse biomolecules and participate in a wide range of biological processes, including molecular recognition, cell adhesion, immune response, host-pathogen interactions, and cellular signaling. Their biological functions are governed by a complex interplay between sequence, stereochemistry, conformational flexibility, and environmental factors. However, the structural heterogeneity and dynamic nature of glycans present significant challenges for both experimental characterization and theoretical modeling. In particular, the relationships between glycan structure, conformational dynamics, and the resulting potential energy surfaces remain incomplete.

This dissertation investigates how external factors modulate the potential energy surfaces of carbohydrates through a combination of …