Digital Commons Network^™

Between Occitania And Al-Andalus: Reconsidering The Emergence Of Troubadour Melody Through Algorithmic Analysis, Veronica Maria Da Rosa Guimaraes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How the musical and poetic traditions of the troubadours arose remains unknown, despite a century of scholarship that has attempted to account for their seemingly ex nihilo appearance in late twelfth-century Europe. Scholarly debate was particularly intense during the first half of the twentieth century and revolved around two competing theories: the Andalusi theory, which linked the troubadours to the poetic-musical traditions of medieval Muslim Iberia (also known by its Arabic name al-Andalus), and the Aquitanian theory, which argued that the troubadours were rooted in the folk and sacred traditions of the Aquitanian region. Since the 1980s, interest in the …

The Influence Of Evidence-Based Sex Discrimination Policies On Women’S Perceptions Of Organizational Climate, Sexism, And Identity Safety, Maya A. Godbole

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sexism has proven to be a stubborn barrier to women’s participation and advancement in workplaces and academic institutions (Rosette, Akinola, & Ma, 2017). Importantly, sexism in organizational settings has endured despite the implementation of federal, state, and organizational policies that prohibit discriminatory behavior. One reason for this may be that because organizational policies are typically written for the purpose of complying to federal and state laws, they do little to foster psychological safety among employees and address the “chilly” organizational climates that enable sexism. To that end, the current research aimed to (a) develop novel, evidence-based sex discrimination policies and …

The Problem Of Leisure: A Modern History Of Work And Idleness, Lea S. Sanchez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As our leisure time has increased in the twenty-first century, paradoxically, so too have social and cultural expectations about the nature and value of work. In this thesis, I argue that work in the modern world has taken on new shapes – the project of identity formation, image maintenance, and receptiveness to advertising – and how these new forms of work are fundamentally intertwined with leisure. I first aim to establish a timeline of Western attitudes to work, beginning with the works of Max Weber, Jon D. Wisman, and Matthew E. Davis. Then, through the lens of the 1970s punk …

Bodies On The Line: The Politics Of Regulating Pornography In Los Angeles, Christopher J. Baum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the regulation of sexually explicit media in the United States – specifically in Los Angeles – and the site used to understand it is the modern pornography industry at its points of production. I argue that since the industry's formation in the early- 1970s, regulatory efforts have focused on controlling porn worker’s bodies as a way of enacting broader social transformations and reshaping the domains of erotic life. Drawing from eighteen months of ethnographic research, I explore several interlocking forms of regulation. I begin by examining the formation of pornographic production cultures during what I call the …

Orban's Hungary: Lack Of Freedoms Becoming The Motivation For Hungarian Emigration, Fanni Sampson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the past 10 years Hungary has gone through some major systematic changes since the Orban administration took office. The implementations of the Orban government serve the benefits and power of his party and aim to limit the freedom of Hungarian citizens. Orban, throughout these changes, emphasizes the importance of preserving the Hungarian national identity, which he defines as far-right conservative christian values and takes control over everything that does not fit under this definition. This thesis argues that the Hungarian government is becoming increasingly dictatorial under the Orban administration which not only challenges the life of Hungarian citizens but …

Topological Classical Wave Systems With Modulations, Interactions, And Higher-Order Topological States, Mengyao Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Topological phases in classical wave systems, such as photonic and acoustic, have been actively investigated and applied for wave guiding, lasing, and numerous other novel phenomena and device applications Topological phase transitions enable robust boundary states, and the field has been broadening recently into a vast variety of systems with temporal modulations and interactions. Floquet modulation, for example, is the modulation applied periodically in time which may break symmetries and leads to novel topological phases.

Introducing non-Hermitian Floquet modulation enables more interesting phenomena including bandgap in imaginary part of the spectrum and gainy/lossy topological edge states with complex energy values. …

Factors Associated With Health-Promoting Behaviors Of Adult Protective Service Workers And Professionals Who Support Vulnerable Adults, Cynthia Sterling-Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Adult protective services encompass social services provided to vulnerable adults: abused, neglected and exploited elderly and adults with significant disabilities in the United States. Adult Protective Services (APS) workers investigate allegations of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable adults. APS workers work closely with multidisciplinary teams and professionals in various fields to assist with the investigations. APS workers and other professionals are exposed to individual and work environment stressors that result in a lower professional quality of life. There is evidence, however, that health-promoting behaviors mitigate the negative effects of stressors.

Purpose: Using the Health Promotion Theory by Nola …

The Lopez Effect Remixed: The Significance Of Mattering Through A Hip-Hop Lens In Education And Beyond, Kashema Hutchinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this dissertation is to examine the theoretical frameworks of mattering (Rosenberg & McCullough, 1981; Schlossberg, 1989; Love, 2018) in traditional and non-traditional spaces through a Hip-hop lens. When mattering is applied to marginalized groups, it centers them to a certain extent. In my dissertation, I examine how Dr. Nadia Lopez, the former principal of junior high school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy (MHBA), employed mattering in her holistic approach to education. Her dedication to her students, faculty and staff went viral on the popular blog Humans of New York in January 2015. Lopez’s commitment is to “open a …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Mexican Return Migration Across The Life Course, Mara G. Sheftel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Foreign-born individuals make up a growing share of older adults in the US. Older immigrants offer an important vantage point from which to investigate integration because outcomes at older ages can be considered “final” measures providing empirical evidence for theoretical understandings of the forces impacting immigrant trajectories. However, considering the non-negligible portion of immigrants that ultimately return to their country of origin it is impossible to get the full range of immigrant outcomes without considering returnees. Further, patterns of return may differ across the life course with distinct economic, social, and health considerations at older ages. However, the impact of …

Training And Individual Predictors Of Attitudes Toward Serious Mental Illness Amongst Clinical Psychology Doctoral Students, Lauren K. O'Connor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Clinical psychologists are grossly underrepresented in treatment provision for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI; Roe, Yanos, Lysaker, 2006). Systemic (e.g., emergence of managed care) and training-based (e.g., limitations to SMI specific training) factors contribute to the establishment of this underrepresentation, while mental health stigma amongst psychologists may play a role in perpetuating it. Many individual and experiential factors have been found to impact clinicians’ attitudes toward those with SMI (Henderson et al., 2014; Schulzes, 2007). Though many of these factors are present and relevant from the beginning of one’s career and may involve elements related to training, little research …

Enhanced Platinum (Ii) Drug Delivery For Anti-Cancer Therapy, Marek T. Wlodarczyk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the years, anti-cancer therapies have improved the overall survival rate of patients. Nevertheless, the traditional free drug therapies still suffer from side effects and systemic toxicity, resulting in low drug dosages in the clinic. This often leads to suboptimal drug concentrations reaching cancer cells, contributing to treatment failure and drug resistance. Among available anti-cancer therapies, metallodrugs are of great interest. Platinum (II)-based agents are highly potent and are used to treat many cancers, including ovarian cancer (OC). Cisplatin (cis-diaminedichloroplatinum (II)) is the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved metallodrug for treatment of solid tumors, and its mechanism …

Intent To Stay, Moral Distress, And Nurse Practice Environment Among Long-Term Care Nurses, Amil Tan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Many long-term care facilities in the United States face significant problems with nurse retention and turnover. These challenges are attributed at least in part to moral distress and a negative nurse practice environment. Licensed nurses working in long-term care facilities experience ethical challenges such as lack of resources, use of restraints, end-of-life issues, and caring for residents with dementia that, if not resolved, can lead to moral distress- especially if left unresolved. Long-term care administrators and nurse managers increasingly strive to improve leadership support for long-term care staff that will positively affect the nurse practice environment.

Aim/Purpose: The purpose …

Bridging The Educational Technology Gap: Issues Of Equity And Access In New York City Teacher Preparation, Christina Basias

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs the use of primary research, oral history, and narrative and auto-ethnography of my own experiences as a hybrid educator across both systems, and the extant gaps in educational technology, or ed tech, implementation across two of the largest urban public education institutions in the country: the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and the City University of New York (CUNY).

This research unveils the complex web of barriers that hindered the ability for teachers to learn and adopt technologies and the gaps within and between the NYCDOE and CUNY’s teacher preparation priorities regarding ed tech prior …

Developing Dynamical Probes Of Quantum Spin Liquids Inspired By Techniques From Spintronics, Joshua Aftergood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We theoretically study low dimensional insulating spin systems using spin fluctuations as a probe of the spin dynamics. In some systems, low dimensionality in conjunction with other quantum fluctuation enhancing effects impedes spontaneous generation of long range magnetic ordering down to zero absolute temperature. In particular, we focus on exotic spin systems hosting mobile, fractionalized spin excitations above their ground state, and ultimately show that techniques already commonplace in spintronics can be utilized in the context of quantum magnetism to develop probes of exotic ground states.

We initially consider quantum spin chains (QSCs), and examine a system of two exchange-coupled …

The Effect Of Psilocybin On Personality, Ravital Labua

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As classic psychedelics are increasingly legalized and reintroduced into the psychotherapeutic frame, a deeper understanding of their effect on personality and overall wellbeing - as well as their clinical contraindications and potential pitfalls - will prove essential. As a result, this study represents a preliminary investigation into the effect of psilocybin exposure on a range of personality constructs.

Methods: Data was collected through a collaboration with The Psychedelic Society, an organization that legally administers psilocybin truffles in the Netherlands to self-selecting retreat attendees who have been screened for mental health disorders in accordance with Johnson et al.’s (2008) widely accepted …

“Leisure With Decorum”: Gentlemen Making Music In The Georgian Era, Lidia A. Chang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the musical activities of Georgian gentlemen with the goal of illustrating the ways that recreational music-making tested the boundaries of gender, class, and nationality. While the English nobility could respectably engage in music-making, socialize with professional musicians (subverting, or temporarily suspending otherwise rigid class boundaries), and openly extol the virtues of Continental culture without compromising their gentlemanliness, English gentlemen walked a much thinner line. In pursuit of these claims I will expand the scope of primary sources beyond conduct books and novels to include selections of unpublished, peripheral accounts of recreational music-making as found in letters, diaries, …

The Psychological Allure Of Alford: Why Innocents Plead Guilty, Johanna Hellgren

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Alford plea allows defendants to maintain their innocence while accepting a plea. Although this plea is more prevalent than jury trials, it is largely unknown to both lay people and researchers (Redlich & Özdoğru, 2009). Legal scholars have argued that the Alford plea may present an undue influence on innocent defendants who may not otherwise accept a plea, while other assert that the Alford plea is a beneficial alternative for defendants who want to preserve their reputation (Ronis, 2009; Ward, 2004). However, no research to date has explored either of these assumptions.

The goals of the current research were …

Monte Carlo, Molecular Dynamics And Network Analysis Of The Gramicidin Water Channel And Proton Transfer Pathways To Qb In Photosynthetic Reaction Centers, Yingying Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Water molecules play a key role in all biochemical processes. They help define the shape of proteins, and they are reactant or product in many reactions and are released as ligands are bound. They facilitate transfer of protons through transmembrane proton channel, pump and transporter proteins. Continuum electrostatics (CE) force fields such as used in MCCE (Multi-Conformation Continuum Electrostatics) capture electrostatic interactions in biomolecules with an implicit solvent, to give the averaged solvent water equilibrium properties. Hybrid CE methods can use explicit water molecules within the protein surrounded by implicit solvent. These hybrid methods permit the study of explicit hydrogen …

Autobiographical Narratives Of Sexual Violation: Trauma, Genre, And The Politics Of Telling, Sarah M. Hildebrand

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation engages with literary trauma theory and rape studies by investigating how scholars through the 1990s theorized the relationship among trauma, narration, and silence, and how the #MeToo movement causes us to rethink these views. Attending to the specific silence generated in the wake of sexual violation reveals how power structures influence the act of telling, challenging the idea that trauma is untellable. I argue that literary trauma theory needs to push beyond its foundation in biomedical models of trauma—in which the (in)ability to recall or articulate traumatic events is rooted in neurology—to examine the ways traumatic narratives are …

Astor Piazzolla's Cinco Piezas Para Guitarra: A Performer's Guide To The "Unwritten", Federico J. Díaz Páez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Astor Piazzolla found his voice as a composer in tango music. Starting in the 1950s, he extended the horizons of the popular genre by using the influences of classical music and jazz primarily. The performance practice is one of the strongest aspects that connects his music with traditional tango. The “unwritten” concepts particular to tango are unfamiliar for musicians outside of this tradition. This dissertation explains in detail these concepts and their application to Piazzolla’s only work for solo guitar: Cinco piezas para guitarra. Besides proving the context of Piazzolla’s life and production, Chapter 1 reviews the use of tango …

Childhood Adhd, Impulsivity, And Alcohol-Related Impairment Among Diverse College Students, Mariely Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Aims: We examined (1) if students with high childhood ADHD symptoms, and at high risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD) reported greater alcohol-related impairment (ARI) than their low childhood ADHD peers who had comparable rates of alcohol use; and (2) whether alcohol-related problems were more severe for those with high childhood ADHD and high AUD risk when their trait impulsivity was high.

Method: 18-to 25-year-old (N=81), racially/ethnically diverse, college students completed a two-part study. An online survey assessed childhood ADHD symptoms (Wender Utah Rating Scale) and past-year alcohol use (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test). Laboratory assessment comprised neuropsychological and self-report …

Demobilizing And Reintegrating Ex-Combatants: Explaining Success And Failure On The National And Subnational Levels, Sally Sharif

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) is the largest intervention in nearly all the United Nation ongoing large-scale peacekeeping missions and is tasked with restoring public security, law, and order after conflict. A well-planned and flexible reintegration process is known to restore social capital and promote the viability of long-term peace locally, nationally, and internationally. War-torn countries run the risk of returning to war if former combatants are not provided with vocational skills, placed into employment, and reintegrated successfully. Through analyzing DDR programs on the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels, this dissertation is an attempt at finding determinants for a successful DDR …

Listen Like This: Audiovisual Argument In Rockumentary, Lindsey Eckenroth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rockumentaries are commodities that construct authoritative interpretations of popular music history, shaping how we come to know, value, hear, consume, and identify with popular music and those who create it. The arguments rockumentaries make, and the ways they make them, are the subject of this dissertation. Rather than position rockumentary as a genre, I investigate it as a set of representational tendencies to be examined in relation to stardom, authenticity, fandom, the culture industry, and the music(ians) these films represent. My introduction argues that rockumentaries operate according to what I call the offstage pattern, a dialectical structure in which …

Solving Multiple Inference In Graphical Models, Cong Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For inference problems in graphical models, much effort has been directed at algorithms for obtaining one single optimal prediction. In practice, the data is often noisy or incomplete, which makes one single optimal solution unreliable. To address this problem, multiple Inference is proposed to find several best solutions, M-Best, where multiple hypotheses are preferred for advanced reasoning. People use oracle accuracy as an evaluation criterion expecting one of the solutions has high accuracy with the ground truth. It has been shown that it is beneficial for the top solutions to be diverse. Approaches for solving diverse multiple inference are proposed …

What We Owe To Our Audience: The Hermeneutical Responsibility Of Fiction Creators, Kathryn Wojtkiewicz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this project is to provide a theoretical underpinning for the belief that creators of fiction should dedicate time to diversifying the cast of characters in their fictions, and to avoiding harmful stereotypes when doing so. I establish this as a hermeneutical responsibility: because of the epistemic influence fictions can wield over their audiences, trafficking in harmful stereotypes of marginalized identities (instances of which I call Bad Representation Problems) or excluding marginalized identities entirely (which I call No Representation Problems) from one’s fictions can reinforce harmful beliefs about real people with those identities. The more popular the fiction, …

Institutions, State Capacity, And Intra-State Conflict: Evidence From A Decade-Long Civil War In Nepal, Nishant Yonzan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

First, while mass armed civil conflicts predominantly occur in weak states, which are states that lack state capacity, it is unclear why not all weak states experience mass armed civil conflict. Second, political stability and highly unequal distribution of resources are opposing forces that are unlikely to coexist together. However, highly unequal societies have existed with relative stability. Indeed, cross-country literature on civil war finds little relationship between conflict and unequal distribution of resources. This dissertation attempts to address these issues using the Civil War in Nepal which lasted from 1996 to 2006.

Institutions are fundamental for the proper functioning …

Remarkably Ordinary, An Oral History:
 Examining The Micro Effects Of Family Reunification On The Lee Siblings And Their Spouses, Carol Joo Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Family reunification accounts for a majority of entry mechanisms by which current Korean immigrants arrived in the U.S. The peak Korean immigration period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s saw a dwindling of skill-based immigration and a rapid increase of immigrants who arrived through family preferences as a direct result of the Immigration Act of 1965. Despite there being ample studies and aggregate data on the post-1965 immigrants from Korea, not enough micro-level research has been conducted on the ways in which the family reunification provisions affected individuals, their brothers and sisters, and the inter-family dynamic both prior and …

The Impact Of Information Presentation Format On User Purchase Decision-Making, Muhammad Jawad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Online reviews have garnered considerable attention, especially in recent years, from scholars in various domains (such as information systems and marketing) seeking to understand their role in purchase decision-making. With the growing popularity of online review videos, however, understanding the role of information presentation format in online decision-making becomes crucial. While prior research has explored how presentation formats affect users’ perceptions differently, the extent of these differences and their implications in purchase decision-making stages are not yet fully understood. Specifically, this dissertation work examines the role of presentation format of online reviews in two decision-making stages: 1) choice-reduction stage, which …

Positioning The 1913 Paterson Silk Workers’ Strike Within A Dialectical Framework, Raymond Adam Ciafarone Jr.

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis places the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike within a dialectical framework by historically surveying the constant motion of industry in Paterson, New Jersey. It follows the dialectical method by examining the 1913 Paterson Silk Strike not as a singular event but as one part of a continuous historical process. In the late 18th century, a group of investors introduced capitalism to Paterson and completely transformed the social relations of production from a mostly self-sufficient agrarian existence to a center of capitalist manufacturing. From that moment forward, production in Paterson was in a constant state of flux as mills, shops, …

Label Imputation For Homograph Disambiguation: Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Jennifer M. Seale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents the first implementation of label imputation for the task of homograph disambiguation using 1) transcribed audio, and 2) parallel, or translated, corpora. For label imputation from parallel corpora, a hypothesis of interlingual alignment between homograph pronunciations and text word forms is developed and formalized. Both audio and parallel corpora label imputation techniques are tested empirically in experiments that compare homograph disambiguation model performance using: 1) hand-labeled training data, and 2) hand-labeled training data augmented with label-imputed data. Regularized, multinomial logistic regression and pre-trained ALBERT, BERT, and XLNet language models fine-tuned as token classifiers are developed for homograph …