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Meritocracy: A Socio-Educational Policy Conundrum Transversing Selected Works Of James Bryant Conant, Benjamin Enoma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, adjacent strands of the meritocratic discourse intercept by accident of history. It occurs either in the Jeffersonian tradition of culling from all sectors of the populace a natural aristocracy of talents as proposed by James Conant through the development of Scholastic Aptitude Tests, or by expanding the structure of opportunity to all individuals and leveling uneven terrains through social policies like desegregation of schools and affirmative action. In other words, it is a case of policies based on the 'laissez-faire' doctrine versus those based on governmental intervention. "This interception to some degree has fused the strands …

Employee Ownership And Participation Effects On Firm Outcomes, Brent Kramer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hundreds of firms in the U.S. are majority-owned by their employees through Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). This study measures whether employee ownership makes a difference in firm outcomes, looking also at effects of worker participation in management-type decisions. Theorists have suggested that the rarity of employee ownership is prima facie evidence that such firms could not be as efficient as traditional firms. But institutional and financing constraints may be a more realistic explanation for their rarity, and it is important for policy purposes to investigate efficiency objectively.

The author compares sales per employee for a panel of over 300 …

The Social Construction Of Authorship: An Investigation Of Subjectivity And Rhetorical Authority In The College Writing Classroom, Johannah Rodgers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although we use the term author on a daily basis to refer to certain individuals, bodies of work, and systems of ideas, as Michel Foucault and other critics have pointed out, attempting to answer the question “What is an Author?” is by no means a simple proposition. And, starting from the position that there is no single, or definitive answer to this complex question, this dissertation seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the genealogy of authorship by investigating the ways in which conceptions of the author have informed models of the writing subject in the field of rhetoric …

Provocative Enactments As Regulators Of Underarousal And Its Associated Affects, Steven Bashkoff

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This theoretical/clinical-case study explores the function of provocative enactments as a means to regulate underaroused states and the affects associated with underarousal. A great deal of psychoanalytic literature emphasizes the function of provocative enactments as destructive or as a way to devalue others or disconnect from them; this function certainly exists in one class of such enactments where the actor’s goal is to destroy interpersonal ties or enhance self-esteem by kindling negative affect in the other person. However, this dissertation proposes that there exists another, distinct class of provocative enactments where their function serves to activate or reengage another person …

The Qualitative Character Of Spatial Perception, Douglas Meehan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ordinary perceiving relies heavily on our sensing the spatial properties of objects, e.g., their shapes, sizes, and locations. Such spatial perception is central in everyday life. We safely cross a street by seeing and hearing the locations of oncoming vehicles. And we often identify objects by seeing and feeling their distinctive shapes.

To understand how we perceive spatial properties, we must explain the nature of the mental states figuring in spatial perception. The experience one has when seeing a cube, e.g., differs from the experiences one has when seeing other shapes, e.g., spheres and pyramids. We must explain how such …

All That Is Air Turns Solid: The Creation Of A Market For Sinks Under The Kyoto Protocol On Climate Change, Maria Gutierrez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Countries with greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change may invest in projects in developing countries that reduce or remove CO2 and take credit for the reductions. Since vegetation absorbs CO2 through photosynthesis, trees in one place could offset gases emitted elsewhere. For this purpose, trees are known as carbon sinks, and as such they entered the new market in emission reductions.

This dissertation analyzes this new commodity and how it works on the ground. It describes problems encountered by UN negotiators when they abstracted, isolated and quantified a process such as breathing, which takes …

Essays On Modeling Of Blind Principal Bid Basket Trading Cost, Tin Shan Suen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following is an executive summary of three essays on the modeling of the blind principal bid (BPB) basket trading cost, each focusing on different issues. The first essay, "How does a liquidity provider price a blind principal bid basket - An empirical perspective," investigates various determinants of the blind principal bid basket trading cost. I extend Kavajecz and Keim's (2005) model by identifying the price determinants based on the liquidity provider's behavior. The model developed in the first essay, however, is not a structural model because it is not based on any theoretical framework. That is addressed in the …

An Empirical Test Of Terrie Moffitt’S Developmental Taxonomy Of Delinquency, Jessica M. Saunders

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Terrie Moffitt (1993) hypothesized that there will be three distinct types of juveniles: (1) Life-course-persistent offenders, who begin their antisocial behavior at a young age and continue to offend over their lives; (2) Adolescence-limited offenders, who are involved in criminal behavior only through their adolescent years, and; (3) Abstainers, who do not engage in any delinquent behavior. This study tested both the theory and methodology using general growth mixture modeling.

The methodological results were conclusive whereas the theoretical ones were less clear. The different latent variable variance structures were freed and fixed to test the best model …

A Dream Derailed?: The English-Speaking Caribbean Diaspora In Revolutionary Cuba, Andrea Queeley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation describes and analyzes the evolution of English-speaking Caribbean identity in Cuba. In seeking to explain why Cubans of English-speaking Caribbean descent moved to revitalize their ethnic institutions during the Special Period, it (1) evaluates the characteristics and social position of the English-speaking Caribbean communities prior to the Revolution, (2) explores the impact of the Revolution on individuals and communities, in particular their experience of social mobility and participation in revolutionary struggle, and (3) focuses on their experience during the Special Period in examining the relationship between cultural narratives among black immigrants and their descendants and shifting levels of …

Foraging Ecology Of Black-Crowned Night-Herons (Nycticorax Nycticorax) In The New York City Area, Andrew James Bernick

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over 1,700 pairs of colonial wading birds (i.e., herons, egrets, and ibis) breed and forage in the industrialized ecosystem of metropolitan New York City (NYC). Wading bird colonies are located on 7 islands that lie between western Staten Island and Long Island Sound. The Black-crowned Night-Heron (BCNH), a mainly nocturnal forager, is the numerically dominant breeding heron in these colonies, and has been undergoing population declines both locally and region-wide since the mid-1990s. My objective was to determine how BCNHs forage in NYC's urban estuarine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. From March-September 2002-2004, I conducted weekly night surveys on Staten Island, …

Behavior And Ecology Of The Mona Monkey In The Seasonally Dry Lama Forest, Republic Of Bénin, Reiko Matsuda Goodwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigated the behavior and ecology of the mona monkey (Cercopithecus mona Schreber, 1774) in the Lama Forest for 17 months, and estimated the population density and biomass of the anthropoid species in the forest.

I found that Cercopithecus mona forms mixed-sex groups and all-male groups. Multiple males in mixed-sex groups interacted amicably, but males belonging to different groups behaved aggressively towards each other during intergroup encounters. Male-male relationships in C. mona appear to differ from those reported in some other arboreal guenons (e.g., C. diana, C. mitis).

Fruits and legume seeds and arils were the most important …

The Paradoxes Of Intimacy In Early Modern Drama, Brenda Marina Henry-Offor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During the early modern period intimacy was neither well-defined nor discussed in the drama in the way that we do today. My dissertation is an examination of the paradoxical nature of intimacy in Renaissance drama and the impact of space on this intimacy. I am looking at the behavior of married couples and same-sex couples within the home during the early modern period. To elucidate my theory of intimacy I have chosen the plays: Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, Thomas Heywood's A Woman Killed With Kindness, William Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, and John Webster's …

Post-Error Slowing In Preschool Children And Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Olga G. Berwid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this dissertation was to examine whether post-error reaction time slowing, an index of self-regulation, is impaired in individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at two separate developmental time points: preschool and adolescence. Two studies were conducted with separate cohorts. Study 1 examined post-error slowing in a sample of preschool children rated by parents, teachers, and clinicians as exhibiting high levels of ADHD symptoms. In addition to group comparisons based on symptom status, a cross-sectional examination of age-related changes in post-error slowing in typically developing preschoolers (controls) was also conducted. Study 2 compared post-error slowing in individuals diagnosed with …

Eliminative Materialism And The Distinction Between Common Sense And Science, Nada Gligorov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It is one of the premises of eliminative materialism that commonsense psychology constitutes a theory. There is agreement that mental states can be construed as posited entities for the explanation and prediction of behavior, and that the nature of those states is dependent on the theory that features them. Disputes arise when it comes to the range of the commonsense theory of mental states. In chapter one, I review major arguments concerning the span and nature of folk psychology. In chapter two, relying on arguments by Quine and Sellars, I argue that the precise scope of commonsense psychology cannot be …

Pldb, A Putative Phospholipase D Homologue, Mediates Quorum Sensing In Dictyostelium Discoideum Development, Yi Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Quorum sensing, the ability to measure the local cell density, is required for animal cells to achieve proper cell growth, differentiation and development. However, because of the genetic intractability of mammalian cells, we study quorum sensing in the genetically pliable unicellular eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum. D. discoideum cells live as individual cells under vegetative conditions. Starvation sets off development to a multicellular organism. But cells won't develop unless enough cells are under starvation conditions. Approximately 10⁵ cells are needed to form a fruiting body, the final stage of the development. When starved, cells are able to calculate the concentration …

“Practicing In Slow Motion”: The Development And Assessment Of An Interprofessional Clinical Education Curriculum For Law And Social Work Students, Lyn K. Slater

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interprofessional and interagency collaboration are currently considered to be essential features of professional practice for the provision of effective health, education and human services. Most major professional organizations have now acknowledged the importance of working collaboratively with other professions and have advocated that education programs prepare students to collaborate across professions through the development of interprofessional education programs. At this time there is little evidence to show that when professionals learn together that this enables them, in practice and in the future, to work more collaboratively to achieve client goals.

There is a gap in the current evaluation literature that …

Edward Durell Stone: Perception And Criticism, Mary Anne Hunting

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The work of the New York City-based architect Edward Durell Stone (1902-1978) has been subject to ongoing critical controversy. Stone achieved phenomenal success, beginning in the 1950s as an architect in the period of the Cold War, with buildings on four continents, in thirteen foreign countries, and in thirty-two states. But an examination of his stylistic progression reveals that Stone increasingly fell out of critical favor as he shifted modernism from the International Style to a more "romantic" modern aesthetic that incorporated decoration along with aspects of monumentality, regionalism, historicism, and fantasy—a progression that can be traced in six of …

Family Temporal Organization And Children's Affect Regulation: A Quantitative And Qualitative Study Of First Generation Dominican Families, Alba Cabral

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined the hypothesis that temporal organization of family life is associated with children's affect regulation in first generation Dominican families. Eighteen families with children between ages one and half and five participated in this study, completing questionnaires about family time and routines, children's affect regulation, and child behavior problems. The families participated in interviews that inquired into family routines, family time and children's affect regulation according to the parent. Four of these families were selected for qualitative analysis of themes that illuminated the hypotheses tested. Correlational analysis confirmed the main hypothesis tested, namely, the existence of a relationship …

Beyond "Vectors Of Transmission" Through Commercial Sex: Exploring Models Of Sexual Risk Taking With Clients And Casual Partners Among Internet Based Male Sex Workers, David S. Bimbi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Male sex workers (MSWs) have often been portrayed as vectors of disease although most published studies have reported high rates of condom use with clients in this population. Regardless, social psychological models of sexual behavior that have been widely utilized to examine sexual risk taking in the gay and bisexual male community have not been applied to research with MSWs. Further, sexual behaviors with casual sex partners among MSWs has been absent in most reported research. More recently, the rise of barebacking (unprotected anal sex) in the gay male community has challenged assumptions that most gay and bisexual men want …

The Romantic Unconscious: Conflict And Compromise In The Research Of Romantic Love, Joseph S. Reynoso

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Social scientists continue empirically researching the psychology of romantic love. However, there is little attention spent evaluating the direction and nature of this work. In this theoretical study, the author argues that the research literature presents a limited view of romantic relationships. A contributing factor is the relative inattention to the interplay of conscious and unconscious mental processes in empirical models. The author examines the prevalent model of studying relationships for its assumptions about the accessibility of psychological states and the accuracy of participant reports. To support his case, the author reviews research that explores the limits of a psychology …

Engaging The Eighties: Ethics, Objects, Periods, Kevin L. Ferguson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a recent decade in American history whose unique notion of self-periodization generated important questions of ethical engagement and withdrawal. Situated during a time of an increasingly complex relationship between literature and theory, thinkers in the 80s self-consciously shifted towards making claims about their present moment which were based on the logic of rupture, and which thus created an either-or logic of pessimism or optimism in response to this rupture. These kinds of self-periodizing notions generally are collected under the rubric "postmodernism" and the first chapter deals with a transatlantic movement between theorists such as Fredric Jameson and …

The Bloomberg Way: Development Politics, Urban Ideology, And Class Transformation In Contemporary New York City, Julian Brash

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the links between a development project, a particular urban ideology, and processes of class transformation in contemporary New York City. The city's postindustrial transformation, especially since the 1970s fiscal crisis, has created a newly dominant corporate elite consisting of executives and high-level professionals. This ruling class alliance has begun to supersede the city's older, real estate-centered traditional growth coalition, as emblematized by the political rise of billionaire ex-CEO Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, along with other ex-corporate executives in his administration, implemented a private-sector inspired corporate, technocratic, and antipolitical approach to governance in general and urban and economic …

Larry Rivers And Frank O'Hara: Reframing Male Sexualities, Dong-Yeon Koh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1970, Sam Hunter complained that the distinctive persona of proto-Pop artist Larry Rivers had overshadowed his artistic achievement. "Too often he has been taken as an engaging public performer", wrote Hunter, claiming that some critics "make the mistake of confusing his irrepressible exhibitionism with an imagined artistic flaw of fitful or unsteady inspiration". 1 This dissertation presents an alternative proposition regarding the relationship between Rivers' artistic persona and art: that an examination of Rivers' numerous activities inside and outside the artistic arena, such as poetry, jazz, and media, is indeed useful for understanding his work. Particularly, Rivers' involvement with …

Relationship Between Parental Physical Discipline And Child Externalizing Problems In The Caribbean Subculture In New York City, Meltem Paker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated the relationship between parental physical discipline (PD) and child externalizing behaviors (EB) in the Caribbean subculture and examined whether acculturation to the European American and Caribbean cultures, generational status, normativity of PD, and warmth in the parent-child relationship moderated this relationship. Eighty-nine parents of Caribbean origin answered an anonymous survey consisting of various scales and demographic questions.

Descriptive analyses indicated that parents in this study used PD an average of 10 times during the past year. The majority (69%) reported using at least one PD act in the past year. All forms of more severe PD (e.g., …

Countable Short Recursively Saturated Models Of Arithmetic, Erez Shochat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Short recursively saturated models of arithmetic are exactly the elementary initial segments of recursively saturated models of arithmetic. Since any countable recursively saturated model of arithmetic has continuum many elementary initial segments which are already recursively saturated, we turn our attention to the (countably many) initial segments which are not recursively saturated. We first look at properties of countable short recursively saturated models of arithmetic and show that although these models cannot be cofinally resplendent (an expandability property slightly weaker than resplendency), these models have non-definable expansions which are still short recursively saturated.

Demographic Issues In Infant Health In The 1990’S And Measurement Issues In Costing Medicaid Expansions, Danielle H. Ferry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

National measures of infant health in the 1990s were flat, but rates of low birth weight and preterm birth among blacks, especially in center cities, improved. Health gains were especially marked in Washington, DC. Analysis at the metropolitan area level reveals that center city-suburban gaps in black infant health declined. The first two chapters of this dissertation use the 1990-2001 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Natality Files to examine improvements in infant health among African-Americans, first, in Washington, DC, and second, in 37 metropolitan areas with large black populations.

Although Washington, DC also experienced substantial, above-average reductions in its …

Empire's Footprint: Expulsion And The United States Military Base On Diego Garcia, David Stiefel Vine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Between 1956 and 1973, the U.S. Government orchestrated the forced removal of the people of the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago to create a military base on the island Diego Garcia. This dissertation provides a historical ethnography of Diego Garcia detailing the creation of the base, the removal, and the effects of the removal on the people known as Chagossians to ask what Diego Garcia reveals about the United States as an empire and empire more broadly.

Contrary to arguments that the United States became an empire of economics in the 20th century, Diego Garcia represents a reactionary reliance on traditional …

Infinitely Often Dense Bases And Geometric Structure Of Sumsets, Jaewoo Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We'll discuss two problems related to sumsets.

Nathanson constructed bases of integers with prescribed representation functions, then asked how dense bases for integers can be in such cases. Let A(-x, x) be the number of elements of A whose absolute value is less than or equal to x, then it's easy to see that A(-x, x) << x1/2 if its representation function is bounded, giving us a general upper bound. Chen constructed unique representation bases for integers with A(-x, x) ≥ x1/2-epsilon infinitely often. In the first chapter, we'll construct bases for integers with a prescribed representation function with A(-x, x) > x1/2/&phis;(x) infinitely often where &phis;(x) is any nonnegative real-valued function which tends to infinity.

In the second chapter, we'll see how sumsets appear geometrically. Assume A is a finite set of lattice points and h*D=h˙x:x∈conv A is a full dimensional polytope. Then we'll see …

The Ground Axiom, Jonas Reitz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Autonomy And Subjugation: The Dynamics Of Emancipation And Race In The Writings Of Precolonial German Women Authors, Traci S. O'Brien

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a study of certain contradictions in texts written by three authors of the nineteenth century, Ida von Hahn-Hahn (1805-1880), Fanny Lewald (1811-1889) and Ottilie Assing (1819-1884). The seeming discrepancy between the general enlightenment principles of their work and their position vis-a-vis the racial Other is at the center of my exploration. My position in this dissertation is that it is not possible to discuss their emancipatory ideas separate from their racializing metaphors. In fact, such metaphors are vital to their articulation of progress and emancipation. The discursive context of precolonial Germany can in part explain the relationship …